Trisha Lacey's Blog

Quick, somebody entertain me!

Trisha Lacey — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 21:27:00 GMT

And I’m bored

-GnR

That pretty much says it. I don’t know why, but I am just having one of those days. I have a ton of stuff I need to be doing, and I just can’t seem to get myself to do any of it. I actually managed to eek out some work this morning, and I feel pretty sure I will do some more tonight before I go to bed, but honestly, half of today I have just been surfing the net trying to figure out who I would put money on as the dad of Anna Nicole Smith’s baby. Seriously, there are 3 potential baby daddies right now, and one of them is Zsa Zsa Gabor’s husband. That is just weird.

I am thinking it is about time for me to get back into WoW. I haven’t been playing for a while and I am starting to miss it. There is just something to be said for the simple way of life within WoW. You know, just running around finding creatures to kill that drop all sorts of stuff that you need, or at a minimum can sell. Riding through the forest on my Tiger, without ever getting stuck in a tiger jam. Getting together with a group of friends, for a nice night of dungeon carnage. Digging up gold and silver and then doing cool things like “smelting”. Magically transporting back to the inn at the end of a long day so that I can rest and get double credit next time I log in. Ahh, now that’s good living.

Of course, I need to get a new computer first. And before that I need to move (I am moving in 2 weeks and I hate packing above all things). And oh yeah, I need to finish wedding planning for July (which I am really excited about, but wow, there is a lot of stuff involved). And Codezone is coming up on launching the new UG functionality (March 19^th ish). Oh, and there are about 87 other things on the list too.

Maybe I have too much to do and I am having some sort of too much to do freak out, masking itself as boredom. Hmm…

Ok, Seriously

Trisha Lacey — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 18:46:00 GMT

Hear ye, hear ye. This is going to be a serious post! Calling all people passionate about UGs and the developer community! The INETA North America Board is accepting nominations now for the upcoming elections. If you are serious about the community, and want a chance to get more involved (not to mention work more directly with little ole me :) ) read all the info below. Note - nominations must come from an INETA UG Leader, and the deadline is 2/15/2007.

Elections are being held for the INETA NorAm Board of Directors in mid-March. From now through February 15, 2007 any user group leader of an INETA registered user group in the United States and Canada can nominate an individual for a Board position. The nominee can be any member of the developer community and does not have to be a user group leader. Experience and familiarity with the operation and needs of the user group community is beneficial. You cannot nominate yourself, but any other user group leader may, so get someone to nominate you.

All positions are a 2-year term running from July 1, 2007 through June 30, 2009. Nominees must reside in the United States or Canada. Nominations are being accepted for the following positions:

President: Provide strategic direction, oversee business operations, interface with other worldwide regions, ensure business and project goals are being met.
Vice President: Assist the President with strategic planning, administrative operations, and project management.
Secretary: Maintain all corporate records, contracts, and oversee the election process.
Treasurer: Oversee financial and accounting including bookkeeping, budgeting, tax returns, and financial reporting.
Vice President of Community Activities: Oversee projects related to the user group community like INETA Live and regional user group leader summits.
Vice President of Marketing: Provide marketing and communication support for projects and business operations.
Vice President of Membership: Oversee individual and user group membership management including application approval and project related to increasing and maintaining quality members.
Vice President of Speakers: Oversee the allocation and logistics of the INETA Speakers program.
Vice President of Technology: Provide technical functionality for business operations and project implementation including infrastructure and the web site.

This is a great opportunity to work with fellow volunteers from user groups around the United States and Canada as well as get some experience running a business that can help you professionally. Furthermore, you can help foster the larger user group community. Board members are required to attend 1-hr weekly conference calls and up to two in-person weekend meetings (all expenses paid) each year.

Questions about a position including a detailed job description can be obtained from Jason Beres, Secretary (noram.secretary@ineta.org). Nominations can also be submitted to Jason and should include:

Full name
Mailing address
Email address
Phone #
Board position desired
Nominee's resume
Brief description on why you think the nominee would make a good candidate for the position.

All nominations must be received by midnight Thursday, 2/15/2007.

But, just because I can't stand to just be all business and no fun, here is a link to something that I think is funny.

Happy Wednesday!

Look Ma! I blogged!

Trisha Lacey — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 17:19:00 GMT

Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?

-Beck

Ok, I know you thought I would never blog again. I even started to think it myself. But then, I saw what George said about me when he tagged me and I was like, damn it. I can do this. I’m not a loser!

Anyway, I know this is late, but here goes. My five things:

1) I have a tattoo on my butt. Don’t bother asking because no, I will not show it to you. I got it my first year of college and have always wanted to get another one, but I just can’t decide on a design.

2) In High School I was voted most likely to become a rock star.

3) I have traveled in Denmark, Germany, England, Singapore, Malaysia and Mexico by myself.

4) On another travel related note, I went to China several years ago and saw the Three Gorges before it was flooded. Funny sidenote to this – when we were on the river boat, somehow a rumor got started that Bill Gates had been murdered. I was traveling with a friend that worked at Microsoft too, and we both kind of freaked out. We forced our tour guide guy to call the Beijing Microsoft office to make sure our fearless leader was ok. On another sidenote, cell phone service rocks in China. You can ALWAYS get a signal no matter where you are.

5) I just got engaged over the holidays! Considering I came from a small town in the South and grew up pretty poor, this is actually a bigger deal than you might think. When I was 18 years old, I came home from a date (promptly at my curfew of 11pm) and my sister, who was 12 at the time, asked me: “Are you going to get married?” and I was like “What?! What are you talking about?!” and she said “Well, mom says you’re at the marrying age.” Yeah. I am 34 now, and have never been married so all hope for me had pretty much been abandoned long ago. All I have to say to that though is thank god I didn’t marry whoever I was dating when I was 18, especially since I really don’t even remember who it was!

I am not even going to bother tagging anyone else, because I know I am way late on this, but you know what they say, better late than never.

Oh – one final thing, I want to give a shout out to my friends at CodeMash – especially my dancing DE buddy Drewby!

Josh, I hope your head isn’t lumpy! J

Oh yeah, and Happy New Year!

Whateva

Trisha Lacey — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 19:47:00 GMT

so you found a girl
who thinks really deep thoughts
what's so amazing
about really deep thoughts

- Tori Amos

Ok – still not doing so great on blogging. But I am serious about trying harder. Or at a minimum being guilted into it. This post right now is purely to keep from having to do the elf dance at TechEd. Don’t ask.

Anyway, just wanted to give a quick update on what has been going on in my life.

I have been traveling a good bit lately, plus I just moved into a new place. I went to the Silicon Valley Codecamp which was pretty cool, and then last week I went to the HDC which was awesome. Especially when I got to play Texas Hold’em against Jeff Julian. Yeah, he went all in and I took him out. Now that’s what I’m talking about.

Next week I will be at DevConnections, so if you are going drop me a line and let me know.

There, done. Elf dance averted.

Honest, I didn't mean to

Trisha Lacey — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 17:42:00 GMT

I’ve been a bad bad girl..

-Fiona Apple

So I did the bad thing. Something that I swore I wouldn’t do. I didn’t really mean to; it just kind of happened.

What is this bad thing you ask?

I committed one of the cardinal sins of blogging. I started a blog with the best intentions of posting regularly, and what did I do? I lasted for about 8 weeks. I think my problem is I haven’t mastered the art of the short post. All of my posts so far have been pretty epic and I need to learn how to blog some of my more random thoughts rather than only wholly fleshed out concepts.

So this is my first attempt at the short post. We will see how it goes.

A few things just to get caught up though:

Thanks to everyone who commented and sent me nice emails about my post about riding the bus – I am happy that some of you found it inspirational. J

Joseph – thanks for pointing me to the Elf Dance video – I guess humans can actually do the elf dance. To all the people that have asked me to do it in person though, the answer is still no.

George C – I got your email – I don’t know who this other mysterious “Trisha” is that you met at GameFest, but believe me, when you meet me, you will know you have met me. J

Finally – to close off on this week on a happy note – here is a list of some of the things I have laughed really hard at over the last few weeks. If you are easily offended you should probably not check these things out. Consider yourself warned. J

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5427138374898988918&q=Easter+Bunny&hl=en - I always wondered what the Easter Bunny was up to when he wasn't delivering chocolaty goodness.

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/aus/192659778.html - this one actually made me cry it was so funny.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail.html - thanks for pointing this out to me Jeff!

Ok. That was reasonably short. Have an awesome weekend everyone – especially you guys going to and working on the South Carolina Codecamp!

In life's good graces

Trisha Lacey — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 13:06:00 GMT

When I'm counting up my demons.
There's always one for everyday,
With the good ones on my shoulder,
I drove the other ones away.

-Coldplay

So in general, I am a positive person. I truly believe that I not only generate positive energy, but I send it out into the world, thus making the world a slightly better place. Every morning I start my day with this wish – that every person on this planet has at least one moment of happiness, even if is brief. I realize, this is probably a bit unrealistic, but I hope it anyway.

Lately though, I have been going through some pretty frustrating stuff. Some work related, some personal. No need to get into it here, but needless to say, it has been taking a toll on my positive energy generation.

What is important though is that no matter how frustrated, upset, or angry I am, I at least stay open to inspiration. What amazes me is how successful this attitude is for me. If I just wait, inspiration comes.

So, I woke up around 3am this morning and couldn’t fall back asleep because I am so stressed about some stuff going on. I definitely didn’t have a shiny happy attitude when I left the house. Nevertheless, the fates smiled on me, and my inspiration came at the bus stop this morning.

People that know me well, know that when I am not busy killing stuff, I am pretty serious about being a good earthling. I recycle (and chastise co-workers that I catch not recycling, I mean come on, we each, in our own offices have a trash can, a paper recycle box and an aluminum only can. All you have to do is sort your stuff!), I volunteer time and donate money to environmental organizations, I write letters to my congress people from time to time on environmental issues that I care about, and I regularly evangelize public transportation.

For the most part, I take the bus, walk or ride my bike pretty much everywhere I go. When I see people in Hummers, I shake my head disapprovingly. As a matter of fact, I was gleeful when I heard about a website where I can demonstrate my feelings towards hummers with only a camera and a particular finger of which I possess two of. At this point, I should probably make some sort of obligatory, I’m sorry if you have a hummer comment, but the thing is, I’m not sorry. Stop screwing up our shared planet!

I have a car from time to time, and I am not against having one, but for the last few years I have worked hard to maintain a single car household. Before that, I went several years completely car-less. So – basically, I take public transportation to work every day. To do this, it involves 2 buses, and then either a long walk or shuttle ride to my building, so yes, it is a bit of a commitment, but when you feel strongly about something, you make that commitment.

The nice thing is that the bus that goes from downtown Seattle to the Microsoft campus is filled with Microsoft people. Regularly people are standing on the bus, even though it runs every 11 minutes. The crowding on the bus doesn’t make me all that happy, but the fact that so many of my fellow Microsofties take public transportation does really please me. It’s almost like our own little bus riding sub-culture or something. We call the bus the “Microsoft bus” and sometimes it even has Wifi on it, so it is pretty cool. There are even bus sub-culture rules like for the most part, you don’t talk to other people on the bus. We are all busy doing our own thing when we are on the bus: listening to music, being zen, doing email, whatever. Nevertheless, regularly you see the same people over and over, so that in some ways you feel like you know them. I refer to them as my bus buddies. If you run into them somewhere not on the bus, you will usually acknowledge each other with a head nod or something. It is pretty important though not to cross the line to talking because honestly, the solitude on the bus is valued and important. There is nothing worse than a bunch of yakkers disrupting the peacefulness of the bus ride, and once you start talking to someone, you get caught in that cycle of talking to them every time you see them and then next thing you know the whole bus riding universe is out of whack.

Ok, since I am so tired I know I am rambling a bit here, but I am going to go ahead and tell a little story. I apologize in advance, but right now I am powered by caffeine and inspiration, so just stop reading if I am boring you. J

So one time a long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away – er, no wait..that is a different story) I was running late for the bus. I was still on the wrong side of the street running towards it as I saw it start to pull away from the stop. I was like, damn it! But then, it stopped and waited for me. I thought woohoo! I got on the bus and told the bus driver “thank you so much!!” and he said “Don’t thank me, thank them!” and he jerked his thumb back towards the passengers. I looked at them and realized, my bus buddies, that I see every day but had never spoken to, made the bus driver wait for me. Isn’t that awesome? I love the bus and our little sub-culture. I of course said “thanks everyone!” and then we never spoke again, which is exactly how it should be.

Anyway, back to my inspirational moment this morning. I know a lot of people keep up with the goings on at Microsoft. Not just our products, but also what is going on inside of it as far as the “Microsoft culture” goes. Scoble talked about this in his blog, and then also there are other blogs like Mini-Msft that a lot of people kept up with.

So for me, I have been at Microsoft for almost 6 years. I have seen our culture change some over that time, and not in ways that I entirely appreciate. Nevertheless, I saw something this morning that truly did inspire me. I saw Lisa Brummel, our Senior VP of Human Resources at the bus stop. She took “the Microsoft Bus” to work!

Those of you that keep up with these things know that she is fairly new to her role. She has taken a lot of time over the last year to go around and talk to people at Microsoft, and really figure out what she can do to help make this a better place to work. Plus, she has taken casual dressing to a whole new level. To me, this is awesome because for the last few years there have been a lot of what I consider more stodgy people joining the company and causing “the norm” to shift towards a more formal environment. Things like this are small, and you might even argue silly, but at the same time, I think they can be good indicators of where a company is going. If the culture changes, the company changes.

Now, I know that Microsoft has a bad rep in some places, and hell, when it comes right down to it, we deserve it. We do need to change some things. But to an extent, being “evil” is part of our sub-culture. J And I get a kick out of saying that I work at “The Evil Empire”. I was pretty much born to work here, as one of my favorite things that an ex told me once is “You are diabolical.” I won’t go into the context, but he meant it in a good way. Even just the other day, Drew Robbins, the Dancing DE told me I was evil. Again, I won’t go into the context, but I will say I probably deserved it. Sorry Drewby! J

Regardless, I am definitely fine with Microsoft changing as I think change is important to stay successful. I just want it to change for the positive, and I unfortunately have not been so sure that what I have been seeing over the last few years has been completely positive.

Part of what I loved about Microsoft when I came here was the fact that we weren’t bound to some of the things that you see in other companies, like dressing up for work. Or being at our desks from 8am to 5pm. Or doing stuff a certain way just because that is the way it had always been done. But most importantly, for the most part if you work at Microsoft, you do truly believe that you can change the planet for the better. All evil joking aside, Microsoft is a huge, impactful organization and it is really important that we use our powers for good, and not evil.

And that is the thing about Lisa. Wow! Now here is someone that isn’t just standing up providing lip service about being a good corporate or global citizen. This is someone in a high enough position to truly be influential at this company, that in my opinion is “doing the right thing”.

That experience this morning was enough to make me say “I love this company!” all over again. It is such a small thing, but it made me feel good about our future, and the way we will potentially contribute in a positive way. That’s how good things start, with something small and seemingly insignificant. That is the power of positive energy.

I wrote most of this post while I was on the bus, casting little furtive glances at her, thinking about talking to her, but then in the end staying true to “bus rules”. When I did get off the bus though, I overheard this conversation: “Lisa Brummel?! My name is Tom, and I am pretty new to Microsoft. I am so excited to see you taking the bus, and I just have to say that you are one of my hero’s at the company..”

I have had a smile on my face since then.

Happy Friday everyone!

The song

Trisha Lacey — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 00:05:00 GMT

(Foregoing my usual lyric as I am about to blog a whole song!)

And almost at the last possible minute, I manage to get one blog post in this week. J I am sure a lot of you will be reading this on Monday morning in your aggregators, but take note; I got it in on Sunday night.

So a few weeks ago, when I posted mine and Amy’s IM conversation where we were geeking out about WoW, I made mention of a song about my ass. Of course, several people noticed and I have been getting questions about the song since then.

Here’s the story: one night during TechEd, after one of the big parties, a smaller group of us ended up going to another bar afterwards called “The Green Dragon”. There was an awesome guy there named Scott Damgaard playing guitar and singing, and as always when there is music, I danced. I wasn’t the only one dancing, mind you. But maybe I was the only one dancing like a Night Elf and apparently I, or at least my ass, was inspirational. So I got my very own song. Pretty cool, huh?

So before I put it out there, just a few comments – if you have a chance to go see Scott, you should definitely go. He is a great performer and knows a gazillion songs. Also, to answer the question that I am sure I will get – the only thing he got from me was my email address. I am not that kind of girl! Shame on you if you thought otherwise. (I will also expect you to take this potential shame into account before you make any over the top comments about this post!) No matter what though, I am sure we can all appreciate a nice song about my ass. J If you do go see one of Scott’s shows, be sure to ask for it, I am sure he will play it.

So without further ado, here you go (although note, it is racy in a few places so don’t read further if you are easily embarrassed or offended or whatever!):

(Start of email)

From: Scott Damgaard

Sent: Friday, June 23, 2006 1:52 AM
To: Trisha Lacey
Subject: Does it make me a bad person if I thought of you when I wrote this?

she's a girl with a kind face
thoughtful and considerate
with a dancer's grace
delightful to be with
she always has a smile
she'll hold the door for you
'cause that's her style

She's got beauty
She's got class
But more important than that...

She's got a great ass!
Wanna hold it in my hands
She's got a great ass!
do whatever it commands
She's got a great ass!
I'm only here to serve
What can I do for you, and your great ass?

In a restaurant in New York City
She'll act sophisticated
And still be pretty
Hong Kong, Moscow
Paris or Rome
Wherever you go
She's always at home

She's got beauty
She's got class
But more important than that...

She's got a great ass!
to The Lord, I say, "thanks!"
She's got a great ass!
wanna give it a little spank
She's got a great ass!
She'll shake it left and right
I raise my glass to you, and your great ass!

Yes, I've seen a lot of great asses in my time
But none can hold a candle to yours
If it was on display in The Louvre
Folks would be bustin' down the doors

In the boardroom she holds her own
the president is calling
from a private cell phone
she makes the best
of her lucky breaks
she's gonna succeed
'cause she's got what it takes

She's got beauty
She's got class
But more important than that...

She's got a great ass!
Just can't leave it alone
She's got a great ass!
with or without it I moan
She's got a great ass!
I can't live without it

I wrote this song for you and your great ass!

(end of email)

Happy Monday everyone!

-T

Less geek, more filler

Trisha Lacey — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 15:31:00 GMT

We're here and now, but will we ever be again?

-Fuel

So I started this blog to talk mainly about WoW. Unfortunately, lately, I haven’t been playing it a lot. This got me to thinking though – maybe it would be useful to explain how I manage the game along with the rest of my life as I know some people get so sucked in, they don’t do anything else.

For me, as I mentioned in my first post, I was worried about picking up another MMORPG because I know how addicted I got to Meridian59. I played that game for several hours every night, and then pretty much non-stop on the weekends.

This time around, I wanted to make sure that I didn’t get sucked in to the point of not living my “real life”. So this is the deal I made with myself – if something else comes up that I could do, I ask myself this: before WoW, would I have said yes to this? If the answer is yes, then I go do whatever it is, instead of playing WoW. In the beginning, it was hard to do that at times, as I really wanted to play. Now that I have trained myself though, it is pretty manageable. I quickly found that even if I was reluctant at first, I did always end up having fun once I actually dragged myself away from the computer.

Basically, that is why I am not playing much right now. Anyone that is familiar with Seattle knows that we have crappy, rainy, dark winters that pretty much go on forever. Even last week, it got overcast and chilly again and we were all walking around in jackets. (Jackets!??! It is freaking July!)

Nevertheless, in the summer months, when it is a bit warmer and sunnier, all of Seattle has to pack in as much fun and socializing as we can before we go back to hibernation mode. We have to maximize those daylight hours, as soon it will be getting dark again by 4:30pm (and when I say dark, I mean full dark). Soon, all of the restaurants and cafes will bring back in their sidewalk and patio tables and chairs. Soon everyone will be walking around in bulky ugly ass clothes again.

So for right now, this is what I am doing instead of WoW – On Monday and Tuesday nights I have salsa class. Thursday night I usually go out dancing, on Friday or Saturday there is usually at least one party or good show going on. Sunday morning, I have a group of friends I meet up with for brunch. Mixed in there is also random happy hours, going out to dinner with friends, power walking with my friend Sarah, and in general just spending as much time outside as I can. I live near downtown, so I pretty much walk or bike everywhere I go. I also try to do at least two or three volunteering activities each month. On top of all that, I also have to manage the boring real life stuff like laundry, housecleaning, lawn mowing, grocery shopping, etc. I am also pretty hard core about making sure I have a certain amount of time to just do nothing at least once a week. It is my recharge time and I don’t want to spend it sitting in front of a computer as I am lucky enough to get to do that all week.

For me, I think it is almost more important to spend this time out doing stuff than it is for a lot of other people. I came from Georgia, and I am used to long hot summers, and honestly I really miss that hot weather. I miss looking forward to Fall. So, I really do have to get the most out of the brief summer here that I can as it has to last me the rest of the year.

On that note, I will try to keep up with my blog at least once a week, but for the summer it is probably going to be more random and less geeky. I will try to always throw in one or two geeky things though, just to keep it real. Like for example, today I am using Remote Desktop to connect to a SQL Server, where I will pull data from the backend of WWE and then run some SQL queries on it to generate some reports I need. I know this isn't overly exciting to most of you, but come on; I am in marketing. Hopefully that will be enough to keep my geek credibility at a reasonable level. :)

How do you do it?

Trisha Lacey — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 15:32:00 GMT

It's not a habit, it's cool, I feel alive

If you don't have it you're on the other side

I'm not an addict (maybe that's a lie)

-         K’s Choice

Don’t have a lot of time to blog right now, but just thought I would post this conversation I had today with one of my main partner’s in crime, Amy Sorokas. The key question in here is – when you play WoW, do you do it in 1^st or 3^rd person?

AMY says:

i have been playing WoW back on Whisperwind -- lvl 47!

Trisha Lacey says:

awesome!

AMY says:

she is much more fun to play too

AMY says:

rogue

AMY says:

love that

Trisha Lacey says:

I haven't been able to get into it lately..I played a bit the other night, and I needed to kill Gazban at the Alter of Tides, but it is bugged right now and has been for a freaking week

Trisha Lacey says:

I wasted another stupid Elixir of Underwater breathing

AMY says:

i avoid all the water quests

AMY says:

i find them horribly disorienting and can't do them

Trisha Lacey says:

well, if you have underwater breathing it is fine..but if you die, you lose your potion

AMY says:

right

Trisha Lacey says:

I find it easiest to do if I scroll out so I can see myself in 3rd person, then I hold down both mouse buttons and drive where I need to go

AMY says:

i always play fully scrolled out

AMY says:

is that strange?

Trisha Lacey says:

not me...I like 1st person mostly

Trisha Lacey says:

I don't think so..I think lots of people do it that way

AMY says:

i am the ultimate non-gamer gamer

AMY says:

Trisha Lacey says:

I am going to blog this conversation if you don't mind..then we can ask everyone else what they do

Trisha Lacey says:

can I blog it, huh, huh?

AMY says:

sure yeah

Trisha Lacey says:

AMY says:

I am a rogue, troll on whisperwind

AMY says:

Zaracoda

AMY says:

For the Horde!

Trisha Lacey says:

I need to blog that song about my ass as well, but I haven't secured permissions yet...

AMY says:

hee hee hee

Trisha Lacey says:

LOL - down with the horde, Alliance rules!

AMY says:

i really enjoy the horde quests and home towns more

AMY says:

so funny

Trisha Lacey says:

really? I haven't seen any yet because I hate the horde

Trisha Lacey says:

but I definitely don't like places like Stonetalon Peak

Trisha Lacey says:

which seem to be more hordish

AMY says:

yeah - the places are more fantasy like -- i mean Stormwind is really dull in comparison

Trisha Lacey says:

I don't really like Stormwind that much, Iron Forge is my favorite city

AMY says:

and the Tauren town is very cool - i think

Trisha Lacey says:

hmm...maybe I will have to create a horde character eventually to check it out

AMY says:

and the Undercity rocks the house

AMY says:

you would love that

AMY says:

Start an undead so you see the Undercity soon

Trisha Lacey says:

yeah, I definitely want to check out the Undercity. Even the name has a certain appeal to me.

AMY says:

it is really close to where they start the new ones

AMY says:

Trisha Lacey says:

cool, maybe I will do that this weekend just to mix it up a bit.

AMY says:

they did an excellent job on the graphics for that place too

AMY says:

and you ride around on giant bats

AMY says:

Trisha Lacey says:

ok, I'm in..I definitely want to ride a giant bat

Trisha Lacey says:

although I love my tiger

AMY says:

yes that is a good thing to have a mount

AMY says:

or be a druid

Trisha Lacey says:

no doubt

AMY says:

my druid is fast

AMY says:

in travel form

Trisha Lacey says:

yeah, druids are cool but overall I feel like they spread themselves out too thin on the skills

Trisha Lacey says:

I had rather specialize

AMY says:

yes they do -- it is not so fun to play in groups cause you have to do all the boring healing stuff

Trisha Lacey says:

oh yeah, I hate that...

AMY says:

though you can heal yourself so you don't die very much at all

Trisha Lacey says:

although I did really like that quest to get expert first aid

AMY says:

Trisha Lacey says:

It's the end, but it is also the beginning

Trisha Lacey — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 18:22:00 GMT

Obstacles are inefficient, follow your intuition, free your inner soul and break away from tradition…Let’s get it started in here!

-Black Eyed Peas

So this week, I have been busy living my real life and haven’t had a lot of time for WoW. But today at lunch, I had a great conversation with Chris J. Fox (one of my main partners in crime at work and the one that got me started on WoW) about different online games and what makes them successful. He actually has a ton of thoughts about it, but I won’t go into that here, as he needs to start his own blog and go into all that himself.

What I do want to mention though is we got onto the topic of how some online games, when they start running out of new content, instead of rapidly innovating new things to keep people engaged they just tweak the mobs, making them impossible to kill by yourself.

This was something that was really interesting to me in the sense of community, as it seems to me that these games are trying to force community by making it impossible to be successful otherwise. (There was more conversation that lead to this conclusion, but hey, there is only so much I can type). In the MMORPG realm, it is definitely known that the community aspect is part of what keeps people engaged. What really struck me though, is that the way they are going about it just isn’t a successful model. Instead, it makes people feel pissed off because they can’t be successful on their own, and they feel forced to try and find groups to do stuff.

One of the great things about WoW is that it creates an environment where, for the most part, I can do everything by myself to get to the top levels, but if I do want to group and do things faster or more easily, the opportunities are there. I was actually quite resistant to talking to other players and grouping when I first started playing WoW because of a previous experience in online gaming that culminated in a wedding at an underground waterfall and lot’s of standing around “chatting” without a lot of actually running around killing stuff, but that is a different story.

Nevertheless, with the way WoW has set it up, I can group, and socially interact with people, just as much as I am comfortable with. Right now, I just form quest groups that are short term just to complete one or 2 quests. Eventually, I might join a guild so I can do some of the higher level content (I mean damn, there are some instances that need 40 people at one time to complete!). Regardless, it definitely benefits me because I can do higher level content and level up much faster than I could on my own.

So anyway, I have been in my role for not quite a year now, and I have learned a ton by getting out there and talking to people about community. One of the things I have heard more than once is that people worry that Microsoft is trying to “make” (ie force) community, or “do things” to the community and what have you. Man, you guys really do think we are evil, don’t you?! J

In reality though, I feel the same way about the developer community as WoW seems to feel about its player’s communities. It isn’t something to control or manage, instead it is something to enable, support and promote. I want to help enable opportunities for community collaboration to occur. I want to make sure to provide funding in the areas that I can to help the community be easily successful. Additionally, and this is where the marketing comes in, I want to make sure that the awesome things that are going on in the community are promoted so that other people can discover and benefit from them as well.

Basically, I want to help make sure developers have the knowledge they need to be successful in their jobs, because let’s face it, no one wants to suck at their job. The awesome developer community around MS is definitely one of the best resources to success. So with that – if you aren’t part of a User Group, or haven’t been to a meeting in a while – get back out there! You can find a list of UGs here. If you have never been to a CodeCamp, you are definitely missing out and should plan to attend the next one. You can find a list of upcoming camps here: http://www.codecampwiki.com/. There are lots of awesome things going on out there that you can get involved in, but of course, only if you want to. J

So now, I am about an hour away from the end of this fiscal year (which should explain my reflective post). I came into this role a few months into the fiscal year, and since my predecessor had left the company suddenly, I really did get thrown in. I basically spent the first 2 months of my job going around asking people what I was supposed to be doing.

Going into this next year, I feel like I finally have a clue. I don’t know about you guys, but I feel more excited about my life and my job than I ever have. I think the next 12 months are going to be awesome.

So with that, I am going to go out tonight and do some real life grouping with some of my best girlfriends. We are going to start out at a show, something called Iron Composer which I have heard is awesome and then hopefully go out and shake our groove things until the sun comes up. I plan to spend some time on WoW this weekend, as I miss Ravindra. I am also probably going to spend some time over on Duskwood, where Alexander & Julian, along with a bunch of the Developer Evangelists and other cool softies play. I just can’t stand to miss out on the community! ;)

I hope you all have a fabulous holiday weekend and I will talk to you next week.

PS – One final note – I want to give a special shout out to Jason Olson – congrats on your new job, and welcome!

It's time to get in the game

Trisha Lacey — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 22:26:00 GMT

I put a spell on you, because you're mine.

-Screamin' Jay Hawkins (but I was listening to the Marilyn Manson version when I chose this particular lyric)

So I don't have much time to post today because we are in the last week of the fiscal year and I am busy just trying to get everything finished up and also make sure my plans are set for next fiscal year so I will have something to do when I come to work on Monday.

I did want to take the time though to look in on my new blog and see how it is going. So far, I have to say, not bad.

I have been called a hottie by Chris Williams, I have had D’Arcy Lussier want to know who let me out (and by the way, it is just Trisha, there was never any danger of me being called Pat ;) ) And Dave Bost has said that I am one of his favorite MS people. Awww shucks, you all really know how to make a sweet Southern girl blush. J

Additionally, I also wanted to let everyone know that I have also sucked none other than Alexander & Julian into the World of Warcraft. They are even listing their Palladin and Warrior levels on their IM handles. (Level 7 already!) Just earlier today, Jeff explained it to me like this: “We’re addicted.”

That’s right baby, welcome to the fabulous World of Warcraft. I hope to see you all there soon.

So far, so good...

Trisha Lacey — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 16:00:00 GMT

Killing is my business, and business is good.

– Megadeth

Ok, so 2nd post, here we go. I got a few comments on my other post and nobody said anything mean yet, so I feel compelled to continue. As a basic formatting plan, just to let you know up front, I will start each post with a song lyric giving a general indication of what the post will be about, so you, as the reader can decide if you have any desire to read my comments for that particular day. Given the lyric I chose for today, I don’t expect too much of a drop off honestly, I mean I am in marketing so I am pretty good at coming up with enticing intros. Just check out my mad marketing skills.

Anyway, enough of that. So today, as I promised on my last post, I will introduce you to Ravindra. She is my Night Elf that lives on the realm of Hyjal in the World of Warcraft. She is a warrior, which means that one day she will grow up to be a killer tank. Jeff is going to have to teach me how to post pictures later, but for now if you want to check her out, you can go see this picture. She has really long hair, just like me. Pretty cool, huh?

Just a little background here – I have been a huge gamer since, well always. When I was a little girl, I would get my mom to let me hang out in the arcade in the mall instead of shopping with her or doing whatever all the other little girls were doing. My favorite games back then were Ms. Pac Man, Centipede and especially Galaga. Still to this day if I see a Galaga game I have to play it. Except the ones where you can put in more quarters to continue – I hate those games with a passion.

At home on the Atari, my favorites were Megamania (my turn always lasted so long no one would play against me), Zaxxon and Spider Fighter. When my mom would drag me to work with her when she was working late, by some miracle her work computer had Zork on it. Can you believe that? Man I loved that game.

Fast forward to college and I had moved on to games like Duke Nukem, Wolfenstein (who can forget that?!), and one of the best games ever in my opinion, Quake. That game wasn’t just a game, it was a religion. My old boyfriend and I would actually fight over the computer just to play. We would go to LAN parties on the weekend and have fragfests that lasted all Friday night and halfway into Saturday. I know that many of you men will take this the wrong way, but seriously, as a girl it is pretty damn satisfying telling some guy “Suck on this!” and then blowing him away with a rocket launcher. Overkill I know, but hey, if you have an issue with it, remember what I said about the intro song lyrics. You were warned.

The community that grew up around Quake was also amazing. I still remember being at E3 when John Carmack gave away his Farrari. I remember the Crack Whore clan and thinking about how cool it would be to join that group of girl gamers. And then I remember thinking – wtf – I don’t want to be a crack whore!! I had that same response to the Suicide Girls as well, but whatever. Nevertheless, when I think about it now, it was my first introduction to a technology related community in a way. Interesting.

That time period is also when my geekiness started really getting amped up. Partially out of necessity, I mean, I had to know how to set up the LAN, etc. But also, my boyfriend then was what we would now refer to as an “IT Professional”. Maybe they called them that back then too, but who knows. He really taught me a ton about computers. I hate to admit it, but before I dated him, I actually thought the monitor was the computer and the thing under the desk was just some big thing under the desk that was in my way. Anyway, here’s hat’s off to you, SirReal. Thanks for all the free tech support and training.

When I got out of college and I couldn’t hang on the Quake circuit anymore because I didn’t have like a gazillion hours a week to practice, I discovered my first MMORPG. Meridian59. That game single handily ruined a fairly decent real life relationship, but you know how it is; you can’t just stop playing because something might happen while you are offline and you might miss it! My guild was called Blood Moon and we rocked. We even had our own guild hall.

Eventually, I overcame that addiction and turned away from online games for a while. For a few years, I mainly stuck with things like Crash Bandicoot, Warcraft (not to be confused with World of Warcraft), Diablo and arcade games like House of the Dead. Shooter games are definitely right up on my list of favorites.

At some point, I briefly tried Everquest, but it just didn’t do it for me so I didn’t stick with it.

Over the last year though, a few friends started talking about WoW. I mainly ignored them because I was pretty happy with my current real life and didn’t want to risk another addiction. You know, once an addict, always an addict.

One day though, Crash just stopped meeting my needs, and the House of the Dead games at Gameworks were getting played out and not working very well anymore (poor gun alignment and all that), so I decided to try WoW. I came to my decision over Sushi with my co-worker and good buddy Chris Fox, who has like a full set of level 60s on Hyjal. On the way back to the office, we picked the game up at Game Stop, and once back at my desk I started installing it immediately (there was a ton of patching, so it took all freakin’ afternoon), and that night I logged on to start my adventures.

And this is how Ravindra was born. After a lot of frustration I might add. I have had very few gamer names over the years, and “Ravindra” was never on the list, but I joined an old server so I could benefit from some twinking and so all of “my” names were already taken. Grr.

Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, Ravindra is a warrior. For some reason, I have always gravitated to warriors instead of any sort of magic based characters, for reasons that I am not quite sure about but I am sure if I went to a shrink he would probably have some sort of opinion on it. I guess in a way, I just think it is kind of lame to stand really far from something and kill it with a fireball. To me, if you aren’t getting blood on your armor, you are a sociopath or something. I think eventually, I might start a mage, just to see, but I don’t know. I feel skeptical. Plus, I hate their outfits.

So back to Ravindra. She is currently a level 41, which means – that’s right – she just got her tiger. Oh yeah, baby. Now she can run around something like 40% faster. That may not sound like a lot, but seriously, when you are in a place like Stranglethorn Vale, that extra speed can make all the difference in whether or not you can get your quest done before someone starts bitching at you about how much time you are spending online “playing that game.” You know what I mean.

Here is how she is currently equipped from a weapon standpoint:

Ardent Custodian – Main Hand - 48-90 Damage, 32.9 dps

Zealot Blade – 43-81 Damage, 22.1 dps, +5 intellect, +6 spirit

I also have a bow that I use to lure out the baddies if there are too many grouped together, but that is inconsequential.

I would tell you about my armor, but some guy told me the other day that while my weapons rocked, my armor sucked. Oh well, as much as I hate it, I guess I will have to do some shopping soon. I gotta look out for my girl.

Ok…I think that is it for this post. I have to say, I hope they get shorter because honestly, I am starting to bore myself. I mean, I already know all of these stories. For some reason though, I just think it is important for you to understand how serious I am when I say WoW rocks, and I have the experience to prove that I know what I am talking about.

So for now, signing off…gotta get back to business. After all, those bloodscalp trolls aren’t going to kill themselves.

So here goes

Trisha Lacey — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 02:57:00 GMT

“Don't start me to talkin, I'll tell everything I know”

-Sonny Boy Williamson

So this past week at TechEd, while hanging out and doing my thing (whatever that is), I met the fabulous Jeff Julian. After arguing about some random stuff (those of you that know him will not be surprised that our first conversation started with arguing (just kidding) (well, ok, maybe I am not kidding, but see this is the exact reason I didn’t want to blog to begin with. I will get to that later though)), we got onto a topic that I find much more interesting than random stuff. World of Warcraft. That’s right, I said it. World of Warcraft.

Jeff came up with the idea that I should blog about my experiences, or more importantly, my Night Elf Ravindra’s experiences in the Warcraft World. So after much prodding, here I am. Blogging.

Before I get on to that topic though, let me tell you a bit about myself. I am a Senior Marketing Manager at Microsoft, and my specific area of focus is the developer community in the US. I am the primary liaison to INETA for North America, I manage the Codezone program for the US, and I work closely with other internal teams at Microsoft (especially the Developer Evangelists) helping to organize, collaborate on, promote and otherwise manage community programs for devs. This November will be the 6 year mark for me at the company.

Ok, enough about work stuff and back to WoW as those of us in the know call it. I have only been playing it for a few months now, but I love it. I find that it meets so many of my basic needs as a person. When I am pissed, I can go kill a bunch of stuff and that makes me feel better. I mean seriously, what makes a person feel better than leaving carnage in their wake? When I feel like I am not making any progress on things in my own life and need a little boost in the accomplishment department, I can easily go complete a quest and check something off the old quest log, which makes me feel like I am making progress of some kind. If I need some help getting something done, you know, like killing Bloody Buccaneers down in Booty Bay and I don’t have the necessary experience yet to do it on my own, I can find a neat group of temporary friends to help me, thus making me feel better about mankind in general, while also avoiding any sort of long term commitments. When I feel like spreading some good will, I can go help some people that are a few levels below me. If I want to do some shopping, I can just go hop on a hippogryph and head over to Stormwind City or my favorite city, Iron Forge, and there are no traffic jams. Although in general, I am not much of a shopper real world or on WoW.

So anyway, to finish off this first post, as I mentioned earlier, I have been very resistant to blogging over the years, not because I didn’t really have anything to say, but more because I have way too much to say and I felt (and for the most part, still do feel) like I could minimize the damage I could create for myself by not broadcasting everything I have to say to a wider audience than whoever happens to be standing near me at the time I feel compelled to say whatever it is I want to say. After arguing about blogging for a while, Jeff convinced me that I should try it out, and that I could stay mainly on the topic of WoW since I love it so much and it is relatively safe for me to run my mouth about.

So who knows, maybe if things turn out well, this can be some sort of cathartic experience for me as I can occasionally get some things off my chest (isn’t that what most people do with their blogs?), provide some info as to the goings on at MS, and most importantly talk about how awesome WoW is, thus earning my geek title.

And to be honest, I can probably for the most part still have a certain amount of safety from myself just due to the fact that most blogs are not widely read so there is no reason to expect mine will be either.

I guess we will see if my interest sticks and I finally embrace blogging. If it does, the next post should be about Ravi, as I like to call her. Just whatever you do, don’t ask me about her Elf dance…