If You Could Read My Mind

I'm slowly approaching two years living in the Silicon Valley. That's a long time. Kinda.

A lot of things lately have made me evaluate my living situation, among other things. On My Mind:

• Cost/Benefit Analysis of Silicon Valley vs. SF. The tide may be turning.
  
• I'm still in my early to mid 20's... is living in suburbia still for me?
• What do I really value?
  
• Should I downgrade my car to something smaller and possibly more gas-friendly?
• When should I get plastic surgery? (because I WILL need it after my weight loss)
• Can I really keep up working out 3 to 4 times a week? Or will I cry into the fetal position at some point due to stress?
• Do I Miss Los Angeles? Or is it just my friends and family?
• Will I go to grad school at some point? If so, will it be for my MBA?
• I have 3 weeks of vacation stored up. How the hell am I going to use it? Should it be a lot of mini trips or one big ass vacation?

Crap TV Night

I got out of work kinda late because I decided to work out with Nai. Dinner was slim 'pic'in's (referencing the new cafe on my Campus 'PIC' -> Pure Ingredients Cafe) on Crittenden (Googleplex #2) this evening. So after the workout, Nai and Audrey (Nai's GF) went to main (Google lingo for 'main campus') and I met them there. Now didn't you like that lesson in Google Lingo 101?

I'm thinking about getting a personal trainer sometime soon. Since the new gym on our campus opened, trainers are giving out some trial sessions to get some clients on their plate. Now that I'm about 15-20 pounds from my 2nd weight goal... I need to Step It Up!

After work, working out and dinner, I ventured home and watched a load of crap TV. Somewhere in the middle of watching all the crap below, I chatted with Norm. Awww.

TV Consumed:

• SYTYCD -> I Watch Yesterday and Today's episodes. I'm glad Dominic stayed but I was sad to see Hok's old partner go. And Mia Michael's was nominated for an Emmy? Weird. Mary Murphy is as crazy as ever. And what's with having to watch the same dance 10 times? Kinda boring. And my cubemate extraordinaire brought up the point that if Cat Deeley didn't have a British accent, she'd be super boring to watch. Vickie thinks that Cat has a tendency to add r's to the end of words randomly. Haha.
  
• Two Episodes of 'True Life' on MTV -> 'True Life: I'm celibate' and 'True Life: I'm moving back in with my parents.' Both were relatively entertaining. I never knew there could be 3 different reasons for being celibate: (1) Finding Jesus after a car accident, (2) As Revenge for being Cheated on, and (3) To Prove you aren't a whore when you once were. Go Fig. I don't want to knock the other episode of 'True Life' because who knows... one day I might move back home. Yikes!
• Big Brother 8 -> The results of Thursday's episode was good. Dick's probably squirming a bit.
• Welcome to the Parker -> Episode 1 on BRAVO was rather entertaining. My favorite part was the quality control aspect of the show. It's pretty much my daily life at Google. Quality Quality Quality! Who knew they threw random 'room service' tests like that to their staff. I just realized that if I were to move into quality control in any other industry, It would be rather difficult. Oh... and this just reaffirmed my loathing of stupid drunk straight men when they're not around women. They need to be bitch slapped!
  
• Sex in the City -> I caught a random episode on KRON 4 in the Bay Area. The topic? Sexpectations. Why is it always something?
  

Whew... I'm spent. Nighty!

The Fray Concert Aftermath

The Fray Shoreline Headliner
Originally uploaded by wkivinski.

The Fray concert on Saturday night was soooo fun. I only knew like 3 of their songs before going to the concert, but the test of true artists is the ability to make you like all of their material. I loved their music sooo much. It was amazing performed live. All 4 members have the ability to sing... which is rare for a group.

I ended up going with Steph K., Danny, Steph W., Theresa, Mahin and Hilary. We camped out in the lawn section. I was prepped with my blanket, jacket, bottle of water and contraband bottle cap. Why a bottle cap? Last time when I was seeing Gwen Stefani, you couldn't bring water with a cap on it. They took it away from you. Lol.

The lawn section is cool because you can just be silly, lounge, eat some munchies and lay down and watch the stars. We also dished about boys much of the time. I felt bad for Danny, but that's what happens when you go to a concert with a bunch of girls and a gay guy.

The demographics of the concert were a bit of a surprise. I was expecting it to be an 'adult contemporary' crowd (you know... 21ish to 40). To my surprise, the crowd was mostly comprised of teens. I felt like I needed to be going through puberty or something to get in. It also reminded me a lot of Orange County for some reason. I dunno, it was a mix of the venue, crowd and weather.

I wish I was holding a boy during some points of the concert. The music was just that beautiful. Steph W. and I gave each other hugs when we were both thinking the same thing (wishing we were with a sig ot.)

My favorite moment of the night was when The Fray did an acoustic cover of Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie.' It was pure genius. A great mix of humor and actual talent. I also liked when the lead singer brought up his daughter near the end of the show. That was super cute. Oh... Joe King (one of the guitar players) is a total hottie.

Pics for your pleasure:

The Fray at Shoreline Amphitheater

I'm off to see The Fray tonight at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, CA at 7:30pm.

I'm going with a few co-workers. We've got lawn seats... and a picnic basket. So watch out!

This is one of numerous concerts I've attended in the past year or so:

• John Mayer & Sheryl Crow
• Kelly Clarkson
• Justin Timberlake & P!nk
• Christina Aguilera, The Pussycat Dolls & Danity Kane
• John Mayer & Ben Folds
• Gwen Stefani & Akon

Hairspray Screening in MV

Although I didn't get a chance to see Hairspray in Monday in San Francisco, I was able to catch a screening in the South Bay. I guess New Line gave Google a bunch of passes to some Thursday evening showings at Century Theatres.

I brought Ty along because I knew he'd have a good time. I also went with Nai and Audrey. It was cool seeing the movie with a bunch of co-workers.

I typically don't like movie musicals. I feel like the music tends to not fit well with the overall movie. Hairspray changed my views on this. It was brilliant little film. It was fun, the cast was fab and the film just made you smile. The lyrics to the songs were really catchy. I left saying... damn... I want to sing along next time. I know... super gay of me. I even bought John Travolta as a woman... eventually.

I think this is a film even straight men could love. Come of straighties... enjoy it. :)

San Francisco Hairspray Screening

My buddy Ty invited me to a special screening of 'Hairspray' at the Metreon in San Francisco Monday Evening. There were two showings, one at 7pm and one at 7:30pm. We got in line around 6pm. Not everyone was guaranteed admission, but we got there early enough to where we were pretty sure we'd get in.

It turns out New Line/AMC Theatres made a HUGE goof. They let anyone with a 7pm movie pass into the 7:30pm showing, in effect, eliminating anyone with 7:30pm tickets a chance to see the movie. People got pissed. Very pissed. It got pretty ugly. Lets just say you don't want to get in between gay guys not getting to see a free screening of Hairspray.

After a huge fight with the management, someone was able to get those who stuck around long enough free movie passes. So it was a win-win situation overall. I got home earlier than expected, had a nice dinner with friends in the city, and got a free movie ticket I can use this weekend to see whatever I want. YES!

If you want read a whole bunch of people rant on this disaster (which apparently also happened in several other cities nationwide) go here.

Weekly Recap: 7/9 to 7/15

• Hit my 1 year anniversary at Google. Yay for more perks!
• Lunch on Monday with Tin and Megan to celebrate our 1 year. We went to my favorite Cafe- 5ive. Always solid, simple, and elegant food. We talked about boys boys boys. Yes!
• I visited one of only 12 7-Eleven turned Kwik-E-Mart's. This one happens to be by my work in Mountain View, CA. Very cool indeed. It even has Yelp reviews. Lol. More pictures on Flickr.
• On Tuesday night, I headed to dinner to celebrate the re-arrival of two of my favorite guys- Calvin and Roy. They both returned from being ambassadors in different Google offices abroad. Calvin went to India and Roy went to China. We had a great meal at this Mexican place right next to my apartment called Casa Lupe. It's a nice family run restaurant with solid food. We had a fun convo- mostly consisting of trash talking. But who doesn't love doing that on occasion? We were the last ones in the restaurant and they didn't kick us out. Haha. We then suffered a minimal amount of PLS (Parking Lot Syndrome.)
• This week I tried the equipment at the new gym on my part of the Google Campus. It's pretty big- although not as large as the main campus' gym. However, we have some cool tricked out gym equipment. It has super high tech vibramachines, quadmills and arc trainers. Love it! This will help add a little bit of flavor to my workout routines. Not to mention it's in the building next door- which makes a quick cardio workout a lunch totally do-able.
• Friday night I headed to SF with Mike. We went out to dinner at McCormick's and Kuleto's in Ghirardelli Square. Yes... a seafood restaurant. I ate Grilled Halibut, which I've grown fond of over the past year. We then ate a bit of dessert at Ghirardelli's next door. We tried this new Dark Chocolate Raspberry Sundae. I only had a few bites and let him do most of the eating. Haha. But it was super yummy. We then headed to the 'stro to dance at Badlands. I was happy to see Tommy back as the Bouncer. YEA! The music kinda blew, so we headed to Dragon in SoMA around Midnight. It was 'Flip The Dragon' night. That meant the music on the dancefloors flipped. Hip Hop was on the bottom floor and the dance music was on top. That just made the first floor super crazy. It was nice to see Ty and the gang, though.
• Saturday was super chill. I had a lazy afternoon and eventually added some spice to it. I met up with some Chris M. and James S. at this dive bar in Portola Valley called the Alpine Inn. We sat in outside in vast back patio area. The weather was great to just sit back and have a beer. The weather in the South Bay has been fab. Nothing like a Fat Tire with some straighties. After that, I headed to Palo Alto for some grub at the Counter, my favorite burger place.

• The rest of my weekend consisted of watching trashy TV and making a new music mixes. I totally have fallen in love with this new TV show on A&E called 'Confessions of a Matchmaker.' I also made time for some laundry and working out. Yay!

New Car Dreams

I don't think I'll be owning a new car anytime soon. But a boy can dream, right?

I think I want my next car to be fun, somewhat environmentally friendly, and have a crisp design. After driving Alex's VW Jetta 'Fluffy' a few months back, VW's became part of my car radar.

About a half year back, I saw the VW Eos. It's a compact retractable hardtop convertible. It's super cute, gets decent gas mileage, and most importantly -fun. I really like the way VW's drive. It's like just a notch below a BMW as far as ease of driving... but miles ahead of a Honda/Toyota. I currently drive a 2001 Honda Civic. I love it to death, but it's close to 100K miles. It needs to be retired in the next year or two.

The practical side of me says downgrade to something like a Honda Fit or a Toyota Yaris. The sliver of fun in my body says to gay it up and get a fun car. The Eos is kinda pricey for a small car (28K to 37K), but for an auto-retracting hard top convertible is a steal. This would also mean staying in the South Bay (or LA) is a must. Convertibles in SF are a no go. They don't dig fog.



More info on the Eos:
VWs Site
C|Net's Review
The Car Connection
Edmunds

1 Year

Happy Google-versary to me!

1 year working for Google (officially).
1 year and 7 months working at Google.

I had lunch with Tinwin (Temp Buddy Extraordinaire) and Megan (My Previous Manager) at Cafe 5ive to celebrate. We all started on the same day. We dished about boys. It was fab.

Two Weekends of Fun

Since I forgot to post an entry about my adventures last weekend, I thought I'd give my journal a double decker of an entry.

Last Weekend (5.29.2007 to 6.1.2007):

• On Friday, I went with Nai to Downtown Palo Alto for dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. We failed to remember the release of the iPhone. Thus it took a good 30 minutes to go 1/2 a mile on University Avenue because of crazy Apple fans causing a commotion at the Palo Alto Apple store. Crazy amounts of press were there too. I fail to remember that I live in the Silicon Valley... the heart of world of Technology.
• On Saturday, I had a chill day. Yes!
• On Sunday, I had a fabulous day. It started out by carpooling to the Millbrae BART station. This was my first BART trip to SF. It was quite pleasant. The end goal was getting to Dolores Park for Steph K.'s Birthday Picnic. Good food, wonderful friends, and pleasant views make for a fun afternoon in the park. We walked around, boy-scouted, played with dogs, listened to the Energy 92.7 DJ play music in the park, hula-hooped and lounged around. You can view pics here.
• After Dolores Park, I went to the final showing of Norm's show, Boylesque. It's not totally as scandalous as you think it might be. It was totally fun and a nice diversion in the early evening. After that, I went with a group of his buddies for dinner at Thanh Tam 2, a Vietnamese place in the Mission. It was really tasty food. We stayed away from the Pho and got other dishes. After that, Norm, Ninad, Aisha, Tu and I went to do a little dancin' at Badlands in the Castro. A few pics can be found here.

This Weekend (6.6.2007 to 6.8.2007):

• Friday evening I ate dinner at Tomatina with Elizabeth, Lauren, Steph & Becca. Afterward, we saw Ratatouille. That was a super cute film. It made me want to go to Paris and learn how to be a chef. Haha. It actually reminded me of very early Disney cartoons. It was modern, but not in that annoyingly CGI way.
• Saturday afternoon I met up with Norm and had lunch in Downtown Palo Alto. He was choreographing a show in San Jose, so he passed by my neck of the woods when traveling back up to Pacifica/SF. We went to Pluto's, my good ol' standby. After finishing our food, we went to the bathroom... you know, the type where only one person can enter at a time. So the Men's restroom was occupied and out comes a woman. Norm shouts, 'You don't have a Penis!' That made me chuckle. We strolled around town a bit and got some frozen yogurt at Fraiche. It's nice spending time with him.
• Sunday was all recovery! Working out, grocery shopping, and laundry too. I talked to Kenny for a few minutes. He was flying off to Dallas this week for work. We'll meet up next week for dinner.

Transformers: The Movie

I wasn't planning on seeing Transformers, let alone on opening night.

On Monday, I found out that the good 'ol GOOG got some tix for employees at the AMC Mercado in Santa Clara. Nai and I were lucky enough to snag a couple. We saw the 6:45 showing on Tuesday.

It was quite long for a summer flick. Running at ~2:15 mins, it most def could have been cut down a bit. But overall, this was a good film. Actually, I was going in with low expectations and was caught off guard. The humor in the movie was fantastic. It was a nice blend of Steven Spielberg's humor and Michael Bay's action.

I remember having some Transformers toys as a kid. I had a toy that transformed into a radio. That was pretty cool.

From a marketing standpoint, I was pretty astonished the number of product placements in the film. Off hand I could remember: Chevy, GM, Burger King, Apple, Mountain Dew, Ebay, Yahoo, Xbox, Nokia, and Panasonic. I notice these things... because, well I studied this in college.

Fraiche Yogurt (Palo Alto) Review

My Review (As Seen on Yelp.com)

I'm from Southern California (don't hate) and am all too familiar with the 'Tart Fro-Yo' craze. This isn't your 80's Penguins Fro-Yo people. It's fresh (hehe!) simple yogurt with actual fruit toppings. I've been to Pinkberry and Barenaked Yogurt in So Cal. They're both good and much more tart than Fraiche Yogurt. I'm also familiar with the war going on with the original Korean Red Mango. But when it comes down to the nitty gritty, I know who will win the 2007 Fro Yo War... and that's Fraiche Yogurt in Palo Alto, CA. George Bush should devote troops to this war because it's gonna get C-R-A-Z-Y.

Push aside the soccer moms screaming 'It only has @% calories!' and the yuppies in those designer jeans. Order yourself a regular cup with two fresh fruits of your choice. It's a nice size and make you feel oh so Fraiche and so clean afterward. You could even be adventurous and go for the soy or chocolate versions.

It's true, it's a bit pricey. Even more so than the powdered stuff in So Cal. But since it's organic and made fresh on-site, I'll forgive 'em.

The first time I went was when Apple released their iPhone. I think one day the lines will be just as crazy because it's THAT yummy. I predict security will be outside soon guarding the doors...

I just got back from my second adventure there. It was just as tasty. If it were closer to Sunnyvale, I'd go daily. I'll have to settle for two times a week. Boo ya!

Bonus: The interior is very Zen. Nice brown leather booths, fun pillows, and an eye poppin' curvy white wall.

Minus: No option for pineapple as a topping. :/

Pictures can be seen on my Picasa Web Album below:

Fraiche Yogurt Palo Alto

After my second visit, I left a suggestion in the suggestion box near the entrance. I got a yelp.com message from one of the co-owners this afternoon:

Hi Will,
I just peeked in our suggestion box and got your message, and then saw your review on Yelp.
I just wanted to say thank you, and I'm glad you liked our yogurt and store so much!

Regards,
Jessica (co-owner, Fraiche)

My First SF Pride (Kinda)

I participated quite heavily is this years 2007 San Francisco Pride festivities. The theme was 'Pride Not Prejudice.' I went to the Pink Party last year, but this is the first time I've been to San Francisco's Pride Parade. It was most def the highlight of the weekend.

FRIDAY (6.23.2007) :

• Went to Dragon SF at Club Eight in SoMA. Met up with Nor Cal Friends and my So Cal Friends all in one venue. It was a bit strange seeing many familiar faces who would normally be at GAMeboi in Los Angeles. Pics can be viewed here.

SATURDAY (6.24.2007) :

• Met up with Googlers (mostly AdWords Folks) for our Monthly Pub Crawl. We ended up going to Pilsner Inn in the Castro. I brought Nai along. Pics can be viewed here.
• After the Pub Crawl, Nai and I headed over to the Pink Party in the heart of the Castro for Pride 2007. Before we went to the Pink Party, I stopped by the long line in front of The Cafe to say hello to Natalie and Deazell, a couple of my So-Cal friends. Sunday was Deazell's Birthday, so I wanted to wish him a Happy Birthday in Person. We then headed to the Pink Party to meet up with Ty and some of his friends. I also said made time to say hi to Norm and his buddies. Pics can be viewed here.
• Since it was super cold, Nai and I decided to get some hot drinks at Quickly to warm our chilled bodies. We then got some Pizza at Nizario's. I had a bit of a slice of The Castro Special... which was delicious at 1am. We then went to Twin Peaks (AKA - The Glass Coffin) to get out of the Cold. It just so happens that a bunch of the Googlers from the Pub Crawl were here. Nai and I ended up talking to Adam for a while. We then took him home and proceeded to make our way to park near the Pride Parade route.
• Yes... Nai and I slept in my car for a few hours. I had to wake up at 5:30 to help out with the Google Float.

SUNDAY (6.25.2007) :

• I woke up early to volunteer to help out with the Google Float for SF Pride. Arrived at Pier 27 at 6am. Got Breakfast with Ty and Eddie at a nearby Starbucks. We then had a photo shoot on the Embarcadero.
• George Takei, of Star Trek and Heroes fame, was the guest on our Gaygler Float. What a nice guy. So our Float had a Star Trek / Google Earth Theme. We had dancers, balloons, and loads of marchers. It was a bit nerdy, but all in good fun. It was one of the coolest things I've participated in. What other time do you get to run down Market St. in San Francisco to crowds of LGBT Friendly People? Oh and when I met George Takei, I gave him a huge hug instead of a handshake. He was a trooper. Pics can be viewed here.
  
• We then headed to the Civic Center Festivities. Good Food, Fun Times, and Loads of Sunshine and cute people. Pics can be viewed here.
• Thanks to Nai for being such a trooper Pride weekend. I wouldn't have had nearly as good of a time without him. He got no sleep and didn't bitch at me while getting sleep in my tiny car.