In an act of great responsibility I have embarked on a week-long trip to the lovely secluded san juan islands w/ my family. My grandparents of a maternal disposition have a fairly generous plot of land on shaw island upon which they constructed a number of cabins. No electricity (except what you generate w/ your car or drag along as batteries), no running water (except what you hand pump)....."t-mobile service?" you inquire... "I do not know," says I. But there be ocean and trees, stars (visible stars!) and crashing waves aplenty.

Now why, you wonder, should I *not* be heading up to the great white north? To answer, I must call you back to friday aug 15, 2003... To an age seething with hunger, war and malcontent and even.... Yes even *unemployment*... To a time when even the aspiring Stanford CS graduate might find it a trifle tricky to take a job. And where was I on this breezy summer afternoon? Interviewing at Google (after a grueling 2 prior phone interviews, a few essay questions, and a portfolio). And since they move slow as molasses I chose to return the favour and disappear for a week.

Perhaps they will want another interview... Perhaps they will offer me a programming job. Perhaps they will offer me a design job. And... Yes.... Perhaps they shall turn their faces from the plight of yours truly and require not my services. :-P

But back to that bleak friday. Well, primarily I feel I was tested prodded poked and baited as a programmer. One interview went really well and helped me understand both how google works and what I want out of a job (as well as making what I think was a good impression...). One interview was.... Sort of argumentative. If I was an interviewer and had such a interview I'm not sure what I would think of the candidate. Unfortunately in this case I fear I would think they were full of shit and not nearly as competent as their resume might suggest....

I ended up discussung parts of gnome and linux I'm not especially familiar w/, and didn't really talk about things I'm really comfortable with. In short: it could have really sucked. I hope the interviewer was looking for my speculative reasoning skillz ;-) (I am an expert bullshitter, I do have a college degree after all! Not that I was bs'ing, but it was definitely on the fringe of what I know)

Anyway, the other 3 interviews went w/o much to report.

So now I await the verdict.

My palms are sweaty.