Suggestion - Apply to work with this guy from LA. In 6 - 12 months, start making noise about wanting to transfer positions to the Seattle office.

Once you're in Seattle, with a job, you're not a Californian any more, and you can move to MSFT campus for the experience.

If you're trying to pay for a San Francisco or New York house on a salary anywhere else, you aren't moving. Seattle salaries account for the fact that housing prices are 25-30% lower in urban Seattle / Bellevue / Redmond than in San Francisco, and the surrounding communities are significantly lower than that.

Per one of several cost-of-living comparison sites you can google for:
Rent Prices in San Francisco, CA are 71.43% higher than in Seattle, WA
Restaurant Prices in San Francisco, CA are 6.31% higher than in Seattle, WA
Groceries Prices in San Francisco, CA are 3.62% higher than in Seattle, WA
Local Purchasing Power in San Francisco, CA is 10.27% lower than in Seattle, WA

Oy. I'm American too, and I know 60m != 60'. 197' isn't much better, but really. C'mon.

Yes. This. They have exactly zero chance of affecting change in DPRK, but Korean Government will get some hard currency to work with.

This. If an admin like the GP is so high and mighty about DNS records meeting RFC compliance (You do listen for DNS on both UDP and TCP right? And you've signed your domain with DNSSEC?), you can at least do your SMTP services correctly too. Asking for an authed SMTP submission session for each domain is now the correct best practice. Unauthed SMTP relays are a dying breed.

Guppies make too many babies in my tank, any way. How do we order these?

Voted last week by mail. Now want to create an app that disables all television, radio, political advertising and replaces it with soothing music and pictures of puppies and kittens as soon as King County has acknowledged receiving my vote.

My Samsung G2 supports muting the ring by turning the phone over. Using the accelerometer isn't unique. Whacking it is pretty clever, though.

You're one of those Dihydrogen Monoxide supporters aren't you. You know that stuff is used in poisons every day? I heard the Taliban uses it in their mountain hideouts while they plot against the United States of Amerika. You should be ashamed.

I agree with the above posts that 18mo might be a little young for computer exposure, but between 3-5, as reading skills start building, using the per-letter TuxType can be a fun game occasionally, and will introduce the computer keyboard to your child. Also, many web apps are there on places like starfall.com, nickjr.com and pbskids.org that have good games for kids that involve reading, math, and comprehension skills I was surprised to find out that at my daughters Kindergarten last year, their "rediness" assessment was done on a PC. Because my daughter had been exposed to the computer mouse and keyboard earlier, she was able to handle the challenge with less help, and her scores were more accurate to her real skills. She now also uses the iphone with more skill than either my wife or I, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. ;-)

I understand you dont want to run for your phone -- Bluetooth won't reach up and down stairs, so linking phone and computer are likely not going to solve your problem. Why not use Grand Central http://www.grandcentral.com/ and a Skype number? Have Grand Central ring your cell and your Skype number at the same time. Then whichever you're closest to, you can answer.