Six Years...

Gosh, how quickly time flies by. It seems like yesterday when I was just getting started on this blog and typing out the entry for my 5-year anniversary at Microsoft. At that time, I had just finished doubling my number of blog entries, was in the midst of converting from purely newsgroup posts to blogging, and was having all sorts of wondering thoughts like whether a daily technical blog is possible...

Well, a year is a long time, and after 200+ blog entries... it is definitely possible. :-) And I still have a growing queue of 70+ ideas for blog entries in various states of completion, lots more source code sample ideas for ISAPI and IIS7 Modules to introduce, script tools using the IIS administration APIs, and just general background details on IIS core and problem solving. I just wish I had the time and energy to push them to completion faster.

As users, you never cease to amaze me with the sorts of things that you wonder about or plan to do with IIS. Yes, I observe the patterns, but I also observe the outliers. And believe me, I take your needs and make sure the developers writing features know about it and the testers validating scenarios add it to their list.

Anyways... Andrew Lin, the developer lead for the IIS7 UI, had an awesome idea for his 5-year last Friday - instead of the 5 pounds of M&Ms that people usually bring, he brought in a 15.5 gallon keg of Hazelnut Brown Nectar - and we managed to drink it all in about 3 hours. Let's not talk about the revelries and controversies that it caused - jumping into bushes, wrestling matches, team drinking competitions... You know the cliche - what happens at Vegas, stays at Vegas... so there are no photographic evidence, right? ;-)

Ok, so I am not one to go top that, but in the same spirit and tradition, I decided to bring 6 bottles of Belgium Lambic beer, various flavors (framboise, kriek, peche), to celebrate my 6-year. So, I sent out the email, and after 5pm, the IIS team (sans managers, somewhat unintentional since they left by 5pm) had a little impromptu gathering on a sunny Wednesday afternoon to relax for a while. We really needed it, too, because this week is the final push to get IIS7 done for Windows Vista...

But, a little beer and team morale/gathering can't hurt in the grand scheme of things, right? :-)

//David