Update
Lots of activity since the last post. Last weekend, my wife was presenting at MGB, so I was on babysitting duty. I took the occasion to break my liquid-food diet. Within a 48 hour period, I managed to eat: Jambalaya, Barbecued Shrimp, Bread Pudding, Catfish, Red Beans and Rice, Lobster Etouffe, Pralines, Beignets and a bunch of other stuff that I would never get in Seattle. I didn’t see any Microsoft people the whole time, until the flight back, when we ended up on a flight with about 50 other co-workers. The flight was delayed, screwing up the connection in Denver, so my wife and I had a very exciting time with gate agents and security that is sure to be remembered by everyone on the flight. We managed to outmaneuver the defective gate agent (Ed,a gate agent for Unitedin New Orleans) and even booked a contingency flight to Seattlefrom the airwhile flyinginto Denver, so we made in home OK, albeit a few hours late. We’ve each booked well over 100k miles on United, but will probably never fly United again. Now that American has better leg room, and Alaska has better times along the west coast, the only reason I have flown United recently is for Red Carpet Club. And by the time the plane arrived latein Denver, we only had 30 minutes in RCC (it closes at 8:45 PM), then had to sit in the terminal and wait anyway. Also, the Denver RCC doesn’t have a family waiting area the way SFO and Narita do — definitely not worth the hassle.
So I was back to the office for 4 days, long enough to make a fairly clean entry into our next development milestone. Tomorrow is the company picnic, and then I’m off to NJ for a week. I’ll be in Princeton, so NYC and Philly are both in easy striking distance. So many people I could be visiting, but we’ll see how my social calendar works out.