Here we Go Again...

Settling In

Call me Mr. Silicon Valley.  I'm spent most of the last few months in Italy an on vacation in the Catskills, and that was a whole other blog.  But my time here has been so crazy that it really deserves to be immortalized in the annals of the Internet.  I am bound and determined to master this backwards and foreign land, one step at a time.  The first step I needed to take was getting a sense of scale.  And I think I've finally done it, but it wasn't easy.  Below is a fair encapsulation of everywhere I've been in the past few days, compared at scale to Boston and the surrounding area.  It's somewhat important to keep in mind that the Boston picture encapsulates the entire airport, and several parts of the city I never went.  And I spent probably 98% of my time in the middle ninth, which includes the Back Bay, a good chunk of the Charles, the Fens, Boston Gardens, Northeastern University, the Museum of Fine Arts, fields for playing sports, and even a couple movie theaters.  In the same area around where I live between San Jose and Milpitas, I've blurred it out, is suburban sprawl.

It is a fact of life around here, a car is needed, and that may just be what my next post will be about.  But today I think I'll explain what I've been doing without a car in the 72 or so hours that I've been in the area.

Friday Night

I arrived in San Jose Airport at around 6:00, took a Lyft to my apartment I got on AirBnb, more on that later.  The Lyft ride was kind of crazy given that the woman driving me dropped off the wrong people first, and was battling the will of the GPS, telling her to make several U-turns, trying to find my place.  Isn't it grand to live in such a day and age where technology makes life so seamless?  But there was no time to dwell on a small inconvenience like that.  I had to move in.  And of course, as moving for 6 months across a continent naturally entails, I brought what ammounted to a suitcase full of clothes and a backpack full of electronics.  More than enough to make it in Silicon Valley.  Moving in was easy enough since I brought so little.  And it wasn't like I was spoiled for choice on where to put my stuff.  My apartment ammounted to, well still ammounts to, half of a living room partitioned off from the rest of the main apartment by a frame of two by fours, plywood, and vinyl siding.  But hey, I also get a bed that's about as soft as the floor and a cabinet to throw my clothes, and a light fixture hanging from the ceiling conveniently placed in such a way that I always manage to hit my head on it.  And for the cheap price of $650 a month how could I refuse?  I can't even use the stove here, I get about half a shelf in the fridge, and I'm not even sure I can get stuff mailed here.

Home Sweet Home

I decided to Uber, instead of Lyft to Downtown San Jose, where I met my good buddy Quan, who happened to be not only on the Italy trip with me, but also a trip down to Silicon Valley I took over Spring Break.  He's working at Nvidia, and rooming with someone working at Tesla, and I'm a little envious of them.  Not that I don't think flex will be a fun place to work.  We ate at a great place called the Old Spaghetti Factory.  They served a drink called Italian Cream Soda, which came in a souvenir glass.  The food was delicious too.  I had a little tour of down town after that, and went home tired and jetlagged.

Saturday

It became very apparent that walking around, while very possible in Boston, would not cut the mustard in the Bay Area.  I needed a bike.  Not being one to waste the opportunity to get some excercise I walked to the nearest bike shop, about an hour away.  The man there was very nice, and I bought a mid-ranged bike plus gear, plus tax, for a little over $500.  Which really was a small price to pay for a practical way to move around the city.  It was 3 hours before the bike was ready, so I checked out the Innovation Museum in downtown San Jose, and they genuinely had some cool and technical machines there.  They demonstrated machine vision, robotic arms that could manipulate blocks and draw the outlines of someone's face, and a demonstration of computer animation.

Quan with a Robot Guard

Well, the time came to pick up my bike, and I did, and it rode like a dream.  Later, I took the Caltrain up to Palo Alto to meet up with Quan again.  We walked around Stanford University and went to an outdoor mall.  I, in my infinite wisdom, decided it was a beautiful day to ride my bike back to my apartment, it was afterall a beautiful day, but I had to make it quick, since my phone was running out of battery.  That's where the first photo in this blog comes in, since that's the path I wound up taking.  And the sun was just setting as I was riding on the Bay Trail, it would have been a beautiful sight, if I wasn't racing the clock, and willing my electronic navigator not to die on me.  Well, I don't know what gave out first, my phone's battery or my rear tire, but somewhere along the way I lost both.  I stopped for a bit of help at a place called "Crawdad's" where I was able to charge up my phone enough to find my way back home.  I walked back, since my bike's tire hadn't magically reinflated, stopping at a Jack in the Box for some dinner.  It took me about another hour to get back home, and I learned a valuable lesson.  Always, always, always, take the Caltrain when you can.

Sunday

The bike store wasn't open again until Monday, so I had to make due with my own two legs again.  Well I went to Walgreens to pick up some shower stuff, I was beginning to really smell, in the middle of the day to.  I got nice and tan from that walk.  But I didn't just go to Walgreen's to get soap and a nice cool drink.  I also secured myself a Clipper Card, which is basically the Bay Area equivalent to the Charlie Card, which, for those of you not in Boston, is a RFID card that you can preload with money and use to ride busses, light rail, and whatever other sort of public transportation exists in the Bay.  I rode the bus back to my apartment to celebrate, and to shower.

Later, I met up again with Quan.  This time in Mountain View, I rode the Light Rail down, hitching a ride from a nice older gentleman staying a week here.  I checked out Quan's apartment, which is really nice.  It has a pool, a gym, laundry, cable, Wifi, and awesomely furnished apartments.  I seriously want to move here, but I'd need a better set of wheels.  Public transportation takes 1 hour 45 minutes to connect, biking is even 30 minutes faster.  But with a car the transit would take 18 minutes.  Plus I'd be able pick up groceries, go to a state park on the weekend, or to the beach and learn how to surf.  Anywho, Quan, Quan's roommate, (the one who works at Tesla), and I walked down to a park where a group was hosting some kind of picnic, with hotdogs, grilled corn, and other refreshments.  I had a really nice time there, and met a Google engineer, I guess they're a dime a dozen around here.  I took the Caltrain back...

Monday (Today)

Bike was still out of commission, and it was my first day of work!  I wound up taking an Uber.  I arrived at Flex at 9, and didn't really do any real work that day.  It was mostly spent touring the facility, Acquiring swag, like the sweet HP touchscreen laptop, and plugging myself into the work-place's electronic infrastructure.  Soon I should be doing some real work but I get the impression that it will take a little bit to ramp up.

I carpooled back with some other Northeastern Co-ops, on the drive back we witnessed a really nasty crash.  Looked like someone t-boned the driver's side of an oncoming car.  Ouch! As soon as I got in the door of my apartment, I was out again, there was little time to lose in getting my bike to the repair shop.  As luck would have it, an entire street was shutdown for construction, including the sidewalks.  And since Bay Area suburban sprawl is allergic to any rational way to lay out streets I had to take a massive detour.

Pretty simple right?

I took the liberty to highlight all the areas where roads don't connect

And I soon estimated that I better start running if I wanted to get to the bike shop on time.  And I swear to god, I was wet as a mop, drenched with sweat when I got there, but I made it to the bike shop at 6:59, the store closed at 7:00, and I was glad that something had finally gone right.  I have a bike I can ride again.  I say things are looking up.