Sunday, March 30, 2008

Spring Cleaning

It's almost spring in Redmond. I say almost, because it still snows from time to time (and it did today) and the sun almost never comes out. But then we have all the dead branches of trees giving way to millions of dots of pink and white and yellow on them. I have no idea what these trees are, but they make the prettiest sight in most parts of Redmond.

Spring flowers




Spring flowers



Spring flowers



And then there are these neglected shrubs. You'd find them in the most odd places - on the grassy slot between parking spaces or on the small patch of soil leading to the side entrance of a shop or restaurant. These flowers don't have a name yet (as well) and they are pretty as hell.



Blossoms in the dust



Blossoms in the dust



This is probably the best spring I've ever seen. Tulips and daffodils and lilies and roses and hyacinths everywhere. And I figured I'll need a better camera to take in all of this season. Which is why, in addition to Snapdragon (the current point-and-shoot camera), I'll soon have a Canon Rebel XTi with a couple of lenses. I'm yet to get my shipment (ordered it through Amazon) and just can't wait. Spring is fun.

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Posted by Aarthi Ramamurthy at 2:34 AM 6 Comments Links to this post

Sunday, January 13, 2008

A new home, a new year

It has been about a month since I moved to Redmond, Washington. My new role is that of a PM in the CLR team (in case you are wondering, I used to work as a Program Manager in the Visual Studio for Devices team at Microsoft IDC).

And that explains the long break from blogging (not entirely, but I'm going to use it as an excuse anyway). Most days consist of meeting folks in the new team, reading up on internal resources related to my work, meeting people outside my team, finding a house, buying stuff (where stuff = winter wear, furniture, random toys, a Chumby, an iPhone, a completely useless robotic flying insect (the operative work being "flying" - it doesn't even get off the ground for a second!), food, tons of convertors and a robotic vacuum cleaner (yes, the Roomba)), figuring out how road rules work here, getting lost and finding my way back in the cold, doing plenty of paperwork, taking driving classes, sitting beside Tameem while he drives to Fry's or to Costco or to one of the million another shops here, wandering in the cafeteria looking for vegetarian food options, jogging to the beautiful Sammamish lake and back and so on.

Day 1 - completely exhausted after nearly 36 hours of being out of my old home in India, just waiting at airports and waiting inside the plane. Waiting. And feeling claustrophobic. The only respite was Amsterdam airport - it was wonderful to be there, gaping at all the tall Christmas trees, at all the gadgets strewn around in the electronics section of a mall (inside the airport), at all the chocolates in the duty-free shops (I even got to sample a few - no, I didn't steal any) and at the enormity of the airport itself. Anyway, so it snows on the day I reach Seattle and it was pretty shocking since I didn't think it snowed in this part of the country (not that I had a problem - where I come from, snow is a novelty).


Snowing


The best parts so far

1) I get to work with Jim Miller on a daily basis and I can't tell you how overwhelming and scary that feels.

2) This team is so full of geeks and I fit right in - everything from weird Star Wars posters to cup <> mugs to random corridor conversations.

3) I got to meet Raymond Chen in person (by 'meet', I am not referring to being-spotted-in-the-parking-lot, I actually met him) and by far, it is one of my best days at Microsoft.

4) I have a lot to learn - I work on particularly low-level parts of CLR and that's always fun.

5) I actually know a lot more people here than in Hyderabad. I miss folks on my old team and I really miss all the techie conversations (and ribbing each other about hitting the gym :)) during lunches with Kaushik, but overall, I have a lot of friends on this side of the world.

6) I like the weather here. It's unpredictable and rains a lot, but I love it. And talking about weather, it is an excellent conversation topic - everybody here seems to have an opinion on Seattle weather :)

7) Downtown Bellevue - I was at downtown Bellevue during Christmas eve and I *love* the ambience there. It's hard to explain.

I can't charge my camera because the charger is lying safe in India. I'm also thinking about splurging money on a Canon Rebel XT (or XTi) and a couple of lenses. This place is so green and quaint and beautiful that it almost hurts not to have a camera around. I borrow Sriram's camera for the time-being.

So that's the story of where I've been. The blog is up and will continue to run. And this time, pictures will be from this side of the world that still has a lot of exploring to do.

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Posted by Aarthi Ramamurthy at 10:18 PM 6 Comments Links to this post