The place to go when you're fed up with USA

Well, i've been in this city for now almost a month, thus i think the time has come for me to make a small presentation of it. So, San Francisco is a little conglomeration of a million and a half inhabitants, and the dominant city of the Bay Area. A city certainly much varied, since even if each community lives in a separate neighborhood, the borders are permeable and the sidewalks are colored. With its 200,000 Chinese, and its 100,000 Latinos (and i don't talk about the gays, for whom i have no valuation), it seems to be the shelter of all the minorities which are fed up with the "Far West" spirit of the USA. A heritage following it for a long time, amongs others, the 60s. A place where each one can hope to display his differences, and live like anybody while looking like nobody. But don't imagine things, San Francisco is not easy to live everyday. First, most of the time, in the morning and the evening it looks like that :


Lots of fog coming from the bay and the Pacific ocean. So to speak, weather's not nice when fog is there, and you're wet just by walking through this suspended humidity. But these days weather is kind and is offering us sunny week ends. Nevertheless, no matter the day, there is invariably a wind that would blow a cow away !
Another thing you've got to get used to here is this :

Hills, hills, and hills again (did i tell you about the hills ?) You feel like puking each time you take a cab, so imagine when you've to get back by feet. And the worst is that i live on the top of one of these. Not surprising that i'm exhausted each time i come back from work.
But complain is over, now let's talk about this house where i live. That's the home of a lovely family, who's putting me up while i'm in SF, and will go by Sam & Jane afterwards. This couple have three sons, and all of them left the house in order to study in each corner of the USA. So much room ! Indeed, the house is pretty big. So life's cool with me these times, and we can't say that i met the average american couple. He's psychiatrist, she's photographer, and it's harder for me to follow their conversation than the one of a lambda guy in the street. All of this to say that i could have met a thousand times worst, and thus i thank by the way my aunt Colette to have such nice friends.
Apart from that, what's up in California ?? Today, third and last training session on Netsuite. I trully think this consultant was a good investment because she permitted us to focus on issues we might not have been able to see on our own. I'm not saying that i became an expert, but now the implementation should go pretty much faster. Anyway, i have no choice, since we fly to Nicaragua on satursay, where the volunteers are waiting for me to transmit them my brand new knowledge (i don't know if they're really waiting for me, but anyway this is why i'm going there).
Otherwise, big victory for the SF Giants on friday, night 3 to nothing, in spite of a slow game with no hit at all before the 5th inning. However, that was a interesting game and a pretty cool night with the usual crew of Craig's friends. By the way, the Giants' ballpark is really impressive !

Netsuite meeting, 1st one

Gasp ! What a busy day today... Metting from 8am to 5pm with some consultant who blueEnergy pays a small fortune to show us the way to an efficient implementation of Netsuite.
That was trully exhausting but now i've got some concrete stuff on what and how.
This is when real work begins !
But tomorrow morning i stay in my bed because we're reiterating on monday and tuesday...I try to avoid thinkin about it, but actually it could be worst since we have an emperor's meeting room, with big flat screen and swinging chairs. And Lorelei's cupcakes to bring some happiness :)
I'll just need much more rest during the week end and much more coffee during next week.

Brief introduction of the office

Today i'm gonna introduce you my work place : the suite 200, 1360 Mission Street. A set of little offices, box style, only used by non-profit organizations. Associations of dancers, tailors, architects, most of them are artists and thus don't have a fixed schedule.
The walls between each box don't reach the ceiling, leading to a big lack of privacy : we ear everything, from the phone call in the box on the right to the coughing guy's death throes on the left.
You can see underneath a bad photomontage, which is certainly very ugly, but shows you our workspace.
I'm using myself the brand new Ikea desk in the center of the picture. The box is about 15 feet long by 10 feet wide, and contains from 1 (me) to 3 people (me + Mathias + Rachael). Rachael is Mathias' executive assistant, she's doing a half time job and what i understood is that she's in charge of relieving Mathias of some administrative work.
Besides, we potentially have another guy who'll come in the few next days, Yaniv, a new volunteer from Stanford university. We then would be four people in the office, what should be very funny.
Well now that i've talked about work, i can show you some pictures of what i did yesterday afternoon. That was in Golden Gate Park, and what was supposed to be a concert was rather an artistic gathering. At the beginning there was like ten drummers, then about fifty musicians came during all the afternoon. In a complete freedom, each one was able to join with his instrument. There was, following my personal valuation, more than 100,000 people gathered for the event. Thus i've been able to discover a new face of San Francisco which you don't meet downtown.









Otherwise, here are some pictures from the Toga Party i told you about. I know we look ridiculous, but at least EVERYBODY looked ridiculous :)

Sunny traffic jam

Yesterday Mathias' great return, who picked me up at the office, cape on the airport, in order to get some blades shiped right from Nicaragua. It's not easy in the United States to grab a crate coming from a foreign country, above all when this country is Nicaragua (Don't you worry, this is just some AK-47 from the revolution...).
Arrived at the warehouse, we realized that there was a mistake on the check order : "Foreign Air" instead of "Forward Air". That stresses Mathias out who was already thinking about the return to San Francisco. But before it mays cause any issue, the lady who received us tells that we need to go to the us customs in order to make some paper signed, and gives us directions to go there. We painfully arrived to the customs building, and just for :
-Hi, we want to recover a crate come from Nicaragua.
-What's in it ?
-Pieces of wood.
-Ok (signing the paper).Good Bye.
Well...Back to the warehouse thus, and stress about the check comes back too. Would be too bad to do a round trip just for four letters. But the lady doesn't seem to pay attention, fulfills the paperwork, and tells us to wait outside, which we hurry to do. Once the crates grabbed, we try to fasten them securely on the car, waiting for the woman to run out of the building, holding the check, at anytime. "Is that keeping ? Ok, let's get the f*** out of here !"
Cape on Berkeley's College at Richmond, where blueEnergy owns a workshop. But this is the time when things go hard. Indeed, after all these adventures, it is already 3pm, and traffic increases on the freeway...til we get stuck. An hour to make the few miles to the workshop. Sun's heating, and gas' getting into the car by the open trunk...In short, we arrive at last on the wonderful college's territory where i visit the workshop which is much bigger than Bluefields one. Too bad there's nobody to work in it. We set down the crates, and go back to Berkeley where we stop at a friend of Mathias', Christian,who seems like doing pretty much for blueEnergy. Exchange of a few words around a beer, then return to San Francisco, because it's already 5:30. Ahhhhhh it's moving faster this way. So many adventures just for those two crates, it took us all the afternoon. Then we stayed half an hour at the office, til Mathias has been yelled by his wife who wanted to see him at house RIGHT NOW ! It looks hard to be married.
In short, a really busy day even if we have not been doing so many things :)

When luxury calls you

Monday happened some important presentation at the Four Seasons hotel of San Francisco. It was organized by both SalesForce.com and Google, in order to announce the melting of their applications. Thus now for instance you can send a message using Gmail from SalesForce, and conversely, when you modify your schedule under Google Calendar, it's automatically updated on SalesForce. Many new features which have no interest for the most of you guys, me neither ;)
I was there because Mathias asked it to me, but actually it was really cool. A wonderful meal, made by some chef, for free in a luxury hotel, a meeting with GoogleMan, but above all for the very first time in my life, a real badge with my name written on it. It makes me proud, and feel a VIP soul growing in me.

Reggae night !

That was thursday night, at Ashkenaz, Berkeley. A pretty good show animated by some reggae great, the famous Don carlos. Enchanting voice, crowded place, and lots of Red Stripe (a Jamaican lager), how can you ask for more ? All of this with colleagues : Mathias (who's rather a boss than a colleague), Lorelei (Mathias' wife, who's definitely not a colleague) and Rachael (i've not introduced her yet, but i'll do in another post). Actually, she's the only one who can claim to be a colleague, but do a trainee have colleagues ? Anyway, that was a great show.
I already hear jealous people yellin' : "this guy is in the US in order to work, and he's just telling us about his parties !" Be patient... I just can write a single post per day (which is pretty honorable i think) because i must translate it from french into english... So that was the event of the last day. Next time i'll talk about the place where i work and the people i'm working with (this is going to be fast). Perhaps even i'll tell you about what exactly i'm working on for interested people (only if i've the time). But right now is week-end so this is probably for monday ;)
I'll also tell you about the party Mathias wants me to go tonight : toga Party ! (where everybody come dressed up in a sheet, roman style...These americans have some weird ideas, but anyway this may be fun)

Arrival in San Francisco

Let me introduce myself in a nutshell : Philibert Maniez, 18 years old, completing a 2-year full course degree in IT. In order to get my diploma, i'm doing a internship at blueEnergy for the next three months, and as the title tells it, i am with Mathias in his San Francisco's office.
I arrived in this lovely city a couple of days ago, and it's not been easy. Indeed, american customs kept me like half an hour in their place of Chicago's airport, just long enough to make me miss my flight to SF. Everything just for "Here's your passport and your beautiful stamp. Have a nice day !". So my journey took 4 hours more than expected, and i arrived at 12:30 am local time in SF, where Mathias was waiting for me desperately. But as the teacher in charge of me during my internship well said, "Missing planes is part of fun".