Tag Archive: Work


A regular update. My life is utterly consumed with working on the upcoming release of Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac.

The team was asked recently to reflect on the “Think Different” campaign that ran 10 years ago at the “Rebirth” of Apple. At that time I was working in Education. I was one of three Mac folk on a team of 11. I was the lone Mac developer. I was continually derided by my team members for clinging to a ‘dying’ OS.

The Think Different commercial was very special to me. So, I was pleased when I got the chance to comment on it.

Over at Mac Mojo (the Office for Mac Team Blog) is the posting made from selected comments from across the team about the campaign and the different Geniuses chosen for the poster campaign. See if you can tell if one of my comments made the cut and if so, bonus points if you can figure out which one came from me.

The comments on the MacMojo blog posting are comprised mostly of the FUD developers learn to ignore from people who thing that if we stop coding for 30 seconds we’re intentionally depriving them of features and fixes. A few nice comments.

But in the meantime… back to coding. 🙂

heeheeheehee

And now for this commercial break from the UK

How does Andrei currently spend his days?

Currently they have me wearing Green. 😉

Today’s schedule

0400 Wake up (Clean up/dress)
0415 Feed the Kitty, collect work stuff
0420 Off to work (Snohomish to Redmond)
0445 In office
0500 Update codebase
0515 Work on Code
0845 Code works, build test versions
0900 Back to home for Dentist (Redmond to Snohomish)
0945 Stop at home. Greet family. Yay family
1000 Off to dentist (inspection, cleaning)
1200 Back to office for meetings (Snohomish to Redmond)
1245 Demo of mostly working code to PM
1300 Restroom and caffiene
1315 Prep for main meeting (Write this LJ Post)
1330 Team meeting
1530 Check in code changes from morning
1545 Head for home (Redmond to Snohomish)
1700 Arrive home.
1730 With family stop by grocery for IF dinner (We’re catering tonight)
1800 Off to IF (Snohomish to Monroe)
1830 Intimate Fire meeting (w/ dinner)
2030 Head for home (Monore to Snohomish)
2100 Home. Hopefully aiden_freeman will go to sleep. 17 hr day.

Fortunately, they are very rarely this bad.

I’ve been offline quite a bit this week/end.

Feeling under the weather as of pretty much Thursday morning has slowed me down.

The growing child makes it even harder. Work has slipped on me a day or two primarily because of the distractions at home with him. The balance becomes a struggle at times but it’s one I want (nay, need) to find.

For now I find myself often delayed leaving the house for an appt. Being on the run at a moment’s notice. And more often than not having to put Aiden at the top of my priority list with no warning to anyone who isn’t in the room.

I have a lot of irons in the fire right now. And I’m too indignant to start pulling them out. I don’t like failing on any of my commitments. It however would seem that one iron is mostly pulled out of the fire (I’ll be possibly finalizing that one later(Thursday) of this week) Other’s are progressing nicely. Ironically the iron being pulled out is related to the one that is beginning to glow. (Obscure? Vague? Get used to it. More soon)

But, let me first explain that I am goofy-happy over Aiden. Touching his head, watching him play, hearing him laugh, looking into his eyes… It becomes the realization of ongoing magickal work. I see the universe in him. Ultimate potential contained within mortal fragility. I see my own life no longer as a finite point but as a mark on an infinite time line. Years of playing with genealogy mean just a little bit more.

I look at him and I find myself smiling in a goofy manner. Like very little else really matters. Here are the latest pictures of Aiden I am now required to post. (Click the thumbnails to see the full pictures)

So where does this put me?

This post has taken me the better part of 3 hrs to write. I find myself for the most part offline of late and running errands. My cell phone is a continual trip between what does and what doesn’t work. I am trying to stay available for everyone while still getting done the work that keeps everyone alive and healthy (self included) and food on the table.

To present an old joke… If you haven’t heard from me.. it’s probably not you.. it’s probably me.

Ran out of things to say on this topic. So for now, let me conclude with:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Yesterday, I posted that Microsoft announced that Office 2008 for Mac would be released later this year.

This spawned the usual questions:
Will it be even bigger on my hard drive?
Will it be more buggy?
Why won’t it run on my 7 year old computer?

So, I’m going to actually wear my “Professional Engineer” hat and answer these questions from a general point of view. I can’t give any specific details.. because… well, I like my job and it’s not my place to announce specifics.

You might want to actually sit down for this… I really explain it to you.