Microsoft Research Wine Down

This is the perfect week for lazy people like me :). We have events one after the other with free food, and sometimes awesome free food. Lunch time, I went to a SQL server talk which provided various cakes and cookies, and dinner time, we had the wonderful Microsoft Research Wine Down with fruit, salad, chicken strips, shrimps, and crabs, and of course, some rare wines.

This is also the last weekday before SIGGRAPH, so many of the graphics folks are busy packing and preparing for their annual festival at LA. It was fun talking to them about it.

Tomorrow is the Microsoft Company Picnic. Anyway, it means more free food for all of us. This one runs from 1 pm to 6 pm, so possibly includes two meals :) Yummi!

Alright, I won't have to cook for another two days :).

Tech Fest, Ballmer's Speech & WindowsVista

On another rare sun-shining day at Redmond (July 27th), the 2005 Tech Fest for interns and new grads started on the soccer field in front of building 19. Before you enter the field, we received another T-shirt. (Up to this point, I already have three Microsoft shirts, while my roommate received five.) Let's see if I will fulfill my T-shirt needs for the next few years with the ones I received here.

All important ingredients for a good party: free food, drink (with alcohol), ice-cream, along with "tones of people" are supplied, and "YES", Steve Ballmer will give a speech (how can we ask for anything more?).

Before the speech starts, someone warned me that Ballmer might be jumping up and down on the stage which kicks in some more antipication :). After a round of food and socializing chat, Ballmer started the speech under his famous deep, passionate voice. I can't really remember what he said besides the word "innovation", and his statement on attempting to grab more shares from Sony for Xbox, but one thing is for sure: his speech is never boring. Passion seems to be a perfect spice to rejuvenate any daily dishes. Ballmer is indeed unique!

After the speech, we wandered around at the WindowsVista demonstration booths. I got a good lesson on how to use Visual Studio more efficiently, and checked out IE 7 (which looks like a hybrid of Opera and Safari).

More on life at Microsoft Research

Living in Bellevue, working at Redmond.
Living in the temporary housing arranged by Microsoft is amazing. I living in Heritage Park which is across the street from building 113 (where I work), but it turns out to be two different cities. I found it out when I opened my bank account at Bank of America. From the clerk's name card, I noticed the address is at Redmond while my address is at Bellevue, and we are only divided by avenue 148, so everyday, I walk from Bellevue to Redmond, and Redmond to Bellevue several times :).

Life at Microsoft Research

I finish a long day of work :). This is the fourth week I am here at Microsoft Research at Redmond. Couple of highlights today:

1. There apparently is another "Shen Zhao" at Microsoft Shanghai office. I received a surprising email from the tech support department from Microsoft Malaysia that I was assigned to a windows' server case :). After several rounds of email exchanges, it was clarified that it was intended for the other "Shen Zhao" at Microsoft Shanghai. Well, recently, I also discovered another "Shen Zhao" at Microsoft Research. Hmmm, I thought my name is rare, but ... Maybe it's time to use my full name (Shengdong Zhao) instead.

2. I finally received some positive response from Microsoft Travel on dealing the painful experience I had with Avis on passenger pickups. Hope the situation could improve soon.

3. In the past weekend, I watched "The Island" at a theotre near Ranch 99 (an Asian supermarket chain). The next day, an internal email said Microsoft was actually involved in making this film, and get acknowledged. Interesting ...

4. The flight museum I visited last Saturday worthed the trip. We arrived there one hour before closing time. One hour is usually enough for most of these small museums, but this one was certainly an exception. With many real models of all kinds of airplanes and rich content on the air battles during WWII, it's probably worth a revisit.

5. BTW, although the car rental experience at Avis is rather hairy, we got a free upgrade to an SUV last weekend. Driving it on the road felt good :).

Tomorrow is the summer intern and new grad tech fest. It could be fun.