Pierre Phaneuf's Diary

So I went for a weekend in San Francisco... I was planning on that already, so I had packed a light raincoat and a few long-sleeved shirts, so I wouldn't look like a tourist, but as it turned out, I forgot them in Mountain View and looked like a tourist anyway! After obtaining a lender bike for the weekend (thanks Noé!) and deciding to leave my laptop at the office so I could travel light, I hopped on the Google shuttle and managed to get the wireless Internet they have onboard working on my iPod touch. This was already kind of cool, but I was totally amazed when I thought I would consult the map and I pressed the "go to my location" button, just for the heck of it, and it actually got it! I was then further amazed at how it seemed to do a kind of pseudo-tracking, updating my position every ten seconds or so... So I didn't feel quite as lost as I did the last time.

After getting together with morethanreal, dropping off my stuff at her place and inflating the bike's tires (I quickly found out that the brakes were not working well at all either, which was a bit worrying, considering how hilly San Francisco is!), we headed to some show she had heard was recommended that night. It was in a small but pretty cool art gallery, where they had a good number (maybe a hundred or so?) of speakers embedded in wooden sculptures, hanging by wires from the ceiling. The curator later told us that this is an art installation and that they are actually operational, seemed like this could be pretty cool in itself, but as it turns out, the main attraction of the night was a DJ. He was pretty competent, I have to say, and enjoyed his set, despite the fact that we had just missed a part of his performance where he donned a dinosaur suit and hugged everyone in the audience, I was a bit disappointed having missed that! It's funny how people recognize my accent, including in particular the bartender, whom I was asking for a beer. He pointed me at the menu with just two beers available (this was a temporary setup), and I told him that, well, I had no idea what either of those were. So he apologized quickly, asked me if I knew about Unibroue, to which I responded in the affirmative, and he then told me that I would find the first one horrible, and that the other one, well, wasn't nearly as good as Unibroue, but would probably not offend me too much. Heh!

After getting back to morethanreal's place, there was some inevitable discussion about music, of course, and I introduced her to the new Apple Remote application for her iPhone. She fell in love at first sight, it would seem, she even moved her iPhone dock to put it beside her bed! We were pretty tired, but she had put on Black Eyes's eponymous album, and it is quite good, we just had to finish it before going to sleep.

The next day, I wasn't feeling too sore from sleeping her couch, which was good, because we were heading out to Tour de Fat! There was a brief stop for chocolatines and cappuccinos, of course, it wouldn't have been civilized otherwise. There were crazy bikes, crazy bands, and crazy beer! Much fun was had, including bouncing around with (very) limited success on a pogo-stick. I then accompanied morethanreal to a tattooing session (hers, not mine!), which was pretty cool, including a pretty classic Californian laid back surfer artist. I then headed back with her to pick up my stuff, had some (spicy!) burrito on 16th, then headed to jbdeboer's place, where I elected to stay that night (thanks, by the way!). That place is up. Very, very up. Like, on top. Yowzer. I had some idea of taking a cab from there to the DNA Lounge, but I was too wiped and gave up (fail!).

On the upside of being at the top is the good view (hmm, there's the view to Lafayette Park, which can be interesting according to the "near here" feature of some random iPod Flickr app!), although it was a bit cloudy. Biking down Gough was mental, though! I realized at some point that with the intersections being flat, that I couldn't see past them! All of that while going upward of 40 kph, of course. That led me eventually to a nice breakfast at Cafe Petra, since there was too many people at Ritual (and I don't think they have food either). I biked around the Mission, dropped by Good Vibrations (got myself a book), then back up around Market and Stockton, where I resisted the siren call of the Apple Store. I managed to get some excellent coffee at Bluebottle Coffee, once more, and then eventually got lost in the Tenderloin without realizing it, while I was taking photos. It was very sketchy, especially with my big SLR camera hanging from my neck.

Monday, the excitement level was much lower as I went to Barefoot Coffee Roasters with a team-mate who is a fan of good coffee. It is also very good, although I preferred Bluebottle's. As it is customary in Mountain View, we were back home before 10pm.

The next day, we went for dinner on Castro (in Mountain View) at an Italian restaurant with a very colourful owner, who seems to be a big George Michael fan. Excellent service, though, setting up a table just for us (my other team-mates are known there, it would seem), and of course, singing at the table by the owner. There was some ice cream after, and some of us were rebellious and went home past 11pm!

Now, I'm about to be taken out to In-N-Out, which I'm told I just have to go to. Sounds questionable, but hey, I've done worse.

We moved into our new office this week (photos courtesy of MAD, thanks!), and it's pretty damned awesome! Considering the small size of the office (in number of people), it is extremely nice, the food is great, and so is the view (we had a nice view from the 24th floor, but now we're more "in the action", I like that better). Plus, we can easily reach the wifi from the pub nearby, hehe!

While the move was ongoing, we had an off-site activity on Île-Ste-Hélène that was pretty cool, involving, among other things, geo-caching, which I had never done before and is a lot of fun. It can be surprisingly difficult to find a small item, even when given the location within 10 feet! I bike there from home, and it was particularly nice, hitting 40 kph for fairly long stretches and all. On the return trip I was pretty confident that I'd get to the dinner's location first, but when I found out that the likely reason for my swift arrival was a wicked strong headwind, I wasn't so confident anymore. I did arrive first anyway, but I'm told they took a brief detour in a sketchy St-Henri bar first. Crazy people!

Today, we also obtained a vacuum cleaner at home. You're probably thinking that this doesn't really sound all that exciting, and normally, I'd agree with you, but that was before I met the Dyson DC20. As far as box-opening experience goes, relatively speaking (let's face it, it's still just a vacuum cleaner), they're taking lessons from Apple, it looks like. One of the selling points is how it can fit into a small space, and when I got the box, I was a bit worried that it'd be missing, you know, maybe the whole thing?!? But no, it was all in there, and even when assembled, it packs into almost no space, and is very cleverly engineered.

Tomorrow, a rather late in the making haircut.

So, Sunday was Stuff Your Face With Chocolate Day, so we did. There was rabbit for dinner, appropriately, and I discovered that adding Frangelico to chocolate mousse turns it into a very tasty, yet boozy version of Nutella.

On Monday evening, I headed out to see (well, listen, really) to tygrbabe's set at the Katacombes. But before doing so, azrhey and I (well, mostly me, really), in the interest of saving ourselves from the dangers of the eggs in the mousse going bad, dived into the mousse leftover. Tasty! Once there, I was surprised at the amount of computer geekery going on, between a sticker on the toilet stating that "Your Computer Suck", and meeting crybetty, whose dream is to own a Macintosh LC 475 once again and obskura exclaiming that she's surrounded by engineers or something. That's kind of weird.

But it was an especially nice outing for me, because it has been almost two years that I haven't been able to do this kind of thing, going out on a week night, having a few drinks and a bunch of fun. So it's all special and awesome, yay for that!

After going back home, I finished the rest of the chocolate mousse.

The next morning, I learned that it is apparently possible to have a chocolate mousse hangover.

After some more wackiness, I'm finally on the couch watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off with azrhey. Pretty awesome, all in all!

A few weeks back, I found myself having dinner with tygrbabe, where I discussed with her the fact that I rather enjoy her company. She is one of my favourite persons, after all! She seems to be enjoying my company as well, which I find to be a relief. After all, this was fairly high on my list of things that I didn't think would be happening any time soon, after the events I mentioned in my previous post. But here I was, at the movies, holding hands and giggling. Life is weird, sometimes, but it could be much worse than this, I think!

The movie, by the way, was Charlie Wilson's War, and to make a quick summary, it included much more boobies than I would have expected. It's actually rather good, with some excellent work on the part of Philip Seymour Hoffman, an often underestimated actor, in my opinion. He seems to be often put in quirky roles, does well in them, and I like quirky.

Upon leaving the movie, I glanced at one of the buildings downtown, wondering what is happening at Google with my application there... Oh, yes, I was keeping a lid on it (well, mostly, as I'm hardly the most secretive person around!) until things were becoming a bit more solid, but I have been interviewing with Google recently, after some ex-Nitiot who's now there pointed them my way. tygrbabe pointed out that they wouldn't exactly hang a giant sign out on the side of the building, so we proceeded to go on a walkabout, where she threatened to push me in a number of snow banks.

After that, as I entered a metro station, I pulled out my mobile phone to send an SMS to the lady azrhey to let her know that I was coming back, as we had agreed. Doing so, I noticed that I had left it on silent mode, from the movie, and that I had a voice mail message. I check it out, and it turns out that it's an offer from Google! Heh, while I was wondering what was going on, they had contacted me. Which makes me wonder if they have some kind of mind reading device...

A few days after that, I decided to accept the offer. Turns out that this leads to a two weeks orientation that is to be done at their Mountain View campus, the fabled Googleplex. Checking schedules, this lined up to be starting the week after azrhey and I moved into our new place. As in, we're doing the actual moving on the Saturday, and I have to be there at 8:00 on the Monday. It certainly seems that I'm not content with my life being a roller-coaster, it also has to be doused in kerosene and set ablaze. Otherwise, it's just too boring, right? Thanks to the cpirate for the extra help!

Our new place is pretty awesome, if a bit dark (there isn't much lighting included, we have to get our own). The bathtub is big and deep, the shower is spacious and has a neat pane of glass instead of a shower curtain. There's a secret passageway to the bedroom. The toilets are fancy dual-flush models (about time we get them here!), albeit with non-standard fitting sizes (argh, the joys of being an owner, I guess). The shower and bathtub faucets have fully separate temperature and flow controls, like I maintain is the proper way (and is the normal way in sane countries like Denmark, and very common in the rest of Europe). We're missing a few items before we can actually have people over properly, like proper lighting so that we don't just sit in the dark.

Now, I'm writing this on the plane from Chicago to San Jose, which is going pretty well up to now, as opposed to my last trip to New York City (which the quick-witted among you will have associated with my Google employment, on top of visiting the fine people I know over there). On top of the Google orientation and overall excitement of being a "Noogler", I hope to visit morethanreal, see the Computer History Museum (which I've dreamed of for almost twenty years now!), and generally visit San Francisco. Maybe a bit much to pack in my free time, I'll see.

P.S.: You're reading this, therefore I didn't end up in a flaming plane wreck.

My Sunday in New York was fine. It was rainy, but I had excellent coffee (Gimme! Coffee, and also accidentally tasted someone else's coffee, oops!), excellent pizza, played games all afternoon (Cleopatra and the Society of Architects is fun, I was hilariously bad at Guitar Hero), and had most excellent italian food at Pô (white bean ravioli in a butter balsamic sauce, yum!)) in the evening.

But the return... Oh, the return. I couldn't get any taxi that wanted me for a JFK ride (there was a smell of rush hour coming up), so I decided to be brave (the risk here being getting lost) and take the train. That worked out all right, thanks to another passenger who made me realize I was on the wrong train, which I could fix before it became too annoying.

Arriving at Terminal 2, the check-in hall I was directed to was so amazingly full of people, it was ridiculous. Thankfully, I arrived plenty early, because the place was packed with people queuing for whatever reason, and it was just pandemonium (when I left the place, the queues were extending outside, and this building isn't exactly small!). There, I was told that the booking for my return flight had been cancelled when there was some issues with my first flight. But I'm in New York, not Montreal, get me home!

I ended up on standby for the flight I was supposed to be booked on, and after some delays, didn't make it. They actually called my name by mistake, as the attendant thought there was one more seat, so it was a pretty close call. In fact, it was so close that my checked-in luggage was in the plane, and I couldn't get it back!

So I ended up in an hotel in Jamaica, because, you know, that'd be cool. Jamaica is colder than I thought it'd be. Big thanks to azrhey and tygrbabe entertaining me, so that the accidental murdering rampage didn't happen (this would have hindered my return trip even further, I suspect). The hotel was just about full, and I got an "Elite" room or something, which was pretty cool, and I slept very well, strangely enough.

That next flight went just fine, no delay, my luggage was given to me quickly, there was very few people at the security check lines. Whew.

Thanks to my hosts, andukar, a_chatterbox and dreamage for having me over! Also, some photos from the Saturday.

Tuesday, I had dinner at Soup and Noodles after work with liberation_now and tygrbabe, and went to see Control, where we were joined by nevergirl and another one of their friends.

The movie was quite good. Sam Riley did a fantastic job of portraying a troubled Ian Curtis, who can be quite the jerkface at times, without falling into a caricature. This applies to the rest of the cast as well, with people being people, which is amazingly rare in movies these days. The music was of course excellent, including the surprising inclusion of Kraftwerk's Autobahn (not in its entirety, of course!). We all knew how the story ended, of course, and it unfurled slowly before our eyes, but it still was surprising, somehow, and had me biting my lips.

Yesterday, it was a more-or-less annual "stuff the sps" kind of evening, where we hit up swestrup and taxlady's place, ate good food, had plenty of wine, ate some more food, a fair amount of coffee, and played a pretty mean game of Munchkin, which I had to drop out of, due to excessive tiredness, unfortunately. I wasn't doing so good, anyway, although I did give some people enough trouble.

Tonight, party at jul3z! Whee!

Bon, il ne reste même pas une semaine avant notre départ! Et il y a un peu plus d'une semaine, je quittait mon travail.

Quelques jours après, mes collègues m'ont invité à un BBQ, et j'y suis donc allé, pour me faire dire qu'ils étaient surpris que je suis venu, parce qu'il paraît, "je ne viens jamais". Euh, c'est le deuxième BBQ qu'ils organisent dans l'année que j'ai passé là! Et effectivement, je n'était pas allé à l'autre, mais bon... On a fait voler les bouchons des bouteilles de cidre, littéralement, mangé des saucisses et des brochettes, c'était excellent. J'ai compris pourquoi les français mangeait les cuisses de grenouille, il y en a plein et c'est très bruyant!

Vendredi, on est allé assister à notre dernier Toulouse Carnet, exceptionnellement au Carson City. Beaucoup de nourriture, la "Arizona potato" était très bien, mais le chili con carne était d'une tristesse... La disposition des tables laissait un peu à désirer, mais on s'est ensuite déplacé à la Prairie des Filtres pour s'installer plus à notre aise, et ainsi discuter de bières possible et autres sujets hautement intellectuels, éclairés par la lueur des flashs photo. Oui, j'ai plus de sacs que azrhey, c'est vrai...

Dimanche, nous sommes allé souper avec un de mes ex-collègues. Je voulais aller à la "pizza des fous" (aussi connu sous le nom de La Pastasciutta), mais comme c'était fermé (comme la plupart des fois où j'ai tenté d'y aller, donc j'ai l'habitude), nous somme allés à un autre resto pas trop loin, d'où nous avons pû observer l'averse diluvienne, juste au bord de la fenêtre ouverte (sous l'auvent, tout va bien!).

Ça tout contrairement à Alban, qui avait laissé son Velux ouvert, ce qui ne nous a pas empêché de prendre une petite bière mardi, tout de même, mais bon, dehors, hein? ;-)

Yesterday afternoon, I found out about something called English in Toulouse, and made a little evening on the town with azrhey, going to the Crêperie du Taur downtown (yeah, I had the "Montréal" crêpe once more, but hey, it's tasty!), and then headed over to their meet-up. Was a nice and decently diverse crowd, except for the trend of couples where one of the two works at Airbus, which isn't really surprising.

Oh my goodness, Mononc' Serge is on tour in France (with his "Sarge Jazz Band"), and is making a stop at a bar near my place! I am so going!

There's also LCD Soundsystem coming nearby, which I'd really love to go see, but is at the same location I went to for Nouvelle Vague and Mansfield Tya, in Tournefeuille, which makes it a bit sketchy. It was a nice venue, but the whole bumming out a ride from strangers is quite random. I don't know, I might do it anyway, but I'll skip the bike, since I managed to somewhat figure out the bus from work to there.

Got an e-card from archdiva! Thanks!

Someone dreamt of me cuddling with them. Some possessive asian girl tried to stop her from doing so, but she blew her off and resumed the cuddling. Apparently, it was nice, so good for her! Hehe!

azrhey made me cake! Chocolaty goodness awaiting me when I arrived from work! Yay!

Saw some footage of the Dawson College shooting on the French news, azrhey and I switched over to the CBC eventually to get more info. Apparently a woman has been confirmed to be dead? Crazy. Good luck to anyone involved, or knowing someone involved...

Had a massive going away party for azrhey and I last Friday at the office. Although I came in rather unfashionably late, the party then went quite nicely, with excellent food, some booze (can't really say my booze was excellent, but it was French!) and, of course, excellent company! At some point, I discovered that I couldn't fly. I'd like to thank sfllaw and gorbash_dragon for organizing it (they had some helpers too, I think, thanks to them as well!), and to all in attendance.

The next day, I woke up with a hangover, quite appropriately. Wasn't so bad, but just enough that I took an Advil (which I only do very rarely). Thankfully, that shooed it away successfully. After some breakfast at azrhey, I drove back to my place to meet with my mom, with whom we then dropped by the Blue Monday to say hello to tygrbabe and introduce them. One of my co-workers who lives in the area (and was at the party the day before) passed by and dropping in to say hello as well. Then went back to my place with my mom and helped her with some online car shopping. When she had to leave, I went back to pick up tygrbabe and did some hanging out downtown (after picking up a few forgotten items at the office from the party!).

Sunday was a bit loose. azrhey and I were supposed to go out and do some photography in the park near her place, but we both couldn't scrounge up the willpower to scrape ourselves up and go out, so we hung out at her place for the afternoon. Both being slightly fried, we decided that going to see Mission: Impossible III could be all right. Yeah, well, it was okay, but not all that impressive. Thankfully, we went in there for less than $2 (for the both of us), due to some coupon.

Monday, there was some brief drama, but it wasn't something bad as much as needing to talk and hold each other for a bit, in two different cases! But I really know some good people, it seems. After work, lady azrhey came back to my place, and we took it easy, watching some CSI: NY episodes. She corrupted my resolve to cook with pizza. Okay, I didn't have a whole lot of resolve to start with, but oh well...

Tuesday, I went to the poly cafe. Which is to say I went to Blue Monday, sat on the couch, and looked like a zombie, as I had a pretty hardcore day at work which left me just about brain-dead.

Wednesday, azrhey and I unlocked our cell phones. Cute, eh? We then felt the blah, as we gave up on doing some semi-active things and decided on lying in bed watching TV and cuddling instead. Not an altogether bad choice, all things considered! I also snagged a remote shutter release for my Canon EOS-20D (essential for night photography, and the one I already had for the EOS-300 and EOS-30 wasn't compatible, bastards!) cheap from my friend Jean. Nice!

Thursday (hey, that's today!), I bought another bloody bag. This one is for the tripod, and I like it already, as liberation_now and I have gone out to do some urban exploration, hoping to catch some nice photos. This expedition wasn't all that successful, unfortunately, but we managed to have some fun anyway, and went for coffee later on, talking politics and partying (related subjects, no?).

Today was also taxlady's birthday! Happy (now belated, ugh!) birthday!