Hey, where did everyone go?

Just over two months ago, I wrote that I was taking a job with Microsoft’s Xbox division. The ensuing 5 weeks ended up being one of the busiest periods of my life. In fact, I think we must have set some sort of record for doing a complete interstate move.

My last day with Reuters was June 20. By June 26, me, my wife and 6-year-old son had packed up and hit the road on the 900-mile drive to Seattle.

I received my Microsoft badge on June 30, just two weeks before the E3 expo in Los Angeles that is the video game industry’s most important show of the year (and which, incidentally, we won hands-down).

We closed on a new house on July 31 and were fully moved in by the evening of August 2.

It really was one of those moves in which everything comes together, A-Team-like. It was about time, since we’d had enough practice. Here is a brief history of our wanderings since the mid-90s:

• April, 1996: Take full-time job with Reuters in Beijing.
• January, 1999: Take job with Reuters in Los Angeles
• February, 2000: Take job with Reuters in Seattle
• May, 2002: Take job with Reuters in Beijing
• October, 2005: Take job with Reuters in San Francisco
• June, 2008: Take job with Microsoft in Seattle

That’s five major moves in less than 10 years. I guess all that practice paid off since pretty much everything went off without a hitch this time.

In a corporate move like this, there are so many moving parts: moving company (and a separate company to move one of our cars), corporate HR for both Reuters and Microsoft, the temp housing company, the real estate agent, the mortgage lender, the home seller, etc. In every case, each party totally went to bat for us to make sure everything went as smoothly as possible. It was amazing.

I don’t have much to report right now. Scratch that, I have tons to report, but I’m not going to do it right at this moment. This is sort of the re-launching of Command-K, and I just needed to log in and get the ball rolling again.

In the coming weeks I’ll be writing about the new job, my evolving perspective on the games industry from the inside and other random thoughts.

Three things about Bay Area drivers that drive me nuts

1. The constant running of red lights. This is such a major hazzard I always pause a second or two before proceeding from a stoplight or crossing the street. Every day I see multiple instances of cars blowing through intersections when the cross-traffic light has already turned green. I amazed I haven’t seen any wrecks yet.

2. Habitual failure to use turn signals. Okay buddy, why are you going so slow? Why are you slowing down now? Did your car break down? Do you need some help Oh, you’re turning. Well, how about using your signal next time. This is extremely frustruating in Albany, where many intersections don’t have left-turn lanes or dedicated left-turn signals. When, approaching a line of cars stopped for a red light, I’ve learned to avoid the left lane even if nobody has their blinkers on. That’s because invariably, some idiot will crawl up to the middle of the intersection and stop, waiting to make the turn but not having bothered to use the turn signal switch two inches from his left hand.

3. Motorcycles driving between lanes on the freeway. This gives me absolute heart attacks because I’ll be driving along peacefully on the Bay Bridge listening to Megadeth, when suddenly a rrrrrrRRRRRRROOOOOOWWWWW drowns out the soft strains of Dave Mustane’s axe-shredding and some nutter zips by in the 4-foot space between me and the next car over. All it would take is me swerving one foot to the side to avoid something in the road, and that cycle jockey is going to be using his face as a boogie board on the asphalt surf.

Vacation

I’ve been taking my first vacation of the year and my folks are in town, so posting has been light lately.

Yesterday we did a 4-mile hike through Muir Woods and then followed it up with some refreshing surf and sun at Muir Beach. Today we went to Haight-Ashbury. Did the dirty hippie thing. Went to Amoeba Music, which is so edgy, even the clerk who took my money was complaining about the weird stuff piped over their music system. Bought a CD.

Having my parents in town means, of course,  that we get free babysitting for the duration. We’ve finally saw a couple movies we’ve been dying to see: There Will Be Blood and Juno. Both were excellent. Blood was a lot more subtle than I’d expected. I was figuring on an in-your-face, over-the-top, Bill the Butcher-style role, but there were a lot of interesting and even admirable aspects to Daniel Plainview’s character. I may write more about it later.

Okay

I’ve been eager to start a blog for some time but now that I’ve taken the plunge, I find I have nothing to say.

Ahem

Tap tap tap. Is this thing on?