We've had some interesting weather here in Seattle. We got snow last night, and it's snowing tonight (a little.) None of it stuck, but if it did I am pretty sure it would have been a couple of inches. I can tell you it really changed the face of the mountains. Both the passes were in restricted mode (snow chains and no over sized vehicles.) I heard on the news that someone actually died in a car crash when they hit a state trooper's car this morning. That is unfortunate, but over all, aside from 45 mph traffic on I-5 last night, no real impact was noticeable with the exception of a tiny tiny bit of snow sitting on top of the grass in some shaded areas.)
But back to my original thought... It's alive!!!!
Well... Everything is packed and ready to go (with few exceptions.) James is going to take a to Seattle where I will pick him up after work tomorrow. Finally today I made sure that the last piece of the puzzle (the Astro) was taken care of.)
I took a trip to Wal-Mart, and found out that the 1 year warranty on the battery expired on the 11th of this month. However, because I had taken the battery to have it looked at and attempted to recharge it, I had a sticker from the 23rd of last month to claim the battery died last month. So, the nice lady at Wal-Mart actually let me exchange it for money toward the purchase of a new battery. I was a little disappointed to find out that the original battery had a lower amperage than the astro was supposed to have, but the plus side is that it only cost me $30 to get a new battery. This one has a 3 year warranty. It had no trouble starting the car, and I found that to solve the problem of the power seat draining my battery, I can just pull the plug on the power seat.
Everything seems in order to use the astro to move. I even thought about starting to move some things into the astro tonight (because I saw an awesome parking spot just across from my apartment in stead of the spot I've been claiming for the past 6 months down by the dumpster. I have to admit that it was convenient to have the astro there because I could unload all of the garbage from the car before I moved it over here.
So, tomorrow I will go to work, swing out to Seattle after work to get James, then I think we will load up the van in tomorrow night, and finally move everything on Saturday!
On the work side of my life, I now own two features in the next version of the Zune client. One on the social side, and one on the Marketplace side. I also caught wind that I will probably be given a couple other (older) features too, but I really can't say what they are because it would violate my non disclosure agreement to talk about it. However, I must say it is starting to add up to a decent day's work. Even though the features are smaller features, they are both brand new features that nobody else has looked at before, and I can't wait to start writing my test cases. I already have a whole bunch in my notebook, plus I've been adding to the cases I already have (to increase the effectiveness of each pass, and justify the time that I need to spend on each test pass.)
So, I am becoming more important by the day, and after I finish a few more automation scripts, I really think I will be able to seriously work on securing my place as a full time employee at Microsoft. Which I think is what I want. Worst case scenario it just looks really good on a resume.
So, that's what's going on. I think my next posting will be done from my new apartment. I can't wait. I even think it might be worth it to use a little of my credit to get a new bed. That would be really nice. Sleeping on a futon is nice and all, but I think that after a year, I want something a little more... soft... like a mattress. So, I think I can justify that. After all, I do need to get a good night's sleep. Yea, I think while I have James here, I will go to get a mattress. I have a good one in mind, and I don't think it was too expensive. I'll have a new home and a new bed (as a gift to myself for getting this totally awesome job!)
Speaking of sleep it is that time. Good night.
Later,
SteveO
