Superb Africa Pictures – Must See

My “cube mate” (Matt Woodget) just uploaded several images from his Africa trip.  I have not seen such great photographs in a long time.  Please check them out at:

http://www.fluidpixel.com/Places/648261

They are truly amazing.  Promise you will not be disappointed!

Traveling

Work has been keeping me busy.  I have spent the last three weeks on the road.  Just returned from Orlando and Indiana this weekend.  Now I have a week to catch up on email before taking back off to Europe next week.  Busy, Busy.

Quick Update

I am still alive and well.  Working hard, since I started at MSFT.  I will hopefully find the time to update the blog more frequently.

Cheers,

Markus

Travel update

Hi all,

quick update on our travels to New York City.  We left Spokane this morning at 5:30 am and took the first flight to Minneapolis.  Every went smoothly until we got to the Twin-Cities (BTW, my first time in this part of the country).  However, when we left Minneapolis our plane was clearly experiencing some technical difficulties.  The front wheel would not retract and after several loops over Minneapolis, the pilot informed us that we will be dropping the other set of landing gears (due to the problem on board we had to literally drop the gear, causing a substantial shake-up and noise level to the cabin).  We continued to fly with lowered landing gear over Minneapolis for two hours burning fuel and ended up landing back on the same runway.  Unable to steer, we came to a halt in the middle of the runway and waited for the firetrucks, EMTs, and police cars to catch up to us.  We were tugged back to the gate and waited for a replacement plane.  Of course, it goes without saying that we were substantially delayed getting into JFK.

Northwest, our carrier for the flight, did a fantastic job in providing a replacement plane for us and getting us back off the ground very quickly.  The pilot, also, did a good job of keeping us updated and informed of what was going on.  My only complaint, our stewardess, that was in a VERY, VERY grumpy mood for the remainder of the flight.

Anyway, we are in New York City now and I am looking forward to our first day in the financial district tomorrow.

NO email or phone for 4 hours

I just got kicked off my email and phone for the next four hours.  I am part of the newest roll-out for the new unified communications beta.  Starting at 4pm today I will be using our new Unified Messaging tools.

Certainly a damper to my productivity right now, but I am looking forward to trying out the new system.  It should be very exciting and I will definitely post about my experience here.  I will be using the new beta of Office Communicator 2007 as well as the Catalina Unified Messaging (UM) telephone.  Stay tuned for more to come.

Exploring Windows Live Services

Working in the Google Compete team at Microsoft, particularly leading our Windows Live@edu compete efforts, it is probably about time I start evangelizing our Live products.

Why evangelize? Because it actually turns out they are very useful services 😉

So, I will embark on a mission to explore all the different Live services over the next couple of weeks.  In my first post I will start with Windows Live Writer – a blog writing tool. Stay tuned.

Another Monday at work

it is one of those days when you just can’t get enough done.  I got to work at 7:30 this morning and have been working on my project ever since.  Nevertheless, it seems like I am making little to no progress.  (Maybe I shouldn’t blog while eating lunch and work instead?!)

Work, however, is as exciting as ever.  The virtual team, which I am leading is getting its feet of the ground this week and I hope to be up and running at full pace very soon.  Also, tonight I am having dinner at Bill Gates’ house.  I will certainly keep you all posted on how that goes for me. 

Well, I am going to have to  get back to work. I promise to post more often this week and also start writing about some more relevant things than the simple fact that I am planning to blog more.

Sign of life

Hello world (again),

Despite all signs to the contrary, I am actually still around.  It has been an amazingly busy month and a half, but I plan on returning to the blogosphere.  After school got out I went on a two week city travel tour, touching base in Seattle, Chicago, and Toronto, as well as several other places along the way.  Additionally I relaxed on Tobago for a week with my family.  Great little island 😉

 Now I am finally back at work.  Once again in the heart of the evil empire in Redmond, Microsoft.  This summer I am working with the Google Compete team on a fantastic project.  I will certainly keep you all posted on what is happening here and how my project develops.  It promises to be a great summer.

 Cheers,

Markus