Yesterday was just orientation, so I had to wait until today to actually meet anybody in my team. I spent a couple hours at work after orientation meeting people and trying to setup my computers. I guess I should answer some questions I posed about what employees get. It turns out that I won't be getting any of them (laptop, corporate AMEX, cellphone), at least not initially. It sounds like I can get them if my manager and I think I'll need them. I also will not be dogfooding Windows Longhorn, the next version of Windows. I guess I'll just have to wait like everyone else.

I have my badge. My photo doesn't look all that bad. I have a blue badge, meaning that I'm a full time employee (nothing special for new hires).

Tags: microsoft
Current Mood: good
Current Music: Soma FM / Groove Salad

Well, I'm done with my first day of work. It was about what I was expecting. We started out with the US employment paperwork (I-9), then moved on to contact information and badge photos. That part took about 15-20 minutes. After that it was mostly information about the company, benefits, diversity, etc. There were over 100 people going through orientation. At the end of the day we went to the company store and museum.

The store had branded merchandise (Microsoft T-shirts, mugs, etc.), software (PC and XBox, only from Microsoft Studios), and hardware (mice and keyboards, no XBoxes). I'll have to wait a few days before I can buy software or hardware.

I don't have my employee badge yet, that'll come tomorrow. I suspect that my picture looks horrible. Tomorrow is when I'll finally meet the people in my dev team.

The commute today was ok. It took me about 30 minutes each way.

Tags: microsoft
Current Mood: happy
Current Music: Soma FM / Groove Salad

In about 1.5 hours I'm going to start my first day of work. I'm a little nervous, and I'm optimistic. I'll be doing NEO (New Employee Orientation) today and half of tomorrow. I won't even meet anyone from my team until that's over. Basically it's paperwork and training the whole time. At the end of today we go to the company store and museum. The building I'm at is right across the street from Nintendo of America.

Tags: microsoft
Current Mood: nervous and excited
Current Music: Soma FM / Groove Salad

Well, I now have my cable modem and Internet access. I also have my desktop computer here, so I'll probably be able to get on GAIM tonight. Of course, that's after I go out to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with my sister.

On another note, I found a 2 bedroom condo that I like and I've bid on it. It's about 7 miles away from Microsoft and $138k. The move in date should be around the middle of August.

Tags: move, personal, seattle
Current Mood: hopeful
Current Music: Oopma Loopma's from Willy Wonka

I talked with my recruiter this morning and I set Monday (7/18) as my start date. I'll be attending New Employee Orientation, or NEO, for the first day and a half. At the end of orientation they have an optional workshop on productivity at Microsoft that I can attend, and I haven't decided whether I should yet. That means that on Tuesday afternoon I'll meet my manager and the dev team for the first time.

I'm going to be working in building 36, which is one of the buildings I interviewed with. It's the newest building on the main campus, and is very nice. It contains most (but not all) of the Office team. I'll be sharing the office with an intern for the first month. Given Microsoft's method of handling window offices it'll probably be an inner office (hopefully one that is across a hallway from a windowed office so I can get some natural light). I know that I'll be getting one main dev computer with an LCD screen and several test machines with CRTs (many people just RDesktop in according to my manager). I'm not sure if Microsoft gives all their employees tablet PCs, cellphones, and corporate credit cards so I'll have to wait until next week to find out if I'll get them.

I just heard from Gretchen's excellent Jobs Blog (a great resource for any MS interviewee) that there's going to be a local blogger meetup. I'm surprised by this, since I ate at that restaurant when I was walking around my neighborhood yesterday. I think I'll go, but I should probably see what my schedule at work will be like before I RSVP. At the very least it'll be a good excuse to drink, especially since I no longer have my ex-roommate Tim around.

Tags: microsoft
Current Mood: excited

I'm a WiFi thief. I don't have Internet access at home, but my neighbors do so I use theirs via WiFi. As a result I'm not as desperate for Internet access, but I still don't want to use it for anything that isn't over a secure connection (AIM/MSN/Yahoo, Live Journal).

I walked around the neighborhood where I live last night. It's a nice area, but very suburban. There's a shopping area about a block from where I live with a bike shop in it. I'm thinking about getting a bike sometime in the next few days. It'll be another hybrid (cross between a mountain bike and a road bike), and it seems the bike store has a lot of Giant and Specialized bikes.

Tags: personal, seattle
Current Mood: relaxed

I just had my first taste of bad Seattle traffic. About 20 minutes ago I was driving the rental car from Blue C sushi (a conveyor belt sushi restaurant) with my sister and her husband in the car on I-5. We came across a section where the rightmost lane was closed (coned off) and I saw a road crew vehicle swerve in, so I decided that after I passed them I would switch lanes to get away from the mess. Just as I looked away the car in front of the one I was following came to nearly a complete stop. My sister noticed I wasn't looking and screamed, so I slammed on my brakes. Fortunately I stopped about a foot away from the car in front of me. Just after I stopped we saw the car behind us swerve into the closed lane of traffic to avoid us. After that the car that nearly caused the accident started moving again and we all just drove off from it, smelling burnt tires for the next few miles.

Tags: personal, seattle
Current Mood: shocked

My plane left Minneapolis late - I think there was a problem with the baggage system at MSP and many other planes were waiting for takeoff. I had a window seat next to a family with a baby. I wasn't thrilled (the baby tried to wipe it's drool on me a few times), but it could have been worse (yelling/kicking/screaming). It seams that every time I fly domestic I get about the same seat (34A), which is a window seat a few rows back from the wing.

I landed in Seattle a little behind schedule, and I had to wait about 30 minutes for my luggage. Afterwards I got my rental car (Pontiac G6) and drove to my sister's place. My sister, her husband and I went out to a local restaurant. Afterwards I had to drive out to Microsoft (in Redmond) to pick up my keys from a drop box, and then try to find my way to the house in Sammamish. I'm disappointed with the location of it. If Seattle was Minneapolis, Redmond would be Fridley/Coon Rapids, and Sammamish would be Anoka.

The house is nice. It's a large 1 bedroom apartment and has a balcony. It's relaxing living by myself for once. Unfortunately the apartment doesn't have Internet access (Comcast won't be out until Thursday), so I won't be on much.

Tags: move, personal
Current Mood: tired

On Tuesday the movers came in and moved everything. It went pretty well (I didn't have to lift or pack anything), but I should have grabbed a few more things to keep occupied before arriving in Seattle. I think only one thing was packed that shouldn't have been, and unfortunately I won't be able to return that to my roommate for about another month. The auto shippers picked up my car today, so that's gone too. All I have left to do is get on the plane and email a few people.

Last night my friends from school and I went out for sushi at Fujiya, which is something I've been talking about doing for several months now. I got to see a few people that missed the party on Friday, and it was pretty fun hanging out with people one last time. Unlike the party on Friday, this time it felt more final and I started to realize that I wasn't going to see them for a while.

I now have the location of my temporary housing. Unfortunately I'm going to be living in Sammamish, about 9 miles away from Microsoft, and about 20 miles away from Seattle. I'm not sure if I'll be able to bike to work from my temporary housing, but since I don't start for another 2 to 3 weeks, I might not have to.

Tags: move, personal
Current Mood: anxious

Three weeks ago I subscribed to GameFly to see what it was like. After trying it for that time I'm left with mixed feelings. The website is laid out well, and works like Netflix. The games that have arrived have been in good condition. They even ship PSP games, something which Blockbuster won't do. The problem is their shipping times.

Because of distance and processing delays it takes a week for the games to reach me. In fact, despite being a two game plan, I've only played one game from them. The first week I got two games, but one of them was a mistake (I got something Tim had for the Xbox). I sent it back exactly two weeks ago. It took until last Saturday for them to receive it and send me out a new game. A week later I'm still waiting for it.

The main problem is that they are in California and I'm in Minnesota. Netflix fixed this problem by having multiple distribution centers. Instead of sending the DVDs to their HQ in California, I just mailed it to a center in Minneapolis. This resulted in about a 3-4 day turn around, as opposed to a 2 week turn around. Fortunately there are two changes that will occur with GameFly that might help. First, they are starting to use a tracking system with the post office to be notified once I have returned something to them. This would change it to a week or week and a half turn around time. Second, I'm moving to Washington soon, so that should cut down the shipping time a few days.

Overall I like GameFly, but the turn around time is unacceptable. Unless the two changes result in a less than a week turn around time it's unlikely that I'll keep it.

Tags: toys
Current Mood: geeky
Current Music: Underworld - M.E.