HabiFlat Al

Wanting to put poverty housing on his heart and mind, Flat Al arrived in Americus, Georgia. Home to civil rights era flare-ups, the Pecan Festival, the barbershop where Jimmy Carter gets his hair cut, and Nell. This is his tour of Habitat for Humanity International's Global Village and Discovery Center.It all started with some hypothetical thinking. Al's answer to this question: "It would be lame, and someone should do something about it." Way to think like Millard Fuller, (founder of HFH), Flat Al.Look like the 3rd world yet? Shouldn't. 1 in 6 children in the world's richest countries grows up in a house like this. So what's being done around the world?
"Viva simple, decent and affordable!" Mexico kicks off a tour of houses that are build according to the culture of the region with local materials and homeowner "sweat equity," hours of work that are put in to accompany no- interest mortgage payments for their new homes.
Papua's Got a Brand New House. Here, houses are built on stilts according to local custom. Building this way also helps prevent monsoon rains from wiping out the house.



Next came the Sri Lanka house. Here, Flat Al took a gander at cards that children wrote to Habitat for Humanity thanking the organization for helping rebuild their homes after the tsunami. It was here that Flat Al also established that his body is in fact "Buddhalicious"...
...but he's not Ghana let it go to his head. "I really Haiti poverty housing." Because of the climate, Habitat for Humanity homes in Haiti feature a special type of block that allows air to circulate.
Fresh out of puns, Flat Al takes in the scenery. Consulting with Nell Pittman, Project Coordinator for the Women Build program, Flat Al asserted his love for the ladies and all they do to promote transformational and sustainable development.

Feeling accomplished, Flat Al wipes his brow and reflects on a day advocating on behalf of those in need of decent shelter.

**For more coverage of the Global Village and Discovery Center, check out Stephen Colbert's report for the Daily Show: http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/001593.php

Goodbye SF!

Today is Albert's last day in the Bay Area. He's seen San Francisco. He's seen Mountain View. He's seen Napa. He's been on the bay several times. What hasn't he seen? Oh yeah, Berkeley!

Today I showed Al the building that I'll be spending the next 5 years of my life: Soda Hall

("Study as hard as you like; I'll still be smarter than this entire building of CS grad students and profs combined." --Al)

Then I showed him the great landmark of Berkeley: The Campanile, a nice clock tower that you can hear chime from my apartment.

And that's about all I know about Berkeley. It's ok. Grad students are notorious for not knowing where anything is on campus. But maybe I'll be able to show you more if you come out here to visit *hint, hint, nudge, nudge*

And with that, Flat Al is off to his next adventure!

Albert Tours Erika's Apartment

It's almost time for Al to fly off to his next destination. But wait, he never got a tour of Erika's new apartment! An awesome 3 min. walk from the Computer Science building (that's about 3% of the time it takes to get to Google), Erika's apartment sits on a hill on the nice side of Berkeley's campus. Here's the gorgeous view from the balcony (when it's not foggy you can see the Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge):


The apartment as a whole is equally nice, but right now, many of the rooms are slightly messy (boys....), so you'll only get to see some things (basically the dining room and bedroom)
The dining room:

Note the Roomba on the floor. This self propelled vaccuum cleaner is a modern day miracle...although it did try to run Albert down a few times...

And last but not least, my room:


It's the night before my first day as a graduate student, so I'm off to catch some ZZZzzzz...
(As you can see, Albert already got comfy on my bed.)

Al's Last Week at Google

This week was a sad week for Erika and Albert: It's their last week at Google. Flat Al will miss the fun Authors@Google series (where book authors would come to give a talk) and Presidential Candidate circuit (where all presidential candidates stop and give a talk at Google. We saw Ron Paul talk. Apparently Barrack already came. Sorry, Victoria.). But most of all, Al and Erika will miss all the super cool Googlers they met during the internship. :'(

But it wasn't all tears this week. On Tuesday, Google held it's annual Google Dance!! It was definitely THE BEST event of the summer. There was pool, karaoke, and a dunk tank! Al and Erika scarfed down root beer floats, milkshakes, wine, and then we were off to dance. I can't really describe it, but the music was definitely a gazillion times better than any club or school dance that I've been to. And with the free flowing alcohol, there were fun times to be had. I was wayyyyy past Asian-blushy :)

It was a goood last week.

Jam Packed Week Pt. 2

Then on Thursday, Flat Al had another treat. Vienna Tang, who he saw last week, came to Google to do a performance. So we all ate BBQ while we listened to lovely music outside.

This week has been great, but the best week has yet to come...

Jam Packed Week

In the past couple days, super cool things have happened at Google. On Friday Aug 10th, the author of the PhD Comics, Jorge Cham, gave a talk at Google. If you haven't read his comic, check it out: www.phdcomics.com
It's a web comic about graduate students. It's hilarious...in a sad sort of way. Yeah, that's pretty much what my life will be like for the next 5 years...

Then on Monday, Albert was around when Wyclef Jean came to Google. Wyclef sang some songs, did some free-styling, and even challenged one of the Google employees to a push-up contest. Check these links out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FT7azf8zco
http://www.flickr.com/photos/drusolini/sets/72157601426008557/

The next day (Tuesday), Albert attended the VP's Engineering summer picnic. It was awesome. There was more yummy food, a rock climbing wall, caricature artists, henna tattoo artists (Erika got a pretty flower on her shoulder), and an Iron Man maze (it's like a moon bounce/gauntlet that you race someone in). Oh yeah, and there was Human Foosball. No, it's not the same as soccer. You actually get a harness and are stuck to a bar... :) Super cool.

Then on Wednesday, we had the End of the Summer Intern Boat Cruise. We looped around the Bay, passing the Bay Bridge and going under the Golden Gate bridge.


I hung around up top for a while. (Albert feared for his life so he stayed in my pocket book where it wasn't so windy.)

(Me and my Google host, Nate.)
(Me after I stole Nate's hat :)


Soon it got dark, so I went inside the boat and hit the dance floor.

(Dancing with the Senior Vice President of Engineering at Google, Alan Eustace :D He's sooooo cool.)

Vienna Teng and Barry Bonds... And Albert

Today Albert, Erika, Erika's two roommates Henry and George, and Michael, went to see a free concert in Palo Alto (where Stanford is) given by Vienna Teng. Her music is really good. You should check it out.

(That's her in the far back. She's wayyyy smaller than Albert.)

Coincidently that same day, Erika's host at Google, Nate, went to see the SF Giants vs. San Diego Padres baseball game in the city. If you recall, that's the game that SF player Barry Bonds broke the homerun record. Not only that, Nate was two rows from where the ball landed -- which then proceeded to roll back to his row. Even better, you can see him on almost all clips of the homerun that were aired that night. For a good video, check this out:
www.ithacahasgorges.com . That's him in the red box. Definitely click on the comments and look at some of the videos. You can see his friend getting the beer hit out of her hand and then seeing his other friend getting beer poured on him...Teehee.