YOOT

I've been quite busy lately which explain the very few & mostly news-aggregating posts I've written:

• Opportunity 1 : Late June, I had the pleasure to pass an interview at Microsoft, in Seattle, for a position of Program Manager on the MEF Team. I met very bright people and had very interesting conversations (and played with Microsoft Surface !!! ), and although I wasn't chosen (I simply wasn't good enough but I'm working on it I'm a positive guy), I view it as a great experience in my professional career. I later was very happy to learn that Hammett was hired for the position … this guy is a genius. I was already enthusiastic about MEF before, but now I cannot wait to see the outcome.
• Holidays : difficult to concentrate on work when the sun is out and you got family & friends to got out with …
• Opportunity 2 : I quit my company where I was working as a .Net consultant to join a small team of very talented people working on a great project. Cherries on the cake, I'm going to work close from home and for the first time in my life, buy my own car.
• Beers : when it's sunny & warm in Belgium, Belgians drink a lot of beers (actually, they also do even when it's not sunny but that's another story … and you probably don't care about it lol … Except that the guys of the Dutch Alt.net group have invited Ayende to share some good belgian beers on Tuesday, the 5th August in Brussels. I'll be there and I'm eager to see what kind of interesting conversations geeks can have after a few Leffe Blonde, Duvel, Kwak, Chimay … lol Couldn't make it, too busy.

All in all, a great period with lots of changes … I'll be back with (I hope) interesting posts, about Entity Framework most notably, around mid-August. See you then !

I had a wonderful week of holidays in Barcelona (Spain, or should I say Catalunya ? any Catalans out there ?), which is one of the most beautiful cities of Europe, home of the masterpieces of Gaudi, the genius architect (and I'm not talking software architect here, although his work is certainly inspiring).

It's also a great place to enjoy good food & parties, go berzerk-shopping, visit great museums (my god, how many are there ???) or just have a relaxing walk on the main street, la 'Rambla', or one of the many beautiful parks. Unfortunately, the city is also quite expensive, for tourists of course, but for locals as well.

If you've never visited Barcelona, you should !

PS: I also heard they have a nice little local football (soccer) team playing in an above-average stadium.