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Your invitation to Bill Gates’ house might be lost in the (e)mail, so have a virtual look

 

I’ve never had the opportunity to visit the Medina mansion owned by Bill Gates. But as a journalist, I used to attend City Hall meetings in this suburb near Seattle and off Lake Washington.

I would drive in the area to the meetings. I knew he lived nearby.

Thanks to YouTube and a post on Nick Eaton’s Microsoft blog, I came across this virtual tour of his much-talked-about house.

If you live in the Seattle area, the virtual tour probably isn’t that interesting.

But if you live elsewhere, it’s noteworthy to see how the world’s tenth most powerful person, according to Forbes, had his home built.

Visitors apparently can wear pins and there are sensors and computers to customize art, music, entertainment and the temperature to your liking.

Of course, if you have zero interest in art, wearing this pin might be a problem.

So, instead of running the risk of having just blank space show up on the appropriate monitors in the house, just tell the Gates that you like the poppy, iconic and colorful work of Keith Haring.

That should do the trick.

Besides, Haring did some fascinating work, including painting on a BMW and bicycle.

You can even download his work as a computer screensaver. But I digress.

World leaders, including Chinese President Hu Jintao, have visited his house.

In 2006, the Chinese leader was the main guest at a formal banquet before he traveled to Washington, D.C.

Before arriving in the Seattle area, Reuters reported, Hu gave Microsoft a nice gift by requiring that personal computers made in the world’s most populous country must have a licensed operating system.

My former colleague, Mike Lewis, also noted that Bono and Al Gore reportedly have visited Gates’ house. Lewis dubbed it a “White House West.”

Todd Bishop, another former colleague, included some of the reported banter when Hu toured Microsoft. Here’s a prime quote from the Chinese leader:

Because you, Mr. Bill Gates, are a friend of China, I’m a friend of Microsoft.

On the Microsoft campus, there’s the Home of the Future, which will incorporate computers to hopefully make people’s lives easier.

 

 

 

As for my reporting trips to Medina: Well, I met some friendly people.

One time, I pulled over on a main street, right near the Gates’ house, to interview a resident about a city issue that was being discussed.

Within minutes, a Medina police cruiser pulled up. The officer informed me that the city requires people who park on that street to have their cars completely off the pavement.

While I obeyed the 20 or 25 mph speed limit in the city, I didn’t realize the parking requirement – and two of my tires were resting on the pavement.

I returned to my car, moved it and finished talking with that resident.