The Love Bug Drops In For A Byte Or Two At Microsoft

Love bugged Dan Spinazzola of Microsoft.

So he followed his computer instincts and used RAID . . . to propose to girlfriend Anne Gardiner.

In case you're not computer savvy, one little computer bug can undermine your whole day's work. Microsoft has developed a bug-tracking tool, appropriately nicknamed RAID.

A support engineer, Spinazzola spends his professional life searching out software bugs and even met Gardiner over the software glitches. She's a support marketing manager and identified a problem with Windows 95.

Just before Valentine's Day, Spinazzola wrote his proposal out as Bug Report in RAID, addressing it specifically to Gardiner.

He appeared in person, too, on bended knee with diamond ring in hand.

But Gardiner wouldn't say yes until she installed RAID on her computer and read the message.

By then it had gone public - remember, it was on the Microsoft RAID network, accessible to numerous other employees.

Gardiner replied - or in RAID language "resolved" - the bug.

"Yes!" she wrote, adding, "I can't believe you did this!"

The debugging proposal was so popular that by the end of last week the couple had received hundreds of e-mail congratulatory notes from Microsoft locations around the world.

No date has been set.

The couple explained the wedding is still in "beta," meaning it's in development.

Musically speaking: Need an excuse to watch next week's Grammy Awards?

Roger Treece, director of the vocal jazz ensemble at Bellevue Community College, has been nominated for an award.

When he isn't teaching music at BCC, Treece composes, arranges, performs and produces music.

His work, "Song for the Geese," was nominated in the jazz-vocal-performance category. If you're a jazz fan, you're probably more familiar with the voice behind the song, Mark Murphy.

Author, author: Gail Sheehy, who made us all aware of life's stages with her bestsellers "Passages," "The Silent Passage" and "New Passages," will be on the Eastside on March 10.

She's the keynote speaker for the YWCA Professional Women's Benefit Luncheon at The Meydenbauer.

At home: The men behind the Seattle Home Show have local roots.

The father of the show, which will be in the Kingdome through Sunday, is Bill McDonald.

His son-in-law, Mike Kalian of Bellevue helps manage the show.

Sex rings: A breast-cancer-education activist jokes that her cell phone is a guy.

Because she works full time, she uses her car to check in with supporters around the Eastside during the computer.

She tries not to use the word breast.

"Whenever I say breast, the cell phone cuts out," she said. "It has selective deafness . . . just like many men who don't want to hear about breast cancer."

One last grin: Ed Wyse of Bellevue (and the name behind the beauty-supply stores) shared this bumper sticker.

It was on an elderly Oldsmobile and read: "This Is My Father's Oldsmobile."

Sherry Grindeland's column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays in The Seattle Times Eastside edition. You can reach her by phone at 206-515-5633 or 425-453-2130, e-mail at sgri-new@seatimes.com, fax at 425-453-0449, or mail at The Seattle Times Eastside bureau, 10777 Main St., Suite 100, Bellevue, WA 98004.