Arrived back in Vancouver yesterday evening after a slightly lazy drive up from Seattle, the heatwave departing at the same time as me. Came back via Redmond, corporate HQ of Microsoft which was something I’d always wanted to see.
Unsurprisingly, they don’t do tours, although I always ask, but they did have a visitors centre, which slightly surprised me. It didn’t really have much of substance which was a pity as it could have really showcased lot about the history and future of computing.
It did have some memorabilia but was largely just an opportunity for them to encourage people to play with zune etc. I did however see my best hummer of the trip which this time I was able to photograph as it was parked.
Had spent the previous afternoon playing with the new iphone at the apple store in Seattle, which at the risk of sounding slightly shallow was half the reason for my going there in the first place, the other half being equally shallow, that of frasier and george clooney.
I have to say, and I’m not sure why I’m surprised, the reality of the iphone is infinitely better than how I thought it would be.
It is a quite amazing machine, absolute joy to use. If it wasn’t for the fact that it wouldn’t work in the UK, I’d have bought one ! – although apparently it does have a sim card, which I’d been told it wouldn’t have.
As I was leaving, someone came in who had bought one a couple of days ago + was complaining about the battery running low really quickly + wanted to know if other people had had the same problem.
The apple guy was able to reassure her that lots of people had come back complaining about the same thing – Nothing new here then !
On my first morning in Seattle I was wandering around looking for a Barnes and Noble and stopped a woman to ask, turned out to be a bad idea as she was a wee bit neurotic.
She spent some explaining to me where it was and then laughingly apologised for not being very good at telling me. She then added that she was directionally challenged – I assumed she was joking, but after a second realised she wasn’t.
I thanked her profusely, not just for the instructions, but moments like that, which for some reason stick with me forever !
