I talked for a little while with John Battelle today, the founder of Federated Media (and co-founder of Wired , Industry Standard , author). CoasterBuzz was recently accepted into his "federation" for ad representation, and I have to say that he really, really gets it. We talked about quite...

I got home last night from my honeymoon and, wouldn't you know it, today I got laid-off. Again. I must have done something really wrong in a previous life. In any case, it is what it is, and all one can do is keep on keeping on. Since the serious job loss last July, both of the gigs I've had were somewhat...

You probably found a note with my resume on the various job boards indicating which markets I'd like to work in, and that I'm not interested in a short-term contract. That said, you'll also note that I don't live in Nebraska, Texas or Quebec. Because I love my wife, and I'm not yet starving, please do...

I'm not sure if it's the fact that I'm not working or what, but I'm very seriously thinking about writing another book. Not only that, but if I do it, it will be an ASP.NET MVC book. Some have suggested to me that the space is already too crowded. In any case, my motivation is largely the same as it...

The poor economy has had an interesting (and unfortunate for people in my position) side effect for the business of matching employers and people. The staffing agencies themselves have become so desperate to fill so few jobs that they've gone to the point of spamming prospects with irrelevant "leads...

It's strange how a number of different posts on my blog get comments practically every day. The big ones have to do with the failure of US education, my HP laptop from four years ago with the broken power jack, Xbox Live support sucking and the entire app/page/control event cycle based on pre-beta ASP...

As I mentioned previously , I interviewed in Redmond for a position with Microsoft in the Server & Tools Online group, specifically Community Applications & Services (Codeplex, MSDN forums and other stuff in that area). I got the word Friday that I had an offer, today I verbally accepted it,...

Trying to wrap your head around leaving an area you've been around for 36 years for a destination and job 2,400 miles away is one of the single most bizarre things that I've encountered in my life. The time between my arrival in Seattle to interview at Microsoft (I was in town for just 27 hours) to my...

I had my first "real" day at Microsoft today (the first day is mostly an HR thing). There's still a great deal of stuff to do to really get settled, as anyone who has ever started a developer job knows, but it felt like I actually worked there today. I'll be working on the forums team in Server &...

I'm closing in on a month now at Microsoft. OK, not really, because with the holidays and a week out for a pre-hired trip, I'm obviously still in a bit of a ramp up mode. Although I checked in some code last week, which is very exciting. In any case, I've taken my share of cheap shots about the Borg...