It’s that time of the year again, this time I did not escape and got tagged by Maarten Balliauw… thanks so much Maarten *grump* ;-)

1. My first (non-professional) interest in computers and Internet came when I started using Compuserve back in 95 (just before there was a normal Internet provider here in Belgium). I had no idea I would be doing something with it professionally but if it weren’t for Compuserve and later my boyfriend (now husband) wanting a website I would have never evolved in that direction.
2. I have been working at Microsoft Belgium for a little over a year now as a Developer Evangelist, previously I worked for 7 years for a web agency named LBi. One of the things I like most about the job at Microsoft is the fact that I can (and must) try out all the latest technologies. There’s something new every week and my only regret is I do not have time to learn about all of them. There’s a lot coming out at Microsoft :-)
3. While in my last year at LBi I was doing SharePoint development and I actually liked it! Everyone (that is non SharePoint developers) laughs when I say this...
4. Gaming is not really my thing, I love some of the social games and even bought one Xbox game once but after finishing two races I never touched it again.
5. I’m Belgian but spent a large part of my childhood and teenager years in Portugal. I speak fluent Portuguese and sometimes even consider Portuguese to be my mother tongue instead of Dutch.
6. In 2008 I did something crazy not too typical of me: a parachute jump! You can see a glimpse of it in this video. During the rest of the year I try to keep it to normal sports: fitness, jogging, dancing, when time allows that is.
7. I like photography and would like to learn more about it in 2009. Maybe even video as well. It must be so cool to know how to do some nice video and photo editing.

Although the tagging frenzy seems to be going on mainly in the PHP communty (Michelangelo is tracking it all), here’s to sending it to the Microsoft developer community. So in my turn I’m tagging some colleagues and some community folks:

1. Koen Van Tolhuyzen
2. Lynn Langit
3. Arturo Toledo
4. Pieter Gheysens
5. Gill Cleeren
6. Gregory Renard
7. Mitsu Furuta

Here are the rules if you are tagged:

• Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post - some random, some weird.
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter