Moving to China

I’ve been a little quieter than normal online the past few months.  There were a bunch of changes happening at work that were keeping me busy and it just wasn’t appropriate to go into details until it was final. 

So here’s my news:  my family and I are moving to Beijing!  I’ve received a wonderful offer to work with Microsoft’s Macintosh Business Unit, which it turns out has an important office in China.  It’s not a localization office – it’s a true development org, responsible for many of the core components that go into Macintosh Office.  Specifically, I’ll be working on Mac Excel, which has me especially excited because it’s not only my favorite Office App, but it lets me dust off some of my Apple experience since I’ll be part of a team where everyone uses Macs pretty much exclusively.

Now that the decision has been made, I need to work very quickly on logistics.  Since we plan to be there at least two years, we’ve decided to sell our house (know anybody who wants a well-kept home on Mercer Island?)  We’ll have a big garage sale this weekend (tomorrow!) and then we’ll be selling our cars sometime in July (want to buy a great, slightly-used Prius?).  Meanwhile we have to get visas, do the packing, say goodbye, etc. etc. – it’s going to be a busy few months.

The kids are enrolling in an international school that starts in mid-August, so that’s our big deadline.  Now that the word is out, I hope to be much more active online (I’ll need lots of advice!), so please continue to follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and this blog.  See you in China!