Sight Seeing in Seattle -Part I

So today (Sunday) we went to Seattle, this is my 3rd time to go there overall and first time to visit in the morning. Weather was super fine and traffic is usually excellent here on Sundays so we decided to go for it.

We were in Seattle at around 1:30 or 2pm and we kept wandering around till 6:30pm, then we went back to chili's at bellevue because Helal had to eat as he was fasting (Ramadan, kol sana wento tayebeen:) ).
Seattle seems to be a very rich city, not in a monetary way, but rather rich in places, events, happenings, people, everything. I enjoyed every second and made sure Helal and Mostafa were constantly annoyed by taking a 103 photos. Helal is probably thinking about founding the official hate club for my blog and my camera (along with Khalid). However, don't hold your breath, the photos are nowehere as good as they could be, I was just snapping as fast as I could and in many cases from inside the car. Also no photos whatsoever will be able to capture the real thing. Seattle has lots of beautiful places and you just have to be there to capture the full ambience of some places like the public market and lake washington.

Anyway, without much further ado, I present to you some of the pics in this edition with a promise to post some more tomorrow.
As always, you can click on any photo for a larger version.



Over lake Washington
One of my favorite sightings, on the bridge crossing lake Washington, the photo doesn't really do it any justice, it's just breath taking everywhere you look



Skyscrapers
These are common place in Seattle, more to come in the next edition.



The Public Market
One of the must-visits in Seattle



Florist in the public market area
One of the virtually infinite shops on the public market, a very busy and diverse place.



Streets in Seattle
What I call stair step streets, looks very much like how they show San Fransisco in the movies, the altitudes vary so much in the city and lots of the streets looks like this with amazingly steep slopes, you do get the feeling that you're going to hit the floor when you're driving down those and going up on foot is an exercise in itself.

Essentials to start your life in the US

Well, I'm learning and I thought I'd pass on some wisdom :) For those of you who may need to start their lives all over here in the US relocating from somewhere far far away as I did.

What I'm saying is that there are some absolutely necessary things that you would want to get as soon as possible if you're starting here. I will list those now in the preferable (and sometimes mandatory) order you should be getting them.

First, the Social Security Number. You must get this, and you must do it first of all because all other things are dependent on it. You will not be able to work in the US without a social security number. It takes 2 to 4 weeks for you to get the social security card with your number on it, however, it would probably be beneficial if you pass by the social security office a week or 10 days after you apply with your reference letter and ask for your number, you may be able to get it before your card is mailed to you which is always helpful.
If you're coming from a select few countries you can do this at the US embassy before you leave for the US, otherwise you have to check your local social security office after you land here. Everything you need can be found at ssa.gov

Second, a driver's license.
While waiting for your social security number you should try your best to read your respective state's driver's guide so that you are able to get a driving license as soon as possible. You can usually get a copy at your local dmv office. A good place to start is probably dmv.org You can find the guide that you need to study for your written exam online. Notice that you will need to just study and not actually apply for the test till you get your social security number. That is because with a social security number on the license it serves as identification, and you do need that. You will find through your stay that a driver's license is just as good as a state ID and is needed in lots and lots of places.

Third, a credit card. And although this may seem counter-intuitive to think of a credit card as essential, just read on for the rationale.

You will have lots of financial transactions when you land here, starting off you'll probably have lots of things you need to buy. Inevitably you will have to use credit or a loan at some point or the other.
And here's the catch, you can get some amazing deals here on financing and loans if you have a good credit history and score, I elaborated on that part in an earlier post. And you can't have good score and history without having previous financial transactions with the banks here. That's why you need a credit card here, as soon as you have your social security card, go get a credit card. And use that for all your financial transactions, even when the cash is in your pocket. Later you can go deposit the cash in the credit account. Over time, this will provide the good credit history that you need. Also credit history is generally not transferrable from anywhere in the world, not even Canada!
Back in Egypt a credit card was considered an unnecessary luxury, definitely not the case here.

That's what I've learnt so far, I will surely learn more over time here but I can't guarantee you I'll be blogging about it again :P

Catch ya later.

Mid week at MS

Well today was my 3rd day, so no more orientation and I head straight to my office.

Well not really straight, I got lost first, I still get lost in Redmond, in campus, in the parking, and in my own building. They are all huge and everything is brand new to me. I do arrive at the end though.

So anyway, at my desk I found the monitor and natural keyboard, just as I was promised the day before, really impressive. I set up my OS, drivers, and basic stuff so now I got a working computer at work with connectivity and everything. One tiny step forward, still lots more to come.

My manager sent me a link for a page on our sharepoint with documents and help for new hires on our team. And I learnt today that I'm part of the QE team, no not Quality Engineer or anything, the QE team is the Query Execution team. Which is the team working on the part in the SQL Server engine that actually executes the plan produced by the QO team (Query Optimization ;) ), pretty heavy stuff it seems, but also so exciting.
It's amazing to think that I'm gonna be a part of a team that makes a product that is actually used by millions of users around the world, literally millions. Really exhilarating.

Now I have to get up to speed with everything, it's not gonna be easy, but I'm sure it's gonna be fun.

And speaking of fun, Helal and I got ourselves an XBox and a bunch of games today, yeah I know XBox360 is just around the corner, but first we don't have a plan for employees to get it at the company store, second it seems pre-ordering queues are all full, third it's gonna be expensive, so I'll settle for a "normal" XBox for now and get the 360 later. We actually never get discount on the XBox itself as MS is already losing on it so they can't lower the price even more, we do get all games for $10 and $20 though :) So I got my XBox at GameStop and the games and additional controller from MS company store.

Anyway, that's about me today, hopefully soon I'll put my camera to work at campus and capture some photos for you guys.

See ya

2nd Day @ MS

So it was 2nd day at MS today, the first half was a continuation to yesterday's NEO program (New employee orientation), most of it was a legal 101, we had 2 representatives from the LCA department at MS (Legal and Corporate Affairs) talk to us about Intellectual property, copyrights, patents, trademarks, and everything.

It was pretty heavy stuff but to be honest the guys were so good, they made it sound like fun most of the time. Actually they opened with a lawyer joke that's too long to tell here, but it was funny :)

After the NEO concluded I got to finally pick up my blue badge, the blue badge is a card key that has my photo, name, and employee number on it. It is also a smart card and is used to open doors of all MS facilities I'm allowed to visit (which is basically all buildings except maybe some server rooms and stuff like that).

There is another type of badge, the orange badge, which is for contractors and vendors dealing with MS who need to stay on Campus for prolonged periods of time.

This is how it looks like, I did erase my employee number as I don't really know how "disclosable" the information is :)




The best thing is I got to meet my team for the first time, I met with Vasili Zolotov who is the person I'm gonna be reporting to. He was so very friendly, he showed me around, introduced me to all people, and we had lunch together at the cafeteria (which btw is very very very good) Most of the people were very busy as the team is preparing to ship SQL Server 2005 very soon, still Vasili took so much time out of his schedule to help me get onboard.

I was then shown to my office and computer, I have a pretty decent machine, 3.2GHz processor, 2 GB of Ram, 160GB SATA hdd and a Radeon X300 VGA card. I asked if I could get a natural keyboard and he told me I could talk to the administrative assistant for our team.

So while I'm at it I asked her for a second monitor too, she told me I'm gonna get my second monitor and my natural keyboard tomorrow morning :) She also gave me a smart card reader that I should connect to my computer at home (or laptop) and use to read my blue card key to enable me to access the MS intranet and work from anywhere in the world :)

I've also learnt that we have a huge event planned for the team to celebrate shipping SQL Server 2005 when it does ship (very soon), it's gonna be a skiing trip :) Now that's what I call warm welcome :D

In the mean time I have so much to do, set up my computer, settle in, read a lot, and get ready to be productive :) I've heard that they never expect you to be productive at work before around 6 weeks from your start date. Leaves me plenty of time but there is also plenty to do.

I hope I hadn't got rusty during this last month of unemployment :)

Wish me luck.

First day at Microsoft

Well today was my first day at Microsoft, according to the New Employee Orientation program in effect I have 1.5 days of orientation sessions before I even get to meet my manager and team.

Overall impression is that those guys know what they're doing. I am probably too tired to explain everything in detail but I will try to mention the outlines.

The day started with a 4 step registration, for completing the legal documents and such. The moment I entered I was dazzled. The quantity and diversity of the newcomers was just totally unexpected. We were more than 200 people there, from everywhere you can possibly imagine in the world. And I do mean everywhere. US, Canada, Australia, UK, Ireland, Uganda, Bangladish, Italy, Russia, India, Korea, and of course Egypt :) and that's just off the top of my head.

The orientation was actually pretty interesting and at most times fun, we were asked to tell stories about impressions we got from friends and family about Microsoft, stories and myths we'd heard about MS before we'd come. No effort was exerted in order to refute the bad impressions, they were just acknowledged as an image in people's head that needs to be changed.

There was also a section dedicated to discussing diversity, how to deal with it, or rather how to take advantage of it not just deal with it.

And it seems that just about everything inside MS has its own portal on the corporate intranet, never mind the obvious things like the HR dept. There is a place where you could decide to send parts or all of your pay checks to 8 different bank accounts, there is one for new comers with everything they might need to know, there is even one for car pooling and finding a car pooling partner. You can see and adjust your current benefit plan, there is a huuuuge portal for security, all aspects of security including your own physical security, we'd learnt that there is even a 24 hour hotnumber you can call if you need security to escort you to your car if you're leaving late at night. And a paid cab to your home if you came to work on a bike or pooling cars with a friend and didn't find a way back home.

It was almost overwhelming, you get the impression that those guys never leave anything for chance. Everything is well accounted for. And some of the benefits were nothing like I've heard of before. Weight management for example, where MS pays for your consultation with a therapist, physicist, or even a personal trainer to help you lose weight should you decide you need to. Another benefit that I can't remember its name (and am too lazy to check the booklet we got) allows you to double whatever donations you make to non profit organization as Microsoft matches whatever donations you make dollar for dollar to the same organization you decide to donate to, and even pays $17 to such an organization for each hour you spend doing charity work. Just amazing.

Some really cool trivias I got to know during the day was that on average 8 new babies are born to MS employees, that last year MS recruited 5000+ employees in Redmond and another 7000+ elsewhere in the world. And those account for 20% of the current MS work force of around 60 000 employees.

It was a good day, tomorrow I'm scheduled for a half day more of orientation sessions and then I will finally get to meet my manager and team and get my office and computer(s)

And I thought I'd post a photo of me and Helal all dressed up for today just before we go to attend the orientation (business casual dressing was recommended for the orientation but I can go to work wearing shorts and slippers starting tomorrow :) )

Welcome, the Redmond way

Well, at last Redmond showed me what it's like to live in the north west region. 2 days of rain ending literally thunderously :) I'd seen rain like I'd never seen before, only problem is that none of my friends here enjoy it and so none would join me for a walk (maybe singing) in the rain :(

All that actually reminded me to write about anything other than the fancy cars, my car shopping and the test drives, I'm sure I'd posted more than enough dose for everyone but the hardcore gearheads like me :)

My first impressions about Redmond is that it seems like the perfect place to live, quiet and beautiful enough, while also close enough to Seattle the city so that you can get your dose of noise and crowds whenever you want. It's the perfect blend.

Of course, I won't talk about the cleanliness and respect for law. But driving is a totally different business than what we do in Egypt. You just need to get used to the signs, but I now finally realize how you can accurately estimate time for a trip here. Driving around is not the voodoo art that it is in Egypt. Everything is very systematic, and predictable. You see a green light, just keep going, a red light just stop. Going right, there's a lane for you. It's just indescribable, traffic runs like a well oiled machine. I'd never seen an accident so far, I don't know how my car horn sounds like, and I would't even tell if my high beam lights are broken. You just don't need that stuff around here.

I am actually already feeling that I'm getting used to the system and organization here, I feel like I'm losing my skills in Egyptian driving :(

I'm still busy with apartment hunting and car shopping, but I also get to go out a lot, have dinner or lunch in different places, actually I'd just came back from the movies here. Saw Nicolas Cage's "Lord of War", very very good movie, dunno if it's out in Egypt or if it's gonna be but if it does you have to see it.

It's around 2:20 am now so I guess I'll have to go get some sleep, this is my first time to sleep so late since I came here. The city sleeps at around 9 or 10 pm max. That's one thing that's already changed about me. I both sleep and wake up early. I've never woke up any later than 9 am for the last week and most times I do at 7 am.

Anyway, I was trying to end the post, so here it goes.
Ta ta for now :)

The deal with the banks here

Well last post ended without me telling you the news I got from the bank.

First you have to understand how loan and credit stuff works here. There is something that's called credit history. Credit history is a record of all your transactions made with the banks here, spendings on your credit card, any loans you'd taken, and the payments you pay back.
Your credit history is used to calculate what is called your credit score, this is basically a number, the higher the number, the more it means that you're a good guy who can be trusted with credit, loans, and mortgages.
The system works very well as it removes the subjectiveness from the assesment of your eligibility for loans and how much interest you pay. Only problem isfor people starting from ground zero like me. Credit history is not transferable from anywhere in the world, not even Canada. So I have zero credit history and no credit score here. That means that according to the banks here, I am in the high risk category. That means I get very strict and low limits on how much I can get, and I get it with very high interest (due to the "high risk" factor)

So normally I'd only be able to get up to 15K with 9% APR (annual interest), but there is this bank here that again has special deal for Microsofties and hence could give me up to 25K (maybe 30, not sure yet) with 5.9% APR, which is a much better deal but a far cry from what I should be normally able to get here with good credit history (70K with as low as 2% APR)

So what this means to me at the moment is that I can't get those cars I was considering, every single was of them was above 35K, so now I'm reconsidering my options.

I looked around for used cars, and also cheaper new cars. I am still undecided. I tried a new Mazda RX-8, used 2003 TT, used 2002 BMW 330ci, and a 1995 M3 (this is the cheapest and one of my best options right now)
Either that or leasing a z4 2.5 or a 2006 325.......

The plan is to have something for a year or two (either leasing or financing over short period) and then get my dream car then when I'd built up good credit history and score.

More details later...


P.S.
I miss everyone back in Egypt.