When someone leads with a quote from Ecclesiastes 3.1, you know some sort of change is about to be announced.
Friday, 28 Oct 2011 will be my last day in Redmond, and unfortunately Microsoft and the patterns & practices team.
My decision to leave Redmond was driven solely by the poor real estate market in this area. I really want to build a new home, but know too many people here who are upside down (big $$$$) in their mortgages or who short sold their home. This was not a risk I wanted to take. Some say the market is near the bottom and now is a good time to buy here; maybe, but the cost to build a new home is higher than I want to take on and a long or hard commute is not an option for me. I prefer a 10-15 minute traffic-free drive (doesn’t everyone?)
This was a very difficult decision choosing between a life goal of building a new home, a short commute, and trying to stay with Microsoft in Redmond.
On 29 Oct 2011, I’ll be moving to Boise, Idaho and after a short break will begin a new career with Gayle Manufacturing Company. I’m looking forward to becoming part of the GMC family and transitioning back to an architect-developer role. Over the winter I’ll work with a home builder in Boise and hope to break ground in March or April of 2012. The other night I was studying home automation; it felt good to look forward to building a home, something I have not felt in long time.
Leaving Microsoft
Leaving Redmond is easy (for the above reason), leaving Microsoft is difficult. I’m grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given over the last 3 years. Except for the Marine Corps, Microsoft is the best company I’ve ever worked for. I would not hesitate to recommend the opportunities at Microsoft to anyone, this super place to work.
I will very much miss the dedicated and very smart people at Microsoft.
Leaving Redmond also means moving away from friends in the area; I will miss you as well.
Staying Connected
My blog will continue with WPF, Prism, and enterprise development topics, and will venture into WinRT land as well. I’m looking forward to joining the user groups in Boise.
I will also continue to stay close with Microsoft teams and groups by participating on advisory boards and other customer channels.
Close
Microsoft and the people of Microsoft, thank you very much for the last three years.
Have a great day,
Just a grain of sand on the worlds beaches.
Code Project VB.NET Article Award Dec 2008
As you are well aware, life is short and you have to make the best decisions for yourself personally. Good luck on your new opportunities. Too bad it’s all the way in Idaho.
Thanks Jim, and you’re so right, life is short, got to make each day count.
I’m sad that Microsoft is losing someone as great as you, and worry what that might mean for our tooling, but I’m super excited for you. Best of luck, Kdawg.
Bill,
Many thanks for your kind works. Will stay close with Blend/Cider.
Best,
Karl
Sorry to see you move, but I am sure you will blog just as much in new role, its the kDawg way.
best of luck in your new job, not that you need any
HI Sacha,
Yes, blogging will continue and grow. Now that I’m C#, well be going head-to-head over at Code Project. Look for my first article in December. Maybe you won’t post that month, giving me a chance. LOL.
Best,
kdawg
Hi Karl,
I just wanted to let you know that I wish you the best of luck on your new home building venture.
I became a fan of yours after I started using Mole and found out about your blog, heard you on a few podcasts and so forth. When I found out you were working in the P&P team, I became even more of a fan. I am very keen on Prism and think it’s awesome. It felt good knowing that a good guy from the community was working in the heart of Microsoft on some important stuff.
Thanks for all your contributions thus far.
All the best.
Austin
Austin,
i
Thank you for your kind remarks. My plans are to plug back into the community in Dec and continue my blogging and speaking.
Its fun being back in the real world, writing Prism, WPF apps again.
Best,
Karl
Best of luck in your new endeavors, Karl! I’m sure I speak for countless developers out there when I say that we’ve all benefited greatly from all of your contributions, developments, tutorials & guidance. Thanks for everything, and enjoy the next chapter!
Thank you for your very kind remarks and encouragement. Plan on continuing my blogging, learning, and being active in the dev community.
Best to you,
Karl
[...] more here: To Every Thing There Is a Season :asp-net-mvc, development, navigation, prism, september, silverlight, windows, [...]
Hey Karl,
Best of luck in your future endeavors. I am going to miss your awesome stuff you put out while with MS. Your MVVM training helped me really get “my head around” that stuff and I loved your Prism examples for SL. I will be digging into your Silk examples soon to get my head around HTML5, etc. Just goes to show those with former military experience and training are top notch (former Army Infantry myself, have lots of good friends that are Marines – I know, never a former Marine – once a Marine, always a Marine
). Good luck and I hope you keep blogging about all t he cool stuff!
All the best,
Keith
Keith,
Thank you for your good wishes. So glad to hear about your sucess with MVVM Training. Very much looking forward to blogging more.
Best,
Karl
Hey Karl
It is sad to see you leaving MS. you had done some amazing work during your tenure with MS. But I fully respect your decision to build your own home. I do understand it’s a big achievement of one’s life which I have recently achieved. I wish you the same that one fine day you would also do the same.
Best of Luck for your future. And keep blogging
Thank you for your kind words. This decision was hard, but necessary for a life goal achievement.
Very much looking forward to some WPF, Prism, WinRT, and other topics for blogging.
Best,
Karl
Karl,
I have attended many of your sessions, religiously read your blog and otherwise appreciated your viewpoint for years nowu have given so much to the community and single-handedly taught a generation of PMs, developers, testers and hobbyists to love XAML.
And that before lunch.
Thank you, sir. Best wishes for all that you have before you in this next great adventure.
Cheers,
Scott
Scott,
Thank you for your very kind words of encouragment. It was nice to have known you. I’ll be back in Redmond from time-to-time, hope to catch up.
Looking forward to the move to Boise and the beginning of fulfilling my dream of building a house.
Best always,
Karl
Karl,
Best of luck with the move! It’s been great working with you at Microsoft and we really wish you the best with your new endeavor.
Cheers,
Mike,
Thank you for the good wishes. It was great working with you and AppendTo.
Best to you,
Karl
Karl, you are one of the best innovators that Microsoft will ever have. is a big lost for all of us…sad to see you leave.
God bless you in your new journey. The Lord is always in control when we ask him to..Make God be with you always!!
Thank you for all your help .
Oscar,
Thank you for your kind words. I’m settled now and loving my new position, responsibilities, challenges, and opportunities.
May the Lord continue to bless you,
Karl
glade to see you join the local dev commumity, and that Brian found a good dev.
Bob,
Glad to be a part of the Boise dev community. I’ll be out of town in Nov but will be at the Dec meeting. Its great working with Brian and the GMC family.
Best,
Karl
P&P is loosing important people like you and David H. last year. In fact, P&P didn’t have any Symposium this year. I hope this section of Microsoft will continue to grow and bring innovation as we all need the P&P guidances.
Good luck for your future Karl!
Raffaele,
p & p is considering a symposium in the Spring. It made more sense to hold it after Win 8 and SL 5 were released.
I’ll be there for sure, hope to meet you then.
Congrats on your Applied WPF 4 in Context book.
Best,
Karl
Karl…
It’s awesome to count you as someone I know, and I’ll never forget that dinner at the Summit with you and Nikhil putting your heads together for hours.
You gotta do what’s right for you, and I’m happy for you to see you doing this… best of luck, and I look forward to what you’re going to be blogging about next!!
-Dave Campbell
slnews.me/wynapse
Dave,
Thank you for your kind remarks. I’m settled now, will be travelling most of Nov (sneaking off to Mexico on another cruise) then diving into the community again in Dec. Expect some cool blog posts in Dec.
Thanks for all you do in the community,
Best,
Karl
Check out Mister House for home automation DIY using X10 modules. You can get pretty creative, like automatically unlocking your front door when your car pulls into the driveway (using secure wifi).
Good luck in Idaho.
John,
Thank you for the tip! Looking forward to adding this to the home.
Best,
Karl