Two days ago Maryam told me that she always wanted a BMW (we've been planning a car purchase for a while cause her Toyota was starting to show its age).

So, last night, what did I do? I bought her one. A BMW 325i. By far the wackiest, and scariest, and most irrational purchase I've ever made. Why? Because my alimony is coming to an end this summer (4.5 years of paying more than $1,100 per month, and that's not including child support). But, this is not usual behavior for me. What brought it on? My mom's stroke and death reminded me that life is temporary. She reminded me that it's important to have fun while you're here. Even if you are a workahaolic. Smell the roses and all that.

I might regret such an impetuous purchase (particularly after we get the bill). It is expensive. And wild. But it is such a nice car. And Maryam deserves it. She stayed with me even when I'd blog late into the night. If I'm lucky, she'll let me drive it once in a while. And I am lucky. Heheh! Actually, I was totally shocked when the bank approved the purchase.

I am totally fortunate to be in that position. Something we often forget in the midst of wild wealth that we have here on the West Coast (over the weekend a Mercedes SLR rolled by, that's a car that costs $700,000 to buy, which is $660,000 more than the one I bought Maryam). This is an unreal world. Most of the world lives on $2 a day. I forget that a lot of times. But I just said the heck with it.

Tonight, though, I find I'm questioning everything about my life. Am I doing the right things? Treating people well enough? Doing enough to improve the world?

What do I want to do career wise? I've had some wild opportunities thrown at me recently. Should I consider them? For what reason? What's the value I add to the world? Can I do more? Are there things that I'd love to do more than taking a camcorder around Microsoft and representing Microsoft to developers? In five years, where do I want to be? Who do I want to be?

What kind of father should I be? I haven't been a good one, all truth be told. My son is hurtling into his teenage years. What kind of role model should I be? How could I get more involved in his life? He's coming to stay with us next month. What should we do together? Yeah, the Xbox is all primed, but it's time to do more than just play gadgets. Maybe take him camping.

How do I want to be a better husband? What is important to me in our home life?

Oh, my mom's sister? Three of her siblings died when they were 66 (including my mom). She's 65 and is really worried. What would you do if you knew you had a year to live? I answered myself "I'd buy Maryam a BMW and we'd drive around having fun." Which led to my impulsive behavior last night. Can someone remind me to keep me away from expensive toys during times of grief?

Tonight I talked with Vic Gundotra, the guy who hired me into Microsoft. He told me how times like this in life (when you lose someone important to you, or meet tragedy) bring into hyper focus what's important. I'm not so sure. I liked life four weeks ago when I thought I had it all figured out.

Now all I have is questions.

Anyway, I'm going to take a week off to ponder these questions, and more, get some exercise, and take care of my mom's affairs (she designated me as the one she wanted to take care of her estate).

I thought about continuing to blog, but really, there's times that one just needs to go sit quietly in the middle of Yellowstone or another park and pick the lint out of your bellybutton and ponder life's questions. This is one of those times.

Hey, got some answers? Give 'em up! Heheh. See ya back here on about June 4.

First, she knew this was coming but there's some other things I want to wrap up.

First, she knew this was coming. She closed her store the week before she went into the hospital (and had been trying to sell it for months).

She told lots of people she was tired and thought something bad was going to happen. She even, after having the first proceedure completed successfully, thought she cheated death.

But, she had some wacky beliefs. It's why I wasn't very close with her. She was VERY into alternative medicine and didn't believe in doctors at all.

That belief might have cost her some time here. We'll never know for sure.

One reason I wanted to share this is if you aren't feeling well, go see a doctor, even if you don't have health insurance. It might save your life.

Dave Winer told me stories similar. We all get stubborn and don't want to hear bad news. So we put off that kind of stuff until absolutely necessary.

In my mom's case she had more than a liter of fluid around her heart that had been getting worse over a matter of months.

Not going into the doctor made that initial heart condition much worse than it would have been had it been caught early.

Coming back from Montana I sat next to a lady who was reading a best-selling book on alternative medicine. I almost talked to her about my mom but decided against it. My mom wouldn't listen to reason. I got the sense that this lady sitting next to me believed strongly in alternative medicine too and so wouldn't listen to reason either.

But, I read over her shoulder some of the book. The author (who I won't name here, cause he's already preyed on too many) takes a decided anti-corporate stance.

That anti-corporate attitude makes it easy to prey on people, particularly older people who are scared of the Walmarts and Microsoft's and other big companies.

I don't know how to solve that. More will die cause of the fear of the doctor. Of the corporations. Of the hospitals. Of misunderstanding scientific principles. Of not believing true experts. (Hey, I'm not one, so don't believe me, but don't believe everything you read in books or on the Internet either).

One of her doctors, on hearing this, said he always listens when people say that they think they are going to die soon. He says that actually comes true a lot of times, so he takes that very seriously and looks harder for problems.

Over the past two weeks I find myself wondering "what if?"

Seemed like something good to remind everyone else of too.

Oh, and whether or not you believe in alternative medicine, at least do what my mom did. Have a will drawn up. Make sure everyone knows where your bank accounts are and what you want to happen in case something bad happens in the hospital and the family needs to decide on your behalf whether you should be kept alive or not. One other thing I wish she had done? Made it easier to find all of her friends and family's phone numbers. That reminds me to do some cleaning on my contacts and printing them out.

Anyway, some things to think about.

I watch Digg cause it brings some of the most interesting blogs and sites out there. Here's one that details how the Xbox 360 team uses a little epoxy to make it hard to modify chips on its motherboard.

If you're not into that, On10 has a set of videos on Modern Medical Technology which are interesting!

Hey, David Ciccone, thanks for the props about Microsoft's mobile stuff and MPTrain (he says that beats what Nike and Apple announced the other day). Yeah, there are a few smart people over in Microsoft Research. This reminds me, I need to exercise!

We're seeing total overload on our activation servers today so some people haven't been able to get keys to install the new Office or Windows betas. We apologize for that and are working on getting more capacity online. In the meantime you might want to watch the keynotes from WinHEC. Lots of good stuff there.

And keep trying. Hey, I remember when I was a beta tester on Windows 95. I had to download the entire OS on a 28.8 modem! I did that every weekend. How things have changed!

The mapping war continues…

The folks over on Virtual Earth team, er, the Windows Live Local team, continue to roll out new stuff. And they are slowly making their UI more usable too (something a bunch of us have been, um, giving feedback to the team about).

Hi ho, hi ho, I'm back in the office and snowed under with 265 emails (and that's after cleaning them out). Whew.

But some interesting stuff coming through my aggregators and email.

Lots of good feedback about Windows Vista. Chris Pirillo sent me and Jim Allchin the kind of feedback that product teams die for (when I was a beta tester I won a $1400 laser printer for reporting about this number of bugs and issues about Adobe Acrobat). Yes, Jason Clarke, I'm making sure this list gets seen by everyone.

A reader asked me whether I think it's smart business, given my visibility, to point out everything that's wrong with Microsoft. After all, that might give people the idea that Windows Vista is buggier than it actually is, was the thesis.

That's a risk I'm willing to take. Why? First, my belief is that my readers are smarter than I am and can figure out the truth. Second, I am sick of companies always taking the "only report good PR" route — that's no way to build trust and improve products together. Third, I know a few people in power read my blog and I want the best possible Windows Vista out there (translation: public discussion increases the chances that these issues will be fixed and not swept under the rug). Fourth, this is the time to fix problems, not worry about PR. Fifth, I assume you all know how to use Technorati to search for the dirt on Microsoft anyway.

I'll report when things work well too. For instance, Chris Pirillo used to really bag on Outlook (his bashes of Outlook are legendary). But look at his post "Outlook 2007 Might Not Suck!"

Anyway, thanks for this kind of feedback. Anyone else? Link to your bug reports here and I'll make sure they get entered into the bug tracker.

Geoff Coupe is having trouble getting Office 2007 loaded on top of Windows Vista. I'll try to get someone over here to help fix this stuff. It is beta, so expect some turbulence! But, yeah, I hate it when Microsoft groups don't use our latest stuff.

Anyone else having troubles?

There's lots of Microsoft news. New betas of Windows Vista and Office 2007 shipped this morning. And lots of other stuff from the Windows Hardware Conference. Mary Jo Foley has the key stuff. Don't tell Steve Ballmer, but the best place to get news on Microsoft is actually on Google.

Update: News.com has a whole package, including videos, from WinHEC.

Dana Epp admonishes Microsoft to not let employees run as admin. (He's a security expert). I agree. It's time to step up and do this, no matter how painful it is.