California++
It’s time to fill you in on the past few days that I haven’t posted here. On Friday I flew from Houston to San Jose airport where Bryan kindly picked me up and took me to In-N-Out for a delectable burger. Bryan had a good chunk of free time so he decided to show me some of the geeky highlights. Of course, I’m talking about Cupertino, California where Apple has its headquarters. After a brief jaunt to the company Apple store to purchase the “I visited the mothership” shirt, we headed out to take a glance at Google and Yahoo! HQ before my final hotel destination.
Saturday began at 11AM when Bryan picked up Phil Freo, Dimitry Bentsionov (both also Y! interns) and I. Bryan explains the details here, but we ended up at a car meet for rotary engine powered Mazda RX model cars (Bryan owns a slick RX-8) on Treasure Island around 1PM. After a few hours in the sun, Bryna dropped the three of us off at BarCamp at Microsoft’s offices in downtown San Francisco. The timing was a little bad as most BarCamp attendees were at BloggerCon but I was still able to meet some cool people I’ve met online before. Those include Flock’s Community Ambassador Will Pate, web/tech advocate Chris Messina and his partner in crime Tara Hunt as well as Kevin Burton from TailRank and Tantek Çelik, Chief Technologist of Technorati. Sometime in between then Will Pate had taken us out for a bite to eat at the old train station across the street. We left BarCamp in time to catch the 9PM Caltrain to Mountain View, where Will showed us Flock headquarters.
My first impressions of California are great. I love the surrounding environment and how well-developed the tech community is. Wherever I looked, there was the headquarters or main offices of a large company. For example, I spotted Maxtor right across the street from Cisco Systems, Lockheed Martin across from Yahoo!, etcetera. I would love to move out here after I graduate. In the meantime, I have a feeling I will be enjoying my stay. News of my internship with Yahoo! also made its way around the blogosphere quite rapidly: About.com, blogHelper, ProBlogger and Houston MetBlogs. Now back to your regularly scheduled tech content.
Glad you’re having fun here dude. I would have loved to have a few days like this myself when I first came to the Valley. Anyway, you know where to find me if you need any transportation.
That is fantastic! I’m so jealous.
Wow, your past few days certainly trump mine.
Sounds cool!
But really, do you have to link to sites that simply link back to you? :-P
Wow thats my dream life living in California with a good job what else can you ask for. I hope you have i nice time over there.
Paul, you are one lucky bastard!! nah, seriously, i know it’s all the hard work that you put into your blog that got you there. Congatulations to you. I’ve already looked at a lot of the Cali photos that you’ve already taken and posted to Flickr. Can’t wait to see what July has in store for you. Bring me back a Flock bag!
Haha, I asked them about the Flock bag and it’s for employees only.
Paul, California looks soo much nicer than this nasty weather we’ve had in Atlanta all week.
This is great news Paul and I am sure you will learn a lot with the Yahoo folks that will be really valuable on your resume. Keep it up!
I’d pay good money for an In-n-Out burger. I miss home.
You lucky bastard. California in my mind has everything but I’m stuck here in South Carolina where there no big companies let alone tech companies. Good luck in your Yahoo! internship.
Dang, I was just out there too so I am surprised we didn’t cross paths.
I should have stashed myself in your suit case, I could probably do my job through email and just vacation in California. Enjoy it and take lots of pictures.
Paul, I just read that you’re going to Yahoo as a blogger intern… How awesome! You deserve it for all the work you’ve done. Whoever said blogging doesn’t pay really hasn’t seen what’s possible.
Actually saw you on Friday afternoon at the Apple campus taking pictures. I was leaving the Company Store when I saw you and thought you looked familiar but wasn’t exactly sure. You left in a grey Mazda RX and after seeing your pics, must have been you.
I also picked up a “mothership” shirt along with a polo and black coffee travelers mug.
Haha, yeah that was me!