Saket Vora

Well, by now I’m sure you all have seen what I’ve been working on this summer — the new iPods!

Specifically the iPod Nano.  Hope you guys like it. On launch day (this past Tuesday) the team went over to a nearby building with a large atrium. Our team sat together, and they all turned their heads at me when Steve Jobs walked over to his desk to start the Nano live demo. All I could think as I watched was put it down, put it down, put it down. Finally Steve put the Nano down and I let out a deep breath.

The hardware team went out to lunch afterward then headed up to Burlingame for an afternoon of go-karting.

This speedway is definitely geared towards adults — we weren’t the only company team there. We had a huge group — the whole hardware team and a lot of the firmware and engineering program managers. We were so big that we had to run in four different heats, and then later the top finishers of each heat got to do a time trial race. This would be a good time to mention the new iPod hardware intern – Dustin from Waterloo. I’ve been helping him get up to speed, and he’s pretty lucky to start this week of all weeks. He placed 2nd in our heat, right behind Joseph. Jose, who worked on the new Touch, absolutely blew everyone away both in his heat and all the rest. There’s a nice hairpin turn in front of the lounge window, and for all twenty laps Jose executed that turn perfectly. Everyone in the lounge marveled at it.

I’m proud to say that the hardware team took the top 4 positions in the champions round, Dustin took 1st with Jose only 0.01 behind him (Cavic-style, no?) Joseph drove us back to Cupertino and we promptly headed to the iPod beer bash held at Mariani (there would be a company wide iPod beer bash on Friday). Yeah, it was a good day.

New roommates! Charles arrived last weekend from George Washington University with his brother to help out. After two years at the Department of Justice, Charles is doing a three year program in International Policy Studies with a focus in international security and cooperation. Big Obama supporter and follows politics — I’m happy he’s here. The other roommate got in today, Anson from Princeton. He’s in applied physics and spent ten weeks this summer over at CERN supporting the ATLAS experiment for the LHC (yay acronyms). Exciting times for his field! He might be doing particle or astro physics here at Stanford.

The bike shop is full up till October, so my bike tuneup will  have to wait. Last day of work will be Monday, I’ll be sad to leave. And after much too long, I’ll get to see Mom and Dad and Sachi come Tuesday morning.