Conferences - Microsoft style

Hello Armstrong's friends and family! Yes, we're back. Time sure flies, because I turn around and a few weeks have passed, and my poor blog feels quite neglected.

I'm getting time to catch up now, as I sit in the airport in Orlando. The past 5 days, I've been here for a big annual Microsoft conference - and let me tell you, when Microsoft throws a conference, they mean business!

Start by throwing 11,000 Microsoft employees from around the world into a large arena, and you get the sense of the size and scope of the meetings. This particular conference was for the sales, marketing, and Services organizations. As part of the Services organization, I was able to attend.

And it was quite a show. Check out the blurry camera pic below for a shot of the mail opening and closing session stage - that's Steve Ballmer coming out on the main stage in the picture below.



I had a great time, even if it's a bit tiring. Much of the conference featured demos of the new and upcoming products - and some of what's coming down the line will just blow your mind. The number of smart people at this company is really mind boggling, and the diversity of the people I saw over the past few days was really exciting as well. Not many places allow you to share a hotel room with a co-worker from Brazil, ride a shuttle bus with a project manager from South Africa, and share drinks with colleagues from the UK and Nepal.

One of the highlights was at the end of the opening session. Kevin Turner, the Chief Operating Officer, was talking about his time at Microsoft in the one year since he came over from WalMart last July. And he said that in the past year, he's traveled the world, and been amazed at the way Microsoft's software and technology helps to improve people's lives and the way they spend time with family and friends. It's literally a company that's changing the world.

He highlighted this fact by playing a video about a special project a team at Microsoft recently took on. It was in conjunction with ABC's Extreme Home Makeover - Home Edition. In this case, the family on the show (which will be aired this Fall) was one that had a very unique mix of challenges. The father is blind, and his two daughters are legally blind as well. He and his wife also have a son - who is deaf. So his wife has always served as the translator for the family - the blind members can't do a lot of sign language, and of course even though they can speak, the son can't hear.

So Microsoft created software that takes spoken words, through a microphone and voice recognition, and turns it into sign language on the screen. The son can then type in a response, and the computer will speak what he's written. It enabled the father to tell his son that he loves him, without any translation help, for the first time - and allows his son to respond and "speak" back to him. How great is that?

It was really a touching video, and just fills you with pride as an employee. And when the video ended - they surprised the crowd by bringing the family up on stage. The mother thanked Microsoft, and talked to us about how it's changed their lives for the better. Kevin Turner then announced that the company was creating a college trust fund to help the kids go to college. I'll tell you, there was not a dry eye in the house, and the ovation from the crowd was just tremendous. It was an awesome moment, that was a great reminder of the ways Microsoft really is changing the world - most of the time for the better, I think. ;-)

Needless to say, coming back to work we're all energized to start tackling our next challenges and projects. After I catch up on some sleep, of course.

Back with more soon, and maybe we'll even be able to coax a blog post on here out of a certain birthday girl, to get her thoughts on turning 30.

- Scott

Home improvement - Armstrong style!

Hello! Yes, OK, we've been slacking on this thing a bit. Maybe it's because the last week has been mostly planning and prepping for our big project this weekend - installing our new hardwood floor.

We decided to pull up the carpet and put in hardwoods in our downstairs rooms, the living room and the den. Partially because we don't trust ourselves/eventual pets or kids, to not ruin the light colored carpet to begin with. And hey, we always wanted to have some hardwood floors!

We went with pre-finished bamboo flooring.

We also elected to install it ourselves, because we're crazy like that! Here's a play by play of the action!

One of the "before" pics. We have one room de-carpeted here. Scraping up the carpet pad glue, and removing the moulding was a fun task.



Just getting started in the living room. We used a hand-powered floor nailer. Tough work, but pretty easy once you get the hang of it.



The lovely Mrs. Armstrong, assisting her dad with the cutting of the boards. Nearing the end of the first room.



The transition between the two rooms. Dick helped out a lot with a lot of precision cutting here.



Here's me, putting in the last board this morning!



A view of the finished product in the front room.



We're pretty happy with the final result. Buying pre-finished flooring was certainly the best part of it - now that it's in, it's done! The floor really looks great - now we just need some furniture....