Closing the book

It's with a heavy heart that I said goodbye yesterday to my friends and co-workers in the Live Search Books group where I have been a contract employee for the past 10 months. My boss and some of the other members of my team took me out for a goodbye lunch at our team favorite Thai Ginger in Redmond Town Center. I feel as though I've come so far in the past year in terms of increasing my skill set and making all the necessary connections at Microsoft. I recognize the huge career risk that this was, leaving a good paying, full time job behind to strike out on my own. I feel that it has paid off enormously, as my next position, as a Product Marketing Manager in Rich Media, will be even more challenging. I will miss working with an incredible array of super talented, clever, charismatic, and personable colleagues, but I'm sure my new team will be equally exciting in its own way.

Working in 88 has also allowed me generous access to Raj, who works next door in 87. I'll miss our daily lunches in Cafe 86, the smoothie bar downstairs, and hot, cheap oatmeal. In May, our building was treated to a ping-pong tournament starring none other than Mr. Bill Gates himself. Here's a shot of Bill ping-ponging.

I'm excited for the next chapter to begin .............

Three weeks of sloth

So I've been sitting on my ass for about three weeks now... ahh, glorious springtime in Seattle! I am contemplating changing my blog name to sloth.blogspot.com, but I imagine it's already taken.

So, big news, blog reader(s) - on Friday, Microsoft announced it is shutting down its book digitization project , which means my position is being terminated in another 5-6 weeks. This came as a big surprise, as I had just been confirmed as staying on for another year, but you know how it goes in the software industry.... So now I am hunting around for an FTE position here at Microsoft. I really love working here and hope I can make it work somehow.

This weekend I am heading down to L.A. for a little central California coast roadtrip with Rajesh! Even though vacation photos are wildly inappropriate for my running blog, I will post them anyway upon my return. And who's kidding who here - I'm not running anymore, so I might as well repurpose the blog for something good - and that is me, having fun.

BTW, I cut all off my hair off last week. Not all, but most of it. First significant haircut I've had in a few years. Just thought you'd like to know.

In non-running related news...

My boss told me on Friday that unless I do something really stupid (like, I don't know, pull the whole internet down), my Microsoft contract is being extended through the end of June, 2009. We can all breathe a little easier now :)