Concern

Dear journal,

I got to have lunch at Google’s campus in Mountain View, today, along with a handful of other Summer of Code participants. It was fun. We ate food and talked to people.

Ironic introduction aside, it was kind of neat. I work in a depressing-ass cubicle farm in Sunnyvale, so seeing Google’s campus makes one gawk. It looks almost like a college campus, but everyone there is paid really well. I can’t help but regard it as almost cultish, what with that many beautiful, incredibly smart people hanging around a really cool-looking space — it’s like out of some sci-fi future, there’s got to be some kind of gag. I can’t help but feel like an ugly fuckup who wouldn’t belong there. But maybe there’s a basement.

They also have a huge number of people in a small space. No, check that, it is not a small space. It’s actually quite large. But they have a huge number of people and the buildings and parking are really crowded. They have valet parking in some lots, not because it’s Google and awesome, but because it’s fucking crowded.

I ate Indian food, which was really pretty good. It beat out the Indian buffet that’s across the street from us in Sunnyvale, but that isn’t hard to do. Someone else in the group had steamed oysters. It’s bizarre to eat this well in a corporate cafeteria. They had sodas with real sugar in them, not the corn syrup swill you’ll find everywhere else.

We got to meet Chris DiBona and Leslie Hawthorne, and listen to Chris chat about some things. They’re both nice. OK, Chris isn’t so nice, but he’s intelligent and tells funny stories.

Google are good people.