Taking holiday to a serious level

The past 3 weeks I enjoyed my (well deserved ) holiday with family in Vancouver, BC. During my stay I did loads of nice things to relax, swimming, spending time with family, and of course going out!

But I also decided that this would be a perfect opportunity to travel to Redmond near Seattle Washington and visit the place where someday I hope to work; the Microsoft Campus. Driving south to Seattle we had loads of grunge music and great sunny weather. Life was good. When we reached the USA border, the border agent asked us what my brother-in-law and I where going to do in the USA. “Well…we are going to visit the Microsoft Museum!” I can tell ya that the facial expression of the guy made me laugh, I haven’t seen people looking that surprised before!

So we crossed the border and went in direction of Seattle keeping an eye out for the exit to Redmond. And there it was… the sign with Microsoft on it. That was pretty exiting for me. Now, I do appreciate all the huge IT companies who helped to evolve the IT industry to the next level, but Microsoft is the company I could compare myself the best with, so it’s a bit more special to me.

When entering building #92, the visitor centre, I realized that I had my Ipod in my pocket. The geek inside me jokingly thought that there might be some kind of anti apple alarm at the entrance. If there was, I luckily passed by undetectedJ. The museum was fun, though it was not as huge as I had expected. The Microsoft visitor shop was large enough though! I had to control myself not to spend all my money there, and just got some small souvenirs.

What the museum lacked in size it made up for in fun. They had examples of products like a typewriter and a register on display next to the Microsoft product that had replaced it. There was also a Bing corner, a Windows Mobile corner and most fun…entertainment! I spent time playing with a Windows Tablet Table, of which I shall upload a film on youtube. It took some time to load applications, but once it was loaded it worked very smooth. You can tell they had some influence from Apple. The way to turn around and zoom in/out is exactly the same as on Apple products. Also there was a Xbox with a HUGE tv, so killing zombies at that screen was pretty cool.

So after buying souvenirs and taking pictures it was time to leave. Just as we passed the Microsoft Campus exit sign, Alive from Pearl Jam started blasting out of the radio. Well I can tell you, that I couldn’t be more alive at that moment. Maybe I should have listened to that song as well next morning when I woke up with a hangover from drinking the night before, but nevertheless the visit was a great experience for me.

Where do you want to go today?