SC0855_b51_f09_Diary_1986

Sunday May 4 '86

?:00 Meg calls. Wants to buy car. ?:30 Back to bed 9:00 Get up, shower, dress, eat 10:00 Mom Calls. Vacationi nJune. 10:30 Put away Silicon Valley Guide and some other books I probably won't read. Reorganize living room books in conjunction w/Den books. Major idea is that I'm less interested in business now that I have some money. This includes management negotiation investing selling out What HBS didn't teach me. Guides to entrepreneuring Guides to consulting. Games, esp chess. And I'm more interested in fundamental philosophy + math, and technology: Braun Fourth Gen Languages Prolog Alan Turing CD-ROM. But I'm still going to read "The Class" & "Greed & Glory on W. St." just for fun, not to apply it. Go through old Magazines, Catalogs, and reorganize & discard a lot. 11:30 Read Rest of Turing, Chap 6 3:15 Goto gym.

Pat Yearby is there. Such a cuddle bear (friendly.) 5:45 Go home. J/O. Make & eat dinner Bob calls Go help him settle accounts Bring computer home & [fool] it so it prints out report for April ie before it moves ahead to May. 9:00 Go to see room with a view with Maggie Smith. Go home. 12:05 To bed

Mon May 5 86

8:00 Get up. Shower dress eat call Bob unpack [cook] casierole. Backup his disks. Take our monthly disk to bank. Brink home January archive & erase. Stop at grocery for office food. Write up yeasterday afternoon-Now/ Take out garbage Quickly read WSJ 11:00 Go to work [via] Bob's office: pick up mgt books. 7:15 come home. Make & eat dinner Talk w/ mom & dad ~ Megs Loan Watch part of 16 candles 9:00 Read Infoworld 10:00 Read counterpoint. Yawn. 10:30 Go to bed.

WED APRIL 9 86 Two main thoughts to write up

The work at Microsoft is interesting to me. I find that peoples perception and interaction with a product is what interests me most. In works spreadsheet all of the underlying code is being done by others so I don’t have to worry about math functions structure manipulation etc. My job is communicating with the user. One reason I left [language] was that My work is invisible except programmers. Works is used by financial people and what they see is my work.

I’m interested in perception. As long as Microsoft is willing to pay me to do something interesting and challenging but not too tough why should I spend time on non-paying things even if they are interesting to like negotiating infinity etc.? And I definitely have a lack of retention in some reading so it certainly is a waste of time to watch or read and not remember and have no achievements from it.

The answer to this last question is that I have limited time in this life and I want to use it well. Choose accordingly. Negotiating seems much less important than infinity or Turings biography.

conclusion: taking it together I feel I should concentrate on human interface issues and develop further ideas learned from working on visuals. I started in languages and then I designed the sort language (refined it anyway) and designed a good accounting interface and now I am learning about a good sheet interface. But other things I want to do: read books on languages Fourth GEN Lisp Prolog ADA ETC Finish Infinity Finish Turing Read ~ Brain with perception in mind and interfaces 9:00 go to chiropractors But he is running late so just read WSJ 9:30 go to work 10:00 schedule meeting 11:00 work on draw cells proc 1:00 lunch at Bellevue seafood 2:00 shop for swimsuits 3:00 work on draw cells more 6:15 go home make & eat dinner 7:30 tan and listen to Strausfest 8:15 go home wash sheets & one load of clothes. Do mail. Pay some bills. 9:30 last half of Dynasty.

Preparation for review of mid May 86 (4/18/86) pink is for personal stuff

Because this review may not just slide by like the ones Ive had in the past I decided to write up a page on each of the following periods

Aug 17 85 - Dec 31 85 Jan Feb Mar 1-16 Mar 17-31

April has been a stable working month now that Microsoft has moved & Ive finished getting settled Microsoft has gone public Ive resolved AMT & filed taxes Ive nixed buying a boat

What have I learned since Nov 16 85 (5 months ago)? Features of Mac Excel & Mouseworks Testing strategy Flow of control between Windows & Wimp SYMDEB 123 features 123 simplified Excel in business through Chop 8 Importance of spreadsheet to my affairs. Rent vs buying for house/boat/car Studied excel display draw row code; Quickdraw vs Windows Pcode environment: Very stack oriented Networking & SLM; esp after moving 8086 instructions memory mgt huge pointers [QB2] (char-based windows) vs Windows (esp for WP) Works Basic App. Works Market Research & Design Study Plan 2.00 display code mapping it - what is pcode - what is native Study PC char mode colors (via PC pers Acct) CGA with Greenscreen Start to code - learn how to fit my stuff into Basic App. Memory Mgt in Plan 1.00 1.2 2.00 and Max Excel