MacBU Bloggers

Yesterday we had our Office 2004 Service Pack 2 ship party, and I got to talking with Rich Schaut about his blog and we started to list all the MacBU bloggers. We kept listing names, but they no longer work in MacBU, so the qualification became: currently working at MacBU and has a blog. The funny thing is we only came up with three people: Rich Schaut (Dev) Andy Ruff (Entourage blog) and something here... (PM) David Weiss (that's me) (Test) It's all about transparency, and I expect that this list will grow, but who am I missing?

I Love My Jobs!

Last Friday we had the 26th Microsoft Company meeting and celebrated Microsoft's 30th anniversary. As a member of the Macintosh Business Unit I got to attend. Microsoft rented the SafeCo baseball stadium for the 7 hour meeting and it was cold. It was fun. I'm overall pretty sure my underwater stock options will come up gasping for air, eventually. So that's good. Part of the tradition is that everyone brings, hats, shirts, noise makers etc. to distinguish which tribe or team you're a part of. The MacBU was no different in this aspect, and we got the rebellious slogan, "go ahead, mac my day." all lower case at no extra cost. In the test team, we came up with some other slogans, that didn't make it on the shirt, but that I thought I'd share for your enjoyment: I love my Jobs I have a good iWork-iLife balance... On the other side of the fence, the grass is always greener. So are the Apples. I work with iPods My Software runs on a Mac. Does yours? My Office is prettier. Guaranteed not to run on Vista Turn up the AAC! An Office for the rest of us Uniting the world: Macintosh, Unix, Intel, Microsoft Always nice to work with a bunch of Mac heads. :)

We choose to go to the moon!

From President John F. Kennedy's address at Rice University on the Nation's Space Effort, Houston, Texas, September 12, 1962:

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

There is some passion in this address! To me it's saying "We do things not because there is a return on the investment, but we do things that are hard simply to prove that we can and enjoy the growth that comes of it." I felt this same drive and same ambition listening to Burt Rutan speak of SpaceShipOne at Oshkosh 2005 and quite frankly, it's contagious and inspiring. If NASA's new space program produces more creative drive, more ambitious "Why not?" questions, especially in the youth of today, it will be worth every penny it costs.

Pressing and Eager Young Churchill

Yesterday I was listening to a podcast and found this gem, the first paragraph of which is simply the background by Neal A. Maxwell for the quote:

I think, for instance, of the towering and courageous Winston Churchill, admired in so many ways, including by me, but who had serious difficulty containing his ego which sometimes tarnished his otherwise remarkable contributions. One winces, even at this late date, as he reads Balfour's rebuke, in 1905, of a pressing and eager young Churchill in Parliament. Just after Winston had been excessive, Balfour rose in dignity and said: As for the junior member of Oldham . . . I think I may give him some advice which may be useful to him in the course of what I hope may be a long and distinguished career. It is not, on the whole, desirable to come down to this House with invective which is both prepared and violent. The House will tolerate, and very rightly tolerate, almost anything within the rule of order which evidently springs from genuine indignation aroused by the collision of debate. But to come down with these prepared phrases is not usually successful, and at all events, I do not think it was very successful on the present occasion. If there is preparation, there should be more finish, and if there is so much violence, there should certainly be more veracity of feeling. [Ted Morgan, Churchill: Young Man in a Hurry (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), p. 175.]

People just don't talk like this anymore.