Month: March 2025

Music…

The Howling

The Heart Of Everything

Within Temptation

and Words

We′ve been seeing what you wanted, got us cornered right now
Fallen asleep from our vanity, might cost us our lives
I hear they’re getting closer
Their howls are sending chills down my spine
And time is running out now
They′re coming down the hills from behind

When we start killing
It’s all coming down right now
From the nightmare we’ve created
I want to be awakened somehow (I want to be awakened right now)

When we start killing, it all will be falling down
From the hell that we′re in
All we are is fading away
When we start killing

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

I joined Microsoft in 1991.  I started in the Multimedia team.  At the time, computers with sound cards and optical drives were fancy.  However, they were standard equipment on our computers, along with the ‘large’ 200MB hard drives.  Other teams envied our team for the sheer coolness of our work.  I arrived at the tail end of Windows 3.0 with Multimedia Extensions.  I started as an STE (Software Test Engineer); I manually verified that the product worked as expected.  This team brought audio to Windows; it started with Windows 3.1.

Over the years, my role in the audio team changed.  I transitioned to an SDET (Software Development Engineer in Test) to Development and back to SDET.  I contributed to every version of Windows, from 3.1 to 7, as an audio engineer.  Even today, I understand many parts of that code.  I spent way too many hours debugging intricate idiosyncrasies about that source code.  To this day, I still tell people, “If you’re listening to any audio on Windows, you’re running code that I wrote.”

Continue reading “The Bunker” →

Music…

Goodbye

7 Wishes

Night Ranger

and Words

As the sun hides its head
Another nights rest
And the wind sings
Its same old song

And you on the edge
Never close, never far
Always there
When I needed a friend

But it′s hard living life
On this memory-go-round
Always up, always down
Spinning ’round and ′round and ’round

Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.

They moved my work desk to a new location, about 10 feet from John’s. He sat in a quiet corner diagonally from mine. He mostly sat on his desk, on his bone-conduction headset, as he conducted his meetings. Dutifully, he ran his routine. He arrives early in the morning, puts down his bag, and puts his coat on the coat rack. Upon ending his day, he reverses this ritual.

I had the opportunity to consult with him on several issues. He spoke calmly and confidently, though without ego. We teamed up to discuss challenges and pondered them together; we brainstormed. John could’ve easily directed or instructed you to “do it this way,” but instead, he persuaded you.  In a world of ‘carrot’ and ‘stick’ people, he is a ‘carrot’ person.

Continue reading “Saying goodbye to a friend” →