A blog
You might recall that I posted a mini-review of Yourself Fitness a few days ago. Kenny and I tried the upper body workout for the first time yesterday, and our arms are completely wiped out. I think it was doing 6 sets of the following that really did it:
For about an hour afterwards, I had to use two hands to drink my glass of water without dropping it, and today my biceps are like Jello.
Fun stuff! Makes me want to do more tomorrow.
This seemed to happen without a lot of fanfare, so I want to make sure it gets some attention: you can now report feedback and bugs on Avalon at the MSDN Product Support Center (also fondly known as Ladybug). There are a few good comments on there already, but I’m sure other issues have been found by many others out there who just haven’t been aware of the best way to report them. We know that our CTP release wasn’t perfect, and we want to hear about the issues/missing features/bugs that are blocking your development!
And for the skeptics: yes, yes, yes, we really do read these comments.
According to a somewhat controversial article on CNN today, apparently Cookie Monster is learning to practice some moderation in his cookie-eating routine. I participated in a few mail threads about this today, and most people are saddened by the news. But most kids watching Sesame Street won’t know the difference — since they never knew the old Cookie Monster who scarfed down cookies with reckless abandon.
Apparently these kinds of changes have been occurring on Sesame Street for a while — I only recently learned that Snuffleupagus used to be Big Bird’s imaginary friend, and at some point he became real. And there’s a whole generation of people who watched Sesame Street when he was imaginary, and are shocked (and saddened) when they find out about the transformation (Kenny is one of them). I also know others (these people are all around age 24, like Tracy) who were Sesame Street watchers before and after the transformation. And these people seem pretty accepting of the change.
The new satellite mode on Google Maps is pretty darn sexy. If you search for “1 Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA”, you can see me typing this right now!
Update: And I should really also give a shoutout to Microsoft Research’s TerraServer. The UI is not as slick, but it seems that the images are generally better. A very cool site.
I just stumbled upon an old, old post of Mike’s, in which he talks about Googling for one’s first name. Which of course inspired me to the do the same; and, like Mike, I don’t do so well. I found my site at the top o’ page 18, the 171st result, when searching for “Lauren”.
So I also have my work cut out for me. ;)
And speaking of Mike, he really needs to start blogging again.
I’ve been thinking about starting to blog a bit about my work (now that our project is actually out in the wild, a few of us have started to do that already).
I work on a project which is code named “Avalon” (one of my favorite things about pre-release projects at Microsoft is the sexy code names), and we are building a powerful new application client platform from the ground up. If you want some more background, the MSDN docs can help get you started, and there seems to be a bit of chatter about us on the web already. :)
I am the Application Model Program Manager for Avalon. A lot of people don’t really know what “Application Model” actually means when they first hear the term, so I’ll spend a little time talking about that, and then show you how to build some cool things in Avalon.
I may start by dissecting a very basic Avalon app and explaining what’s actually happening in our framework. If you have any suggestions for other Avalon-related content you’d like to see here, feel free to post a comment or drop me a line. And if you really want to get a head start before I go into much depth, go download our Community Tech Preview and start playing!
I [heart] Daylight Savings Time. It is wonderful to leave work in the evening and find that there is still a bit of sunshine left.
It is also amusing to notice how much the light (or lack thereof) can affect traffic patterns in Seattle. I’ve noticed that when people actually leave the office is tied to sunset, rather than the absolute time of day. This evening, for example, I left work just before 6pm, and traffic was still quite light. Yet before Daylight Savings began, traffic would have been a miserably slow crawl at 6. I think that most people don’t get the “it’s time to go home” feeling until they happen to glance outside and notice the darkness. At the peak of summer, this doesn’t happen until around 10pm in this beautiful city.
Of course, it makes no difference for me, since my office doesn’t have a window anyway.
After a bit of deliberation, Kenny, Julie, Lee and I decided to head up to Stevens Pass for our snowboarding swan song of the season (Stevens actually officially closed last week, but they opened this weekend for a special engagement, in response to an unseasonal downpour of nice fluffy white stuff).
It was great to get an unexpected little treat of a snowboarding trip in, and to spend some quality time with Julie and Lee.
However, I do have a few new snowboarding rules that I’m going to try to remember next time:
Even given the fact that I didn’t follow any of the above advice, I had a great time. But my form was a bit sloppy, probably due to the lack of sleep. Which may explain the really weird fall I took getting off the lift early in the day, during which I twisted my left knee in a very unnatural fashion. I’m walking with a rather pathetic limp right now; I expect that this will put a bit of a cramp in my gym/yoga schedule for the week.
This story is all over the local papers today:
Being single in Seattle means being creative in devising ways to meet people, including uniting under a common grocery store experience — in this case, Trader Joe’s. Earlier this year, some single Trader Joe’s shoppers joined other online social groups and created Trader Joe’s Love!
If I didn’t already have a honey, I might participate in something similar. Because I agree: it is a bit difficult to meet people in Seattle (although it is significantly easier as a female than as a male, given the population ratios here); because Trader Joe’s rocks; and because I certainly have seen some cute boys there.
My favorite recent TJ’s discovery would definitely have to be the Roasted Red Pepper & Eggplant dip.