No detailed write up, just some good action video footage – including one of me wiping out (I am going to deny responsibility and blame the guy who (kinda) cut across me)…

I’m on another trip to Redmond, and since I had to stay over the weekend again decided to switch hotels to for a couple of days so that I was in downtown Seattle.  Whilst Bellevue (on the east side of the river) has a great shopping mall and is very close to the Redmond and Sammamish Microsoft campuses, Seattle downtown (on the west side) has much more diverse and arguably lively population and events. 

I decided to stay at the Courtyard Marriot on Lake Union for a few reasons… 1) I’m starting to get a good number of Marriot rewards points, 2) I like their hand lotion, 3) it’s reasonably priced, 4) It was close the annual Fremont Fair site, which a friend (Katy) had promised to introduce me to!

I have recently learned that street festivals are pretty much a weekly occurrence during the Seattle summer, however in all the times I have been here I have never before attended one.  The Fremont Fair is an extra special festival since it celebrates the summer solstice (the first day of summer).  The Fremont event is also very famous (and popular) due to the fact that plays host to the annual Fremont NAKED bike ride! Hundreds of people turn up early in the morning, strip off, get painted head to toe in all kinds of crazy patterns and colours and then parade through the streets for everyone to see.  Unfortunately it was raining in the morning, so decided to skip the parade in favour of Apple store shopping, much to Bjorn’s disapproval…

After a failed Apple store visit (the whole of the Washington state is out of stock of 16gb iPads ), I got showered, got changed and walked from my hotel over to Fremont.  The walk itself was really nice – partly due to the face that walking anywhere in the U.S. is rare, but equally because the whole 2 or so mile stretch was right next to the west side of lake union.  That spot seemed to be dock central! There were hundreds of yachts and power boats, ranging from 1 person 1 sail petite boats, through to who knows million dollar floating places of luxury…

I also walked past a beautiful set of floating homes which were surrounded by lovely trees, colourful plants and a sidewalk made from an old stretch of railway tracks! What an amazing place to live…

After a brisk 40 minute stroll, I crossed the bridge which lead directly in to Fremont.  Despite the fact that I had missed the naked bike ride, I did spot of a group of friends who were in hysterical laughter at two of their group (a man and women) streaking nude down the side of the river! I guess they really got in to the flow of the festival (or of the beer).  As I arrived 4 hours after the naked ride, that was the only signs of nudity I witnessed.

As soon as I arrived at the east side of the bridge, it became quickly apparent that the street festival was still in full flow.  Thousands of people were flowing in and out of the streets which were blocked off to cars and hosting the hundreds of stalls selling food, drink, art and general knick knacks which would normally only be found in specialist stores (or perhaps in some cases at the bottom of the shelf in a far corner of a large department store).

The festival had a deliberate hippy vibe to it, with many people wearing and selling tie died clothes, straw hats and all kinds of beads to wrap around various parts of the body.  Despite the laid back dress sense, the lack of ‘Can I help you’ sales people and the fascination with a long bearded man swinging colourful ribbons around his head, there were stark reminders of Americanism from the numerous (and increasingly annoying) people asking for signatures on petitions for various new laws ranging from the ability for grocery stores to sell alcohol, through to legalising cannabis!

Perhaps also typical of America, the number of food stalls seemed to top any others.  There was a huge selection, everything from friend corn to noodles, and from Chinese to Lebanese!  Katy I and I ended up going for a satisfying cheese burger and fries (well, when in Rome…). 

Last weekend I was at the Isle of White festival in the UK, which was a 3 day event filled with music and involved most people wandering around with some kind of alcoholic drink in their hands at most times.  One thing which was noticeably different in the U.S. was the ring fencing of the alcohol zones.  The beer garden areas were tightly controlled by ‘door’ staff checking everyone’s IDs and ensuring that no drinks were taking outside of the fenced in (literally) area.  We stayed for 1 beer each (well actually, Katy had 1.3 beers and I had 0.7, since I shared some of mine when I noticed she was drinking it WAY faster than me), and then went for a stroll around the rest of the festival.

There were at least 3 stage areas where local bands provided an eclectic selection of music.  Other than whilst drinking beer, we didn’t stay around to watch the bands perform properly – but it was nice to have the music in the background whilst browsing the market stalls.

I was also pleasantly surprised to learn that such thing as a ‘Professional stone balancer’ exists …

I couldn’t help but wonder whether there was some trickery involved (perhaps filed down stone to create a flat surface, or hidden wire), but it was still fun to watch.  It seems that stone balancing is a regular event at the festival as there are other photos (with different stones) on flickr.

One of the first things I noticed when I arrived at the main festival street was the number of people who had painted faces!  I was keen to get mine done, although Katy was not so enthusiastic.  A beer or 2 later, and after a little bit of arm twisting, she changed her mind   Here is what we ended up with…

The festival alcohol zones were only serving beer and I was in the mood for something else, so we decided to go find a bar.  We ended up in the Ballroom bar, mainly due to the face that it had a big ‘Cocktails’ sign outside.  Luckily as we arrived, a couple of were leaving and we managed to grab a curb side high table out the front of the bar.  I love people watching, so this was a great social spot to watch the world go by and talk to randoms.  It turned out that our table was a prime spot for people to place their drinks whilst they went out for a smoke – the bizarre thing was that no one seemed to remember that they had put them their, so NONE of them were collected again!  We ended up with at least 3 full pints and numerous other nearly full bottles and cans on our table.  Great place to sit if you are on a budget!

Since we had some spare seats, we were joined by an American couple who turned out to be really great to chat to.  The guy (Bob) works at Microsoft, so we talked about work for a little, but I then discovered that he is a big dance music fan!  He also knows all of the ‘right’ clubs to go to for proper clubbing!  We ended up exchanging contact details, so I’m looking forwarding to some clubbing nights with Bob next time I am in town   Here is Bob and Katy with her ENOURMOUS ‘slice’ of pizza (or ‘pie’ as Americans call it)…

After Bob and his girlfriend (we think) left, we were joined by 2 girls who also turned out to be really nice and sociable.  We went through the normal conversations of ‘Are you from Australia?’ and ‘You don’t look that old’ (that’s becoming harder and harder to take seriously), and then shared some info about our plans for the night.  One of the girls was quite cute and from Starbucks.  The other one looked a little like Kirsty Alley and was very skilled at ensuring there were no awkward quiet gaps, by quickly asking questions to switch topics when the conversation showed a hint of dropping.  I’m not sure if everyone is always that easy to talk to in Seattle bars, or whether everyone was just in the flow of the festival spirit, but either way it was great to meet random fun people. 

By the time we left the bar we had got through who knows cocktails, had some interesting conversations and were ready to head to the Skylark bar where another friend Chris Niccoli and his band were playing.

There wasn’t much sunshine, however the rain held off (which I was slightly disappointed about due to the fact I had spent $17 on a new umbrella) and the day turned out to be loads of fun.  There is a lot to be said for the lack of pretentious attitude and low inhibitions which the Fremont festival encourages.  If all Seattle street festivals are like Fremont, I would definitely be a regular attendee if I lived here.

After our great ski trip to Courchevel last month, I am totally hooked on skiing (for now at least ).  I have been on 4 weeks of business trips to Seattle over the past 5 weeks (was home for 1 week in between), so decided to take advantage of this second one to get in a ski trip in to Crystal mountain, which is about 1 hours drive from Redmond.

We started the day early, I met Karen and Gavin in a park and ride car park at 7am.  The day didn’t quite start as planned, since when I stepped out of the car and felt how cold it was, I realised that I had left my ski jacket in the hotel! Luckily we were only 10 mins from the hotel at this point, so there was plenty of time to turn back. 

Once we had picked up my jacket, the picturesque journey to Crystal began.  Karen had a big 4×4 Infiniti car which was spec’d out with every gadget and comfort item I can imagine – it even beeped at her if she got too close to the edge of the freeway lane!  Here is a little clip of the comfortable journey…

Since we were running a little late, Karen was in a hurry, so decided to overtake some slow (ish) moving vehicles, which attracted the attention of a local law enforcement officer who decided to pull us over with a blast of his siren and some pretty red and blue flashing lights.  Karen spectacularly talked her way out of a traffic ticket, although I did have to drive the car for the rest of the day (being the only one who had a driving license).  Quite the journey…

We did eventually arrive, with all of our stuff, and with no traffic fines.  The lifts opened at 8:45 and we turned up at 9am, so not too bad considering

The snow at the bottom of the mountain was a little icy and slushy, however further up and on faces exposed to the sun, the conditions were great!  I had both layers of my jacket on, so I was actually too hot at some points.  I cooled down by waiting for some of the ski lifts in my t-shirt.  There were actually a bunch of guys skiing and snowboarding in just t-shirts or vest tops!  I’m not quite confident enough to do that – it would be very painful if they fell over!

We started off with a few easy runs, but progressively took on more challenging slopes, until we eventually headed for the double black diamonds!…

Double Black Diamonds

These are sections of the mountain which are off piste, and considered to be fairly advanced (as you can tell from the warning sign).  We successfully managed to get down the slope.  I started off a little cautious, but after I made a few turns and built up my confidence I managed to get down the slope at a reasonable speed (relative to the speed I started at least).  Gavin had a little tumble on the way down, and then struggled for 5 minutes to retrieve his skis on the very steep slope.  The rest of us were too far down to go up and help him, so we had planted out ‘butts’ on the snow and waited patiently.

So besides Gavin’s little adventure, the run in the photo above did not actually turn out to be too bad, however it got worse!  We took a lift up to the top of the mountain and were faced with a choice of icy moguls or a VERY steep drop (check it out in the first pic below!!!)…

Here is Karen waving from above as we attempted to ski down…

Gavin and I attempted to get down the slope gracefully in our skis, but failed miserably.  We ended up cutting through some trees on to a more powdery (although just as steep) slope.  Eventually we managed to get ourselves down to the piste and picked up the pace.  Here is a little video clip of Gavin and Tom emerging from the trees…

It is an amazing feeling to be on the side of the mountain in snow that no one yet skied! I want to do it again!! Here is Karen sitting on some of the fresh powder…

Lunch and Apres Ski…

Whilst the variety of bars and restaurants did not match larger ski resorts, the atmosphere of eating and drinking outside was not lost. 

We had lunch and after ski wine/beer at the Bullwheel, which is right at the bottom of mountain in the same place where cars are parked to get on the first ski lift.  We happened to be there on the same day as ‘Brew Fest’, which was essentially a beer festival and bar-b-q on the decking area.

There was a good selection of food, although typically American (I had a chicken burger and fries).  The only downside was that the place was PACKED, so it was a little tricky to find a good place to sit outside (plenty of room inside).

At the end of the day, Gavin and I finished the day off with a glass of beer/wine whilst we waited for Karen and Tom to do one more suicide run of the double black diamond! (they survived).

The drive home seemed to take longer than the journey there – most likely because Karen was driving at a ‘little’ above the speed limit on the way there, and I was driving with a accurately configured cruise control speed on the way back. 

The season will be way over by the time I am next in the U.S., so all there is to say is…”Crystal Mountain, thanks for the ride, see you next season!”…

Huge thanks to Karen and Tom for guiding me and Gavin on the mountain, and an extra thanks to everyone for great company and an awesome day out! Can’t wait for next year’s ski season – roll on November!

I must admit that I was a little sceptical about the quality of the hotel, since I had previously been to the casino which is situated next to a shopping centre, with little else around and is frequented by people who I would not consider typical to the affluent population of Seattle, Bellevue and other areas around Redmond which have an established above average middle class due to the size of Microsoft and other high tech companies.  My expectations of the quality and service at the resort were FAR from the reality. 

As soon as we arrived, we were greeted by super friendly and eager staff (OK, that’s not exactly unusual in the U.S. service industry) and were handed card keys to BEAUTIFUL and luxurious rooms!  I have stayed in a fair number of nice hotels in the past 10 years (including the amazing Bellagio in Las Vegas), however I consider the room I had at Tulalip to be one of the most luxurious I have stayed in…

Considering I was in a standard room, I would rate the quality as superb and way above my expectations.  As a person who is currently going through the process of renovating his ensuite, I really appreciated the spec of that beautiful bathroom (which was a little elongated, so is not represented well in this photo), which included a three head shower to make sure you truly do get a full body wash every morning.  I couldn’t resist a cheesy pose…

So, I was totally impressed by the room! And then there was the event itself!  With 400 people, we had practically the whole hotel to ourselves and exclusive use of the 4 enormous ballrooms for our meetings.  As with most offsite meetings, we are fed generously, with a variety of buffet style meals with food to suite all tastes (pretty essential considering the 40+ countries represented at the event).  We even had a ‘special’ meal on the Wednesday evening where we served a preset menu of deliciously  petite sized courses, at set table places along with some smart thought leaders from Microsoft…

Our Microsoft admins along with the hotel staff organised an incredibly motivating and original event, with lots of activities to keep everyone amused day and night.  An artist was hired to draw cartoons portraits of anyone who was patient enough to wait in queue for their turn (I was not).  Some clever person had the idea of also pointing a video camera at the artists work area so that everyone could watch their colleagues being sketched whilst they ate dinner.  I’m going to copy this idea at my wedding (need to fall in love first)…

Whilst we spent most of the day time in the ballrooms, we also had one event hosted in the cabaret rooms.  Whilst the ability to plug in a laptop was lacking (we ended up watching a video from a camera which aimed at a laptop screen for demos), it was a nice change to be sitting in a night spot venue with a band playing random songs in between presenters.

The band was even made up of Microsoft PQO employees! Great stuff…

Bjorn Rettig, our General Manager delivered an inspirational talk about work culture for the first 30 mins of the cabaret session.  We then were treated to Bjorn interviewing his direct reports to discuss business, and have a bit of fun at the same  time.  Here is a video of Jaydeep (one of our Product Unit Managers) demonstrating how to wrap Bjorn in a turban, just after he explained to the regionally diverse audience the meaning and history behind his head piece…

I have many more great memories from the offsite, but do not want to make this blog post too long (not even sure if anyone will read this far! Congratulations if you did!).  Since we work in a global team, the opportunity to get everyone in a relaxed environment, face to face, where they can discuss work, have fun and engage in random conversations which are not structured around a meeting or goal, is for me invaluable!  I lost count of the number of people I met/saw again and the variety of topics which I discussed or overheard.  I certainly walked away feeling energised, motivated and keen to expand on the connections made and the ideas discussed.  The sessions delivered by the management team were informational, motivational and perhaps most importantly during a full week’s worth of conference (including the 2 day leadership meetings) – FUN!

I have so many great memories from the week including the buffet and bar next to the hotel swimming pool on the first night, the Microsoft illuminated posters in the hotel lifts, the team building activity on the first day which had us running around the hotel completing mini missions (may do a blog post about that on it’s own), Bjorn’s dinner with private bar and delicious food, familiar faces dotted around the casino black jack and poker tables at every hour of the day, relaxed light night conversations in the hotel lobby next to the beautiful Indian artwork, fireplaces and waterfall and the challenge of getting all 400+ PQO employees in to a group photo in the hotel lobby!

When an even such as this goes as smoothly as it did, it’s SO easy to take for granted the incredibly hard work of our Microsoft teams, along with that of the hotel.  We even had our own Microsoft branded rooms keys!…

Great job to everyone involved! I hope you are reading this blog post

I left just as the sun was about to disappear and managed to catch the lovely light to dark blue sky, with the moon shining down over the empty campus…

The museum is hosted over 2 floors and features props, books, quotes, videos and lots more interesting (to geeks) bits to browse from a variety of sci-fi spanning well over 150 years.

I have never actually read a sci-fi fiction book, but was fascinated to read some of the extracts from novels dating back to the mid 19th century.  Despite the fact that mind twisted realities and space time continuum defying storylines have only become mainstream thanks to television, the concepts and storylines have been around for hundreds of years!  Whilst Hollywood has done a great job of translating the concepts on to the big screen, I am in no doubt that the real pioneers of today’s science fiction plots lived way before television was even invented!

An interesting fact which I was surprised to learn (especially considering I have a Czech girlfriend), was that the word ‘robot’ was actually adapted from the Czech word ‘robota’ which actually translates as ‘hard work’ or ‘drudgery’ in Czech and Slovak.  Wikipedia provides some more information stating that ‘robota’ was a work period a serf had to give for his lord, typically 6 months or a year.  So in other words, robots literally are slaves!  Let’s hope that they never figure that one out for themselves when they get smarter! (Insert Terminator 2 theme music)

Some other highlights from the exhibition included…

1. A scale model of the Start Trek (Original series) film set which was apparantly used to plan how each scene would be filmed
2. A life size (I assume) model of Yoda
3. A giant cinema screen showing the world of the Jetsons, which eventually gets consumed by black smoke and turns in to the dark world of Blade Runner.
4. A model of the Death Star, which has a bass speaker mounted under the floor to rumble as you stand near it – subtle, but effective
5. The Pit Bull hover board from Back to the Future
6. Various phasers from Star Trek

Definitely a great hour or two for a sci-fi fan! My one recommendation for future expansion (just in case Paul Allen or a colleague happens to read this) is to have a section dedicated to time travel. 

The Match Fours acappella group were there to promote the Washington Lottery.  I’m not sure if they helped sell lottery tickets, but they certainly entertained the crowd!  Check out this awesome version of ‘I can see clearly now’. . .

These guys worked great together and sounded like they could perform pretty much any song without using a single musical instrument.  I was on my way to see another act, but ended up standing outside the lottery stand for about 15 minutes whilst these guys pulled in the crowds.  On top of sounding great, they had lots of fun, check out this (perhaps slightly clichéd acappella) version of ‘The lion sleeps tonight’. . .

The guy on the right is the bass man – it was amazing how he keeps the constant tone whilst the others are singing and chatting to the crowd.  They also sang ‘Four Little Numbers’, which is apparently the Washington state lottery song (not that I would have known). . .

And one last clip of an unexpected Blondie vs. The Bangles mashup . . .

With the current exchange rate (about 1.64 dollars to the British pound), I estimate that you will save between 15 and 30% on UK prices.  Hardware is closer to the15%, software has more savings.

If you want to shop for gadgets in the U.S., Fry’s is the place to do it.  To get an idea of how BIG the store is, just take a look at the 32 checkouts available!!…