New and exciting from the homefront.

Back in January, I took a role outside of Windows Networking to get some experience in a different area of the company. To make a long story short, it wasn't a great fit for where my passions lie and my boss graciously agreed to let me look for another position immediately (normally you need to be in a position for a specific amount of time before being allowed to look internally). It was a disappointment to say the least, but these things happen and you move on.

Two months later after lots of informational interviews, some formal interview loops, ups and downs, I am happy to report that I accepted a role this morning in a group called Worldwide Licensing and Pricing. More specifically I will be focused on our efforts around Microsoft's Unlimited Potential Group, which was chartered to lead the company's efforts to support people underserved by technology: the "next five billion people" in the world. I do read a fair amount of material on healthcare and education when I have time, so being able to match my interests with a role at Microsoft is very exciting.

Over the course of these past two months, I have learned about some really great projects that are going on in the company. I know that people do not perceive Microsoft as cool or hip, particularly in light of our experiences with the whole Yahoo! thing, but we have a ton of smart people working on some really challenging problems. I'm really looking forward to seeing some of these projects come to fruition in the coming years, particularly the ones my friends/former colleagues are working on.

Been also doing some more reading over the past few weeks:

• My Life in France (Julia Child) – great memoir of how Julia Child emerged from eating meat and potatoes to becoming an amazing chef and food personality (before the likes of Rachel Ray took over – ugh).
  
• Living on the Black: Two Pitchers, Two Teams, One Season to Remember (John Feinstein) – if you're into baseball, this book was an interesting read in terms of understanding what takes place on the mound and in between starts. Learned a lot about Tom Glavine and Mike Mussina, and came away with more respect for the both of them.
  
• The Art of Decanting: Bringing Wine to Life (Sandra Jordan) – ok, I know. I'm a wine geek. But we received this as a gift on a recent trip to the Jordan Winery and I found it to be pretty interesting to learn about how wine was stored going back to the Greeks and Romans, as well as how it has evolved over the years.
  
• French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork and Corkscrew (Peter Mayle) – title is self-explanatory but I did learn that there is a marathon held annually in Bordeaux. That may motivate me to train for a full marathon.

I'd be remiss if I didn't thank some people for giving me some great advice over the past couple of months with respect to the job transition, so special thanks (in no particular order) to – Chris, Kathy, Lorraine, Rob, Paul, Quincy, Cousin Claire and of course, Marc. I'm a lucky person for sure....

I've also added a link on the main page of the blog so you can keep up with some of the cool things Microsoft is doing with the Unlimited Potential Group.