...but the time has come. 11 years at Microsoft, all of them in the Outlook & Exchange teams, and now that's coming to an end. Next Friday will be my last day in Exchange, after which point I will be moving to the Mobile team, to be the lead PM for the photos & camera experience. Holy crud, it...

I had a discussion with someone today who said something like "It's amazing how much of the process of software development isn't about software, it's just about communication and cross-group collaboration". My response was that "Actually that's not amazing to me - what's amazing to me is how many people...

I just can't resist sharing some of my favorite photos from our trip to Hawaii. There was amazing snorkeling right outside the condo we were renting, with tons of turtles, fish, and even a couple of eels:       David and I had a lot of fun snorkeling and "diving": This one was...

Today was a dress-up day at school and my son who is currently[1] a raving Indiana[2] Jones fan, decided to go as his idol. The resemblance is uncanny, see for yourself:   My daughter went as June from the Little Einsteins: Indy of course had his trusty satchel[3][5], but I don't remember if June...

I've been reading http://www.microspotting.com ever since my coworker Alex (aka carpenter-turned-test-manager) was profiled a while back . Great writing, beautiful photography, fun quirky looks at a bunch of Microsoft employees. Alex's profile is a great reminder of how many different backgrounds people...

Since you asked ... 130 words (currently position 1209 of 423595) When I was in college, I once broke some piece of my machine, this sweet Gateway P-100 (I chose to wait a few extra weeks until the P-100 came out, I didn't want to get that slow-arse P-90). I was on the phone with a great Gateway support...

Is a nice read , covering a lot of interesting topics, some of the more meaningful points as I see them: The most valuable course he ever took was the one he dropped after one lecture. It was valuable because it convinced him he shouldn't go to grad school for CS. I had a similar experience myself...

For my family, that means: (it's a silverlight app that lights one candle per night) Thanks, Synergist!

It started out simple, really - just on dejanews, as a way of finding out what conversations I've been missing that I really should participate in. Then later as more websites sprung up, it started to become a passing fancy - who's referenced my name? Who basks in my awesomeness? Eventually the obsession...

As I mentioned, I just started the 20/20 program at the proclub. As part of getting ready for starting the program, I went through an exam which told me such lovely statistics as my weight (eh), body fat percentage (whooo boy), flexibility (poor), strength (ditto), and all around physical health (not...

I just joined the 20/20 program at the proclub in order to get myself into shape, and as part of my workouts I've taken up running which - shockingly - I am enjoying . I still suck at it and can't run for long at a time but after two weeks I can tell I'm already getting better, and boy is it great exercise...

Don't fault him because he hasn't five starred every song... ;-) P.S. I absolutely hate the face melters.

My son and husband and I were at the park, in the playground area which is enclosed by a cement circle. He walks outside the cement circle, points at the grass a little ways way and says "Mommy, I'm going to go log off over there and get you a flower!" We puzzled this one over for a minute, and then...

But after getting a demo of facebook today, I created a profile . For someone who's been working on communications software for the last 9 years, it's about time. There's a " Young Microsoft Employees " group, for "Microsoft employees under 30." In about 5 weeks I will be ineligible for membership...

An old story I was reminded of today between me and my husband: Me: "Can you think of a reason why my machine would out of nowhere today say that it doesn't have a sound card installed?" Him: "Yeah, I removed your sound card. I needed the firewire." Me: "Were you planning on telling me about...

As I hinted a few weeks ago , I'm changing jobs again. My last role change was over a year ago , that's almost a record for me. My new job is being the UX Manager for the next release of Exchange. I will be leading a team of designers and researchers on the UX (User Experience) team. The UX team played...

Today is the third anniversary of my first blog post . A whole lot has happened (and been blogged) in those years, including events such as: I changed jobs I started the Exchange blog (2 million hits a month later...) I helped release the custom quota service & its source I got Larry...

I can only assume that I sound like a 12 year old girl. Every time a telemarketer calls, they inquire as to whether or not I am a decision maker in the home and when I say yes-and-please-put-us-on-your-do-not-call-list, they pause as if they don't quite believe me. I need to insert something into my...

(Just kiddin' :-) I just bought a ticket to BlogHer '06 . Are any other softie bloggers or readers of softie blogs going? Leave a comment or trackback here if you want to get in touch. I'm also thinking about proposing a " Room of Her Own " topic - women tech bloggers? Creating & running...

What a weird day. At 9:30 this morning, out of nowhere I started to have severe vertigo and nausea. I managed to crawl to the phone to call David to come home, and then I called the 24-hour dial-a-nurse line and she asked me to try to stand up, which I couldn't do without the room spinning, thus making...

I grew up in the Chicago area and one of the delicacies of my childhood is stuffed pizza. I know plenty of restaurants in Chicago who make a great stuffed pizza but I have yet to find it anywhere else. We found this recipe for making it at home (spinach stuffed pizza is my favorite kind too), but...

While shopping for trains for a gift for my son (I think we've settled on this one - what do you think, isn't it nice?), I was bored enough that I started wondering what nuggets http://www.tinyurl.com had hidden behind its random letters and whether or not this form of spelunking could teach me anything...

She's da bomb. And in preparation for my return to work in February, we've introduced her to the bottle:

to Audrey Julia Lemson, who joined our family this morning at 12:28 AM, weighing 8 lbs 12oz and measuring 20.5" tall.

A few years ago I lost a lot of weight, and I found that " The Hacker's Diet " was a very useful tool for me in that process, it applied geeky skills to the weightloss process and it Just Made Sense. For example, it used moving averages to distill the trend in weightloss from a minor gain or loss in...