Aperol Spritz and a Roman sunset

Chat, my flight changed from "one hour delay" to "boarding" within minutes, and I hadn't checked if my gate even existed yet OMG I was so stressed.

It's very strange to me to be in a time when Europe and the USA are both online. It's even stranger that I'm not active in work chats because I'm on holiday.

RIP everyone's New Zealand Dad, Sam Neill.

Finished our last day in Paris with a charcuterie board in the Luxembourg Gardens. Would only have been more perfect with a glass of wine and more time.

Really cool being in Paris when France is playing a quarter final. The streets are erupting with every goal and the game isn't finished yet. And then we'll be in London for the England game. All planned eight months ago!

Enjoy 40 seconds of the Eiffel Tower sparkling

Glad my high school French has come in handy for reassuring my husband that the onboard train announcements are nothing to worry about. Also someone has handed in a lost phone.

So far my high school French has convinced everyone I've said hello to that I do speak French, so I immediately have to apologise and explain I need English.

If I don't return, look for me in Annecy

My new favourite business class, even without lay flat seats.

Current status:

Yamas!

Another nice coffee spot.

Great day with columns.

Best coffee view ever.

Sea days.

Found some light reading in the cruise ship library:

Current status:

Ciao, Ravenna!

An Internet article just called a piece of clothing from 1997 "vintage" so excuse me while I turn into dust now.

What do you mean there's no: - stowed tray table - upright seat position - staying seated with your seatbelt fastened - emergency briefing

Cool morning air. Birds chirping in a Munich forest. Family sleeping. My Kindle. Grabbing peaceful moments in a busy holiday itinerary.

Them: We have the best room for you! Also them: It's two floors up a spiral staircase and there is no elevator. Also no air conditioning. Europe.

Going to need a bigger suitcase.

In 2001 I came to HKG for work and told my husband we should come for our 10th wedding anniversary. 25 years later we made it, with our two kids.

Hi, brain, today is not the day to come up with great new ideas for work things, we are going on leave.

Going on leave for 5 weeks. Taking bets* on how many emails will be in my inbox when I return. * no actual money involved

How come the algorithm decided I needed to see every account that complains about Microsoft?

A virtual event with physical SWAG, you ask? Yes! Drop by #posetteconf in the Microsoft Open Source Discord to get your POSETTE & Friends Sticker Pack, and POSETTE 2026 Socks!

4 more sleeps until annual leave. Loong to do list. Have not yet packed.

A man on Facebook just explained Mythos to me. After I said a VPN wouldn't let Australians access Fable. My dude, you don't need to explain the new LLMs to me. I'm good.

Another intense week. Saturday is missing data because I crossed the international date line.

There's a woman boarding my flight with a bag of mandarin oranges. Glad to know if we crash onto a desert island we won't get scurvy.

Losing my voice. Aside from two weeks of conferencing, I think it's the constant air conditioning that's caused it.

I'll take the Azure one.

When they said we could be 10X developers, I didn't think they meant 10X the cost.

One flew over the DNS

TIL the AIA conference is the American Institute of Architects. Not an AI conference.

I'm crazy good at holding my energy and handling travel and work events and people ... until the end of the trip when I am READY to go home and see my family. Excuse me while I have a little homesickness meltdown it's been two weeks.

The worst part about doing conferences before going on leave is getting super excited about my work again and having to leave it for 5 weeks. But I really need to recharge and come back with the energy to execute all the ideas in my brain.

This year #FinOpsX is an AI conference. Run to benefit people who manage technology, across industries. And that's a signal of how seriously companies are taking AI.

I want a T-shirt for conferences that says "Sorry I'm late, Copilot was just finishing my slides."

I'm building some custom Azure reporting and let's just say both GitHub Copilot and I have learnt a LOT.

Here's an easter egg in the new Lego Batman that I think all of you will REALLY appreciate. It's so good, I had to make a video.

Really interesting getting out of the tech bubble and hearing so much AI hate from parents. "We don't use AI we teach our kids to use their brains." I get it, but that used to be the attitude towards computers too. The adoption curve is real.

Nothing like an event as a deadline! AI Value from the FinOps Foundation was pretty comprehensive, but a lot of common sense. If you dont know much about AI, it opens your eyes to some of the terminology you need to understand to deal with finance, procurement, engineering & leadership.

Them on TV: Our AI only gives you answers that are truth. Me: That's not how AI works.

My week has been a little intense.