Author's note: The following was composed at 1:30 on a Sunday night/Monday morning at the end/beginning of another long Microsoft work week at Redmond West.   Shortly thereafter, it appeared in the weekly campus/corporate newsletter, the MicroNews, under the title: "Water Feature Afficonado."

I remember vividly, when I was still over on the main campus, the day I received a lovely and colorful e-mail introduction to my new workplace-to-be at Red West. My day brightened when I learned that I would soon be working very close to a marvelous but mysterious something called "The Water Feature." Well, I've been at Red West since December of 1995, and The Water Feature has not been a disappointment in any way, shape, or form. For one thing, it's called The Water Feature. And it lives up to its name! It has plenty of water -- trickling, splashing, bubbling, and in certain places, just sitting there (not stagnantly, but tranquilly). Sometimes it has ducks, too, but I wonder if they are aware that they are hardly noodling around in just any pond, but are, in fact, partaking in an actual Water Feature. Probably not.

Indeed, I wonder if many of my Red West colleagues are sufficiently enchanted by, and appreciative of, our Dear Water Feature -- and, of course, above all, its mellifluous name. I love the way the Water Feature begins, bubbling out of the nipple of a big, round rock, like the Mother-of-All-Water-Features (which it undoubtedly is). Then it runs, care-freely, down past the Euro(Trash)-Ski Chalet Cafeteria, and pauses briefly to puddle up and collect its thoughts before flowing on (with help, of course, from the Mini-Baby Water Feature, which joins it from just left of the front doors of the cafeteria). Merrily, The Water Feature flows under a "bridge" or two and into another duck/goose pond (where a white frothy thing lurks in the middle -- perhaps, eventually, a fountain? I certainly hope so!). And then The Water Feature builds up momentum, like a salmon swimming downstream, to reach its climax -- its Grand Finale, you might say -- down by Building E.(I'm assuming that there's a similarly dramatic subterranean uphill journey of which we are blissfully unaware, so that The Water Feature can endlessly recycle and renew itself -- a kind of Water Feature Circle of Life, if you will.)

Never before have I considered myself a Water Feature Enthusiast. But, boy, am I a convert now! That being the case, I just want to say that I find The Water Feature a joy, with a nice personality, and always fun to be around (even if it sometimes overindulges in the chlorine a bit). I hope everyone at Red West treasures it (and its catchy moniker) as much as I do.