GSB Mennonite

Hosting Transition

This site will be moving to www.notblog.com; check out Dave's blog at www.notblog.com/blog. Once it's back up I'll be posting more...often.

New Year's Deal

This past weekend we 'celebrated' the New Year with a deal on granite at Home Depot. We happened to be there Sat night as they were closing and thanks to a thoughtful associate was informed of a granite sale on one of the types $.40/sq ft. Four trips in the Integra and three days later I had acquired more than half a pallet and it was sold out by the time I got back for more. Looks like our kitchen might end up with a granite floor...

Powerless

Big thanks for our friends' hospitality these past few days. We like many people in the area lost power on Thursday night, and unfortunately also like many people in the area we still don't have power. About 200K still without power here in the Puget Sound area.

Microsoft campus was also down on Friday, except for emergency power since all of the area around here was down. All the businesses along 24th were closed up on Friday and Saturday. Most of Seattle is back up (if they lost power) but the Eastside is still fairly cold.

Excel 2007

While some power users my not like the new Ribbon (you can hide it), most non-power users will probably find it much easier within a couple days. I had my experiences of "how do I find this" with the ribbon, but overall very nice. Also, since the Ribbon is open for development I expect to see more function-specific or industry-specific customization in the future.

I particularly like some of the new functions when working with PivotTables. For instance, although perhaps mundane, the IFERROR provides a much more elegant solution to error-checking than an If and Iserror combo.

Finally, here's a macro snippet to 'wrap' the IFERROR function around formulas that have already been created. Very useful when working with other people's files or updating with different data.

Enjoy the increased productivity...

Sub ErrorToZero()
X = Right(ActiveCell.Formula, Len(ActiveCell.Formula) - 1)
ActiveCell.Formula = "=IFERROR(" & X & ",0)"
End Sub

Art of the Pour

Saw this on a the Herkimer Coffee website and though I should share it...very cool; makes me thirsty.

Art of the Pour

Snow, Ice, Cold

Last night we tried to leave campus in the middle of a Seattle "snowstorm", in quotes because it really wasn't much snow but for this area it seems to have the same effect. We moved three car lengths in 15 minutes, on campus. So we turned around and parked the car and walked home. Nice little walk in falling snow.

Now campus is nearly shut down - cafes, shuttles, etc - are all closed although buildings are open. DOT has instructed people to stay at home, and the traffic cams show they're listening, but that's probably more due to the fact that all the schools are closed today.

Working from home...with a hand-crafted eggnog latte at my desk.

Stockholm Post

A quick post from Stockholm...I got to visit 'the field' or 'subs' (in Microsoftish, short for subsidiary) this week. I spent a day visiting with the Danish office on Monday, then a two day sales meeting in Copenhagen and now in Stockholm visiting with people here.

And last night, I visited the Stockholm Ice Bar with a colleague. Much fun to hold an ice block 'glass' surrounded by foot-think blocks of ice as walls, columns, bar, and couch. Here's a good summary site.

Xbox 360 Video Download Service

This is very cool...while it doesn't yet seem to be the type of service that can replace NetFlix it would be a nice alternative for movies/tv, especially for those of use who don't get cable.

Well, to be honest, I don't have either a 360 or a HD tv yet...so this is all wishful thinking. :)

Lego Digital Designer

For those of you who loved (and still love) Legos, check out some of the recent things Lego has been doing.

Digital Designer

Pick a Brick - pick any brick you want and order it individually (great for completing those old sets...)

Oh, and this topic came up since it looks like I might be headed to Denmark next month for a conference. :)

Commuting

Since our house is almost entirely down hill from campus, a fairly quick way to get home would be to coast down on a bike. However, walking requires no additional equipment...although rain can make that option unpleasant. A new form that I enjoyed last week was taking a Razor scooter in to the office and then on the way home, just coasting along through the neighborhood to get home. For many of the hills riding the brake was required. Lots of fun.

And a big thanks to Mom and Dad and Kristin who were out last week and provided a ton of help with the painting projects.

My solution for popcorn ceiling worked out fairly well: scrape, re-apply mud to joints/nails as needed, roll texture paint (plain, not sanded) with a thick nap roller, then paint with ceiling white. Looks decent with minimal finish work.

Business Week

Congrats to everyone at the GSB!! The alumni cluster in our group was particularly excited about the Business Week results...and look forward to many more great surveys. :)

Showalter 2.0

Now that the news is mostly public at work...we're pleased to announce that we're expecting the arrival of Showalter 2.0 in early April!! Mother and father are doing well, so far. :)

The name discussion is challenging; thankfully we have a number of months to pick one.

Company Meeting 2006

Zune...I held a Zune yesterday. Amazing. I think our household will be getting at least two this holiday season.

Yesterday was the annual company meeting, and thanks to Finance Boot Camp I got to site in the 2nd row with a great view of all the speakers: Bill Gates, Steve Balmer, Ray Ozzie, Jay Allard, etc. It was a pretty incredible day and a lot of fun to see all the branded goodies. I got a 175g ultimate disc with the beta test of Windows Live Mail (been running the beta for quite a while now).

I also found out how chilly this time of year is at SafeCo Field...even when surrounded by thousands of people. Next year I need to wear wool socks. :)

Cold of the Fall

I obviously haven't been posting as much as usual...of course work has been busy. And we've enjoyed reconnecting with friends from last summer. I unfortunately have my first (and usually only) cold of the season, typically when the weather changes, which was last night as we had rain a good portion of the night. It's actually the first rain we've had in months, so it's been pretty dry.

So dry that the other weekend when we went up to Orcas Island there was a fire ban for all of San Juan County, which put a damper on hanging around a campfire.

Congrats to Bothner!

Congrats to Professor Matt Bothner! It's a little old news yet still exciting for those of us from his classes! Great work!

http://www.chicagogsb.edu/news/2006-08-29_bothner_award.aspx