So, I went to the gym this morning and signed up, all shiny and proper. Signing up just involved a blood pressure and heart rate test, to make sure I wasn’t about to die on them, and a tour of the facility. It’s pretty nice – a whole range of equipment, and a whole variety of free classes you can just turn up to as you please. I’m not sure if I’ll be jumping straight into Jazzercise or Power Yoga, but there’s a few things there that interest me.
Of course, now it’s a matter of finding time to go regularly. I don’t know if I’ll be suddenly becoming a great 6am morning person… I think it might be an after work affair. We shall see. There’s apparently always at least half a dozen people there, so I can’t escape them, but I guess I’ll overcome my embarrassment.
Work was good today. It was a bit short, with all the gym stuff, the iTMS brown bag lunch (just a sec), and then going off to the ice hockey game (just a minute).
So, the brown bag lunch… I guess I probably can’t say much at all about it, since they were reasonably candid about everything, but it was a cool insight into how the iTunes Music Store operates behind the scenes. Not so much the technical stuff, but the client and customer relations, and a look at some of the policies and the reasons behind them. Very interesting.
Then there was actual lunch, where, yes indeed, we sat only a few short metres from the great Steve himself, along with Ive. Those two seem just about inseparable. :) In a way I’m tempted to just up and introduce myself, since everyone else holds him in such comical reverence, but at the same time, regardless of the brazenness, I’m sure he doesn’t especially want people hassling him over his lunch, regardless. So, I won’t. But not because I’m afraid. :P
Anyway, ice hockey. Nothing as entertaining as watching grown men hit each other with big sticks, at high speed. :D
Well, it started off a bit slow, but I was being optimistic, so I held through… I had a bit of a light headache from hunger, which wasn’t helped by the $6AU “Jumbo Hotdog” which was about six inches long, if that. It came wrapped up in foil, and looked like a very anorexic baked potato. It was okay tasting, sure, but it was barely a mid-day appetiser, let alone a meal. Very sad affair, that.
But anyway, the game was fun. As with all contact sports, it become most interesting in the last ten minutes, when both teams started to get a bit tired, a bit cranky, and the tempers started to strain. Still, it was a [relatively] clean game, although I did feel sorry for the away team, the Panthers (from somewhere in Florida), who had all of about twenty supporters in the crowd. They put up a pretty good fight right from the start – they really dominated the puck for a large portion of the game, but just never had any luck scoring… the Sharks (the local team) had very good defense.
And of course it was a good way to meet a few more faces at Apple – other interns, predominantly. While I’ve met a lot of people here in the past two weeks, they’re all work people for the moment; once I leave the office, it’s back home with Brett & Ashley, to sit here each on our Powerbooks and do our things. Of course, as I’ve noted previously there simply is no night life here… although I did notice a few social places open in San Jose while we were there, so I think I’ll definitely investigate how easy or hard the ride down there is. It seems like that’s at least as far as we’ll have to go for a bit of entertainment.
Anyway, bed time now… I’ve got a lot of work tomorrow that I’m really looking forward to, and I want to get a lot of it done, so – like the night before christmas – the sooner I get to sleep the sooner it arrives. :)
As a side note, I know I haven’t been in contact with a lot of people nearly as much as they or I would like – I’m limited by the time difference in so far as when I can phone people, and too many of my friends aren’t online regularly enough… but I’ll get around to everyone as soon as I can. I’ll sort out one way or another what the deal is with phoning mobiles, which would make things much easier. Indeed, that’s the only way I’ll be able to talk with Sket, since she’s off at Hamilton Island at the moment.
I miss people, but at the same time, I’m really enjoying it here, so I’m not really getting homesick or anything. There’s still more than enough for me to do to keep myself busy. After christmas should be a little quieter, and of course I’m told homesickness really kicks in after about two months, so, we’ll see..
