Marcus & Kathy Schmidt's Space

It’s finally starting to feel like spring now that baseball season is well underway.  I was never really a baseball fan until moving out to the Seattle area and having a home team, the Seattle Mariners. 

I’ve been able to watch the good and the bad years, and in 2009 it’s definitely “so far so good”.  Having Ken Griffey, Jr. back in a Mariners uniform is exciting, even if he’s bit older and a bit slower than he was nine years ago when he last played in Seattle.

I’ve already attended my first baseball game of the season, but it wasn’t a Mariners game.  Instead it was seeing the Kansas City Royals battle the New York Yankees while visiting my in-laws in KC.  It was part of my father-in-law’s 70th birthday celebration, and even though it was cold and wet outside, we all had a good time and the Royals won!

I hope to see a few Mariners games in person this year, too.  Hopefully this is the year they climb back up to the top of the AL West where they belong.

Enjoy the season,

Marcus

I’m starting to get excited about college basketball’s March Madness.  We’ve got a couple great teams in Washington – the University of Washington Huskies and the Gonzaga Bulldogs. 

I always do a little bracket competition with my in-laws, and I haven’t won one of those in a while.  Here’s hoping my luck and the luck of our local teams is better this year!

I admit I’ve been a little lax (okay, maybe a lot lax) about doing any personal blogging.  I spend most of my time on my work-related blog, Marcus@Microsoft, and it seems I just don’t get around to doing much here.  I’ll try to change that going forward.

Why the post today?  It’s hard to believe, but it was about a year ago that we took a trip of a lifetime to South Africa and I was coming back here to look over our pictures and videos.  We’re planning to gather with some friends this weekend to celebrate, try some South African recipes, and perhaps sip a little South African wine too.

Don’t forget to go vote today!  It’s your job as a citizen.

My paternal grandmother is one of nine sisters.  Back in the 1940s, her parents and all her sisters, plus husbands and kids started to get together every two years for a family reunion.  That tradition has continued all the way up to today, at a reunion we just celebrated a few weeks ago.

The task of planning the next reunion has rotated around to my grandmother's family.  As we started thinking up plans, I realized the stuff I work on every day at Microsoft is probably going to help me a lot.  I'm going to set up a family site using Windows Live Spaces, and use Windows Live Events for the actual reunion.  I'll probably use Windows Live SkyDrive to collect photos, videos, audio and such between now and then so we have memories to share when we get there.

I plan on blogging about it more in the future, but just wanted to share a bit about it now.  Technology really does make keeping in touch with large extended families so much easier!