My life as a Noogler

noo-gler Pronunciation Key (nō-gler)
n.

A new employee at Google. Often recognized by the dazed and confused look on their faces as they are moving in packs from class to class looking for conference rooms. The desk of a noogler is adorned with pretty helium filled mylar balloons. One remains a noogler until the balloons have completely deflated, a process which usually takes about 3 weeks, at which point one becomes a full-fledged googler.

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[English nō-gler, from new - googler]

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So I started work bright and early Monday morning, and arrived to a calendar already full of classes, and a full schedule of things to do. First thing we did was got our official badge pictures (which sadly ended up looking worse than my Adobe one), and then into the classroom we went to get an overview of what we were going to be doing all week. Google has some very set ways of doing things that are a little different than other companies I've worked at, and they give you a couple of weeks to get up to speed on their techniques. They actually have the equivalent of a U of Google the first two weeks to show/teach Nooglers what will be expected of them, and how things are expected to function.

All in all though, I'm having a great time. Once I found my desk I realized that I had had all my hardware set up for me and ready to go. I was able to immediately launch into my course work and get things done. Sadly the motherboard on my new PowerBook was faulty, so it's already in the shop to be fixed/replaced, but other than that I think things have gone pretty well. The commute doesn't seem to be killing me, and once I actually get a reliable portable, I think I'm going to be quite happy on the train.

Currently I'm a member of the brand new Mac Client team at Google, an engineering group whose goal is to make insanely great Google applications for Mac OS X. This could change, as things are very dynamic here, but it looks like I'll be doing this for the foreseeable future (i.e. next couple of weeks :) ).

Jen, Mollie (Jen's mom) and Keira, came to visit on Friday to check out my new office digs and have lunch. We did a quick tour of the buildings which was good for me as well, as it was my first chance to really wander around and be able to pause and look at things, as opposed to frantically searching for a specific room that I'm supposed to be in in 5 minutes or so...

Last Day

So yesterday was my last day at Adobe. I've been working feverishly the past two weeks attempting to wind everything down, and cut it really close to the wire. I should have left more time, as I didn't get to say goodbye personally to everyone that I wanted to, but I did the best I could in the time I had. Should I be flattered that the day I left, Adobe stock fell by 5%? :)

This past week has been especially busy as I've been trying to disseminate all my important info out to the correct people. Spent Monday trying to get all my code checked in and building properly. Had lunch on Tuesday with the Apple Dev tools team, introducing them to the folks who were going to be replacing me as contact points for the Dev guys on the Illustrator team. Wednesday I had lunch with the folks I'm going to be working with at Google. Several of them are working remotely, so this week was the best chance to get some face-time with them. Thursday morning I spent 2.5 hours teaching everything I know about Xcode to my Illustrator team-mates, and then jumped in the car, drove to Google, and spent 6 hours learning everything I could about Google from my Google team-mates. Friday the Illustrator team took me out for lunch to say goodbye, and I did my exit interview. In between all of this I was coding like a madman trying to fix up my last couple of issues before my badge disappeared.

It was interesting handing in my badge, as the security guy was on the phone, and just kind of nodded at me and turned back to his phone call. I don't know what I expected, but seemed a little anti-climactic for some reason.

So we have to be careful this weekend, because we have no medical insurance until I show up at the Googleplex on Monday.

Great Googly Moogly!

So I surprised the Illustrator team Monday morning when I gave my two week notice to Adobe. As of Jan 23rd, I will no longer be an Adobe employee, but instead will be joining the Mac client team at Google. Unfortunately I can't tell you what I'll be working on, but it should keep me out of trouble. I'm going to be working with a pile of incredibly talented people (like this guy).

The commute is going to be a bit longer for me, but I'm extremely excited about the work and culture change.

So it's less than 2 weeks into the New Year, and I've already done the major change in my life. Love getting those resolutions over with early...now I've got the rest of the year to relax ;-)

Link for those of you wondering where the title came from. It's actually something my friend Craig used to say all the time, but I never knew where it came from.

Christmas is coming...Keira's getting Fat!

Time for more sappy pictures of me. Grandma bought me a Santa suit, and got out her digital camera. Click on the picture of me for more cheesy Santa shots.

The Streets of London...

I made it! Can't believe it, but it's already over. I jetted off to London to surprise Alastair (www.roundtheworldbybike.com) at his official homecoming just for the weekend, and we had a blast. I even managed to deviously arrange for him to pick me up at the airport without him even knowing it, and the look on his face when he saw me step out into Heathrow was priceless. We then drove for over an hour in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the M25 out to Kent, where Sarah's (his girlfriend) parents were hosting a big dinner party for him. We had a lovely meal and I met some fabulous people, then slept on the floor with pretty much everyone. The following morning we headed into London, where Alastair took me to the Royal Geographical Society to hob-nob with world explorers and researchers. Very interesting!
I then met up with Emily Brown (from Saudi) for lunch, and spent the rest of the afternoon watching a rugby match (England vs. the All Blacks) in a pub.
That evening was Alastair's official "End of the World" party, where I had far too much really bad wine, and met many more amazingly friendly and funny people.
The following morning, (which felt like night for me) was horribly, horribly painful-- and I awoke on Duncan's (another friend, who came to Canada last year) sofabed with a carpet in my mouth and what seemed to be a jackhammer in my head. Despite actually putting my bed away, showering, and dressing myself, I somehow managed to fall asleep on the couch again before breakfast. Classy.Alastair, Sarah and their friends Kate, Wil and Paul (I think...) took me out for the afternoon on a lovely tour of London. Alastair took full control of my camera and took some fun toursity shots, including one of me climbing on some sidewalk monument (see below). We spent a few hours in the Tate Museum, which was absolutely hilarious, and wandered down Fleet Street and saw St. Paul's. After ordering a pizza at another friend's flat, Sarah took Alastair and I out to her flat in Reading, where we spent my last night.
Suddenly it was morning (evening?!) again, and I was packing up to go to Heathrow while Al was climbing back onto his bike for the last short journey right home to Yorkshire.
I made it back to Vancouver on Monday evening and was working again Tuesday morning. Time for a weekend!


Al and me on my first night in England.



Emily and me out for lunch




Al and Sarah... back together after 4 years apart!



A fun afternoon wandering around London being tourists



The boys boosting me onto a monument in an attempt to get a cheesy tourist shot



Me not fitting onto the monument quite the way we'd envisioned...



A London sunset... it was bright and sunny all weekend!

Memorial Day

At the beginning I found all this marching around, and funny movements all rather...obsurd and stupid. However after 9 hours of training one weekend in drill and marching, I have developed quite a lot of respect for those regiments you see that do everything perfectly in sinc and on time. And it feels so good when the company pulls of a perfect 'HALT!' and you hear the BANG BANG! of everyone's boots hitting the ground at the same time! Anyway, here's my regiment at the memorial day parade saluting the officers, and marching. It went really well...unfortunately though I wasn't issued my no. 2 dress, that comes in April. Those who are are the senior members, from Rhine and Yeves Company...I'm in Waterloo Company. Unfortunately I don't have many pictures especially any good ones, Laura was taking the pictures and she arrived late...but hopefully i'll have some of xmas camp, and especially of my passing out parade in April when I'll be in full no. 2's and doing rifle drill.

Happy Hallowe'en!

Happy Hallowe'en Everyone!