I really like New Zealand. I thought it was a beautiful place with great sailing, super nice people, good wine, and good food -- all the things a man could want. Here are a few observations and learnings, some big, some trivial, in no particular order:

• New Zealanders call themselves kiwis. Before the trip I wasn't sure if this was considered offensive to New Zealanders. Apparently not all.
• Kiwis don't really salt their food. Both Grandhi and I found ourselves dumping salt on everything we ate. Since Grandhi lives in India, I'm confident this isn't just an American taste thing.
• Kiwis have a great "can do" attitude. My new friend Nigel described this as a national habit of "punching above our weight". They are extraordinarily proud (rightfully so) when they play on the world stage as an equal like in the Americas Cup or with Michael Campbell (US Open winner).
• The flip side to this Kiwi Attitude is a funny sense of being an underdog to Australia and the US. They are smaller for sure. It's kind of like being the little brother.
• Everyone was super friendly. I got numerous offers to go out, see rugby, etc. It was interesting though that Auckland seemed more friendly than Wellington. When I ran in Auckland, other joggers said hello. No one in Wellington did.
• There was almost no good whisky in the bars. This might be a deal breaker. I can't live on Glenlivet and Glenfiddich. Thank goodness for Highland Park.
• I like the Kiwi sense of humor. As everyone knows, their national rugby team is the "All Blacks". So, what's the nickname of the men's national basketball team? The "Tall Blacks". Naturally.
• Kiwis (the fruit) were named as a marketing ploy. They were originally called "Chinese gooseberries" in New Zealand. When NZ started to export them, they wanted a better name. Ironically, I did not eat any kiwifruit while in New Zealand. This was a huge oversight on my part.
• I also did not try a feijoa, a local fruit in the guava family. I did, however, have feijoa vodka from 42 Below (a local vodka), so that must count a little. It was pretty good.

I really can't wait to get back to NZ and see more of the country, hopefully with the family. It really is a special place.

I'm on the ground and home again after 24+ hours of travelling. The trip home had a few more bumps than normal.

My flight from Wellington to Auckland was delayed by an hour due to fog in South Island delaying flights. (All of you who watched Saturday's Super 14 rugby final between the Christchurch Crusaders and the Wellington Hurricanes saw the horrible fog in Christchurch.) Anyway, this resulted in a tight connection in Auckland for my Auckland-LA leg. I literally ran the half mile between the domestic and international terminal, trying to find the blue and white line I was told to follow (it starts about halfway to the int'l terminal). Once I got to the international terminal, I had to pay the exit tax (why isn't this built into the airfare?) After two tries on the machine failed, I had to wait in line. I used my last New Zealand dollars to pay. Sweating, I made it to my flight and had a nice icy glass of orange juice to cool down.

Lest anyone worry that I didn't take care of business, I did manage to run through the Duty Free to buy a bottle of Arbeg 10yo single malt (a bottle I've been wanting to try for a while.) A man has to have his priorities straight after all...

I hate LAX. Just let me say that up front. The signage is terrible. The staff is terrible. The flow is terrible. The services are terrible. I don't ever want to fly through there again. The only thing half decent was the United Red Carpet Club. There were a lot of people there who couldn't work it out (staff and passengers.)

In any case, I did manage to sleep at the appropriate times, scratched my Lord of the Rings itch on the flight, and got a little work done. All that said, I'm glad to be home. More later.

I'm leaving windy Wellington for the airport in a few minutes. It's been a great trip; New Zealand is really wonderful. Lots more to come in the next few days about my trip.

See you on the other side.

Today is my last day in Auckland. Grandhi and I have a few meetings with customers, partners, and the MS New Zealand guys before we head down to Wellington this afternoon. It'll be a bit of a hectic day I think.

Yesterday was pretty calm by comparison. We didn't have much in the way of meetings, so we checked out the New Zealand National Maritime Museum. I love maritime museums (surprise, surprise) and Grandhi was nice enough to indulge me. The museum was quite good and much larger that outward appearances might suggest.

Afterwards, we had a nice lunch at the Loaded Hog by the Viaduct Basin (where the Americas Cup boats sortied out from). I didn't love the beers they brewed onsite, but the food was good. the local mussels are well-known and tasty, although I still think Penn Cove mussels in Seattle are better. Too bad it was raining all day; otherwise sitting out on the sidewalk would have been great.

We worked all afternoon trying to get ready for our upcoming talks and keep up with work at home. We then headed out to Parnell, a cute neighborhood in Auckland full of art galleries and shops, all of which close early to spite us. Fortunately, we found a nice restaurant called Igaucu for dinner. Pretty cool place. I finally got some lamb here in New Zealand. Everything you've heard about lamb in NZ is true -- fantastic. The one thing I've noticed is that every restaurant we've eaten in so far has under salted the food relative to my tastes. Grandhi and I both have been adding copious amounts of salt to everything. Given that Grandhi lives in India, I don't think this is just an American taste thing. Anyway, just an observation.

OK, time to pack up and head out. Talk to you from Wellington...

My colleague Grandhi and I had a great first day (Sunday) in Auckland (click for map). It was sunny and breezy, apparently uncharacteristically nice for this time of year.

We first walked around the clean and compact downtown area including the Viaduct Basin in the Americas Cup Village. The Emirates Team New Zealand Americas Cup team headquarters is here now; their big black building overlooks the basin. Lots of incredible boats here, although I didn't see any Americas Cup boats.

We then had lunch at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron. This is a lovely building with a friendly staff. We watched a bunch of sail fleets race by as we ate in the members bar. I added to my burgee collection while we were there. RNZYS hosted the last Americas Cup and is the sponsoring yacht club for the Team New Zealand boats.

The highlight of my day was a two hour sail with SailNZ aboard an Americas Cup boat. The boat was formerly JPN 41, the Nippon Challenge boat that raced in San Diego in 1995. (SailNZ also has NZ40, the New Zealand boat from San Diego.) We had 15-16 knots of wind with calm seas, so we were flying, holding around 8.5 knots per hour throughout the ride. Everyone got a chance to grind and drive. It was Grandhi's first time sailing; I think he loved it. I certainly did.

A nice dinner at Sails Restaurant overlooking Westhaven Harbor capped off a great sail themed day.

I've arrived in Auckland safely and am online (obviously).

The flight was comfortable and on time. Air New Zealand's business class has pretty slick pod system where each person gets their own private space. The seat converts into a bed - 180 degrees flat - with sheets and a comforter (of sorts). The food was reasonabel and the in flight entertainment system was sincere. I was a little embarassed to see the WinCE bootloader running (slowly) when we first arrived; the system was slow but it got the job done.

Unfortunately, I'm disappointed with the hotel room I'm in. It's actually quite nice, but the sinks and toilet are such that the water doesn't swirl one way or another, so I can't see the Southern Hemisphere swirl. I'll have to find another way to see it.

It's 7:00am here now. I have to stay up all day. I think I'll go for a run now to get out and get my blood going.

I'm off to New Zealand today. I'll be speaking at WebStock, a web conference in Wellington, as well as doing some Microsoft internal events and meeting with press. I've never been to New Zealand or even the Southern Hemisphere. I plan to flush a toilet as soon as I get there just to watch the water go down the other way.

See you on the other side!

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I go down to the Silicon Valley area all the time for day meetings, but I haven't actually been up to San Francisco for years. Monday's IE7 beta 2 dinner in The City was a bit of a rediscovery for me. I only had a little while between having lunch with my aunt and 91-year old grandmother and our dinner, but it was great.

First, the shopping was amazing. It left Seattle in the dirt. In the area around Union Square, I visited the Sak's Men's Store and the Macy's Men's Store (yes, separate stores/buildings for the men's stuff, not just a little department, a big Kenneth Cole, and Diesel just to name a few. It was crazy.

Next, there are a lot of places that are much more swish than I recall. I stayed at the St. Francis Hotel (now a Westin). I used to come here on dates for drinks and the ride the elevators (great view of the Bay at the top, put your head against the glass and look down while you're descending -- freaky) and for drinks in the lobby bar. It used to be charming in an old shabby way. Very slick now and the rooms are nicely redone too.

I also went for a drink at the Clift Hotel. Michelle and I stayed here years ago when it was a a slightly run down Four Seasons; now it's an uber swish Ian Schrager hotel. The bar, the Redwood Room, was hopping even on a Monday night. They had these interesting Harry Potter-esque "portraits" on the walls -- really plasma displays with movies of people that move slowly; there is apparently a back story between the people in the images, so if you watch long enough, you can start to see the furtive looks, the disappointment, the lust, etc. between people in the images. It was fun to try to figure out the story.

Finally, I had breakfast with my dear friend Connie at the Campton Place Hotel, another luxury boutique hotel that makes me want to come back to San Francisco. (Spending time catching up with Connie reminded me that while I love my current friends, there's something special about friends you've known for twenty years like Connie. She, of course, also makes me want to come back to San Francisco.)

Of course, it's not perfect. It was crowded and traffic-jammed. It took me forever to drive to see my grandmother. The infrastructure (roads and bridges mainly) seemed in disrepair. It's even more expensive than Seattle. And, they're going to be wiped off the face of the earth in the next thirty years.

Still, I had forgotten how much I love SF (like I had forgotten how much I love Stanford.) I can't wait to go back soon. There are a bunch of old favorite places I want to check out again like Bix (one of my favorite restaurant/bars in the world) and the Pied Piper Bar at the Palace Hotel (I "discovered" Bob Dalpe, the singer and bandleader who played at our wedding, at the Pied Piper) to name a few.

I had a bit of good luck on the trip I just took to the Bay Area, outside of the fact that my meeting went well. I got bumped to first class on both the outbound and return flights; I'm an MVP mileage club member for Alaska Airlines and have had premier frequent flier status on various airlines for years, but I've never been upgraded before, let alone twice on one trip. It's a short flight, but first class is still nice.

I also had my rental car upgraded to a Mustang convertible. I've always had a huge soft spot for Mustangs, and I love convertibles. I also really like the new body style and have wanted to drive one for a while. As it turns out, it's still a squishy American car, but it was great to buzz around in a convertible under the sunny California skies. And, it beat the heck out of the boring sedans I normally wind up with.

I'm not sure what I did to merit this luck, but I'm happy to have had these small bits of good fortune to make the travel a little nicer.

I just got back from a quick trip to the Bay Area. After my meeting, I had a little time to visit my Stanford University, my alma mater. It's been probably six years since I've been back to campus.

I had forgotten how much I love it. As I walked through the Quad past Memorial Church ("MemChu" in Stanford parliance, seen above) at night, memories of my years at Stanford came flooding back. It was a special time in my life at a very special place. In some ways I felt twenty years old again, like I never left.

Of course, things have changed a lot since then. I scarcely recognized parts of campus that had lots of new buildings put up, and the students all seem a lot younger than I remember ever being. My old haunts like Miyake have moved to new digs or are no longer around. Heck, even the Stanford Stadium is gone (it's being demolished and rebuilt.)

I wouldn't expect the campus to remain static, but it's odd to simultaneously feel like I'm home and feel like a stranger. I enjoyed the visit and hope to go back again soon, but I think Stanford will always be just a pleasant and significant part of my past.