Drinking the Kool-Aid

Life is good here in Cupertino. The weather is great, though maybe a bit warmer than it needs to be.

I got to meet a bunch of my friends at Apple, as well as the recruiters who have been helping me and a bunch more folk here and there. I didn't get to meet everyone I wanted to, but given all the other events going on today that's not really surprising.

I also got to experience Steve Jobs's Reality Distortion Field up-close and personal. I have to say that he really comes across as a very genuine guy who wants to, and has the resources to, bring great things to life.

All in all I'm really looking forward to coming down here for a full work term next summer. I hope.

Wasting time at the airport

Whisked through customs by 4:15 for a 5:55 flight that's been delayed until 6:12 so far.

I should find somewhere to plug my laptop in, my battery won't last that long.

Cupertino here I come!

Free sushi!

First day went well. Commute is about an hour, give or take. Half an hour of walking, half an hour of train.

I got free sushi for lunch, so that's always good. Co-workers are very friendly and whatnot. Further details about work are of course super-duper-top-secret, like pretty much everything else at Apple. I'm sure someone has been fired for leaking what kind of pizza Steve Jobs orders for the board meetings.

Gas Mileage and Prices

My highway gas mileage for the trip out.

Winnipeg to Brandon, 234km
18.365 liters for 7.85 l/100k
$20.00 ($1.089/l) for $8.54/100k

Brandon to Regina, 360km
25.552 liters for 7.09 l/100k
$28.08 ($1.099/l) for $7.80/100k

Regina to Swift Current, 250km
20.298 liters for 8.11 l/100k
$22.31 ($1.099/l) for $8.92/100k

Swift Current to Medicine Hat, 223km
20.000 liters for 8.96 l/100k
$20.68 ($1.034/l) for $9.27/100k

Medicine Hat to Calgary, 321km
29.165 liters for 9.08 l/100k
$30.01 ($1.029/l) for $9.35/100k

Calgary to Golden, 280km
17.516 liters for 6.25 l/100k
$21.00 ($1.19/l) for $7.50/100k

Golden to Kamloops, 360km
25.163 liters for 6.98 l/100k
$27.78 ($1.104) for $7.71/100k

Kamloops to Hope, 280km
17.403 liters for 6.21 l/100k
$18.43 ($1.059/l) for $6.58/100k

Hope to Vancouver, dunno yet, haven't filled up.

Total (minus Hope to Vancouver), 2308km
173.462 liters for 7.51 l/100k
$188.29 ($1.085/l) for $8.15/100k

(For my american friends, that's roughly 31.32 miles per gallon)

I find it somewhat amusing that I got much better gas mileage in the mountains than I did on the prairies. Of course, even the lowest mileage I got was pretty good.

Moochin' Wifi

So I'm in Vancouver now, mooching wifi off the neighbours. It's quite slow, but I'll take what I can get.

I'll bore you all with trip stories tomorrow. For the moment I'm far too tired.

Shower and sleep, that's all I care about right now.

Calgary

Spent a nice night in Calgary with Martin Zimmerman, next stop is Vancouver.

Hit a gopher just outside Moosimin. Not the brightest animals in the world, I must say.

In and out of Brandon

Well, I just spent a lovely night in Brandon with Doug and Judy having a delicious dinner of pot roast and fixing computer problems.

Next stop is Calgary, I hope. Car is running great, highways are smooth sailing, weather is cooperating. I'm sure at least something will go wrong though.

I don't know where I'm staying yet in Calgary, but I'll probably find out around lunchtime if I can drop in at a friend's place there.

On the road

Loading up, rolling out to Brandon. Not much to say about it.

Here's a tip, though. If you don't want bugs to stick to your car, spray the front with some cheap non-stick cooking spray.

Vancouver here I come!

I got my new job offer today from Apple in Vancouver. Yay!

I can't hit the road just yet, though, as I still need to find a place to stay.

Getting close

It looks like the offer should be in the mail soon for Apple Vancouver! Now I just have to figure out a housing arrangement and everything should be ready.

Apple's Vancouver office is located here.

Moving in the right direction

So, I might get an offer from Apple in Vancouver as early as Friday, to possibly start as early as the middle of next week.

I'm not holding my breath just yet, but it's certainly a step in the right direction.

Less with the falling off

So I practiced my unicycle a bit more today, even though it was way too hot for it (it's about 30c right now). I didn't injure myself even once this time, and I managed to make it a good 20 or so feet at a time.

Still need a few more weeks of practice before I can ride it for transportation, though.

Odds and Ends

Picked up new wipers for the jellybean today (it turns out Canadian Tire does stock the 13 inch ones, they just don't list them on the website), as well as some of those convex "blind spot" mirrors.

You see, my car is apparently designed for stumpy little Korean people. This means that when I have the seat adjusted properly, about 1/3 of the side mirrors just reflects the sides of my car. I stuck the blind spot mirrors there, since I don't think I've ever ran into the side of my own car.

Of course, 1/3 of the blind spot mirrors now reflect the side of my car, but that's ok. The other side reflects the blind spot just fine. I think in hindsight I should have got the adjustable ones, maybe some day I'll upgrade them. (They're pretty easy to remove; just need to slice through the foam tape with some dental floss, then pull the adhesive stuff off)

I was also inspired to add a few things to my xmas list, namely one of those heavy-bottom trash cans for my car, as well as a bicycle pump with a built-in pressure gauge (for my bike/unicycle, not for my car). I'm also tempted to get a new tire and tube for my unicycle, as new tires are rated up to 65psi rather than the 45 that my current one is rated (and I fill it to 75), and the tube tends to leak slightly.

The good kind of hurt

So recently I dusted off my unicycle and decided to learn how to ride it once and for all. I've had it since I was a kid, but due to a variety of reasons I never really learned to ride it.

I spent a few days getting a feel for the balance, just holding onto something and keeping my balance. Then yesterday, I started moving.

Now when you start out on a unicycle, you generally get your self up on it, balance yourself, lean forward, pedal a half turn, and fall off. I did plenty of that. Luckily when you fall off a unicycle, you almost always land on your feet.

I progressed quite well yesterday, managing to fairly reliably get myself all the way from one side of the patio to the other before falling off.

Now as I said, you almost always land on your feet when you fall off a unicycle. The reason for this is that you're already in a standing position, so when you fall off, the unicycle just squirts out from under you and you're left basically just standing there. Most of the time.

It's the rest of the times that are a bit more painful, and I had my share of those, resulting in my share of injuries. They're all minor though, a few cuts, scrapes, bruises, twisted ankle, etc.

Now it may sound weird, but it actually feels kinda good to hurt. It's been a long time since I've done something that's made me ache the next day. When I'm doing my weights or bicycling it's easy to get to a plateau where I no longer feel the suffering burn the next day, and as a result tend to progress a lot slower. It can be difficult to find a new challenge that puts the pain back in your life.

I think I've found that challenge again.

Go West!

So things are looking up for working this summer. I just got off the phone with Apple in Vancouver (they do the iWork apps there), and they seemed fairly positive. It'll just be a matter of them finding room in their budget to hire me.

Here's hoping!

Retail Therapy

Now I'm not exactly a shopaholic, but it does feel good to scratch a few things off my need-to-buy list.

The first stop was Superstore, where I bought the usual load of groceries, along with a roll of that non-slip drawer liner stuff. I cut it into two pieces (24x20 inches) and laid them out in the trunk of the jellybean so that I wouldn't have to worry about stuff sliding around back there anymore.

The next stop (after dropping off the groceries at home) was Rona to pick up a new pair of safety glasses to wear cycling. I managed to find a rather fancy pair with gel pads and a nifty red frame, which made me happy.

After that it was a quick jaunt over to Zellers. The first item I picked up there was a new blanket for my bed, as my old blanket was starting to get a little frayed around the edges and generally threadbare. The new one is *really* nice; it's a dark blue plush microfiber blanket and it's really soft and warm. It's also about 2 feet longer than my old blanket, which is a bonus as the old one was a bit on the short side.

Next I got distracted in the cleaning supplies aisle, and managed to find, after years of searching, a bottle of Jet Dry Dishwasher Cleaner! Finally! And you'll be happy to know that I ran it through the dishwasher and it cleaned away all the dingy rust staining in the tub, leaving it sparkling and white just like new!

Finally I made it over to the menswear department and picked up some new loafing-shorts to wear around the house, as my old ones were, once again, getting a bit tattered and threadbare.

Subtracting my usual food purchases, I managed to get everything for well under $100 too.

I did forget to pick up new wipers for the jellybean, though, and I was right beside Canadian Tire! Oh well, next time...

Cycling fun

So Tyler finally managed to get his bike this week, which means we finally managed to get out cycling today. Hurray!

We considered cycling from Lockport to Selkirk and back along Henderson, but it's quite a ways to get to Lockport from Tyler's house, so instead we decided to go from St Germain to St Adolphe and back along St Mary's road.

We made pretty good time, though I had to slow up from my usual pace so as not to leave Tyler in the dust. Wouldn't be very polite to go zipping off into the distance, after all. We had a nice tailwind on the way down, but that meant a nice headwind on the way back.

The weather was great, about 25 and lots of little fluffy clouds peppering the sky providing just the right amount of shade without making things dark and gloomy.

The bike rack worked great for getting my bike down to his place, then both bikes over to St Germain.

All in all it was a great day.