myTrevor.com

So last night I went to the Google open house with Ryan, Jamie, and Anthony. Later on we found a bunch of other info guys were there too (well, I guess not a bunch: Tho, Dan, and Sean).

So if you aren’t in the know, Google opened a new office up in Kirkland. As you may see in thostheir stuff.

I was expecting some crackers, some drinks, maybe some wine… no… it ends up being completely catered. There were multiple buffets full of makings for sandwiches, salmon, fruits, veggies, etc… a room playing The Matrix, and lots of balloon creations. In their main lobby they project the queries for Google onto a wall for everyone to chuckle over, at times a little more entertaining then their live band. After getting some drinks and our goodies bag and failed attempts of mingling with strangers, the info group congregated into an empty conference room across from the band. In there we amused ourselves with wine, beer, writing on the white board, and our Google pens.

I’m still just so happy about then pen, it lights up to a bunch of different colors and can be set to rotate through all. After Jamie got drunk off a glass and a half of wine, they made the annoucement that it was time for the drawings. And then they announced it like four more times. Finally they started pulling names for iPods. After three people were drawn, two of which weren’t present, they asked if everyone would rather scratch the “no need to be present to win” clause. Obviously everyone cheered loudly. They drew a few more names, no one that was there and then it happened… they drew my name. Everyone in our conference room cheered and I ended up being pushed through people and flying over the Google ball and almost fell to the floor. I quickly recomposed myself and cheered “that’s me!” like a little girl. Anyways, so I won an iPod which I’m listening to my all my music on as I type.

So I guess I’m glad I went, a $300 gift prize isn’t too shabby (like I didn’t already love Google?).

Anyways, so we sat around some more and finally left around 9pm, but not without taking a few pictures beside the balloon butler.

So it’s just a little past 9 and we all pile back into my car. Now we’re all kinda wanting to do something else, but without any really good ideas. We think, oh yeah, gas works, but then think it’s too cold. I miss some turns of some good ideas and end up driving to Ravenna park. Well, that wasn’t good enough so we ended up driving up to Cowen park, because I knew of a playground there. After some illegal driving through the park, we ended up parking on a street and walking over to the playground. I guess I had forgotten the good old days of playing in a park, but I guess this actually gets better with age.

After exhausting each of the swings, the wire/rope thing, the merry-go-round (getting punched in the face), and perverting the big toy, we decide to go on a walk. We walked from Cowen park all the way to Ravenna park through the spooky trail. It was actually nice. I really miss going on walks in the middle of the night, no time I guess.

Anyways. It ended up turning from a pretty sucky day to be a really fun night.