Rangers Sabbatical, part 6 - What's Next?
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Three weeks away from my family, 32,900 km in distance traveled, thousands of lines of code written, and hundreds of pictures taken—what is the outcome of all of this, and what do I do next?
Rangers
One of the activities I took part in during my time in Seattle was a code review session of the work I had done. The outcome of that was a list of cleanup and fixes, so I need to get that done—meaning my weekends and evenings are not free. I also have documentation to do: part of that will be a blog series on the adapters, and another aspect will be a more formal lab guide so people can set it up.
Moving further from the integration project, the Rangers projects do not stop—in fact, this is my fourth one to date (and the biggest one I’ve done)! So I’m sure that when this moves from active development to a more maintenance cycle, I’ll get involved in some other aspect of the Rangers work. I’m hoping future projects involve testing TFS from the beaches in Hawaii😉
MVP Summit
I mentioned in my last post that I would be fixing the lack of sightseeing in Seattle soon—well, that will be happening from February 15! I’ll be back in Seattle for the MVP Summit. This is a private Microsoft conference for people who have won the MVP award and is going to be packed with information, up-close-and-personal time with the product team, and plenty of parties!
I’m not going alone this time—I’m taking with me Zayd Kara and Rudi Grobler (both of whom are MVPs and both work with me at BB&D), so we’ll spend a few days there after the MVP Summit to explore Seattle! Seattle, you’ve been warned—the South Africans are coming!
For an insight into what the summit will be like, see the summit teams’ blog, which is packed with info on places to go, sessions to see, what to eat, and more!
Thanks
A final thanks is needed to the people who made this trip happen:
- Willy-Peter Schaub—the force behind getting me there, organizing everything, taking me snow shoeing, listening to me speak endlessly on the buses, and opening his family and house to me.
- Carola—the force behind Willy-Peter and an amazing hostess. I was treated like royalty while staying with them, and I loved our chats in the evenings.
- Terry Y.—the unsung hero of these adapters. He works for Microsoft and spent a lot of time debugging issues in the adapters and integration platform with me.
- Charles Sterling—for opening your home, feeding me better than I’ve ever been fed, and showing me life at Microsoft and America.
- Bill E.—for taking the time out of your schedule to give me guidance!
- Everyone I met at Microsoft—most of whose names I can’t remember because there were so many people—but who made me feel very much at home!