It’s all about the snappy opening line, watch any classic movie from the 40’s and you’ll realize the importance of the opening line. If you need some evidence check out ‘His Girl Friday’, at least the first 20 minutes, for some of what I consider some of the back & forth dialog around. Of course the classic for lines from the 40’s is arguably ‘Casablanca’ and if you’ve never seen it you owe it to yourself to watch it with a bottle and some friends, you’ll be amazed at how many lines come from just that one movie.
The point, if I must make one, is that I’ve been trying to figure out a snappy black and white, soft focus opening line that says, “Well kids, seems the Universe has called my bluff and it’s time to put my money where my mouth is when it comes to Microsoft.” Starting August 11th, 2008 I’ll be an official Microsoft employee working as a program manager on the Silverlight team in Seattle, WA.
I’m not sure exactly what that means except that I hear rumors from my new boss Shawn Burke that it’s something to do with controls and being open and agile and designing these fancy little usability bundles of love. Even though my title says “Program Manager” I have a feeling I’m still going to be very code heavy, since code is and always will be my #1 passion and I’ll do everything I can to make sure I’m still slinging lines of code on a daily basis like a monkey flings poo. They probably won’t be the production lines of code but that’s OK, I can finally admit that while I think my coding kung fu is deadly I have this odd tendency to drop a project once I figure out the core problem. After that it’s just typing and I get a much bigger thrill out of problem solving than solution implementing.
Oddly enough the whole Silverlight mumbo-jumbo isn’t what I want to talk about (though I’m sure I will soon enough), it’s the uprooting of my life from Denver, CO to Seattle, WA. It’s leaving a job I worked at for 14 years, where I had a team of friends that were more like brothers that oddly enough gave me free rein to try out any crazy design idea that popped into my head. It’s leaving friends that I could count on for anything from making me iced coffee to helping me tow a clutchless car home from Lusk, Wyoming and everything in between. A huge family, aye, more a clan, that made every family gathering something to be looked forward to rather than dreaded, with everything from some of the best food you’ve ever tasted to Irish step-dancing to smoking Blues to ballet to a nephew that’s obsessed with any kind of construction equipment, preferably in ‘Tear Shit Up’ yellow. To all those still in Denver I love you, dearly and deeply.
I will miss Denver, the people, friends, family, the exploding cultural scene, the moments that can’t be captured over XBox Live, and yet I’m also excited to be in Seattle, at Microsoft, trying something new, creating new stories, meeting new people, finding new dive bars, playing host to all my visiting friends and family, bringing whatever it is I am to Microsoft (which is usually only bad singing and a love of strong drink) and generally starting a new chapter in my life.
Today is my first day in Seattle, let the adventure begin!