New York & Google's Verdict

After a couple of days in Philadelphia (see last post), I took a bus to New York City. Normally, it takes about an hour and a half to do that route. However, it being a Friday afternoon during rush hour, my journey lasted more like four hours.

Living from moment to moment, I had no hotel reservation for that night. I figured luck would smile at me and I'd spend the night at some hot honey's place or something. So, I went to the hotel where I would stay the next night to put my baggage in storage.

Once that was done, I went to join Shoji (who I know through a grade-school friend) for supper along with some of his fellow English school classmates:

Shoji's classmates were interesting with diverse backgrounds and coming from all over the place: Germany, Spain, France, Korea... For some reason, they were all female. A couple of them made me wish they'd be the one to keep me from having to find a room at a hotel...

After dinner, some of us went club hopping. One of the places we landed in is 230 Fifth. Apparently, it's quite the popular place these days. It does have a nice rooftop garden from which you can admire New York's skyline in all its splendor while sipping down cocktails and martinis.

At 4:30am, the party was over and I didn't have a place to stay. I walked a bit and saw this dude in a phone booth, pretending to be on a call so that he could take a piss there. I went to an Internet cafe to check my emails for a couple of hours (some people were sleeping there) and then went to my hotel, where thanks to my contact there, I was able to check in early and rest until a certain point in the afternoon. The rest of the day, I just did some light exploration.

New York felt different. I had always felt home there. But this time, the city made me feel lonely and it kept showing me things that reminded me of the girl with whom it didn't work in Vancouver. Maybe home isn't a specific place, but rather where your heart is.

The next day, I did some more walking in Manhattan before joining a German friend I had first met in New Zealand. She came to visit the US along with some other German girls. While I was sitting on some stairs, waiting for her in front of the Rockefeller building and thinking about life, a man came pretty close to me, stopped, aimed his SLR camera at me, slowly adjusted its settings and then took a shot of me. It was odd because I knew he was taking a shot of me and knew I knew he was taking a shot of me. Around the same time, a woman was scolding her boyfriend over her cellphone and telling him how much of a jerk he is. Love isn't easy.

The Germans finally arrived and we went to "The Top of the Rock" (the observatory at the top of the building in the middle of the Rockefeller Plaza). After that, we went to Inakaya, a Japanese izakaya restaurant located at 231 West 4oth. It's an animated place where the staff shouts all the time, the chefs hand out food with long tools so as not to have to leave their post and where the patrons are made to participate in the fun in such ways as beating the crap out of rice dough.

Once I came back to Montreal, I realized I had a voice message from Google's recruiter. I got very nervous. Even though I had tried not to set any expectations, I had let myself become convinced at some level that I would get the job. When the recruiter told me it wasn't the case, I was devastated.

Google isn't just a place where to work. It is THE place where to work. Getting the job would have vindicated me from destiny, in a sense. It would also have given me a place, I believe, where I would have belonged; a family of sorts.

In short, Google isn't just a job, it's a destiny.

Perhaps I'm putting too much faith in that company and am idealizing it as a sort of panacea to overcome my personal shortcomings, but I still feel that my life, despite not being bad at all, has fallen short of my dreams. The question now is what do I do with my existence?

From Silicon Valley to Philadelphia

On my last night in California, I walked about a bit. I saw a HUGE store dedicated solely to Halloween merchandise. I went in and felt right at home in the middle of all this eerie stuff. It reminded me of the feeling I had on Halloween nights as a kid. I was amazed that a store could be economically viable by selling only seasonal things like this. Some of it was pretty advanced and expensive. Life-size animatronics talking and doing macabre maneuvers, funny and raunchy costumes, devices one wouldn't dream of... It never ceases to amaze me how there seems to be a market for everything in the US. I had a similar impression when I walked into a liquor store with a selection far beyond anything I've ever seen in Canadian state-owned shops and with quantities of material that make you wonder again just how stores survive in the US given that there are no houses around.

The next morning, I went to San Jose's airport and flew to Philadelphia, through Phoenix. Given the flights' durations, the layover and the time zones, I got in Philly just in time to go to bed.

I remember the first time I went to Philadelphia. I thought it was just a domain full of overweight, undereducated ghetto-dwellers. It does have more than its fair share of those, but it's got so much more. The first time around, I didn't invest enough time to discover the place.

Philly's basically made up of three parts: the historic district, the downtown core and the "Europeanish" section.

In one day, I walked over 40 kilometers and gave my feet bad blisters, but I saw so much. In the historic district, I saw (again) Independence Hall, where the colonies declared independence from the Crown of England. I also saw the Liberty Bell, parks, the United States Mint for coins, colonial buildings, Edgar Allan Poe's House, Benjamin Franklin's grave and many other things.

The downtown core has a diverse set of architectural styles. From very old buildings to the ultra-modern Liberty Plaza and the Comcast Tower. The city hall is the biggest piece of masonry on earth (whatever that means) and sits right next to a huge Free Mason's temple. Close to the city hall, many public statues can be seen, including the famous "LOVE" one. South Broad Street, south of city hall, is really magnificent to see at night with its inventive displays of colorful lights highlighting the countless artistic events taking place.

Then there is the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, which is basically a "Champs-Élysées" right in the middle of Philadelphia. It gives a noble and French feel to a whole part of the city. It's terminated on one end by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, sporting a neo-classical look that adds to the effect of grandeur. This is where Rocky ran up and down the stairs to train and where a statue of him now shines for tourists to see.

No visit to Philadelphia is complete without sampling a local cheese steak sandwich. I went to
Pat's King of Steaks, where the sandwich was invented. It's a Philadelphia staple. Many stars, politicians and Important People have been there, as evidenced by the numerous autographed pictures. There's always a line-up for the sandwiches. The people working there have a curt and rough attitude that makes New York cab drivers seem polite. I think it's all part of a show. Good sandwiches, though!

All in all, Philly's not too bad. I could see myself being trapped there for a year or two.

In The San Francisco Bay Area Again

Since I got back to Montreal and started working at Nuance, I got contacted a few times by recruiters and headhunters for positions in other companies and/or cities. Working in software means that, recession or not, there will always be work for me. My current job being all right and my desire to leave Montreal being mitigated by my need to catch my breath, I politely turned down all the propositions I got. I even decided not to pursue a chance to earn a six-figure salary in Manhattan, which is the place where I dream to live. My reasoning was that if I lived in Manhattan, even with an annual compensation package of, say, $120,000, I would end up with less disposable income than I have now with my current salary in Montreal. However, for $120K, I'm sure I'd be expected to work like an animal and that would lower my quality of life.

In January, Google was to fly me to NYC for an interview for a position in Manhattan. However, two days before that happened, the position got cut because of the shaky economy. Had I been selected for the position, I would have accepted it even if it meant less disposable income for me. The experience of working for Google and the experience of living in Manhattan would have compensated for that. Once you make enough money, it becomes less and less important compared to other things in life.

After that, I forgot about Google and expected to live in Montreal for a while. I knew I'd get contacted again by Google in due time. I just didn't know it would be so soon. I got an email from them in September about positions in Mountain View, California.

Now, Google is not just another employer. Not only does it give insane perks to its employees, but it's also shaping the present and future of technology and how we see it and the world in which it is used. It's a company that's got a vision and it can be felt. As such, it attracts great people with whom it must be awesome to interact. Google is the ultimate company to work for to many people, including myself. Also, winter is coming and spending it in California sounds a lot better to me than spending it in Quebec. For these reasons, I just had to take another shot at it when Google gave me another chance.

The days leading to my trip in California were quite busy and I was stressed just thinking about the possibility of moving again, changing jobs and the memories of how my first interview with Google basically was the last straw for a relationship with a girl with whom I really wanted things to work out.

However, once I got to California, I felt calmer. I saw Ricky and his wife Min Lin (both of whom went to college with me) and we talked about our respective situations a bit. I stayed at their place. The following morning, I took them to the airport. They were going to Las Vegas for Min Lin's birthday. They gave me the keys to their place so that I could stay there while they were gone.

Their flight was pretty early. So, I found myself on a Saturday morning heading towards Napa Valley. My rental car was a hybrid Nissan. It had a surprising amount of torque and I sped my way along the 6-lane freeway to Napa. I sped a bit too much, though and was given my first ever speeding ticket by a California Highway Patrolman on a motorcycle (anybody remembers CHiPs?). I was doing 87 mph (140km/h) in a 65 mph (104km/h) zone. The officer seemed to imply I was going pretty fast. It's a good thing he didn't catch me while in a hurry!

After that, I made my way to the Napa Valley. At my first stop, I saw a geyser. Then, I proceeded to a few vineyards: Sterling, Castello di Amorosa, Berringer, Charles Krugs, Robert Mondavi, ... I was loopy by the end of my sampling day. Napa Valley is nicer than Okanagan Valley, but I have fonder memories of the latter because of the company I had when I went there.

I spent the next day driving around Silicon Valley. I saw some nice neighborhood in Palo Alto; saw the garage where HP was born; the headquarters of Apple and visited Stanford University. That university has quite the impressive campus! It's a far cry from the shit university I went to.

I spent the following day studying in preparation for my interview at Google. I had already studied a bit, but wanted to put all the chances on my side.

Finally, today, I had my interview session. Basically, it consisted of meeting an HR person for a quick briefing of the day, followed by two 45-minute interviews, lunch and two more 45-minute interviews.

The interviews felt easier this time around. Then again, I was told that, two years ago, I was given a tougher than normal interview. The first interview was OK. I felt the second went really good. The third went pretty well. The fourth and final one was OK, but I stumbled a bit during the run-time complexity analysis of the problem. Now, I felt that was below what my performance should be and when I was picking myself up to make my answer clearer, the interviewer told me to move on and talk about something else.

On my way back to my hotel, that last small thing kept nagging me. So, I decided to find the interviewer (by Googling him, no less) and send him clarifications on my answer by email. I found him on meetup.com and emailed him my comments. I don't know whether that's annoying on my part or shows will and tenacity. I guess I'll find out pretty soon!

I think I could live in California and enjoy the lifestyle that working at Google would give me. I can't wait to see what the next chapter of my life will be...

Cape Cod, Mt Tremblant & Ottawa

Ever since I came back to Montreal, I've been trying to enjoy more the things that are local to me now. After all, I don't know how long I have to enjoy these things. Like everybody else, I could get hit by a car and lose my opportunity to enjoy them, but more importantly in my case, I could find myself living far away in a few months.

So, in the spirit of seizing the occasion, I went to a few places not too far from Montreal in September.

I went to Cape Cod with 6 other people for the Labor Day week-end. We rented a house over there. It was the first time I went on vacation together with so many people. We got there on a Friday night. On Saturday, we went to Provincetown. If one has been to other coastal New England towns, one won't find much novelty there except for the concentration of gay people. Most people from our party stayed at the beach that afternoon. I decided to go drive around to explore the area a bit more. Only, I didn't realize there was no cellular signal at the beach. So, after exploring for a couple of hours and not hearing back from the others, I went back to the beach to see what was up. The others had gone and I saw that I had no signal there. So, I went back to town (where I had signal) to try and contact the others and look for them on Commercial Street (the main strip where most of the action is in Provincetown). I wasn't able to reach them with the cell phone, but I did bump into them. A girl whose things had been in the car I used to drive around was really mad that I strayed from the group.

The next day, some of us went to Martha's Vineyard. It's posher than Cape Cod. I liked the town of Oak Bluffs with its "gingerbread houses".

A few weeks later, I went to Mont Tremblant (Quebec's best ski resort). I took a tour to go there. It was painful to get up so early (we left Montreal at 7:30) and the guide wouldn't shut up and kept telling the unfunniest jokes three times (once in bad English, another time in even worst French and finally in Chinese) while I was trying to sleep on the bus on the way to our destinations. On top of that, there were a few kids that just kept crying all the time as if someone was trying to cut their arms off. When I saw Mont St-Sauveur, which is basically a small hill, and the puny, uninteresting village sitting next to it, I was wondering whether I had made a good decision to come on the tour. We then went on a small, boring boat cruise on the Lac des Sables in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts and had to suffer some pretty intense crying from the small children on board. I then remembered why I never liked nature before I first moved out of Quebec: it's because nature is so unimpressive and boring in Quebec. Further along on the way to Mont Tremblant, I thought my day was completely shot. I tried to read to make time go faster, but it was impossible to concentrate with the multiple children crying so intensely.

When we got to Mont Tremblant, things started turning around. Even though the place is in the province of Quebec, it presents some natural beauty. The village and its surrounding infrastructure is reminiscent of that of Whistler. The mountain itself is nothing compared to what you'd find back West, but it was definitely a notch above what I had seen so far that day. One could take a gondola all the way to the mountain top. But, given that we had many hours to spend there, I decided to hike the mountain instead. On the way up, I saw a chipmunk. A bit later, I heard some leaves moving. I thought it was another chipmunk, but it was a black bear! I was pretty close (25m?) to it and when I tried to take a picture of the animal, it heard me and ran away. It's the first time I ever saw a wild bear in Quebec. The only other time I had seen a bear in nature was in Whistler. I hiked some more and yet again heard some leaves being shuffled. This time, it was quite close and wasn't from a big creature. Again, I thought it was another chipmunk. It turned out to be a small snake. On my way down the mountain, I saw a young deer grazing. In one day, I managed to see more animals than I had ever seen in Quebec. I also saw a beaver's hut.

On the way back, they put a movie on, so the kids kept quiet.

The following day, I went to Ottawa. I visited the grounds of Rideau Hall (the governor general's house) and the mint where they make special edition coins. I walked a bit, had some food and came back to Montreal. Ottawa's a pretty city, although it may be a bit too sleepy for people looking for excitement.