As I've alluded to in other posts, I'm now working at
Cisco Systems doing consulting on their Active Directory
infrastructure.
I'm commuting from
Seattle
on a weekly basis, which is interesting. I
fly down on Monday morning and leave Friday evenings. Alaska Airlines has a 6:25am flight from
Seattle to
San Jose. That means waking up at 4am. The flight is listed at just under hours, but so far,
it’s never taken more than a hour and a half. I’m out of the
San Jose
airport by 8:40am. From there it’s the #10
bus to the Metro light rail station on
First Street. I take the train going north and
transfer to another train going East. My
building at Cisco is #12 and there is a light rail station
about 100 feet from the entrance. This week
I was into the office by 9am.
On Friday's, Alaska used to have near hourly flights
leaving to Seattle, but now has one at 3:15 and the next
one is at 6:55pm. Anthea picks me up shortly after 9pm
and we're home by 10pm. The flights haven't been too bad
so far, but it's crowded on the Friday evening
flights.
I’ve been experimenting with different hotels. This is week #4 and I’m in my fourth different
hotel. The closest one on the map is the
Homestead
Village in
Milpitas. It’s about a mile and half walk, which I
don’t mind if I’m in shorts and a t-shirt. But with jeans, a polo and lugging my computer bag, it’s
not optimal. However, the #33 bus goes by
the hotel every half hour, and then right by building 12 a
few minutes later, so that works out well.
The
Homestead
Village
is okay, and has high-speed internet access via wired and
wireless connections. It’s $10 a day though
via the ARESCOM folks. It works okay, but
you have to re-login each power cycle. The
wireless feature is very nice.
The disadvantage of this particular hotel is that there
is no food nearby. There is a bunch of fast
food a half-mile away, but you have to get there via an
overpass over the 237 interstate. There is a
Borders store there as well, which is nice.
The #33 bus goes by this area too.
This week, I’m in the Comfort Suites on
First Street. This is a recently renovated hotel, and
is small, but nicely appointed. There is a
Denny’s next door. It’s about 5 miles south
of Cisco, but there is a light rail station about 250
yards away. There are a number of cheaper
hotels in this area too, probably without the high speed
internet, but I get that for free from work ;)
I’ll write more about Cisco soon. Having
spent much of my working career at Microsoft in various
roles, I’m adjusting to the cultural difference here. So far, the experience is going very well.