Scott Blomquist

As it often goes, I managed to get really busy with things other than my blog, and I began to neglect my favorite t-shirt series. The good news is that I had my wife help me take a bunch of t-shirt photos this morning, so I’ll be able to queue up enough to hold us over for a few months.

Today’s shirt is another Microsoft shirt. It’s actually one of my most-worn t-shirts of all time. For some reason I just like wearing it. I think it’s because it goes over well both with my colleagues from my days at Microsoft (“more free swag—wonder where he got it”) as well as with the crowds that don’t tend to like Microsoft so much (“his intent must be irony, right?”). For example, it went over quite well as a humor piece the day I wore it to Open Source Bridge a couple months ago.

The story of how I got it is even a little entertaining. When the Windows Genuine Advantage campaign launched back in the Windows XP days, their marketing team asked for stories on how Windows Genuine Advantage helped me in exchange for a t-shirt. I knew I wanted the t-shirt, but I couldn’t think of any times it actually helped with anything, but despite that I dusted off my creative writing pencil and scribbled up a few sentences. It arrived in inter-office mail a week or two later, and I’ve worn it proudly ever since.

Those of you who read this blog (and my more technical blog API Guy) regularly know that I’m a huge fan of the open collaborative database Freebase.com.

This weekend, I recruited my mom (who is currently visiting from out of state) and my wife to ride along with me on the 6 hour drive (each way) from Portland, OR to Vancouver, BC for a 3 hour Freebase.com meet-up at the Irish Heather Gastropub.

I met a bunch of cool people, including James and Ben from BioVenturist, Dale McGladdery (one of the organizers of Northern Voice), fellow Freebase developer-enthusiast Jim Pick, designer and techno-philosopher Dorian Taylor, and others.

While I was there, the Freebase community director hooked me up with a t-shirt:

PS—to make 12 hours of total driving for a 3 hour meeting make sense, think of it as a road-trip with home as the destination and a 3 hour tourism break at some interesting point in the middle.