Category Archives: Workplace

Old Zune Gets New Life

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It has been about a month since my last Zune post. My Zune 80 is alive and well but I have not traveled this last month and my primary music player for the gym is an iPod nano with its Nike+ support. The ironic thing is buying a new Zune 80 back in December actually has injected new life into my original Zune 30, which I now listen to almost daily.

Altec Lansing M604 Powered Audio System for Zune After placing my Zune 80 order, I was not quite sure what to do with the bulkier and lower capacity Zune 30. Around the time of that quandary Woot ran a special on the Altec Lansing M604 Powered Audio System for Zune, selling the units for $45 brand new while supplies lasted. I decided I would buy one and use my Zune 30 with the M604 system at work.

It took about a month for the speaker system to arrive due to popularity of the offer and the holiday backlog, but everything has worked like a charm since. Now my old Zune 30 sits in the M604 dock on my bookshelf at the office piping out jazz, classical and easy listening background music throughout the workday.

The M604 has excellent sound quality and durable construction. I really like the included remote which makes it easy to adjust the volume and skip through playlists from a distance.

Oktoberfest in Munich

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I returned from Munich on Friday evening. I spent the remainder of the day catching up on the latest home and work news with TB and forcing myself to stay awake. I went to bed around midnight and woke up around 2 PM, Saturday! That should give you some idea of how exhausting these past few weeks have been.

It will take several more days before my body adjusts, at which point I will be heading out again…this time for vacation. :mrgreen:

How was Munich? First and foremost, Oktoberfest was completely wasted on me. I don’t drink and I don’t eat beef or pork. The Bavarians thought I was from Mars. I spent my days in the Worldwide Marketing Leads Summit meetings from 8 AM to 5 PM. The evenings were spent dining with colleagues then working from my room to catch up on all the e-mail I had missed while attending the summit. Fun, fun, fun.

Back from the Land of the Rising Sun

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I am just returning to Seattle from Tokyo where I was the keynote speaker for Remix Japan. About 1500 people attended the event held at the Tokyo International Forum on Wednesday, September 19. In addition to the 80-minute keynote, I also presented a 50-minute general session for all attendees.

The keynote and general session covered various aspects of Microsoft’s Software+Services initiative and our broad Web platform, tools and services portfolio. Following the 3 hours for the back-to-back keynote and general session I spent another 3 hours in the afternoon doing interviews & briefings with members of the Japanese press.

It was my first time visiting Japan and the trip was too short for me to really take Tokyo and its 12+ million residents in. I spent the morning of Sep 18 meeting with my colleagues in the Microsoft Japan building near Shinjuku station (the busiest train station in the world). We then spent the rest of the day in rehearsals with the various partners and Microsoft staffers who were preparing demos for the keynote and general sessions. I left my hotel room at the Park Hyatt—the hotel featured in the movie Lost in Translation…it’s amazing!—at 9 AM and returned just before midnight. I was in the bed by 1 AM and up again at 6 AM to make it to the venue by 8 AM for final keynote preparations. The keynote started at 10 AM.

Tokyo Panorama from Park Hyatt room 4216
Picture of Tokyo from Park Hyatt
Nikon D200, Nikon 18-200 f/3.5 @ 18mm f/16, ISO 400, 1/80
Panorama captured from room 4216 at the Park Hyatt hotel. It consists of 5 individual, landscape photos taken by hand (no tripod) then stitched together as described in my panorama tutorial.

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Recruiting at the NBMBAA Conference

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This week I am representing my business unit at the National Black MBA Association conference as a hiring manager at the career fair. The event is in Orlando. I arrived late last night and will return to Seattle on Saturday afternoon.

I am here to interview MBA candidates/recipients for exactly one position across my Vice President’s entire organization and to help staff the company booth in the exhibition hall. I have recruited and attended events for many years so the mechanics are familiar. This is my first time attending an MBA event, however, and MBA’s are some odd birds, indeed.

A few observations (warning: blatant generalizations follow):

  1. Every recent MBA wants a base salary more than they are able to prove they deserve.
  2. There are an awful lot of MBAs competing for very few well-paying jobs (see #1).
  3. MBAs dress very well. There was a higher concentration of (knock-off?) designer handbags and tailored suits in the Orange County Convention Center than I saw my entire time in France or Italy, combined.

I realize the observations above only apply to a subset of the MBA population. Several of my co-workers and friends have MBAs. They are all smart, driven people who earn every dollar they are paid. Lawyers, on the other hand… :wink:

World Tour 2007

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U.S. Passport Between September 12 and October 19 I will be traveling to 7 cities in 6 countries on 4 continents. In order, I will visit Orlando, Tokyo, Munich, Portland, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo and Madrid. The only personal trip in the bunch is to South America to celebrate the 10-year wedding anniversary of some of our closest friends from school. We are also planning a vacation in Thailand around Thanksgiving.

Remember how I was worrying whether I would attain United 1K status again for 2008? Umm, let’s just say that will no longer be a problem with the travel planned between now and the rest of the year.

If all goes as planned, by the end of the year I will have increased my Countries Visited list to 25 — adding Sweden, Japan, Argentina, Brazil and Thailand between May and November this year. Woohoo!