| October 9, 2001 | We're With the Church of Microsoft |
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I'm finally getting over the monster-flu-thing. Today was volunteer day at Microsoft, which means everyone is encouraged to take time out of their workdays to help out in the local community (Silicon Valley). Allyson and I volunteered to make food for the homeless in Palo Alto. With four co-workers, we assembled a hundred or so tuna fish sandwiches, put them into bag lunches with an apple and an Odwalla bar, and then handed them to the people. We finished fast, (probably due to our project management skills), and afterward the volunteer organizer encouraged us to socialize, but it was kind of rocky at first. "What church are you with?" one of the homeless women asked us. Ummm. We weren't really sure how to answer that. "We're with Microsoft," one of our co-workers piped up, and everyone sort of giggled nervously. It was a weird idea, thinking of Microsoft as a religious group. I kept worrying that the people resented us. I ended up talking for a few minutes with a guy named Andre, and he asked me if I had ever met Bill Gates... Labels: allyson, microsoft, siliconvalley, volunteering posted by Jess Barron @ 6:19 PM 
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| March 12, 2001 | Smart Cookies |
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The fortune cookie I got with my tofu stir-fry this afternoon at the Microsoft Silicon Valley Campus cafeteria says "Stop searching forever. Happiness is just next to you." That fortune was a nice change of pace. My usual fortune cookies (I get the tofu stir-fry almost every day) are all about how I will find "success" and "riches." Here's a random sampling from the past few days': "You will win success in whatever you adopt" "Your present plans are going to succeed" "The star of riches is shining upon you" "You have an unusual equipment for success" That last one is my favorite. I have an "equipment for success"? Hmmm. What would that be? Is it my computer keyboard ring that Mindy made for me? Is it my new bright cherry red hair? OR, are these fortune cookie authors implying that I have a penis!? What I am worried about, however, is that these cookies are strategically planted to encourage my natural workaholism. I really do feel that they're aimed at me. One even criticized my clothing! It said something about how I should aim to dress with simplicity. Don't these cookies understand my passion for platform shoes?! It seems that these cookies are trying to make me into "the boring, simply dressed, well-paid careerwoman." And I must not let them! I wonder if the cookies know that I'm demo-ing my product for Bill Gates on Monday... Let's not tell them. Labels: billgates, fortune, microsoft posted by Jess Barron @ 2:32 PM
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| October 24, 2000 | A Love Affair with Los Angeles |
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"I'd give my life just to dream with you on a bed of California stars." - Billy Bragg & Wilco "California Stars" I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but I somehow convinced Gareth to leave his life in Denver behind and move to California to live with me. I must have some incredible powers of persuasion. I've only known him for one month. I accepted a new job. I'm working for Microsoft in Mountain View, California. Sorry, but I can't really tell you what I'm going to be doing, because it's kind of a secret. I had to sign the usual all-encompassing non-disclosure agreements. I assure you that the projects I will be involved with will not harm anyone and should in no way risk causing a thermal-global-nuclear war. The job is great (and I'm going to be working with my friend Allyson again!), but this unfortunately means that I hafta leave Los Angeles and move to uber-expensive San Francisco. I'm starting next week, so my langorous days of unemployment in LA are coming to an end. It's weird because four years ago when I first wanted to move to California from the East Coast, I thought I'd move to San Francisco. I never even considered Los Angeles, because I didn't think I'd like it. But now that I've lived here for a year, I love LA, and I'm afraid that San Francisco will pale in comparison. I feel like I will be arriving in San Francisco just as the party is ending. You know, when the dim lights are turned up and the ambient music is turned off and everyone realizes that the night of drunken magic is drawing to a close and they have to go home to their cold, lonely beds. As T.S. Eliot so eloquently put it, "This is how the dotcom revolution ends -- not with a bang, but a whimper." (Of course, Eliot was talking about the world and not the "dotcom revolution," but since dotcoms have comprised my entire world for the past four years, I suppose you will accept and understand the substitution.) What's more -- all the people I know in San Francisco (and most San Franciscans, actually) hold a disdainful attitude toward LA. They'll tell you that LA is full of traffic and smog and vapid people, but they don't even stop to realize that their city (and its Southern appendage Silicon Valley) has 100 times worse traffic, the streets are dirtier, and their population is almost entirely twentysomething technology people whose cocktail party chat makes actors and film industry people look smart, interesting, and even deep. Don't get me wrong, most of my friends (in both cities) are twentysomething technology people, it's just that in LA (as opposed to SF)I also have friends who are writers, film-makers, actors, and writers, not to mention waitresses, masseuses, and public school teachers. I don't think those kinds of people can even afford to live in San Francisco anymore because the rents in the city are so ridiculous. But in L.A., rent is fairly cheap (when compared to Boston, NYC, and SF), so the city has a much more diverse population. I've been spending the last few weeks of unemployment trying to enjoy LA and do some of the things I don't normally have time or inclination to do. You can check out my photos from the Getty Center, Point Dume in Malibu, The Mondrian, Earth Dance, Santa Monica Pier, and Beauty Bar. The worst part about moving to San Francisco is trying to find a decent studio or one bedroom apartment that allows dogs that is less than $4000 per month in rent. Gareth and I drove up to SF yesterday to go to some open houses. We saw a loft in the Mission that we really liked, but we weren't ready to commit to it yet. (And we can't realistically afford the $6000 initial deposit until I start work.) We definitely like the loft spaces in SOMA, but we don't want people to resent us and think that we're dotcom yuppies. It's just that lofts have such great feng shui and they generally seem to allow dogs to cohabitate with humans. Reasons Not to Leave Los Angeles: Labels: allyson, la, losangeles, microsoft posted by Jess Barron @ 11:35 AM
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