Just before I moved, Kevin told me that Silicon Valley was going to be Bizarro LA, where more geekiness means more status and the people with suntans and collections of clothing by J. Crew are the social misfits. He must have been right, because my lot in life seems to have reversed. I'm not one of the "smart kids," here, not by a long shot, but I might be turning out to be one of the "cool kids" instead.

Pete's Thursday night poker game is now on Wednesday nights at my house and it is a runaway success, to the point that we have to start being selective about whom to invite because I don't have any more room--about 15 or 20 people showed up last time. A couple of times in the last week, people I had never met came up and said "So you're that Mikey." Including at the airport, where I got a ride home (and two more people for the poker game). The week before that, I got invited to the cool kids' IRC channel and some other cool kids' Mario Kart cabal; these things aren't exactly secret, but they aren't exactly handed out in the new hire packet, either.

Is this what it feels like to be in the In Crowd? Because I wouldn't know.

Many other things to say but none of them very well formed yet .. Work and the making of friends are going well, but that is strictly a cerebral observation, not anything that I can feel in any emotional sense yet. I'm not sure how I feel exactly, I have been in a weird mood for a while which I think is because (among other things) I haven't had anybody to fight with in a long time. I even called Van back yesterday, looking for trouble, but she didn't answer, since she likes to have the advantage of surprise.

This one guy Matt plays poker with the philosophy of "raise or fold," which has been stuck in my head all week because it seems to describe a lot of what I do. You could even say that "raise or fold" is why I am here now. If I figure out what I want to say about that, maybe I'll write about it later.

22 May 2006 02:34 PT - persistent link - trackback - 2 comments