Monthly Archives: October 2018

The Tale of 2 Niners Caps

20 years ago*, the episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine called “Take Me Out to the Holosuite” aired on TV. In the episode, Captain Sisko is challenged by Captain Solok, an old Vulcan rival from Starfleet Academy, to a game of baseball in the space station’s holosuite. Captain Sisko is a HUGE baseballl fan and refuses to be beaten by Solok and has to train his crew to play baseball. TrekCore did a great article looking back at the episode which I highly recommend reading. But in the episode, Sisko and his crew call their team the “Niners” based after the name of the station and wore baseball uniforms and caps with the following logo on them: 

“Niners” Baseball Team Logo
Captain Sisko wearing his “Niners” cap.

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – the official Star Trek Shop has a bunch of new merchandise including a baseball cap with the “Niners” patch on it. Excited by this – I bought one. Then ANOVOS announced at San Diego Comic Con this summer they were also doing “Niners” gear to celebrate the DS9 annniversary – also including a baseball cap. So I bought one from ANOVOS too. 

The two Niners hats side-by-side. Cap from the Star Trek Shop on the left, Cap from ANOVOS on the right. 

TL;DR – the ANOVOS Niners cap is a thousand times better than the official Star Trek Store cap. First issue: the bottom of the bill is green while the bottom of the bill for the cap used in the episode was grey. ANOVOS got it right. Second issue: the patch style of the Niners logo doesn’t match on the cap from the Star Trek Shop while on the ANOVOS cap it matches perfectly with what was seen in the episode. Third issue: the overall quality of the official Star Trek Shop cap is really low while ANOVOS is of high quality. The ANOVOS cap is essentially a exact replica of the one caps used in the actual episode. 

I call the issue of the 2 Niners caps out for a couple of reason. The first is I continue to be extremely disappointed at CBS for the quality of merchandise in the official Star Trek Shop. Marvel or Star Wars don’t seem to have this problem. In my view, the lack of quality of merchandise CBS puts in their official Star Trek Shop reflects a lack of respect for the fans on their part. Instead of selling a cheap Niners cap in their store why aren’t they selling the ANOVOS version? The second reason I call this out is because I think the work ANOVOS does on their products is AMAZING. And I thank CBS for continuing to allow ANOVOS to produce amazing Star Trek products. 

Want your own Niners cap? I highly recommend the ANOVOS version which is currently in stock here. In addition to the cap, ANOVOS also has Niner baseball jerseys for pre-order! 

10 years ago I was interviewing for a job at Microsoft

10 years ago today I was celebrating my 25th birthday. I was also on the Microsoft campus here in Redmond interviewing for a full-time position to run the company’s Windows blog as a Communications Manager on the Windows PR Team. This was my dream job. I completed my interview loop shortly after lunch (I was interviewed by 3 very awesome people).  By mid-afternoon – I got the call from my recruiter that I got the job and outlined my offer. I accepted on the spot. I didn’t care about how much I would be making or whether they would pay for relocation since I was living in Oregon at the time. I had been telling people I wanted to work for Microsoft since the 4th grade. And this was the moment I achieved that. The above picture is the visitor pass I wore when I went through the interview loop 10 years ago. I framed it and have kept it here in my office. It reminds me of how lucky I am to be working at Microsoft today. I literally STILL have my dream job! 

My official start-date was on November 3rd, 2008. So much has happened in the last 10 years. I’m planning to do a follow-up blog post highlighting my most favorite experiences working at Microsoft to-date that I hope to publish on November 3rd to celebrate my official 10 years at Microsoft.