independence day

The day started with a gathering of us Microsoft MBAs up on the patio of the Harbor Steps. Low key, free food, and free drinks. Not a bad combination. (-; The plan for most was to go to a park somewhere by the bay to get a view of the fireworks. There are two sets of fireworks here in Seattle. One if on Elliot Bay. The other is on Lake Union. It's funny because one of the things by buddy Ross mentioned to me when I was here in February was how people camp out all day at Gas Works Park to catch the fireworks on Lake Union. Thankfully for me, I had an invitation to hang out with my "coach" on a rooftop right by Lake Union.

There was a good mix of people over at the Lake Union rooftop. It was a mix of Microsoft, T-Mobile, and a few "unaffiliated" people. It's always good to see a variety of people. To give you an idea who was there, there was a person who was a director level at Microsoft, someone who had "retired" for the last two years (at a young age), and also my old flatmate Barnaby's old flatmate who apparently now works at Microsoft. Oh... and to give you a sense of the mood, we were playing drinking Jenga. A good game. If you haven't tried it, you should.

Aside from a fantastic view of Lake Union and the fireworks, we had some interesting conversations about all sorts of things. Heck, with 5 hours of waiting for the fireworks to start (since it doesn't get dark till 9:30pm), there was plenty of time to eat, drink, and talk about all sorts of things. Overall, I continue to be pleased about the people at Microsoft. They know what they're talking about, and sarcasm and smart-assedness are completely OK. Plus they're honest about what's going on. We don't live in a dreamworld where we think that Microsoft is better than everyone else. We all think the iPhone is great, we all have iPods, and we make fun of the Zune. We also acknowledge when things aren't so hot (like Vista's performance) while also thinking of ways we can do things better, as well as seeing why some things must first fail before they succeed (like Windows Mobile... which after writing a Comp Strat paper, I don't see how Palm could ever have fostered any growth or innovation... their stuff sucked). We also had some good conversations about work life balance at the company. Let me summarize: It's good.

Here is a short video of the fireworks from yesterday. Enjoy.