It's Been a While

For those that actually read this blog, you might be wondering why I haven't posted in a while. Truth be told, I just got lazy. Now on to the actual post!

One of the benefits of my job is that I can work from home whenever possible. Here at Microsoft, we have an informal "No Meetings Wednesday." It means that everyone tries to avoid setting up meetings (especially reoccurring ones) on Wednesdays. This allows people to get individual level work done, and for most Program Managers meeting free time is hard to come by.

I decided that I would work from home today. I have done it before, but today I tried something new. The first half I spent at home and the second half I spent at a coffee shop across the street. You might be thinking, "why? what point are you trying to make?"

Here it is: I am most productive when working at a coffee shop. It's the best of all worlds, I don't have the distractions of a television and books which exist at home. And I don't have people stopping by (which is inconvenient when trying to write a document or reply to email but a critical part of my role) or having the same old office environment that exist at work.

Oh yeah one more thing: Thanks Unified Communication and Exchange! Due to those two products/concepts I was able to have access to my phone line, email, calender, messenger, etc all day today.

Plus to top it off, I saved a bit of gas (well around gallon) by not driving into work today.

Anyone else out there have any comments about working from home?

Alternative Energy, Before It Was Cool

I came across this on my computer today. Its the beginnings of a letter a friend and I were writing to McDonalds in January 2005. This was before it became cool to care about clean energy and not using foreign oil.

Read away:

Dear McDonalds,

McDonalds is a staple of American Culture, it is not just a chain of restaurants spanning across this great nation; it’s more than that. Like most Americans we are concerned for the well being of this great nation. While some put flags on their cars, we choose to support this Union by keeping the land green, water clear, and skies blue. Unlike so many others that expect someone else to step in and solve our problems we choose to fix them ourselves. One of greatest problems is our dependence on oil, not only does the combustion of petroleum products negatively impact our environment, but also our dependence on foreign sources is a national security threat. We plan on solving this problem by introducing Americans to alternate fuels, such as vegetable oil. While we are not the first to pioneer this method of powering normal diesel cars, we do wish to demonstrate its effectiveness to the American public.

We want to harness the pioneering sprit of Ray Kroc, as well as the success of the McDonalds Corporation. We need your help. We need startup funds, used vegetable oil, and your support. What we plan on doing is, in the sprit of the American road trip, going from Chicago, IL to Los Angeles, CA, stopping by McDonalds’ restaurants to refuel.

This would help show how environmentally friendly fuels are beneficial to everyone; we get fuel to power our car, while McDonalds puts its waste product to exceptionally good use. Aside from the sheer cost benefits, there is also the fact that burning waste vegetable oil is better for the air we all breathe.

Comments?