A little more about Kris.
A dose of intent:
In general I don't want to cover a lot about myself directly in the blog entries. I am attempting to keep the tone of the blog entries a little more focused. I am not some heartless machine though and I will occasionally want to post some information about myself. I will keep that information here.
Some prose about me:
I am a person, with vices and virtues really no more or less unique than anyone else. I tend to believe in moderation over extremism, the middle road is more likely to be the better. None of those are particularly relevant though since they barely cover who I am.
To be honest, I'm not sure I'm a good source to describe who I am. I try to be as open and honest as possible, so I will simply tell you what I think of myself and let you decide what is true. I am too candid about my thoughts. I often flirt with delusions of grandeur and simple delusions. I believe I'm a smart person, but I've been told this all my life and as such I have to question the validity of it. I'm a voracious studier of many things. I like to understand and explain how things work. I enjoy observing people and trying to understand what drives them to the actions they take. I am introspective and self-critical, possibly past the point of reason. I also take too much responsibility upon my shoulders, but since it drives me to achieve more I don't bother trying to change.
I grew up in Idaho Falls Idaho, when to the University of Idaho in Moscow Idaho from 1998 to 2006. Part of the time in that period was spent crashing and burning fairly hard. I did finally recover and finished my BSCS (yes I really do know about computers) with a much better ending trend than beginning trend. Since 2006 I have been in Redmond WA.
Some of my hobbies:
I have "the knack" as Dilbert puts it. I like to fix things, though mostly I tend to focus mostly on computers. I have built my own computers since I was in college (I started college in 1998). I have gone through several generations of used laptops, some of which I have repaired and others of which I had intended to repair. My current machine is a dual core (AMD) machine with 2 gigs of ram and an Nvidia 8600 GS (I think) in it. I run Vista 32 bit on it.
I like video games. Until I started working at Microsoft i owned only 2 "modern" consoles, a PS2 and a Nintendo. I've since acquired an Xbox 360, PS3 and a Wii. I spend most of my time on the Xbox 360; I find the achievements to be a terrible addiction which causes me to play a game way past when I would normally feel done with them. I do pride myself on playing through to the end on most games that I play, but I tend not to do every minor thing in almost every game (my gamer card “Cellan” would indicate how good I am at getting full completion). I can pretty fickle about the games I play; I have found over time that the more games I have played, the fewer things I can put up with. I could talk about games software for hours, but I think I should move on.
I like to read. I read some technical and some scientific stuff regularly. I also like to read fantasy and science fiction. Reading tends to come and go in phases for me. Sometimes I'll read 2-3 books a week (or ever more) and sometimes I'll go months on a single book (usually because I never make progress). I tend to be choosy about authors, there are some that I like, more that are okay and a most I really don't enjoy.
I have other hobbies but they are less notable.
Some comments on my day to day work:
I believe that working is valuable beyond the purely financial gain. In previous years I have had a hard time when I have spent more than a month or so without work or school. As such, I feel that what I do for work is an integral part of who I am.
Before I finished college I had several jobs. They ran the gamut from McDonalds and Farm Work to working for a (then) cutting edge ISP (they were early adopters of Wireless on the last mile). Because of the breadth of jobs I have had, I feel like I have a pretty down to earth feel for what a good job is and what a bad job is.
I like working here at Microsoft. I'm not just saying that for my manager, I really do like working here. The work is relevant, challenging and interesting. The people I work with are all smart and incredibly good people. Additionally the benefits are well worth it. On top of all of that I actually very much enjoy what I do.
My title (currently) is Software Development Engineer in Test. What I actually do runs from creating automation and writing tests to reading specifications and going over new documentation. I’ve been working at my job since May of 2006. Every week is a different; I’m always learning something new, or trying out something I hadn’t done before.
Some lasting comments from me:
I don’t stand on ceremony much. I have a different sense of humor than most people, the things I find amusing often are not widely accepted as such. Additionally I think expertise comes mostly from life experiences.
Thank you for reading.
Kristopher Makey