Bits and Pixels

After making a stop in Denver, I arrived in Mountain View yesterday . Everything went pretty well, except that there are too many hotels called Residence Inn in this area, so even the cab drivers get confused. One of them actually dropped me off at the wrong place. But another one then actually got it right so I had a nice place to spent the night before the big day. And today it is... the big day. ... my first day of my intern orientation. Of course, I am not allowed to write about anything in detail, but from what I've seen today, this is just a great place to work/live. Free food everywhere, places to relax.... just a great atmosphere. A lot of very talented people all around.

First step done. I arrived in Atlanta today without any problems. I am currently staying at a hotel in Midtown Atlanta until tomorrow noon. I will then leave for the airport again to get to Denver and finally San Jose.

With just a few hours left in Germany, it might be a good idea to write a little bit about the current status. My visa got here in time. Just one day after being in Frankfurt, my passport with the attached visa was in the mail, yay! I also made arrangements for my stay in Atlanta. I found a nice offer on craigslist for a furnished room in Decatur (which is quite close to Atlanta city itself). After a few talks on the phone and exhanging quite some e-mails with the owner of the house, I am confident that this will work out and that I will have a nice stay there till the end of December. So tomorrow (Sunday) I will depart in Frankfurt at 9.30am and arrive in Atlanta at around 1.00pm. After I got through the screening, customs and imigration I will head to my hotel in downtown Atlanta, where I will stay for one night. The next day I will again go to the airport again, to get on my plane to Denver. After a quick stop my connecting flight will get me to San Jose. From there I will head to ...

Today I've been to the US Consulate in Frankfurt to apply for the visa. Everything went suprisingly quick. I got there at about 8.20am and left about two hours later with my visa application granted. Now I hope that the visa will arrive here in time. I also scheduled the flight to Atlanta today. It will depart on September 3rd from Frankfurt and goes directly non-stop to Atlanta. I will arrive there around 2pm. A few days ago I also found a nice person through craigslist, who is renting a room for this time. So after stepping out of the airport I will directly seek for a way to get to this place. I will have some time to rest until my flight on the next day (Monday) will depart to Mountain View. Unfortunately not a non-stop flight. But well, this way I will see Denver... or at least its airport. So everything seems to be set for a stressful week. After getting back to Atlanta on Sept. 10th I will start my regular job at the Google offices there and I hope to get some routine in th...

Today I've done some experiments with the layout of this blog. As it turns out, it is very flexible. All the html can be formatted so I implemented a design that I did a couple of days ago for go|west 3. I also added some useful links, replaced the standard ones and removed the blogger bar at the top as I think it's not so useful for me. If you think otherwise, feel free to tell me. I am a newbie when it comes to blogging - so don't bother ;) I might do some further fine tuning on the site and also start adding some on-topic information as well. So stay tuned (whoever is tuned in).

After using my own scripted site the time I went to the USA, I thought it might be worth a try to use a blog software this time. I will try to explore the capabilities in designing and integrating this into my own site. If it works this might get a part of my future site, too. So, sorry for not writing more, I have to do some exploration :)