Journey to Red Sox Nation

Sunday through Tuesday I took a trip to Boston to interview with the Lotus division of IBM Software Group . The flight to Boston (via Detroit) was uneventful. Upon arrival, I headed to Hertz to pick up my rental car. The girl behind the counter was about my age, and I started talking to her about the Red Sox (down 0-3 to the Yankees at this point). She called for my car, and I ended up getting an orange Ford Mustang convertible . That's probably the car I was scheduled for all along, but I like to think that I got it because she dug me.

I drove to my hotel in Westford, about 45 minutes from Boston, where Lotus is actually located. I was hungry, but I figured that something would be open in Westford, so I didn't stop to eat on the way. Well, it turns out that Westford actually isn't very big, and nothing was open at midnight except for the gas station. I got a hot dog and some chips at the gas station, and was treated to an adept display of profanity by the guy checking out in front of me, as he explained the plight of the Red Sox. (Something about f'ing Manny Ramirez and Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui). Back at the hotel, I ate my food and saw the Red Sox win game 4.

Monday morning I had my interview at Lotus 's offices, which were only a couple of miles from the hotel. Spent about an hour interviewing with 2 developers, had lunch with a bunch of people on the team, and then talked with the hiring manager for about an hour. The building I was in was interesting; not your standard IBM cube farm. That's because it was formerly the home of Iris . However, the manager informed me that I would be working in the building next door should I receive and accept and offer, so asked for a tour of it. Unfortunately, it was a standard IBM cube farm. Sigh...

After the visit ended, I headed back to my hotel. I wanted to visit downtown Boston, and was hoping to meet up with Sean , one of my teammates from Extreme Blue this summer. I wanted to look up some things online, so I broke down and paid the hotel's $10 charge for 24 hours of broadband. Sean was on Skype , so I hit him up, and he said he'd give me a tour of MIT, and then we could go somewhere for dinner.

I drove into Boston and picked up the T (subway). After meeting Sean at the Kendall/MIT stop on the Red Line, he showed me the MIT Media Lab , the brand new Stata Center (home of CSAIL ), and Simmons Hall (a dorm with unusual architecture), as well as some of the bigger lecture halls and the main building (home of the dome ), with its " infinite corridor ". (See this for a brief account of some of the stuff I saw in the Stata Center.)

After the tour, we went to eat at Legal Seafoods in the Prudential Tower. Game 5 of the Red Sox vs. Yankees was on, and periodically the people near the bar (where there were some TVs) would erupt with cheers, and the wait staff would have to find out what happened and report back to the rest of the customers. The food was good, and Sean and I had a good conversation.

We headed back to Sean's fraternity house, which is only about a mile from Fenway Park. We watched the conclusion of the game on their HD projection TV. When the Red Sox won, the whole city erupted and people ran out into the streets to cheer. The frat house has a deck on the roof, so we went up there and watched everyone act like fools. We could hear the roar coming from Fenway Park. I headed back to the subway, crammed myself into a crowded car, and made it back to Westford.

I didn't have a whole lot of time on Tuesday before my flight, so I decided to head to Lowell, MA, which is the largest town near Westford, and was mentioned by IBMers as a possible place to live. It seemed like a pretty nice town. I drove through and around it, then I parked downtown and walked around for a bit. I ducked into a deli to grab lunch, and had the best corned beef sandwich ever. After that, I hopped back into my car and booked it to Logan . Upon the conclusion of my role in the security theatre at the airport, I flew back to Cleveland.