Starred in Sunday, March 05, 2006
On getting recognized as Doctor Awesome on the street
I'm on my inflatable mattress in my room in Duboce Triangle. It and my bike stand are the only pieces of furniture here with me. I've also got a few shirts in the closet, a small suitcase, a laptop, and Marin.
I had gone, earlier in the evening, to a party up in Sausalito in Marin. It was a friend-of-a-friend-type invite, and ended up being a lot of people I didn't know very well. My designated-driver status didn't help me loosen up to them very well (my fabled personal-space bubble collapses with sufficient alcohol consumption). A large number of them were Europeans living in the states, which didn’t at all help my already-existing city-rural cultural divide. I spent most of the party fielding questions about Google from a few people which, really, isn’t all that fun (now that Google Page Creator is out, I can’t as easily use my dismissive "I work on things I can’t tell you about"). I go to parties to get away from work.
Home from the party and back at my place, my roommates wern’t around, so, to pass the time before bed, I assembled my bike stand and put it up on the wall. Outside my window, a car alarm went off.
This, of course, was annoying. So I peeked out the window to see what was going on. A guy was standing outside an expensive-looking car, and apparently there was someone inside. Damn yuppies. The honking alarm was getting annoying, so I grabbed my jacket and went outside.
"Hey, what’s the deal?" I asked. The guy explained the situation: this woman (who he didn’t know) was apparently drunk and upside down, feet on the window, inside her car, and he was trying to get her attention. Scarily, she appeared to have driven herself there.
A friend of hers soon came up and started trying to coax her to give up the keys. The first guy had seen me come out of the house. He was a neighbor, so he introduced himself. Upon further conversation, he made the connection that we both worked at Google. He mentioned what project he worked on, and I mentioned mine.
"Wait, so you’re Nathan, right?"
I was confused, but acknowledged the fact.
"So then you’re Doctor Awesome, right?"
Through coworkers and his being a loyal Doctor Awesome reader (seriously, he is. I referenced a number of my previous posts from months ago and he remembered them), he knew me, despite the fact we had never met. And he knew a lot about me. An eerily large amount.
It turned out, in fact, to be Chris Wetherell of Massless. We ended up talking for about an hour there, on the street, at one in the morning, and got along pretty well. He had just gotten back from a gig.
Randomness. Almost meetingPaulzyesque.
I had gone, earlier in the evening, to a party up in Sausalito in Marin. It was a friend-of-a-friend-type invite, and ended up being a lot of people I didn't know very well. My designated-driver status didn't help me loosen up to them very well (my fabled personal-space bubble collapses with sufficient alcohol consumption). A large number of them were Europeans living in the states, which didn’t at all help my already-existing city-rural cultural divide. I spent most of the party fielding questions about Google from a few people which, really, isn’t all that fun (now that Google Page Creator is out, I can’t as easily use my dismissive "I work on things I can’t tell you about"). I go to parties to get away from work.
Home from the party and back at my place, my roommates wern’t around, so, to pass the time before bed, I assembled my bike stand and put it up on the wall. Outside my window, a car alarm went off.
This, of course, was annoying. So I peeked out the window to see what was going on. A guy was standing outside an expensive-looking car, and apparently there was someone inside. Damn yuppies. The honking alarm was getting annoying, so I grabbed my jacket and went outside.
"Hey, what’s the deal?" I asked. The guy explained the situation: this woman (who he didn’t know) was apparently drunk and upside down, feet on the window, inside her car, and he was trying to get her attention. Scarily, she appeared to have driven herself there.
A friend of hers soon came up and started trying to coax her to give up the keys. The first guy had seen me come out of the house. He was a neighbor, so he introduced himself. Upon further conversation, he made the connection that we both worked at Google. He mentioned what project he worked on, and I mentioned mine.
"Wait, so you’re Nathan, right?"
I was confused, but acknowledged the fact.
"So then you’re Doctor Awesome, right?"
Through coworkers and his being a loyal Doctor Awesome reader (seriously, he is. I referenced a number of my previous posts from months ago and he remembered them), he knew me, despite the fact we had never met. And he knew a lot about me. An eerily large amount.
It turned out, in fact, to be Chris Wetherell of Massless. We ended up talking for about an hour there, on the street, at one in the morning, and got along pretty well. He had just gotten back from a gig.
Randomness. Almost meetingPaulzyesque.
posted at 12:02 PM 
