Lycangeek

The Start of the Next Adventure

Well, I have some news - it's time for the Tyler family to put down roots in a new location. I've recently accepted a position at Microsoft and so will be moving from Texas to Washington in the next couple of weeks.

Because of this, as you may have already noticed, I'll be posting less frequently and obviously not have access to LabVIEW source code to help diagnose problems. However, as long as my memory holds, I'll continue to try to help out in whatever way I can.

I'm very sorry to be leaving NI as it is an excellent company to work for and is loaded with very talented and friendly people. But my goal has been to try to relocate to the Pacific Northwest for many years now. Having selected Seattle as the best choice for us, I must say that Microsoft was my number one choice, and I'm very excited to finally work for the company I've specialized in for so many years.

For those that are interested, my new position is as a senior developer in the Visual Studio team. I'm not certain yet what the blogging situation will be, but I assume it'll move to the MSDN blog pages. I'll post an update here once I find out.

I See Dead People

Okay, finally got a moment to do a little personal post. I was just up in Seattle for a little vacation, visiting friends and looking at dead people.

Seattle NITS

As you can probably guess from the date, I'm back in Austin now. Boy, that was quite a tour around the NW...I already miss it, but I'm glad to be back.

The Seattle NITS went even better than Portland in my opinion - but that is probably because I didn't forget to install the .NET framework this time *laugh*. Again, a lot of very good questions - even more than Portland. In fact, after my .NET presentation, I answered questions until the next session, then went into the hall and continued answering them. That is a great feeling.

So I'm back and almost done digging myself out of the backlog of stuff from the last two weeks. Whew...

I'm hoping to give some more "useful" posts in the near future - maybe during the Xmas holidays when everyone else is out of the office (family in town this year so I'm not taking many days off). So, if there is anything you'd like to see, drop me a line.

Northwest Update

So, Sunday was another great day. It involved driving across the Snoqualime Pass to eastern Washington for a site seeing trip. On the way back in we stopped at Rattlesnake Lake for some hiking - made it almost all the way to the top before turning back (sun was setting and you don't want to do that in the dark)...try it again next trip. The hike was wonderful even if we didn't make it all the way.

Monday was not as exciting - dropping the wife off at the airport and driving down to Portland. This was followed by setting up for the NITS demos and trying them all out. Finally got back to the hotel where a lot of email awaited me. Got to bed on Tuesday.

Today was NITS Portland and it went very well. A large crowd with lots of good questions. My presentation, I'm glad to report, actually went off without Murphy showing up to cause grief. In fact, the only problem I had the entire day was my Expert Panel presentation on .NET and LabVIEW where I had forgotten to install .NET on the main computer...dooh! Luckily I was able to switch to my laptop to give the demo and all was well...mostly well anyway. Then the tear down and back to the hotel. One more time in Seattle and then I can go home! I love the NW but I do miss my own bed...

Let it snow, let it snow

Well, it's now Sunday and there's still snow out the window. It's stopped falling, but it hasn't gone away out here in Snoqualmie. Yesterday, we took a wonderful walk out into the woods and snow and had just a wonderful time. We even crested a ridge where we could see the Snoqualmie Falls (if you ever watched Twin Peaks, then they're the falls and hotel that you see for the main hotel in the show).

Work-wise, on Friday, I was at Microsoft again, but this time visiting a customer using LabVIEW and PXI for testing the XBox 360 controllers. It was really interesting seeing the various game ads and cardboard cutouts all over the place.

A last little bit of travel news - we went to a housewarming party for some friends of our friends. There were nine people for an amazing sitdown dinner (apparently the hostess is well known for these amazing feasts) and some wonderful conversation. The most interesting part to me was talking with a guy who grew up in Windsor Castle (the English Queen's residence)...not around, but in the castle! His father is a horse expert and works with the queens horses - and lives on the grounds. It was fascinating listening to him talk about being a young boy, running around the castle with the other young boys living there, being chased by the castle police *laugh*

Back in Seattle Again

Well, we arrived in Seattle yesterday and pretty much headed directly out to our friend's house in Snoqualmie. My wife and I arrived close to rush hour, and after the flight and the drive, we weren't really up for much.

But today was wonderful. In a very unusual event, we had a lot of snow coming down, with large flake snows floating down gracefully throughout most of the day. It was a great way to ring in December. For those that don't know, Seattle is very wet during the winter months but rarely gets snow, hence the little victory dance I did this morning *laugh*.

The day itself was mostly spent on the Microsoft campus meeting with a variety of folks, and ended with a dinner with the NI sales folks in the area, along with their spouses. Whew - a very good start to trip - but I'm looking forward to bed...I'll talk to you all again tomorrow.

To the Coast, Young Man

Well, you won't be hearing from me for a bit - I'm taking a trip to the great Northwest for NITS - The NI Technical Symposiums. If you are in the area, feel free to come to the one in Portland (Dec 6th) or in Seattle (Dec 8th). I'm giving the talk on Designing a Large Scale Test Application with LabVIEW 8 as well as being part of the Experts Forum. I'm planning on giving a short presentation on .NET events and how they work in LabVIEW 8.

I'm actually heading up there a bit early to visit both friends and customers, so I'm running around a bit frantically right now trying to tie up loose ends. Ah, travel...

LOTR and lots of meat

Interesting title I imagine but they're related in that it's what happened to me this weekend.

I took a trip with my wife and some friends down to Houston to see the Lord of the Rings exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural Science (why it's there I have no idea...), which was absolutely incredible.

At first I thought I'd been ripped off as we wandered slowly through the line which contained several photos and one miniature - but it turned out this was just the preshow "waiting for hours" line. Luckily the crowd wasn't that bad so it was more of a slow shuffle. Then the hall opened into a much larger area containing an amazing array (photos are not mine, just found them on the web) of costumes, miniatures, documentaries and models.

After the exhibit, it was off to dinner (not counting the stop at the gift shop but let's not go there...again anyway...). If you have never been, I highly recommend Fogo de Chao for an excellent meal. It is like a cascade of wonderfully cooked meat pouring over your table. Okay, that image may not be great but trust me - the food is. Even if you are vegetarian you should go for the salad bar (which non-vegs should avoid to save room) - check out the image (top banner)! I'll warn you that it is not inexpensive...let's face it, it is expensive, but well worth it for special occasions.