[Friday
| Saturday (Nox Event)]
Friday
My
brother, Jacob 'Darkviper' Robinson of Xtreme
Network and I, met with Nathan 'Prime' Fahrenthold of Mplayer.com
at 8 am for breakfast. After we finished breakfast, we were on
our way to the Mplayer.com and HearMe (formerly Mpath
Interactive) offices. We passed by the Netscape buildings, I
was in awe of how many buildings Netscape has in San Jose. I
think I saw just about 9 or 10 of them in one area, they
seemed to all be on the same street. Another place we passed
by was Moffet Airfield and the Intel Building. Moffet
Airfield has a Ames Research Center there, with all of the
satellite dishes, which is the home of things like NASA's Mars
Missions.
After
entering the Mplayer.com building, I passed the secretary's
booth. I noticed the building was much larger than I
anticipated. Right after you pass the front entrance,
there's a long hallway with game box covers hanging on the
wall. Sort of like how someone would line-up and hang pictures
on the wall. It gave the hall that led to Tim Weaver's office,
and other offices a really neat and fun gaming atmosphere.
After
talking with Tim 'Cajunlanding' Weaver for a bit, Nathan gave
us a grand tour of the place. I saw everything from Tim's
Office, QA Lab, Customer Support Area, a big Breakroom,
Boardroom and the Engineering area. The Breakroom had a lot of
coke machines, and other food vending machines. In one of the
corners of the room, there was a sofa with a Nintendo 64
console system. The Engineering area had purple walls and
other cool decorations.
I finally
met Hilary after talking with her for almost two years online,
she is a very sweet person. She almost looks like one of my
cousins. Another person I was really happy to see was Sean
Butcher. I have only talked to him on the phone so seeing him
and finally getting a chance to shake his hand in person was
really nice. He still had his cute European accent too. I used
to work with Sean Butcher with an older Classics and Casino
site. I updated it daily with Classic Puzzle and other Card
gaming news. The Classics and Casino site later on moved to
Mplayer's new Card
and Board Games site.
Right
after the tour, we had an Xtreme Network meeting in one of the
Conference rooms. We focused a lot on some details about the
network. By then, Tim Weaver told us all it was about time for
some lunch. We all drove out to a Mexican restaurant called
Pedros. It wasn't too bad of food, they had some really good
green sauce and red salsa with chips.
When we
returned to the office, I went to the QA Lab to update some of
my sites. The room was a bit dark and very chilly. At times I
thought I should walk back to Nathan's office and grab my
coat, but I knew I would get lost. The building was almost
like a Labyrinth maze, I would easily get lost for being there
my first time. I guess walking around out there would have
warmed me up but it was better that I got in a few posts at
the sites while I could. Even if my hands were to cold to type
at times. It was sort of odd, at one point I would be freezing
cold and then it would be fine. Then 5 minutes later, it was
extremely col again. I guess the air conditioning in the room
was set at a particular temperature for all of the computers.
Which is ok, I just learned my lesson: "Always wear my
Jacket in rooms that are dark with tons of computers in
them."
After
getting settled in our Hotel, my brother and I walked down to
Starbucks. I was getting a little sleepy and it was only
almost 3pm. I haven't actually had Starbucks coffee before.
Yes, they are all stretched through-out California and other
states but I just never took the time to actually walk in any
of them. I have tried their Ice Cream that is available in the
grocery stores. I enjoy their Javachip flavor the most but I
haven't tried all of their flavors yet.
Walking
inside was pretty cool, I felt right at home. The only thing,
I was hot from walking the distance from the hotel to
Starbucks that I was sort of looking for some ice cream
instead of hot mocha. They didn't carry ice cream at all
there. After buying Jacob and I some iced mochas, I realized
that Jacob never tried an Iced Mocha. In fact, I believe he
isn't into hot Mocha either so his first sip was a disgusted
look about the taste right off. He made me laugh when I saw
him do that. I have tried other Iced Mochas and I am not a fan
of them but I was hot so I thought it would be alright.
Starbucks has the best flavor of an Iced Mocha I have ever
tried but it is extremely strong. I am not into strong types
of coffee flavors, I tend to enjoying soothing yet mellow
coffee, that is why I put lots of cream in my regular hot
coffees.
That
evening was really nice. Nathan and Jeff (Software Engineer
for Mplayer.com) picked us up, then drove over to pick up
Joan. We had met Jeff briefly before we left the Mplayer
building earlier that day. Nathan's wife, Joan was very sweet.
She looked like she was in her mid 20s with short brown hair
up to her shoulders. In fact, when I first looked at her, she
looked exactly like a friend I grew up with.
We all
drove out to Palo Alto and ate at California Pizza Kitchen (CPK).
They have awesome Spinach dip. It was like some type of cheese
in it but it wasn't a strong spinach flavor at all. CPK also
had some great tasting Iced Tea.
Right
after we ate, we went walking through the town. I saw some
really nice looking shops, and a couple of different times we
saw musicians singing or playing their instruments. One of the
times while we were walking passed one of the corners, I heard
this nice Jamaican beat on the other side of the street. I
glanced over and saw a white guy banging his drum and singing
away, it was funny. Later on when we were headed back, he had
a friend with him singing and banging on her own drum. She was
a bit more off tune but it was still cool to see someone join
in on his Jamaican style of music.
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