After seemingly both the wax and wane had passed, I jumped on the Netflix wagon a week ago. I signed up and started my month trial of the streaming option. First impressions were fantastic; I could watch it on my computer, on my Xbox 360 and on my Windows Phone. The first movie I picked was also a doozie – Momento (great movie, watch it if you haven’t already).

This past weekend, I had some free time, so I went trawling through the IMDB top 250 for another movie to watch on Netflix.

Fight Club – DVD only.

Let’s try… City of God. Nope, DVD only as well.

Oh, The Usual Suspects looks interesting. Oh, not available for streaming either. Darn.

Pan’s Labyrinth, The King’s Speech. Not available, no. In Bruges, no. Same for Magnolia. DVD only for Gran Torino, Hotel Rwanda and Into the Wild.

At that point, I decided to cancel. Bye, Netflix. That was a brief encounter.

I’m once more spending time home with my family over the holidays, taking my longest and only second vacation of the year. It looks like I’ll be carrying forward vacation time, yet again. All the while, work is still going on furiously in the background, although the clatter of emails dropping into my inbox has certainly quieted in the past week. It’s been nice to put work on the backburner and spend 10+ days of peaceful, relaxing time.

Once again, there was no snow this Christmas, which still bums me out (it doesn’t quite feel like Christmas without snow), but rewatching Home Alone 1 and 2 partially made up for the weather’s lack of Christmas spirit. I’ve spent some time over the past few days doing things I said I’d do for too long, but never got to (planning a new desk arrangement for the apartment, writing some new blog posts and technology ideas down). Over the next few days, I’ll be driving around, seeing friends, which I’m looking forward to very much.

I’m getting recharged for work. The new year is going to bring some pretty exciting stuff for Microsoft, and I’m very happy and proud to be a part of it. I think momentum is building all over the company (I’m even playing with the Xbox, definitely see its value). There are very few places that have the breadth, and at the same time, cohesiveness of products and services that I see coming. It’s exhilarating to be in a market with the (in my opinion) most fearsome competition Microsoft has ever seen.

Do analysts piece stories together with arbitrary data that is top of mind these days? The PlayBook price cuts started happening well in advance of the Fire’s pricing or announcement, in mid-September. Sad what can “information” can influence the markets.

I’ve moved teams (and sort of roles) at Microsoft.

I spent just over 11 months in my first real job, as a feature Program Manager in the Office group. As with any first job, it was an interesting learning experience. Having glided into that role from the prior internship, it was an easy fit. I knew the people, I knew the product, and I was very eager to build my core PM skills.

Compacted and condensed, almost a year later, I emerged from a very different team, without many of those original coworkers, working on an unfamiliar product, and longing for something that fit better with my interest and (minimal) expertise in design and computing hardware. However, without a bit of fate, I’d probably still be there. The person I interviewed with for an internship was now a group manager and had an open position. “Hey Charlie, are you interested?”

Now, I’m a partner-facing Program Manager in the Windows group, working with one of our three ARM silicon partners. My commitment? Ensure Windows has the right engagement with that partner to succeed in delivering Windows on their platform. Scope is almost anything I want to make it, from greasing the engineering cogs by defining an appropriate legal framework, to diving deep into a feature to help resolve technical challenges. As an engineer at heart, it’s stupendously exciting to get to ramp up rapidly on things from security feature set details to how one could address an engineering requirement with a button’s electrical implementation.

And I think it’s that last piece that makes me enjoy the role so much. I have the opportunity to learn and dive deep into nearly any aspect of Windows and the hardware it runs and will run on. As a role with broad scope, I’m surrounded by smart and immensely experienced people, off of whom I’ve been feeding for the past 4 months. I can feel myself bulging at the sames with learnings and growing rapidly. It’s been a crazy time since I’ve joined, with some of the toughest challenges I’ve ever faced. I wouldn’t have it any other way!

So many things have changed over the last half year.

Rest in peace, Steve Jobs. Your legacy will live on.

Exciting news incoming in the next week or two! I may finally have something worthwhile to write about.

I’m done of one of two legs in my trip back to Canada, currently sitting in Portland airport. This year, I’ve been blessed with two airports with free wifi, which but a year ago seemed rare. I’ve spent some time triaging work email (which I should really avoid doing during the break), reading up on hockey news (I can’t wait to watch hockey back home!) and writing this on my iPad. It makes the time pass rather quickly. Now if only more flights started providing free wifi as well…

As for my year in review, it’s been one of ups and downs. Finishing my degree at Waterloo was a fantastic feeling, made all the better with the knowledge that I had a good job lined up afterward. The past five months at Microsoft have been eye opening. Although co-op experience I’m certain has helped, it still could not prepare me for a career. Without having taken a single day of vacation over that time, I’m feeling a bit burnt out. The 10 days off until the new year will help me recharge for the busy times ahead.

I met some wonderful people at Microsoft during my internship, and I’m glad to say those friendships have strengthened. I’ve also become friends with many more new hires who come from all over North America (at the very least). It’s been an interesting learning experience to be truly leading my own life, but many people around me are going through the same, so we learn from each other. I’m not dead or malnourished. That must count for something.

I plan to fill the next week+ with family, friends, and food. Unfortunately, there’s no forecast for snow while I’m in Canada, so perhaps this will be the first winter I go as far as I can remember with (essentially) no snow!