As I work with customers on their Web services strategy, a frequent question is how we should think about application granularity, service boundaries, and the underlying data. Pat just posted an update to his thoughts (aka Metropolis) on MSDN. 

Key take-aways are the differences in data 'freshness' and how widely the data must be understood.

When I finally started regular blogging, I sent a link to a few friends whose blogs I read pretty regularly.  Of course, it wasn't ten minutes before Mark, Chris, and Ian pinged me for the RSS feed.  It's a holiday weekend and I should be out in the sunshine.  Instead, I updated my site to add RSS.  ATOM is going to have to wait a bit longer.

Last weekend, we took Peg on the White Salmon for her birthday.  It was fun to see the look on her face when she saw her first class 4+ and the 20' waterfall.  For a first timer, she took it well, though some of the photos show real terror. 

Yes, Eric really does have his knife out in the middle of a rubber raft.  There's a story, but I'll let someone else tell it.  Pics are on our web site.

November 9, 2004 will be an international gamer holiday.  From the small slice of the game I have been lucky enough to see, it's going to exceed even the insane expectations people have.  The Bungie guys have done a great job, and it's amazing to think that over 8,000 Microsoft employess have helped with the multiplayer testing.

Now, Forza is the next game to start testing.  It's the first XBox driving game (that I know of) designed for realism, not just arcade-like gameplay.  That makes it F*ing HARD! I'm on the deep gameplay test team, and every Friday afternoon is a new focus area - is the suspension tuned right, do the brakes provide the right feel, and is the Corvette a sufficiently overpowered out of control fatass?  It gets better every week.

No, marriage isn't easy, but it sure is rewarding.  New adventures keep coming our way, even when they are a bit unexpected.  Tomorrow is our first wedding anniversary, and it's been a really good year. 

Highlights:
- Honeymoon in Aruba
- Business trip?? to Hawaii
- A new house to start a family, and being closer to our best friends
- A first triathlon for Team Kurt
- Jennifer
- Our friends

While the Open Applications Group has been leading the way in use of XML Schema for business content for some time, it has taken far too long for them to deliver on their verbal commitment to Web services.

Today, they (finally!) posted WSDL definitions for their message exchanges.  Better yet - I fired up the current build of Whidbey to check for complaints in code generation.  The entire spec worked without one error - that's around ~200 messages, ~75 wsdl files, and ~20M of source code - all automatically generated for me in less than a minute.  HOW COOL IS THAT??

Congrats to the OAGI members and staff on this big step.  Now, where's the WSDL for OAGIS 8?

From AP News: A thirsty bear with great taste breaks into a cooler and puts away 36 cans of Rainier Beer.  He would not touch the Busch.   I wonder if Rainier tastes like Hamms?  Read more here.

The WS-I members are meeting this week at the Turtle Bay Resort on Oahu.  Staring out at the surf and sunny beach is great motivation to get through our issue lists and enjoy a really beautiful place.

This is the first business trip Jennifer has joined me on, and I feel a bit bad that she is on her own for the day.  Not too bad though - she's stuck killing time at a resort in Hawaii and learning how to surf.

I'm sworn to secrecy, but it's really really cool.

Some folks in the industry have been working to create FUD around the licensing terms for Web Services specifications.  The license commitment for the entire stack has been posted to MSDN to help clarify their Royalty-Free status.