Welcome to the USA. Blow into this pipe please sir.

The scale of the Microsoft campus is truly awesome. I'm over the Seattle for my first internal Microsoft conference this week, but thought this might amuse some people. I was out for a quiet meal last night and needed to get back to my hotel for 10:30 to phone home as it's my son's birthday. (Happy birthday!!!)

We were about to order a cab back, but another colleague offered us a lift. We took it, but on the interstate on the way back we were pulled over by the police. The driver was asked to do a "sobriety test", and the best part of an hour later was breathalysed, handcuffed and taken back to the police station.

This left us stuck on the highway about to have the car impounded unless myself, Eileen or Steve could drive it back. Fortunately, I hadn't been drinking, but I wasn't keen on driving on the wrong side of the road either.

The officer insisted that I was breathalysed too before going on my way, so my first experience of driving in the US turned out to be in another persons hire car, with the wrong sort of gearbox (I like manual gearboxes) starting on the busy interstate while being followed by the "smokies" for many miles. To top it off, our journey back was a good 20 miles more than it needed to be due to the excellent navigational skills of one of my colleagues (I'll leave that for you to guess which one it was). I never want to hear "I know where I am now, it's just up here...." again!

Add to this having a full baggage search at Chicago on the way out, a long delay on my flight out and two full days work at the weekend, it's been an interesting welcome to Seattle. I don't want to think what else could happen over the remaining four days.

You have a nice day y'all!