More of Seattle

The hoped for window of clearing never appeared on Wednesday.  For once, I think our pictures may give an accurate portrayal – gray.

The overcast skies and intermittent rain ruled out some of our options for today:  Mt Rainier and Olympic National Park (which has a drive to a viewpoint that was recommended) got scratched off the to-do list.   It’s not like we hit a bad stretch of weather.  This is pretty much typical for here.  It was 48 degrees at noon today.

Microsoft headquarters are in Redmond, about 25 miles outside of Seattle.  Mike did some online research and found they have a visitor’s center so we headed there.  On a side note, all states have roads that are within their boundaries.  They are not interstate highways or even US highways.  For example in Michigan, Ionia is at the intersection of M-66 and M-21.  Here in Washington, they have state roads, too, and on the signs, a white silhouette of George Washington’s profile identifies them.  (This almost makes up for their lame sign at the state border.)   These are the kinds of things that make me smile.  Remember – useless information is my specialty.

Fortunately, Mike did that online research because there were no signs directing us to a visitor’s center once we got to the Microsoft campus.  And I mean campus.  As in a university campus.  There was a multitude of buildings with connecting walkways, bike paths, lots of green spaces, and basketball courts behind many of the buildings.  Everyone walking seemed to be 30 or younger, all in jeans or casual clothes.  We knew the visitor’s center was located in Building 92 and there were signs for all the buildings so we did find it.  Parking was another issue.  The lot for this building was full so we just drove to the next one and parked in their lot.

There still was no sign at Building 92 indicating a visitor’s center, but we walked inside and stopped at the first desk we saw.  Building 92 had more in it than the center.  We were indeed in the right place.  Proclaiming progress to be "increasing the speed and quality of communication", the first thing you see when you enter the center is a long display of “communication tools” where you see an early model and today’s model.   For example, they had a big clunky cell phone, and the latest version of a Windows cell phone.  Or they had a really old TV and then a laptop on which you can watch TV.   Or an original Atari game console and the latest Xbox 360 model.  You get the idea. 

The next display was a picture of the original Microsoft workers taken in the 70’s and a current picture of them with an explanation of where they are today.  If we remember correctly,  Bill Gates and one other guy are still with Microsoft.  All the others left and most of them started their own tech companies or invested in tech start-ups.  Several are full-time philanthropists.  (Microsoft millions will give you that luxury!)

After the “where are they now” information, the rest of the visitor’s center was, in Mike’s words, “Like an Apple retail store”.  It was all hands on with Microsoft products, from tablets to PCs to laptops to phones to Xbox.  It was more of a “see what technology (driven by Microsoft) can do”.

I saw others in the visitor’s center really enjoying the games and large touch screen devices, (Mike put a small puzzle together on one) but I was a little disappointed.  As if you couldn’t tell by now, I like history.  I like the backstory.  I like the “why”.  When we walked out, the girl at the desk asked if we had any questions.  I had a million of them, but politely said, “No.”  Five steps later I turned around and said, “Actually, yes.  I thought there would be more information like how many buildings are on this campus, or why did it start in Albuquerque and why is Microsoft now located in Redmond and how many employees does Microsoft have and all the people we see walking around seem fairly young so what is the average age of an employee. . . “   She held up her hand to stop me and said, “This should help answer most of your questions” and she reached in a drawer and gave me a Microsoft Fact Sheet. If they took a cue from a presidential library, they would have this info on a timeline in the visitor center!  She also said, “As to why did Microsoft begin in New Mexico and end up here, I don’t know. I do not know if it is true, but this is the story I heard.  Bill Gates grew up in this area and he decided to move the company here because people would work harder and not want to go outside all the time in this weather compared to the Albuquerque sunshine.”  Now that’s the kind of stuff I want to know!

When I asked the population of Redmond, she said she didn’t know.  I said, “That’s OK – I’ll Google it.  Oops, I mean I’ll Bing it.”  (Bing is the Microsoft version of Google.  I felt bad enough taking all my pictures in the center with my Apple iPhone).  She laughed and said, “I do that all the time.  People will call and if I don’t know the answer I’ll suggest they Goog. . . use Bing!”

For those that care, this is what I got from the fact sheet:  Microsoft was founded in 1975.  It moved from New Mexico to Bellevue, WA in 1979.  In 1981, IBM introduced a personal computer with a Microsoft MS-DOS operating system.  The corporate headquarters moved to Redmond in 1986.  Windows was launched in 1990.  (I think they are currently on Windows 8)  Xbox came out in 2001.  In 2008, Bill Gates transitioned out of the day–to-day operations of the company to spend more time working with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which focuses on health and human welfare issues.

For the fiscal year ending in June 2012, Microsoft’s net income was $23.60 billion.

Microsoft employs 94,290 people worldwide; 55,455 in the United States and 40,854 in the Puget Sound area.

And those younger people we saw out walking?  Maybe only the younger people walk because the highest percentage (44.5%) of their workers is over 40.  The 30-39 age group was a close second at 40.5%.

We are use to visitor centers having a gift shop – Microsoft was no exception.  It was called a Company Store.

With the weather still yucky, we drove back to the ferry terminal and found a much shorter line than yesterday so we did what so many in this area do – took a ferry to one of the islands in Puget Sound.  The shortest trip was to Whidbey Island, so that’s the route we chose.  The 30-minute crossing was so smooth we wondered if we were moving.  We stayed on the island about two hours, just driving around.  We came across and made a stop at a Dairy Queen, and found a state park that had a lighthouse and an old fort – Fort Casey, one of three forts built in the 1890’s to protect the Puget Sound.  There is a Naval Outlying Field on Whidbey and a jet fighter was continually buzzing around above us, much to Mike’s delight. 

When we got off the ferry back on the mainland, the holding area was full and there were cars lined up to get in the holding area for a mile back down the road.  We decided we would not want to do that commute every single day.  Perhaps if we had one of the cottages on the shore it might be worth it, but most of the island was just like the mainland.  Our friend's brother does a commute from one of the other islands, but he doesn't take his car (a BIG plus because you never have to wait.  You just walk onto the ferry) and he gets off in downtown Seattle where he then has a 3 block walk to work.  That is much more reasonable.

Our waitress at dinner was from Ohio and moved out here because she fell in love with the area after vacationing here.  We said, “Even with the weather like today?”  She said, “Yes, there will be a whole week or more like today, but that one day when the sky is clear and the sun is shining, you can see Mt. Rainier in one direction, Mt. Baker in another, the Olympic mountains in another.  Combined with the beaches, it is wonderful. Plus, the average temperature in the winter is 40, with very little snow.” 

Too bad for us we never got that one sunny day.  We are ready to move on.

Thursday marks a turning point for us.  Literally.    After two months of heading west, we begin the eastward journey home. Our first major destination is Yellowstone National Park.  It will take us several days to get there, so unless something REALLY interesting happens on the road, I won’t be writing anything for a couple days.  Or I may decide to write a post with all the little odds and ends of things I think of after I have already posted.  We plan to get to Idaho by Thursday night.

Pictures today are: the Washington profile; entrance to Microsoft Visitor Center; Mike and I with the Microsoft brain trust; the old and current photos of employees; Mike and I Skyping with each other (we were only about 5 ft. apart!);  sign at entrance to Microsoft campus; Whidbey Island ferry; our Jeep on the ferry; Welcome to Whidbey sign as we got off the ferry; lighthouse on the island and the view from it.