Redmond

I'm getting old

Mike Flasko — Sat, 21 May 2005 21:46:00 GMT

Yesterday, I put the cash I received from my parents as a university graduation gift towards a dining table and chairs for my new apartment. Yes, thats right, a table and chairs. A year ago I would have burnt that cash on some new electronic toy, golf clubs, or in the lamest case put it into my investments. Everyone always wonders when one becomes an adult, 18 or 21 years of age? Today I learnt the answer is neither, but instead when one buys a table and chairs - :).

Edit: Yes, I'm joking.....gotten some responses that were much too serious :)

Mine is the top one..

How big is it?

Mike Flasko — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 04:17:00 GMT

My friends and family sometimes ask me questions regarding the size of the MS campus in Redmond. Finally, I have some numbers to quantify my adjectives (as of june 2004):

Land owned:

Puget Sound (Redmond, etc) - roughly 7,500,000 square feet

Grand Total:

Puget Sound (redmond campus, etc) - roughly 9,200,000 square feet (owned + leased)

Job Offer

Mike Flasko — Fri, 27 Aug 2004 19:22:00 GMT

Today I received a job offer from Microsoft in Redmond for a full time position as a Program Manager when I graduate on their Transports and Connectivity team (core networking in Windows) - HORRAY!!!! I don't know any specifics nor have I accepted the offer yet, but I'm really stoked!

Atleast ASP.NET is in good hands

Mike Flasko — Tue, 24 Aug 2004 16:16:00 GMT

Yesterday I had the pleasure of having dinner at the Beach Cafe. The restaurant has pretty good food, but its selling point is its lakeside location (Lake Washington). It was a .NET heavy dinner as our group was: Paul Y (VB.NET PM), Jay Roxe (VB.NET Product Manager), and Omar (ASP.NET PM) and me (Transports and Connectivity Intern PM). The dinner was a good time and I got to learn a lot about MS culture, .NET, Jay’s killer user group trips and Paul's desire to buy a boat. Even though these guys are past their prime partying years they are always a good time - Paul, Jay & Omar would dispute this fact until the bitter end and will most definitely have a lengthy rebuttal to this point the next time I see them J. I can’t be too hard on either Paul or Jay as they picked up my tab for the night – thanks gents! While it will take more than a dinner for me to convert from the curly brace, semicolon world of c#, VB looks pretty attractive with these gents at the helm.

Where have I been

Mike Flasko — Sun, 15 Aug 2004 06:21:00 GMT

Wow it has been quite a while since my last blog. I have been very busy lately trying to wrap up projects before my intership comes to a close (2 more weeks). Over the past week I attended a couple really great tech talks at Microsoft. The first one was about the Windows Media Center OS. Unfortunately, I can’t outline what they talked about, but my advice is wait for the next release as the experience will be really hot!

The second talk I attended was on the future of Xbox and wait innovations to expect in the next generation of the hardware and software aspects of the game console. Again, they are keeping things hush hush in this area, but they are planning some cool both in the hardware and software space.

Bill G's House

Mike Flasko — Thu, 22 Jul 2004 13:44:00 GMT

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend an Interns BBQ at Bill Gates' house. Wow! Wow! Wow! I was expecting a mansion on a lakefront compound, but even my high expectations were out done by this house and property. To get to Bill's house we first took a bus to a church parking lot where we were greeted by members of Bill's security team who put us through the metal detects so sensitive that they would beep if you had too much iron in your blood. Okay that may have been an exaggeration for effect :). We then took a small shuttle to Bills house. To get to his house you drive down a narrow one way street curving between houses and bush until you arrive at a very heavily wooded area with an Iron gate and two more security guards. After some radio work, the gates to the compound finally opened and we start to drive inside. At this point you cannot see anything because the area is so heavily covered with trees, bushes, streams, etc. The shuttle then proceeded over a bridge and past an airplane hanger of a garage to a round about drop off area. We got off the shuttle and entered a nearby door into Bill's house. The house is a mixture or mahogany, contemporary art, marble and technology - a truly awesome decor. We then proceeded down a very long staircase, past a few sitting areas (one with the biggest wall of TVs ever) and finally into an outdoor reception area filled with various covered patios, docks, boats and sitting areas. The food server was good but that took a back seat to the networking opportunities at this event. Not only was Bill on hand to chat with, but many corporate VPs including Amitabh Srivastava-VP core OS dev, Robert Short-VP kernel dev, Mike Nash-VP security technology, Jawad Khaki-VP windows networking, Will Poole VP windows client business as well as VPs from mobile devices, embedded and user experience groups were there. I did not really talk with Bill because most interns swarmed him, salivating at his presence. So, instead, I shook his hand, picked my jaw off the grass, and networked with all the VPs that only a few interns were paying attention to. After some good conversations, I explorer the house - those few parts we were allowed to see. The most interesting thing about Bill's house is the fact that most of it is built into the hillside and thus underground. From the exterior, his house appears much less flashy then those around his. I will leave it to your imagination to derive why he has done this. His house seems to extend quite deep down underground because there was a glass elevator shaft beside the staircase we walked down of which I could just barely see the bottom (Bill's bat cave?). Anyways, I will wrap up by saying the event was awesome, the food was good and it’s not everyday that one gets to meet and greet with VPs at Bill's house - maybe someday I'll get invited back or, better yet, invite him to my “super” mansion?

Cooliest library

Mike Flasko — Sun, 20 Jun 2004 21:04:00 GMT

This sounds very nerdy but Seattle has the coolest library every - check it out:

http://www.flasko.com/ngallery ---- look under the seattle gallery then under the library gallery

The library has free wireless and you can buy smoothies in it. It has become my favorite work spot!

MS Store pictures

Mike Flasko — Sun, 20 Jun 2004 02:26:00 GMT

I posted some pictures of the goodies I got at the MS store (not all are for me - fathers day presents). I also posted a picture of the tablet I got at work. Speaking of tablets I can't wait for the 2005 version of the OS. I will be very curious to see if the fixed some of the issues in the current OS - screen configuration, hand writing, apps designed for the tablet, etc.

http://www.flasko.com/ngallery - look under the seattle gallery

IC worlds are coming soon

Mike Flasko — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 20:40:00 GMT

wow it has been a long time since I last blogged. I blame that on working stupidly long days and weekends for the past while. I am currently doing a research project which seems to eat time like a fat man at the sizzler. Anyways, the world competition is quickly approaching and our team is doing their best to add the last bells and wistles to our application. I recently finished adding some weather monitoring services and mappoint features to the application and now its testing time. We have a solid week or so before we leave so that will give us enough time to tie up all the loose ends.

I have now turned my focus to marketing our application to the judges at the world competition. I am told the judges will have a very technical background. Based on the metrics outlined for scoring, I think our application should stand up well. However, we only have about 15 minutes in front of each judge so we have to decide what slant we want to put on our presentation. Any ideas what we should emphasize? the broad range of technologies we use, the technical design, how the application meets a real world problem and solves it well, ????? We will obviously work to hit on as many points as we can in our presentation to the judges, however, everyone usually has one or two things that sticks out the most about a memory. What do we want the judges to parallel with game.set.match. in their minds - technology, practicality, usability, SOA architecture ??? Basically, I think we need to determine what will help us get our application to stand out. Will other groups blow us away with implementation or will their general idaes be better or more marketable? We need to pick the battles we have a good shot at being the best at and do an excellent job of selling ourselves in those areas. Noone ever remembers the second best of anything, right?

Free Game

Mike Flasko — Wed, 02 Jun 2004 02:00:00 GMT

It's late so this will be short. Today just before leaving work, my officemate and I were given free tickets to the Mariners game by his manager. Of course we took them and had a blast at the game. The Jays won 6-5 but the seats were awesome (right near 1st base) so all in all it was a great time.