The Road to Redmond

First "Real" Day of Work

2005-07-20T05:55:20Z

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).

First Day of Work

2005-07-19T01:54:24Z

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.

Work

2005-07-18T14:30:20Z

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.

Internet Access / House

2005-07-16T19:03:34Z

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.

Start Date, NEO Information

2005-07-12T06:35:55Z

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.

House, WiFi

2005-07-12T05:40:04Z

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.

Avoided Accident

2005-07-12T04:51:17Z

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.

The Big Move

2005-07-07T19:48:46Z

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.

GameFly

2005-07-02T17:28:04Z

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.

Moving Date

2005-07-01T20:56:05Z

The van line called today and informed me that my moving date would be Tuesday, 7/5 starting at 8am. Of all the three possible days (7/5-7/7), this was the worst. This means that I'll have to live with my parents (living out of my suitcase without my computer) for three days until my flight on 7/9. It also puts a limit on my July 4th plans since I'll have to wake up by 7am to get ready for it, not to mention I'll have to do all my prep work this weekend. On the positive side, my stuff might arrive in the temporary housing sooner. I've asked them if I could move it back, but I'm not holding my breath.

Moving and Software

2005-06-28T21:51:52Z

Microsoft issued my plane tickets today. I'll be flying out at 7:01pm on July 8th. Having them gives the move more of a sense of finality. Now I just have to get the U to send them something saying I've graduated.

The move preparations are coming along. The movers sent a person over yesterday to survey the house, and the move is still scheduled for 7/5-7/7.

I downloaded Google Earth. It's Google's free map viewer program that was released today. If you've used Keyhole before, it's the new version of that. I've been playing with Keyhole for a while, and I love the application.

I've also started to get more into reading blogs and I have started using an RSS aggregator to keep track of blogs I'm reading. I have it running in the background almost all the time now.

Update (7/2): ~~Google Earth is no longer available to download. It sounds like they pulled the installer until they release a new version.~~ Google Earth is back up.

I also wanted to mention that Microsoft should be releasing MSN Virtual Earth sometime this month. While it won't compete directly with Google Earth, it should be a worthy competitor to Google Maps, unlike MapPoint or TerraServer.

Move Dates

2005-06-13T20:42:52Z

I have my dates for my move setup. Below is a list of my dates that I have set so far:

House Movers:	7/5 - 7/7
Car Movers:	7/7
Fly Date:	7/8

The movers won't know which date the pack/move will be on until a few days before hand. They will be packing everything for me (and ensuring anything that I do pack is done correctly). The car movers will pickup my Saturn on Thursday. Once all my stuff is moved I'll probably live over at my parents place (beats sleeping on the couch or floor at the apartment). I've asked to be flown out on Friday. I won't know what the address is for my temporary housing until a few days before I fly.

Last Class

2005-06-13T06:28:19Z

My last day of class was on Thursday. I still need to finish my CSCI project before I can say I've graduated, but it feels nice knowing that I don't have to go to another class for my BS. I figure to celebrate the occasion I should blog a few tips for studying. First of all the bookstores charge way too much. You can either try to get the book used on Amazon using their Marketplace feature (the one that says "42 used and new starting at $0.02"), or get the book online if it's public domain. SparkNotes is another cool website; think Cliff Notes online for free. Lastly, how can I blog this without mentioning the excellent Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia.

Relocation Stress

2005-05-31T19:27:46Z

Well, I'm starting to feel a bit stressed out with the whole move. Part of which is just the amount of contact I have with the process. Here's the list: 2 people from the relocation company, 1 person from a move management company, 1 person from the actual movers, 1 person from the auto movers, 2 people from 2 mortgage companies, and 1 realtor who has yet to contact me. That means in the last week I've been in contact with 7 different people to prepare for the move, and that number should soon go up to 8. In addition I'm in my second week of my three week long Philosophy course.

On a more relaxing note I finally broke down and bought a PSP with Lumines and Wipeout: Pure.

Moving Update

2005-05-25T19:01:45Z

Sorry for neglecting my blog lately. I've been busy with school. I've passed all my courses for Spring, and I just started taking my May Session Philosophy course (PHIL1026W). After I'm done with this class all I'll need to do to graduate is finish my project.

Microsoft just got the relocation guys to contact me. That means that I've been dealing with GMAC and Wells Fargo to try to get pre-approved for a mortgage, talking to the movers, and setting up dates.

Here's what I'm planning. Sometime around the 4th of July the movers will pack everything and move my stuff. Around the same time I'll have my car moved to Seattle and fly out to Seattle. Microsoft is providing a rental car and temporary housing for me. I'll spend the next few weeks house hunting (probably concentrating around Redmond), and I'll start work around the 25th of July.

I do have to say how impressed I am with all the help Microsoft gives their new employees with moving. They really do make things relatively painless with a paid move, mortgage services, and temporary housing (up to a month). I'll probably post an update in the next few days with final dates for the move.

Microsoft Stuff

2005-04-18T05:23:16Z

Been looking through some of Microsoft's blogs recently and came across a few things related to recruiting. First is the Jobs Blog which is a blog by a few of the recruiters. They also have a video interview with some recruiters, part 2, and part 3. Here's a video of a walk around campus. It includes a shot of building 36, the building where I'll be working in, at the 11:45 mark. There's a lot of other interesting videos at Channel 9 but the search/browsing of that site really sucks.

Here's some more random links:
Microsoft Campus Maps
Top Ten Favorite Spots on the Microsoft Campus
Microsoft Campus Photo Tour
Human Computer Interaction recruiter at Microsoft
Mini-Microsoft Blog, which is an employee blog calling for layoffs

Edit: Added part 3 of the interview videos.

Dude, Where's my Bike?

2005-04-14T19:14:33Z

Shortly after getting up today my roommate called me to ask me if I biked to school. After saying no he then told me that my bike was gone, along with his, and the garage door was left open. Current theory is that he forgot to close it last night, but we're still not ruling out the possibility that somebody could have found the code to open it (older garage doors don't have much security). I called the police and gave a report, but it's unlikely that I'll get my bike back. I had it locked so you couldn't ride it, but we don't have anything solid to secure the bikes to so theft would have been easy.

I didn't have renters insurance, mostly because I didn't want to take the time to get it. Now I'm thinking about getting it again, but I'm not sure when I'll have the time to do it.

Right now I'm debating whether to go to the bike auction tonight and miss my classes. I've already had to put off meeting with my partner for a class project because of this. The next one won't be until May.

Besides that not much else has been going on. I got the last of my books yesterday from Amazon's Marketplace (cheap), and I received a check from Microsoft today for reimbursement from my trip.

ACM Stress

2005-04-11T19:44:32Z

As most of you know, I'm the current secretary for the ACM chapter at my school, and have been for about a year. We're having elections this week and I can't wait to get out of my position. It was nice, but I really don't need the stress anymore and I want to spend my time doing other things. Yesterday before the LAN party I realized that another semester of this would burn me out.

The girl that I went out to see Sin City with isn't interested in continuing the relationship.

I cleaned up my room today and I got a few of the books I ordered in the mail. So far it's been a very slow day.

Recent Activities

2005-04-07T08:12:51Z

I've been pretty busy of late. So far this week I've done 4 homework assignments, working well past midnight for 2 of them. Fortunately I haven't been too stressed over it, and for now senioritis has been replaced with indifference.

I've received a few things lately. My copy of Rez arrived in the mail on Monday, and spent a bit of time between homework assignments playing it again. Today I received a complementary copy of Office 2003 from my recruiter and dev team. It replaces my old copy of Office 2000, and gives me a chance to become familiar with what I'll be working with in the future. I just ordered a few cheap books from Amazon that I can read to prepare myself.

I went on a date Sunday night to see Sin City. I had a really good time, and the movie was pretty good too. ~~I'm hoping I can see her again this weekend. The biggest problem is that we have conflicting schedules, not to mention how busy I've been with all the homework.~~

What's Next

2005-04-05T17:46:11Z

Well I started to get more information from Microsoft after I got hired. They have something called the New Graduate Network, which is a support network for new college graduates at Microsoft to make moving and entering the workplace easier. It sounds like they have both training and social events. So far they've just given me a list of a books to read about Microsoft.

I also started to get more details about relocation. It sounds like the temporary housing will have everything I'd need for a month long stay (towels, cookware, pepper). Anything they move for me will be in storage until I get a new place to stay, so I might end up shipping my computer.

Except for this information, and chatting a bit with my future boss, I really won't have anything more until about a month before I move. I'll post more information about that later.

Well, this was just a break from homework, so I'll get back to that now.

Offer Accepted

2005-04-02T01:36:28Z

I just talked to my recruiter and I accepted the offer. I'll start work around July 18th, and I'm planning on moving out sometime after the forth of July. They're offering me temporary housing, so right now I'm trying to decide if I should take that or move in with my sister. I'm already starting to look for condos out in the Seattle area.

Geeky Temptations

2005-03-31T19:27:43Z

My brother-in-law introduced me to a Nintendo DS while I was out in Seattle. Those things are nice, and I'd have to say the stylus is a great input method. After looking around at GameSpot I've noticed a few released (WarioWare: Touched, Feel the Magic, Mr. Driller) and upcoming (Castlevania, new "classic style" Mario game) that would make the system worth getting.

That's not all, since the PSP was just released. Although I haven't tried it, the PSP looks like it rocks as well. With Lumines (from the creator of Rez) and Wipeout Pure I'd have a few great games right now, but without many good ones on the horizon (Grand Theft Auto) and the dead pixel issue I'm having my doubts about the system (Sony said they will replace the bad screens if requested, but who knows how long you'd have to be without the system). That said, the graphics are beautiful, and they make the majority of the DS games look old and dated by comparison.

With the systems going for $150 and $250 respectively, I can't really justify either purchase right now. Still, I'll probably end up getting one or both eventually (especially the DS with the Castlevania game that comes out in September, which graphically looks better than Symphony of the Night...drool). Also, if you want a good impression about how sweet the graphics are, look at the videos for Castlevania and Lumines - the screen shots don't really do them justice.

Stupid Cat + Senioritis

2005-03-31T04:33:55Z

I'm getting annoyed with Pixel, my roommate's cat. Today it decided to take another crap in the bathtub (I'm not cleaning it this time), and later on it tried to scratch my bed (last straw). Now it's locked in my roommate's room until she gets back.

Senioritis is starting to drive me crazy. I am at least getting things done, but my motivation is lower than usual (and that's pretty low anyways). I'm also a little stressed as well, probably in relation to school, although waiting to talk to Microsoft about the deal doesn't help either. I could really use a massage, or at least a few assignments dropped.

I got my graduation paperwork done today. Now all I should have to do is register for one class in May term and get my coursework done. So in theory I could be done with school sometime June.

Job Offer

2005-03-24T02:06:55Z

Well Microsoft finally got back to me today and gave me a job offer. It's for the Office Operations group, which sounds like the backend group for http://office.microsoft.com/. It's not my ideal group in Microsoft, but it'll do. I talked to Eric who leads the team, and I'm trying to setup a time to talk with Raquel for the details about the offer. Hopefully it will be tomorrow, otherwise I'll have to wait until next week to talk to her about it.

Minor Rant

2005-03-22T17:30:40Z

Well, it's been over a week since I did the interview and I haven't heard back yet (I'll probably hear something 10 minutes after my rant). I was told that they usually get back to people in one week (usually 3-4 days), and I interviewed on Monday. Under the advice of my brother-in-law I sent them a thank you letter yesterday (because it makes me stand out and it might prompt a response).

I can think of a few reasons why it would take this long. They could be checking references/work history, and since most of them were professors they wouldn't have been able to reach them last week (spring break). They could also be trying to track down my other employer, which has been bought out.

I finally won an auction for the PS2 game Rez, a trippy music game. I'd post a link or two to it, but it's something you have to play to really get. It's going to cost me about $85, but now I have to deal with PayPal. I despise PayPal. I've hated all my dealings with that company. Now I have to wait a few days for them to verify my credit card, because they don't let new accounts charge immediately. They also hide the credit card verification so you'll let them suck it out of your checking account (something I refuse to do).

I really don't have much motivation for school anymore. This semester I'm taking 18 credits, 3 of which are for a advanced project that I'll probably delay until summer. I have too much stuff to do, and I just want to get done with school at this point. It's going to be hard lasting another 8-9 weeks.