Live! from Redmond, Washington at the MOSP transport and logistics center...

Hi Gang,

Hail earthlings, I bring greetings to you from the MOSP (Microsoft Orbital Space Platform) in its geo-synchronous (for now) orbit above Redmond, Washington. Wel, I am not actually on the MOSP right now. We had to get a bit loaded before going through the logistics and transport center to actually get us from point a to b, which will happen tomorrow.

Also on Friday, I will be getting all manner of cool insider looks at how what has been called Longhorn will function. Longhorn has been the internal project name for the V.Next operating system to come after Windows XP from Microsoft. Apparently there were some announcements late this afternoon that suggest the real final retail name of Longhorn will shift to become "Vista".

THere is a big announcement at harsh 6am PDT, probably with more details about it.

I am here in "seattle" as part of my participation in the Microsoft Experts Zone Featured Community leaders summit. I came here previous in November 2004 as part of the same program. That's when I got a spiffy Creative Zen Micro doo-dad, so I am hoping for something on par with that again!!! Swag rules.

Today was pretty easy going. I got to meet Pete Grondal, who is a chief compressionist at the Microsoft Studios, which is the professional video production division of Microsoft. They have about 5 very nice sound stages, and in general production and post-production equipment to die for. It was pretty amazing. As was my host Pete. Yay Pete. There will be some podcasting/Sync2Play type announcements a little later regarding some scheming he and I are involved in...

Then, a huge group dinner at Claim Jumper with like 50 people. Mayhem and 2 waiters. But, I am schnockered, which is the important take away from that event. More seriously, it was great to re-connect with some chums I only see via listservs, and meet new folks too. I will definately be jumping on Cajun Clickers to see more about their bayou style users group!

And, because calls are sort of hard to get through to and from the MOSP tomorrow, I had to do some fancy scheduling to try to get my kayaking venture on saturday scheduled and setup.

I will be going to the San Juan Islands (famous for orca whale sightings) which is NW of Seattle about 90 minutes, and taking a 3 hour tour with "www.crystalseas.com". You heard that right. A 3-hour tour... Cue the music...

So, with any luck, I will be able to take my little digital camera with me, and get some shots of Orca whales in the wild. I am very excited. Every time I have visited Seattle, I pass over the sound or lake washington, and it seems tailor made for canoieng or kayaking, and I have always been on too tight of a schedule, or just too dang cold.

So, this time, the weather is beautiful clear and sunny for the next week, and it should just be awesome. I am very excited.

I should sign off so I can get myself into the launch suits to avoid dying while getting to the MOSP. Industrial accidents while on a business trip are not covered by my UCLA policy, so I gotta be prepared and rested before I go to the MOSP.

I will try to send more if I can from within the MOSP. In theory we are playing 16 person Xbox, and hopefully Xbox360 until my eyes bleed on friday night. So, I should have some bandwith and spare cycles to say hello to all my earthbound chums.

Cheers,
Joel