Elisa and I joined some folks from church for a nice Saturday hike to Noble Nob. It was about, what, five or six miles total, there and back. Absolutely wonderful weather and views of Mt. Rainier.

The really fun part was just about near the end. Randy in our group had already pulled far ahead, and I was ahead of Elisa and the remaining two hikes. I look ahead and see the fast moving, almost silenty group of white mountain goats running straight down the hill to a small valley. There were two small ones with the group.

It was the first time I've actually seen wildlife like that while out hiking. It was great. We watched them for a while until their meandered over the next hill and disappeared.

It was great!

Alright, how about some pictures of some more silliness?

• Eric chasing Prakash after getting blasted with sparkling wine thanks to Prakash
• Eric going into the fountain!
• Eric all wet!

Yeah: Core Microsoft Office System Products Are Complete, Released to Manufacturers

We Shipped!!!! Finally after almost six years of writing code and (mis) managing, Office System 2003 RTM today and it includes InfoPath (along with the glorious date picker control!)

Various phonecam images (I've got to say, the low-quality is almost artistic):

• A splashing of Andre sparkling wine about to happen
• DonGa with a good splashing of Andre
• BillG talking

It was my first ship party at Microsoft and it was a fairly well-behaved affair. Sure, there was some sparking wine being popped open and splashed around (I was an early victim [thanks Prakash], but I was armed with my own bottle and gave a good war-whoop as I chased my attacker and sprayed him in good, sticky revenge).

After Bill Gates commended Office for getting this release out (especially using Dr. Watson crash analysis data to make this a solid release), the RTM horn was blown by Jeff Raikes and the geeks went w-i-l-d

There is a tradition of dunking folks in one of the fountains, typically your general manager, head of development / test / and PM. Well, all but one of those folks seem to be out of town this week (hmm). I certainly didn't think I'd be getting dunked. I'm glad I brought an extra set of clothes. Oh, yeah, I got dunked. And I did some dunking.

I feel good.

The My-Symbian.com - Symbian OS Communicators and Smartphones Info Center has information and downloads about the Nokia 3650 and related phone lines. Looks like for pay apps - I'm looking to see (oh cheap me) what freeware there is first.

Wow, Forum Nokia - Developer resources is just a beginning of all the cool things Nokia provides for programming the 3650 series phone. It's odd that I'm so excited about a phone vs. the PocketPC. I think I'm feeling burned that my HP Jornada 568, which could be upgraded to PocketPC 2003 OS, was abandoned by HP as part of their iPaq only focus.

Alright, I've been considering getting a new mobile phone for a while, especially given that my Nokia's screen was beginning to go on the fritz (given that it's so small, it had taken many a trip in my pants pocket, and that'd started taking its toll).

So I've had my eye on the Nokia 3650 for a while. Finally picked it up this past Friday. I sort of feel that it's a hip Gen-Y'ers phone and some of the features might be lost on me, but in the meantime I'm finding it good enough that I can probably get by without toting my PocketPC with me everywhere.

The bad is that it's bigger than my old Nokia, so I have to go around with a belt-clip, and I feel like I'm a total dork (a total well connected dork, but still a dork).

But it does have a built-in XHTML web browser, so I can bring up traffic / other info as needed.

Plus, as I mentioned in my Portland story, there are times you wish you could snap a quick and dirty picture. Twice in Portland I could have killed to snap a picture:

1. The lady at the concert hall trying to find a quite space to talk had her head tucked in next to the rear of a big plastic street cow (it was playing a sax on the other end). She left her nice, round plush black purse on the ground by the cow's rear hooves, looking like quite a nice cow pattie. I so wanted a snap of that, and if I had it, I'd call it "Can you hear me now?"
2. Walking the streets of Portland Tuesday morning before lunch, I passed several street garbage cans piled high with pyramids of coffee cups. This is Portland. Empty cups piled high on empty cups.

So last weekend, Elisa and I went to Portland for a long weekend. We stayed at the Heathman downtown and had a pretty good time (well, great, excepting that a bed bug did bite one night and various phone messages to our room never got delivered).

Some random goodness we got to enjoy:

• Dinner at the Heathman. Great (fantastic) food served in reasonable portions.
• Walking around downtown and seeing all the various little tourist spots I like: Portlandia, various fountains, Mills End Park, the water front, Saturday Market, etc. etc.
• Powell's. Bigger and better than ever!
• Breakfast at the Bijou Cafe. Yum!
• Finally getting to go to Papa Haydn's
• Running into a friend of Elisa's and enjoying 2nd breakfast with her and her friends visiting from Atlanta (and getting to hear Atlanta stories in turn).
• Seeing Norah Jones at the Schnitz
• Realizing there is a real-world reason why I would use a camera phone.
• Seeing the old house in Aloha and (thanks to Elisa's prompting) stopping by to say "Hello" and see all the great things they've done with the house.
• Seeing that there is still growth in Portland and the Western 'Burbs - what recession?
• Taking a walk from Washington Park to Pittock Mansion and giving Mom & Dad a call on a cell phone while looking out over downtown Portland. Time rushes on.
• Talking to the Heathman staff late Monday night about the various ghost stories associated with the hotel (avoid the "03" rooms, especially 803, 703, and 303 - we weren't too far away from 303)
• Marrakesh is still some kind of good Morrocan food!