It’s very rare that Passion, Talent, and Opportunity line up.  When it does, you ring the effing bell.  Starting next Monday, I am going to be moving over to the Windows Phone 7 team, working on the developer experience.

The common theme in all of my work to date in my return to Microsoft has been the developer.  Developers, developers, developers.  [call me Monkey Boy Jr??]  So when I was presented with the opportunity to work on the developer experience for Windows Phone 7, I had to take it.  This position feels like a once in a career kind of deal, and I couldn’t be more excited.  You know it’s the right role when you are part excited, part scared, and the mix ratio keeps shifting.

As for the blog, this new role will mean more posts here about mobile.  Also, if you are a mobile developer, I want to hear from you.  You can follow me on twitter, and I am always watching the hash tags #WP7 and #WP7Dev.

It’s pretty exciting to be at Mix10 right now.  There’s a ton of buzz around Windows Phone 7.  I got a chance to hang with some of the team (thanks AI), and they let me load my FriendLinks application onto a working phone, and it worked straight away.  Very cool.  Here’s a link to my first post about building this Windows Phone 7 app.

ABC has an awesome hit show on their hands with Modern Family.  While there isn’t anyone who can hold a candle to the sheer personality awesomeness of NPH on How I Met Your Mother, the cast and writing on Modern Family are genius.  It’s very rare that I laugh out loud at television, certainly not consistently week to week.  Well, except Family Guy.

This week, however, presented some comedy for both the wife and I.  A rarity, though this is the only sitcom we watch together.  You can view the episode on Hulu, and the scene in question is at 1:00 in to the show.  It’s a gem, and basically cured my wife of any thoughts that she might be crazy.

Ty Burrell may be the the nerdy father we all cringe at, but secretly know we are, but Julie Bowen is a real hidden gem in this show.  Her timing and delivery are under utilized, though she is often over shadowed by the Sofia Vergara.

Mini-MSFT is back, with a post about Microsoft turning The Corner.  It’s interesting to contrast his point of view with that of MG Siegler over at ParisLemon.  Given my own perception of  Valley bias on the part of Siegler (he is one of the new voices of Techcrunch after all), it’s great to see that we’re making progress which is being met with receptivity and not suspicion.  Further, everyone is focused on the most important beneficiaries – customers.

I have to admit, since returning to the company a little over a year ago, I have had this sense that things are looking up.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s no shortage of frustrations for me, but that’s to be expected when you come from a tiny company where you were the founder and CEO to a large company where you a cog in a wheel.

With the new fiscal year, I have a new role and a new team, and I plan on making liberal use of my training and experiences in constrained resource environments to do some things that will harken back to the mojo days of the late 90s and IE/Netscape goodness.

I know I posted a joke leaked screenshot of Chrome OS, and many people found it funny, but I firmly believe that this pre-announcement was the absolute dumbest thing that Google could have done.  First, they are starting to show a trend of pre-announcing products, with ever increasing time between announce and availability.  You could see this with Java support in App Engine, but then Wave, and now Chrome.  What are they thinking?  FUD worked 10 years ago, but not anymore.

Second, operating systems are our thing.  We have *YEARS* of experience building and delivering operating systems to market.  If it we so simple as to slap a pretty face on a Linux distro, someone would  have taken us out a long time ago.  There’s a long road of tattered carcasses that have tried to be “the next great OS.”  I use a Macbook at home for personal work, and enjoy OS X, and generally regard it as a great operating system.  Even with the Apple Fan Boy magic, they are marginally high single digit market share.  Ouch.

Third, and this is the important one, Google has given us a rally cry.  Whereas you could make the case that legions within the company felt that Ballmer’s quest to topple Google in search was Quixotic at best, no one, and I mean no one, comes into our house and pushes us around.  Expect to see the company galvanize around this new encroachment.  Expect a wave of pride, and something akin to, dare I say, nationalism, sweep through the company.  To pre-announce a thing a scant few months before Win7 goes out the door is going to bite them in the rear.  Win7 hasn’t had a bad review yet, and people are very excited to get it.  I have been running it on all my personal and work machines (other than the Macbook) for months, and it’s awesome.

We’ve rounded the corner, for sure.  We’ve rounded it and rejoined the race.  We were off in the woods for a while, but we’re back in the race and have a lot of power in the engine.  The next few years are going to be incredible.  I’m excited to work at the company, but more excited as a consumer who is going to benefit from Google, Apple and Microsoft all going at it hammer and tongs for phones, search and operating systems.

UPDATE: Looks like the original post is top spot at Techmeme…this week is going to be interesting.  That’s all I can say out loud.

The Kids

Admit it.  You got served.  I don’t want to hear no complaining.  If you would be so kind as to add a comment with your first name and something along the lines of the following “I fell for it,” I would be much obliged.

For those people who are happening on this page and don’t know what the joke is about, here’s an email that I sent out as part of an April Fool’s Day joke.

I wanted to reach out to you as Christy and I have made some pretty big decisions, and some of them have direct impact on you. As you know, we are expecting our third child, and as part of the preparation process, we have revisited our will. One of the provisions that wasn’t specifically laid out in our previous version was what would happen to our kids should both of us meet an untimely demise. It’s grim thinking, but apparently we need to think about these things. They lawyer was pretty clear on that.

In any event, after speaking with the lawyer and understanding the laws, and how the courts generally frown upon people taking custody of children if they are “too old” or “too far removed from the child rearing process,” we have been forced down a path of making a decision that we didn’t really think we would ever have to make.

Chickpea is growing up into quite the young lady, and has surprised us with much of her early development. We’re psyched that she will be able to attend Montessori this coming year. Poo Poo McGoo, on the other hand, is progressing at a more normal rate, and has become quite the train collector. He loves Thomas. I tell you this because it’s important you connect with both of them, and their coming sister. Christy and I could think of no one better than the both of you to be responsible for our kids should the worst of worst things come to pass. Given the strength of your own relationship, appreciation for the importance of education, and financial stability, this just made sense to us.

I know this may seem like it’s coming out of left field, and we definitely want to talk about it ASAP. Email affords a better way to get you links and info so you can consume the data and reflect on how you feel about this. Nothing is codified, which is why we are coming to you now, but the lawyers said that we don’t even need your signatures on anything. As for those links, here’s one to a page with a great shot of the kids and a set of additional links to legal precedents and articles about this sort of thing.  It’s probably best that you have a look at the data and really understand and digest what the “no signatures required” bit is all about.