Skiing was fabulous and....

Skiing Les Arcs was lovely - some great snow and wall to wall (slope to slope) sunshine - especially offering some really fabulous views of Mont Blanc:


And now I've returned home to discover.... that on xmas eve Microsoft sent me a present:

Thank you for your interest in Windows© Azure™.

Your invitation code is XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX.

You can now sign up for a Windows Azure account at http://lx.azure.microsoft.com/fs. Please keep this email in a safe place.
This invitation to participate in the Windows Azure Community Technical Preview is subject to the following usage limits:

      Total compute usage: 2000 VM hours
      Cloud storage capacity: 50GB
      Total storage bandwidth: 20GB/day

During the CTP, we reserve the right to suspend your account activity (this does not imply we will delete your cloud storage) if you exceed these usage limits.

Sincerely,
 Azure Services Platform Team

Yes! 2009 is going to be fun :)