Amy heading out of town for a few days

She’s off to Phoenix with one of her friends from Indiana to spend a couple of days in the sun getting some R&R. Leaves me with the boys for three unsupervised days, which I predict will mean lots of donuts, pizza, late nights, video games, hiking, and general not-cleaning-up-what-we-should-be-cleaning-up.

My first month at Microsoft

So it’s been a month since I started at the Big M. What has it been like?

I started Microsoft not even know what my group would be. There was a reorg between the time I accepted the offer and the time I started, my would-be manager moved to a different team, and I met with another manager and determined their group didn’t really match my interests. Yeah, that’s right, they actually considered what I wanted to do to determine what team I should be a part of. Novel concept.

So I ended up on the Live Product Search team, and I’m a Senior Program Manager in charge of Quality, which is a huge challenge given where Microsoft is in the search space vs. Google, Yahoo, and even Amazon from a commerce perspective.

The first day and a half was consumed by broad “New Employee Orientation,” attended by 130+ new Microsoft employees that started that same day. They did have a number of things down pat, like getting your security badge and getting all your docs signed. Not a bad day and a half, but also didn’t really learn much new, at least for spending 12 hours in a meeting room.

As for the job, so far I like my team, I like my role, and I really like the overall organization I’m part of. Co-workers have such great initiative that they initiate work on things before they are even fully defined, something I will have to get used to. They also do a great job with software architecture, so their productivity is much better than I am used to.

There are a lot of program managers at Microsoft, which means lots of meetings with lots and lots of people in the room. A little daunting, quite frankly, given there are so many people that need to be kept in the loop.

Given that I’m on the product search side of the business, they have a healthy respect for Amazon, which has helped me build credibility quickly. I also like that I

On the down side, they are not as data driven as I would like, nor do they have attention to detail and follow through when it comes to online products. This is a big deal. When you ship Office or Windows, you can have bugs, inefficient experiences, etc, and you don’t lose customers. When you offer bugs or inefficient experiences in online search (or news or maps or content or whatever), the competition is a click away and they leave. Big difference, and it takes a big change in mindset. Microsoft pioneered the “V1.0″ mentality – get something out the door, fix it later. That doesn’t work in the online space, and my job is to convince them of that and get them to execute differently. Quite the challenge, wouldn’t you say?

And I haven’t even talked about benefits yet. Imagine choosing a health coverage plan, 100% coverage for everything, no co-pay, etc, and they PAY you $30 a month to boot. That’s right, you can pick a health plan and make money. Suffice it to say it really is true that Microsoft has the best bennies in the world, including their 401k matching and their discounted stock purchase plan.

I’ve spent almost every day at the Pro Club, the amazing fitness club in Bellevue that Microsoft provides membership for. Even saw Steve Ballmer in there one morning. And a former colleague from Amazon and I are playing racquetball weekly. One of these days I might beat him.

Microsoft is definitely a late starter, late leaver mentality. I’m usually there by 7:30am, and only one car in the parking garage beats me. By 9am a few people show up, but if you call a 9am meeting you’ll be lucky if half the people are there by 9:30. Flip side is everyone works to 6-7pm, which is too late for me to be in the office usually. So will have to figure out how to be efficient as a program manager when my schedule is counter to so many.

I also have a team in Beijing, and man they are talented. Proactive too. Now to figure out how to work with a team 15 hours ahead.

That’s the other weird thing. At Amazon and Whirlpool, I was always fighting to figure out a way to get resources. At Microsoft, they keep falling in my lap. Maybe its perspective, but it seems like every other day I’m having a meeting with someone who is willing to help me out, take something off my plate and ownership of it, etc. Definitely a 180 from Amazon

Related to that, they really work hard to make sure that their “highly paid professionals” have support staff to help with the mundane. There’s a real understanding that you pay knowledge a lot of money for their knowledge, not their ability to figure out how to create requests to get a white board added to their office. It’s in the culture here as I’ve heard negative references to “people who make six figures” doing something not cost-effective.

And finally, I really like the people at Microsoft. That I suspected, having known so many people that work there, but nice to see it play out. They’re professional, respectful, smart, and have a real drive to get things done.

In short, so far so good. I think I’m going to like it. And I think I made a good move. Then again, ask me in three years

Holy Cow, a new concoction

Invented by Garrett. Peanut Butter and Mustard. He really ate it. Wow.

But dipping potato chips in mustard is gross. Go figure.

One last Father’s Day Pic

Were out and about running errands this evening and ended up having dinner at Red Robin in Bellevue. Amy snapped a nice pic of me and the boys.

So I got through GTA IV

After a little over a month, and spending too much time on the XBox 360, I made it through the final mission in GTA IV. Best single person game I’ve ever played, surpassing my previous favorite, Goldeneye on the old Nintendo 64 (wow that is like 10 years ago).

Strangely enough the game reports that I only complete 70% of the missions. Not sure if I missed something along the way, or by not doing all the taxi missions for Roman I missed out on some characters, but this was a great game.

I liked the twists where you had to make choices that affect your destiny. Evil mission one or evil mission two, which is it? Pick your poison.

Some things I never accomplished but wanted to:

1. Blow up 10 cars within 10 seconds. Came close a couple of times, but never quite accomplished this even though I tried my damnedest.
2. Fly under all the bridges with the helicopter. Didn’t spend as much time in the helicopter as I would have liked. And when I did I ended up in the drink.
3. Get six stars. Got four stars a couple of times. And got to five stars once but the cops took me out.
4. Complete all the races. At least I don’t think I did. I can no longer get races from Brucie. That was the best part of the game, IMHO.

Plot was great, and the Liberty City graphics, and performance of them, were amazing. Truly a major accomplishment in the history of gaming. Oblivion had just as complete of a world, and just as good of graphics, but they didn’t have to pull off the scrolling and reloading at the speed of GTA IV.

A couple things I would have liked to see:

1. More dialogue with more characters, a la Oblivion.
2. Ability to save game more often. Having to wait until the end of a mission is just not cool. I can understand not saving in the middle of a shootout or chase, but to not be able to save while I’m strolling the streets makes no sense.
3. Ability to have more than one game saved! I wanted to start over, but to do so will erase my existing game. Not cool.

Kudos to Rockstar for such a great overall game. Now to get more of our friends on it so we can play that Friday nights instead of CoD4.

Another Lake Chelan Animoto

Different music

Lake Chelan Animoto Video

Took me a while to create this, but here’s my first pass.

Something you won’t see in the MSM…

Three terrorists convicted in Toledo, Ohio.

Maybe the terrorists should be training in Oregon. Would probably get away with it there. Or just wait until Obama is President.

Father’s Day Hike 2008

We went with our neighbor’s family yesterday on our annual Family Father’s Day Hike, or Father’s Day Family Hike, or whatever. We chose the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River trail as our destination this year, which turned out being an excellent family-friendly hike on the first nice day in June (we’ve been having 40-50 degree weather with rain for the first two weeks of June). We had a good time with all, nobody got hurt, and enjoyed a nice leisurely lunch by one of the many streams a couple miles into the trail.

The kids decided to climb on my car before heading out.

John Coleman’s (founder of TWC) latest transcript on global warming

John Coleman has debunked the global warming myth from day one. Here’s his latest, a transcript from his talk in front of the San Diego Chamber of Commerce.

I think a single quote summarizes what is at stake (emphasis mine):

I think stamping out the global warming scam is vital to saving our wonderful way of life.