Sad day at work.

So today is Friday the 8th.  I am on my last 2 days on my current team, it is definately a sad moment.  I have speant the last 2 years building a beta program and software to bring MSN/Windows Live into the next generation of taking feedback and letting our partners integrate it into their products.  However a few months ago we went through a re-org and some changes are being made.  In a nutshell the new management has de-emphasized the central beta management and tools for Windows Live.  This left me with little to no options that I was excited to stay for, so I took a job on a new team that should be fun and exciting.  I will start there after I get back from my paternity leave.

 

The sad portion of my day is that I am sitting in a spec review for my existing team where we re-organized so they can make a better impact and do the right thing for the next release(not ideas, but get.live.com) with more headcount.  However it seems to just be more status quo.  There are no new ideas coming out of these meetings.  I have spoken up in each of the meetings and shown the architecture to make it happen and you can tell this team is afraid to risk failure which squashes innovation.  So instead of making HUGE steps forward like we should be doing to catch up with our competitors we will make incremental fit and finish modifications that accomplishes nothing.  Sad, just sad… 

 

Well, on a good note, we are 17 days from Christmas and I am taking off for a full month in a couple of days to spend time with my family and the new baby.  I have been working on putting christmas lights up on the house, but having a big guy like me 10 feet off the ground hanging lights is a scary site.  I stupidly put the lights backward so I need to run an extension cord or go and re-hang the lights again.  Torn which way to go..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Men and Women in harms way!

I was just forwarded an email with a link that I actually did click on.  It was well worth it, this is one of the coolest and easiest ways to tell a soldier that you respect what they are doing for the country! 

 

Here is what the email said.  

If you go to this web site,  www.letssaythanks.com,  you can pick out a thank you card and Xerox will print it and it will be sent to a soldier that is currently serving in Iraq. 

 

You can’t pick out who gets it, but it will go to some member of the armed services. How AMAZING it would be if we could get everyone we know to send one!!! This is a great site.

 

Please send a card. It is FREE and it only takes a moment.

 

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the soldiers received thousands of these?   Regardless of your politics or whether you are for or against the war, our service men and women over there need to know we are behind them.

 

And pass this on!

 

 

Xerox is now my hero company for doing this.  Please take the time and send one out.

 

-Jon

1+ weeks in and all is calming down.

We have been home with Alexis 1 week and everything is starting to settle down.  Her Bilirubin was starting to get out of the comfort zone so they decided to send a nurse over to setup a light bed for Lexi to lay on.  This only lasted 3 days, as I say better safe than sorry.  Since she was a little Jaundice she was sleeping a little more than usual which actually equals sleep!  Last night was probably my first night of good sleep I have had since she came home.  Granted my whining doesn’t compare to Denise who had the C-Section and has to wake up every 3 hours to feed, so I will stop my rants now. 

Thanksgiving is 1 day away and yesterday I was tasked to go do the shopping(they wanted to get me out of the house to prepare for my birthday on friday).  This list was 1 full page, front and back.  It took me 2 1/2 hours to shop for everything.  I never wanted out of a situation so much, at one point I considered just leaving the cart and trying again in a few days, sigh.

Thanksgiving is one of those holidays that I like.  It is a day for family and reflection.  I hope you all have and had a good thanksgiving!

What a week

So it all begins with the crazy weather blocking us off from the real world, to us finally getting to go in and see the Dr. to find out that the baby is breach.  Well, we scheduled time on tuesday to discuss our options about the breach baby and what if anything we can do about it.  Monday morning comes along and the baby had other plans, Denise’s water breaks and we go to the hospital.  They decide to setup a C-Section for us at 1:00, 12:45 comes along and the Dr comes in to discuss our options and what is involved with a c-section(of course we learned 5 years ago when we were in baby class).  Sounds like we are on point for our 1:00 O.R. visit.  The Dr. using the ultrasound does a check to make sure the baby is still breach.  Yep there is the head not in the right place so we all go into the O.R. room for the surgery.  At 1:30 when they were ready to pull/push the baby out the Dr. says "that little stinker turn on us and is head down after all of this". 

 Alexis Olivia Beck

She was born 11/13/06 @ 1:30pm PST

Weighed in at: 7lbs 10ozs

Height was: 19.5 inches

 

 

More pictures in the photos gadget.

Stuck on my island!

Ok, so I don’t live on an island, but for the last couple of days my sleepy little town has turned into a virtual island with no way out.  Starting this weekend it just started dumping buckets of rain on us, way more than usual.  While I live in Seattle and expect some rain, what I don’t expect is all of this heavy rain and I don’t like it, not because I don’t like to get wet, but because I live in a remote city outside of redmond that has a river between myself and civilization.  When the rain gets crazy they start closing our bridges which adds time to my commute.  This time it closed all "paved" road coming into and out of Duvall.(there are a couple of logging roads that could be used in an extreme emergency)  I have posted a few pictures from our 2 major bidges that lead to Duvall.  As of me typing this they are opening up the main bridge now so people can get out and in now.  But was fun for the last couple of days.

Checking out the new Windows Live Writer beta.

So far this is very impressive.  I think the power of something like this can go MUCH further than just publishing blog entries. 

 

Let me try adding a picture:

 

 

Here is a picture of my Madi at a recital.  She is the one on the right side.

 

 

 

 

 

Here is one of Both of my oldest sweethearts!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is one of my whole family.

Alright, now for the new trip. 3 Days in Japan, 5 Days in Beijing and 4 days in Shanghai

So here we are on another business trip.  Seems the only time I have to Blog is when I am alone in the hotel room.  Go figure.  I was so frustrated with myself this trip I forgot to bring my camera.  Ok, so I have my camera in my phone, but sorry the camera in my MPX220 bites.  Besides, for some reason my phone doesn’t work in Japan.  First country it hasn’t worked in so far.

 

First impressions of Japan.  Their airport was very organized.  Unlike the madhouse of Shanghai on last trip.  I was truly impressed by how quickly we made it through immigration.  For those that don’t know the Narita airport is 90 minutes away from the hotel in Tokyo(Shinjitsu), so we had a few options for getting to the hotel.  a couple of train options, Buses and Taxi’s.  We ended up taking the "Bus limo" which in english means greyhound :).  What it had over the others was a door to door trip.  Laurent and I wouldn’t have had to make our way from a train station to the hotel and the taxi was about 3 times as much as the Bus.  I think we made the right decision because that bus driver was driving very fast.  It was great, felt like I was at home .  We arrived in Tokyo at a great time, all of the cherry blossoms are in blume and they are truly beautiful and plentiful.  When we started getting into downtown it looks like most other big cities with the exception that things are pretty compressed.  Also as we pulled into the city we took an overpass and never got off of it until we were almost at the hotel.  I felt like I was in the movie fifth elelment flying by the 4th floor of all of the buildings and looking down periodically at the people and cars below.  I had heard about all of the neon and business of the city, but I didn’t see it until I got to Shinjuku, and wow, there are several small streets that are extremely busy, I look forward to taking some pictures (with that damn cell phone(which by the way is great, but I have my eyes on a new 8125 so every issue with the phone makes me even more frustrated with it)). 

Back from Shanghai for a week and all is well

So my trip back from Shanghai was uneventful.  The flight was nice, but I don’t think the chairs were as comfortable as they should have been for the price.  Or maybe it was the "Brutal" massage I had the day before that might have been causing the problems.  I got home with som many bruises that it looked like I was beaten up in Shanghai.. I think maybe in a way I was.  My back is still bruised. 

 

So here we are only a couple of days from Christmas and I have not purchased what I need to for the wife.  I have a pretty comprehensive list of which I spent 3 hours yesterday with my two older girls buying just 1 thing off of the list.  Oh well, hopefully today it will go much quicker.

 

The new house is looking very cute.  We are in the hosting mode.  Already hosted 3 parties since moving in and have a few more before the end of the year.

 

Gabi’s Birthday is coming up, I feel bad for her having it within a week of Christmas. We are trying to make it a big seperation and having a birthday party with friends.  Hopefully they will be able to make it.

 

Well, I hope you all have a MERRY Christmas(sad many people are stopping to use this term and switching it with Happy Holidays).. oh well for me it will always be Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. 

 

-Jon

Shanghai Trip report #2

Last night we had a good dinner at Panda Resteraunt.  It was definately the hotest food we have had since arriving.  Some parts of it were very good, but others were too daring for me to try.  I like the cost of living over here.  For lunch today we took out 11 locals making it 14 people going to a nice resteraunt.  had a ton of good food.  There was so much food that we had 4 take out boxes of left overs.  The tab ended up 1032 RMB(129USD).  No way would you have been able to do that in the US at a decent resteraunt for less than 200.00.  Some of the meals were interesting.  The Frog was definately a stretch for me. 

 

Walking to the resteraunt we walked through a beautiful mall that I took some photographs of so check them out.  Christmas is everywhere over here and it feels good to see it all. 

 

-Jon

 

 

p.s. Oh ya, I forgot to mention that they sure do love to use their horns.  outside noises are nothing but horns from cars and trucks.

SHanghai Trip report #1

Wow, my first moments of Shanghai were painful to say the least.  We arrived in town Sunday 4:30pm and it seems that all of the rest of shanghai arrived at the same time.  We were in the immigration line for 1.5 hours.  Finally getting to our driver at 6:15 and at the hotel at 7:00pm.  We had a great dinner with co-workers and then had a good nights sleep.  

 

On the way to the hotel, I was suprised by how modern Shanghai is.  It is a large city with some very large buildings.  Being the Idaho boy that I am it is far too many people for me, but for visiting here it is great!

 

Day 2:

 

Had a very good sleep in my firm double bed.  The rooms are very nice, and they have several "English" channels to choose from.  Much nicer than visiting places like Netherlands and France where you are stuck with local channels.  Maybe the exceptional CNN International.  But as they say when in Rome.

 

I have posted some pictures have a look!