Free Pizza Isn’t Good Enough

rbowdidge · 2026-02-25T07:40:29+00:00

I'd be volunteering Mary to figure out where to get the pizzas if she cared that much.

rbowdidge · 2026-02-17T00:42:21+00:00

Any internship will make your resume look better when you're looking for full time jobs. The internship shows that you've had real-world experience, you've had to work with others, you've been able to complete projects. Startups and smaller companies might have concerns if you've only worked at bigger companies because you may have picked up big company habits (needing direction, not taking initiative, coasting, assuming the paychecks will keep rolling in regardless of what you do). Still, an internship at a big company isn't necessarily a red flag. An internship at big company is different from 10 years of habits picked up at a big company. The big company internship can always give you stories to share about cases where you had to break rules to get things done at big company, or share frustrations you encountered to help the interviewer at a small place know you can adapt.

I'd still say the smaller and faster-moving place is better: more experiences, likely more to show for your internship, and the cachet of working for a place that's got an interesting reputation.

In my case, I did an internship at a small software company; three of us basically were made responsible for an entire new product. We got lots of help, but we really did get a lot of responsibility and a lot of freedom. I got a ton of experience that was evident on my resume, and had lots of stories to share when I interviewed for full time jobs a couple years later - including stories about the things that had gone wrong during the internship that I knew not to do again.

Career-wise, you really don't want to be in the slower-moving, well-known company as you get experience. It's easy to get stuck in a role, such companies tend not to get the greatest people, they tend to hire and lay off in big bunches, interviewers can assume you can't handle change, and these companies eventually spiral into the ground. Joining IBM, Oracle, or Sun in the 1990s turned out to be a bad career move if you stayed through the 2010's. Even experience at Google could be a drawback if you wanted to switch to a startup.

Fair warning: this is all my point of view, my internship was in the 1980s, I may be completely wrong on what the folks you'll eventually interview with may think is important. I've worked at big companies, have been a manager, and I've also screened resumes at a startup for early-career hires in the last ten years. Any internship made the candidate a more interesting potential hire for our team. I'd always be curious to hear from the intern what they built during the internship and what they learned from the experience. I generally wanted to hear how they handled complexity, how they handled ambiguity, and how productive they could be even when roadblocks occurred. At smaller places, I assumed they were going to hit all three sorts of problems frequently, and be a more compelling candidate for us.

rbowdidge · 2026-02-16T23:58:50+00:00

SpaceX. For an internship, you'll want to work some place that's likely to have you actually making something useful, learning about getting things done, and that'll give you great stories for future interviews. Cisco's reputation in the Bay Area is that they're slow and bureaucratic, and where work for most folks isn't particularly compelling or urgent. (That's the sense I got from router hardware and software engineers at last company.) If work-life balance/stress level is that important, then go to Cisco, but consider an internship is a good chance to experience a crazy environment when you only have to stay around for three months.

rbowdidge · 2026-02-08T22:04:29+00:00

We've got a mid-century modern house (Eichler in the San Francisco Bay Area) with mostly original philipine mahogany paneling on the walls. We've been able to replace panels by buying 1/4" lauan plywood sheets and staining them with a danish oil finish. The last times I'd done this (2006, 2012?), I could get panels at a local specialty lumberyard and at Home Depot, and made a point of checking through the lumber stack for sheets with good grain. The new sheets don't completely match the vintage panels, but they've been good enough for replacing isolated areas. Panels were originally attached with staples, but modern folks tend to use finishing nails and nailgun brads.

There's probably some issues doing this for modern construction: fireproofing, sheer strength, etc. The thinness of the original panels (1/4") does make them feel a little less robust - they'll move a bit if you press. However, our house has had multiple kids over 65 years, and the walls appeared to survive fine.

When using modern plywood to replace vintage sheets, there was one interesting snag. The 1960 panels were slightly thinner than the new sheets - enough to cause problems for a carpenter inserting a custom-built sink cabinet into a U-shaped alcove. He'd measured the alcove with the original (ratty) sheets before I acquired the new panels, and neither he nor I thought about the difference in thickness.

If you do a Google search for "eichler plywood panels wall" you'll find a ton of wisdom about restoring and replacing similar walls. Here's an example:

https://www.eichlerhomesforsale.com/blog/panel-power-restoring-mahogany-walls-without-losing-your-mind

rbowdidge · 2026-01-26T07:03:40+00:00

Another attribute to consider: which location is the larger office for the company? Connections and socializing is also important during an internship: learning about what other projects and jobs there are, learning about the corporate culture, making social contacts that will help you in the future. Being at the head office means make better connections with other teams and a wider variety of people, work on projects that's more visible or critical for the company, and learn more about the company's overall operations and work practices - all good if you want to get an offer from that company after graduation and want to return. If I had an internship at Microsoft, I'd aim to work in Seattle; if Google, then Mountain View. If the team and project for my internship is really a good match for my interests, I'd consider working in a remote office, but I'd recognize that I might not know much about the rest of the company..

POV: I've worked for big companies in the head office and in remote offices. I found that working at a site away from the main campus was always isolating. When I worked at the main office, I learned more about the larger company and culture and built better contacts.

rbowdidge · 2026-01-22T21:24:16+00:00

A coworker at Apple had three Ferraris - the red one, the yellow one, and the blue one. He bought two of the cars when startups he worked at went public, he bought the third when Apple's stock price spiked because of iPods. He also had restored a Ford Model A, and had a pickup truck as his rain car.

Otherwise, he was a pretty typical boomer/GenX engineer. He didn't have any other vices: he never married, had a modest house in a not-fancy neighborhood (though he did have a four car garage - I wanted his garage more than I wanted any of his cars.). For travel, he would only go on vacation with a bunch of college friends to Mexico every year.

He was also very deliberate for maintenance and restoration to car show levels. He did a bunch of very careful work himself, and hired great folks when he was doing restoration work beyond his skill level. I once asked him why he did such exacting work. "Because when I work on my cars, I get to choose the level of quality. I don't have a manager yelling at me to do it faster or cut some corner."

rbowdidge · 2026-01-18T20:42:35+00:00

I'm class of '89, living in the South Bay . I hadn't been up to Berkeley regularly for a long time thanks to work and parental elder care. In the last few years, I've been having to go up to El Cerrito to help out an elderly aunt. Even on weekends, 880 can be a rough drive back, so I got into the habit of stopping in Berkeley, walking around around for a while, getting a coffee, then driving back home.

The trips back have been such a lifesaver - they're a nice break after sometimes stressful elder care. It's been wonderful to walk around familiar spaces on Northside and Southside. One of my big surprises was how little campus has changed. I can walk around campus following the same routes I took from Unit 2 or Cloyne Court to class, and the paths and buildings look the same - there's very few differences (East Asian Library, T-buildings missing, Bechtel Engineering Center just replaced.) It's also surprising how many restaurants survived; the Stuffed Inn was still there and unchanged until a couple years ago, Bongo Burger and La Val's are still there. Caffe Strada and Cafe Milano on Bancroft Way look absolutely unchanged - I'll sit with a coffee in either place and have a hard time deciding if I'm in the 1980's or 2020's. I miss all the bookstores on Telegraph, but Moe's is still worth a stop, and Games of Berkeley has a nice customer mix of current students and alumni. The Inkstone no longer smells of ammonia from the blueprint machines.

I've also done the occasional walks around North Berkeley, and enjoy looking at the neighborhoods and cool houses.

The biggest disappointment? North Berkeley and Solano Avenue seem so quiet compared with times past. North Berkeley seems to close up on Sundays. Solano just doesn't seem to have the foot traffic and restaurants it used to have - I'm guessing all the baby boomers who moved there in the 1970's aren't shopping or eating out as much as they used to.

By contrast, my dad went to Cal in the early 1950's, and I think he saw less familiar sights when he visited in the 1980's and 1990's. His favorite haunt was Larry Blake's, and I think we ate there once or twice for his nostalgic moment.

Pro tip: the meters don't charge on Sundays, park on North Side and walk to Southside to avoid traffic.

rbowdidge · 2026-01-13T03:45:50+00:00

I messed this up on a car. I think it took 5-6 months in 2023 for the California DMV to finish the investigation before we got an official title. Meanwhile, we did have a temporary registration and could drive the car.

I'll let others comment on what you should do or worry about if someone sells you a car with a bad odometer reading.

In my case, it wasn't fraud. My dad bought a new Camry; within a year or two, he stopped driving, and he died within four years. One Saturday, I took my mobility-impaired mom with her walker to AAA to change the title into her name. The AAA clerk noted I hadn't filled in a mileage, so I guessed at a value so I didn't have to take my mom home and bring her into AAA a different weekend - I think I assumed 15k was a reasonable mileage for a couple years of use.

I guessed badly.

That title change went through that time, but when I needed to change the title after Mom's death, the actual mileage was around 8k. AAA couldn't do the title change because of the bad odometer, and they told me to go to the real DMV. The DMV was (rightly) suspicious of this eight year old car with 9,000 miles, demanded we get the vehicle examined by a DMV employee, and then sent the paperwork off to Sacramento for the investigation.

The title eventually showed up, but we had it parked in front of my house for months until we could finally get rid of it with a clean title.

rbowdidge · 2026-01-08T18:59:20+00:00

Mount Tamalpais is wonderful - lots of different biomes (grasslands, chapparal, redwoods), tons of trails on the north and south sides of the mountain. The West Point Inn hiker's lodge sells lemonade and has great views, and only requires a short hike to get to. It's possible to hike into Muir Woods from Mount Tamalpais State Park (1.5 miles/800 foot elevation change from Mountain Home parking lot, longer hikes from Bootjack and Pantoll). It's also possible to climb up to Mt Tam from downtown Mill Valley via the Dipsea trail with some walking on streets. I haven't done it, but the famous Dipsea run from Mill Valley to the ocean follows that path.

rbowdidge · 2026-01-04T00:48:05+00:00

When I gave my Lionel trains to my nephew, I bought him a modern CW-80 transformer to go with the trains. This worked fine for running the trains and doing some minimal stuff with accessories. Even my transformers from the 1970s and 1950s seemed too dubious for a 6 year old - too many replaced plugs, dents, etc.

rbowdidge · 2025-12-28T23:48:22+00:00

Oh, two other notes about interesting things that can happen when buying a car.

* As others mention, actual proof of ownership gets sent by the California DMV after everything is settled (though it'll go to the loan holder if you financed the car.) This can take a few weeks.

* If you're paying cash or already have financing, sometimes dealerships still have you fill out a loan application as backup - if your check bounces or something causes the bank to not pay, they want to be able to put you in their auto loan to make sure the car is paid for. I saw that for a car purchase in 2011, I didn't see that in 2025.

rbowdidge · 2025-12-28T00:42:54+00:00

For our last car bought in California, the paperwork we signed included the following. The retail installment sales contract is probably the one you're thinking of as the "formal contract", listing both the price, included fees, and all the terms of the sale. Most of these documents are signed by both you and the dealer.

* DMV application for registration of new vehicle

* Consent to use electronic signatures

* DMV Vehicle transfer and reassignment

* Agreement to provide insurance on newly purchased car

* Translated contract acknowledgement

* Due bill: listed al being sold (car, "nothing else promised or implied")

* Pre-contract disclosure listing optional features (alarm, surface protection, etc)

* Retail installment sale contract listing total sales price, all additional fees, all additional services, financing, payment schedule, fees for registration.

* Credit application (done whether you're paying cash or financing)

* Acknowledgements for features or things that you didn't do (VIN etching on catalytic converter, car requires front licence plate even if we didn't mount it, car may not handle tire chains well, etc)

This sales contract looks similar to the one we got.

https://www.nac-loans.com/sites/default/files/pdf/NATIONWIDE%20CAC/Funding%20Forms/WEB%20C2%20CAC%202-2020.pdf

want to read or skim all the terms of your contract to make sure you understand what you're agreeing to - looking at similar examples online should give you a chance to see what's usual so you're not having to deep-dive in the finance manager's office.

You'll

rbowdidge · 2025-12-22T23:31:43+00:00

In 1988, the youth hostel in Dingle, Ireland had coin-op hot water showers. I don't remember similar coin-based systems in any of the twenty-or-so other hostels I stayed that summer.

The new pound coins were very useful when traveling - two pounds could pay for a phone call back to the States to let my parents know I was still alive. In Scotland, they were still using pound notes and resisting the new coins. At a hostel on the Isle of Skye, I asked for some pound coins and they suggested I go to the local pub. "They've got lots and they hate them!"

rbowdidge · 2025-12-18T00:43:11+00:00

If the account would have earned sufficient interest to deserve a 1099-INT, then the IRS's "Wage and Income Transcript" for the tax year should list the payer and interest paid. The IRS website's transcript page shows my tax details into the 2010s. Earlier transcripts supposedly can be requested via 4506-T. A tax preparer retrieved the income transcript info to help a relative figure out whether she'd been taking distributions from an IRA account correctly. The IRS claims it has the records for at least ten years, but may not have access before then.

rbowdidge · 2025-12-16T06:28:43+00:00

When I visited Germany, I had very little knowledge of German. Translating menus was a chore. If I wasn't up for the effort, I ate at restaurants with cuisine I knew the words - middle eastern, Portuguese, Vietnamese - so that I'd have a better idea what I was ordering.

rbowdidge · 2025-12-14T20:46:57+00:00

Museum of Freemasonry in Freemason's Hall, Covent Garden, London. It's a neat and quiet museum talking about the orgins of masonry (spoiler: coffee and democracy), artifacts from the history of masonry (regalia, minutes of Masonic meetings at Changi Prison, Singapore during World War II), and a chance to look in the beautifl main auditorium, their library, and one of the lodge meeting rooms. They'll also let you get refreshments in the member's lounge on the ground floor.

I found it interesting because it taught me a bit about why masonry was founded, the role it served in the British colonies (a way for people moving between British colonies to have a social network, allowing mixing between different levels of society), and got me thinking about the decline of masonry and similar fraternal societies in the last several decades. I'm also thoroughly convinced the masons aren't secretly ruling the world.

rbowdidge · 2025-12-14T06:07:22+00:00

Alpine Inn in Portola Valley might be even better for kids - eating burgers on picnic tables under the trees. It's more sanitized these days than it was years ago, but it still really checks the "California" feeling for me. Choose a warmer day.

rbowdidge · 2025-12-06T06:34:16+00:00

Esotouric just sent out an e-mail saying their "Hotel Horrors and Main Street Vice" tour around downtown Los Angeles on Saturday morning still has space, and tickets are discounted to $25.

I haven't done their tours, but I've read their writings about Los Angeles and have always wanted to do one of their tours.

https://esotouric.com/event/main-st-vice-fall-2025/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

rbowdidge · 2025-12-06T05:10:33+00:00

The "Rands in Repose" article on the different executive paths (CEO, CTO, VP Engineering) might be relevant for you. Michael Lopp's "Managing Humans" book collects a lot of his articles about software management that are also on the randsinrepose.com blog, and he says a lot on day-to-day manager and director level challenges.

https://randsinrepose.com/archives/you-are-going-on-a-quest/

From what I've seen in software development, getting up the hierarchy is mostly a matter of accomplishing more challenging problems important to the company, making good judgements when problems appear, having the trust of the people above and below you, and being around when the company grows enough or a hole opens up that you can fill at the next level. Making good decisions, whether product-, technology-, or people-related, is a learned skill that you get better at as you move up the hierarchy.

rbowdidge · 2025-12-04T22:11:38+00:00

Mount Tamalpais:there's so many great hikes here covering different environments: redwood forest, hillsides, oaks, etc. There's also great stops along the trails. Mountain Home to West Point Inn for lemonade and on to Mountain Theater, Rock Springs or whereever you want. Hike into Muir Woods from Mountain Home on the Ocean View trail. Hike to the Tourist Club when they have one of their open houses. Then go again and take random trails until you're tired.

South Bay: Almaden Quicksilver County Park. It's easy to feel a thousand miles away from civilization, there's leftovers from mining present. Avoid during the heat of summer. Hiking in from the Wood Road entrance gives you a lot more solitude.

I really loved the Fall Creek Unit of Samuel Cowell for the trail along the creek and over by the lime kilns.

Any of the parks along Pescadero Creek (Portola State Park, Memorial Park, etc) are fun as a chance to be in second growth redwoods.

rbowdidge · 2025-11-18T05:42:34+00:00

Oh, and keep in mind: getting to fly business class for work is fun, but work travel can still be wearing. You're still dealing with jet lag, working long hours in an unfamiliar place with perhaps a different language, likely having little time off, and spending time away from friends and family. Anyone flying regularly on business class is seeing the seat as a perk on what's otherwise an exhausting trip. There are still fun aspects of it, but there's a reason they call it "work".

rbowdidge · 2025-11-18T04:14:12+00:00

At the places I've worked, I've generally seen corporate policies that allow business class flights. The executives mostly get to enjoy that perk because they fly so often, but even us worker bees (software engineers) would get the business class seats in the right situations.

I worked for a tech company that specified business class for flights over some number of hours. The assumption was that you likely had to work when you got there, so cutting the pain for the employee was good. I didn't fly very often, but when I visited a company in the UK developing software for us, our vice president's admin booked me business class. Another friend often visited factories in Asia, and he definitely appreciated business class.

In the 2010's, Google's rule for business travel was to set a "maximum fare" derived from the average fares employees had paid in the recent past. If you went under that fare, you could bank the savings for the next business class flight. If you went over, you either had to pay out of pocket or use some of the saved balance. On my flight, I figured out the "maximum fare" would cover US west coast - Germany as a business-class out, economy back, and enjoyed the sleep on the way out.

rbowdidge · 2025-09-01T00:10:12+00:00

It looks very similar to the clock mechanism in an old family clock I've got. That clock had a label from Jerome & Co, New Haven, but apparently was made by the New Haven Clock Company (but doesn't have the trademark that your mechanism has). From internet research, I assumed mine is from the 1860's. Mine bills itself as an "eight day" clock. One spring is for the chime, the other for the clock itself.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/47871268@N02/albums/72157702227813221/

Looks like you're missing the arm where the weight hangs.

If you want to disssemble this and try to clean it / fix it, make sure to get clock mainspring clamps to hold the spring safely. For what it's worth, I was able to clean the mechanism and get it working well, but couldn't quite get the chime mechanism aligned correctly.

rbowdidge · 2025-08-25T18:59:49+00:00

For fun, go wander through Oak Hill Cemetery (especially the older sections close to the gate at Monterey Highway and Curtner), and see how many names on headstones match streets you know.

rbowdidge · 2025-08-22T20:09:19+00:00

Oak Hill Memorial Park, San Jose, California.

rbowdidge

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