I’ve been insanely busy lately, although not as busy as people have made out. As today is Thanksgiving I thought it was appropriate to make an announcement. 

My junior year in high school our social science class had a choice for field trip: The burn recovery unit at Dallas’ Parkland hospital, or Children’s Medical Center.  Being squeamish as all hell, I chose the Children’s Medical Center trip.  It was a trip that I would say has profoundly affected my life. To see children in various stages of severe or terminal illness, yet still behaving like children in spirit and temperament, was both eye opening and heart breaking. Throughout my career at Microsoft, child medical oriented charities have been my charities of choice.  This year, I’m hoping to do something a bit beyond just my own giving.

As I’ve said on a couple of occasions, I’m insanely lucky to have the job I have doing what I do. This December 8th Rochelle and I will be attending the Penny Arcade Child’s Play charity dinner.  Just attending the dinner includes a donation to the charity, but this year I decided to see if we could do a little more given where I work.

So this year, We’re auctioning off several slots to serve as an honorary member of my team and come on out to Xbox HQ to help us protect the Xbox LIVE service! Here are the details I submitted to Child’s Play, which they excitedly accepted:

Have you ever wanted to help the Xbox LIVE enforcement team enforce the guidelines of Xbox LIVE against those who might want to be, for lack of more direct and not-family-friendly term, miscreants?

Well then, this is your auction!

The Xbox LIVE enforcement team would love to have your help. We’re offering you the exciting opportunity to be a honorary member of our team, on-site at Xbox HQ.  There are three openings for auction that will take place during the month of January, each slot is six hours in duration.

To get the law talking stuff out of the way, you must be 18 years of age, willing to travel at your own expense to the Xbox LIVE HQ at Microsoft Studios B, Redmond, Washington. You must be willing to sign a Non-Disclosure agreement because you will see top secret secret secrecy stuff that is also secret and you should not tell anyone. Because it is secret.  Shhhh.  We can’t talk about it.  Stop talking!  Oh wait, that’s us telling you how secret it is.  Sorry. But it’s secret!

In return for your compliance with the rules, you may experience (in no particular order):

• A tour of the Xbox headquarters with Eric Neustadter (e) and Larry Hryb (Major Nelson).
• A briefing with the Stephen Toulouse (Stepto) and the Xbox LIVE enforcement team discussing what we see online on the service and how to protect it.
• Slack jawed looks of wonder.
• A meal at the Studio Commons at Xbox HQ (numerous restaurants are available)
• Private insider awesome stuff
• And, best of all: Several hours of actively working to help police the Xbox service alongside the Xbox enforcement team, playing games and working to stop bad guys from being, well, bad guys.

You’ll walk away with a free year of Xbox LIVE, some cool Xbox gear, and the knowledge you helped us protect the service from potential bad guys.

We’ll also provide you with a souvenir certificate thanking you for your help.  I have no idea how much people would want to bid for this but the retail value is roughly $75. I think I would be insanely happy if we could get $500 for the charity total.

There are only a couple of dozen tickets left for the event!  So if you want the chance to help an amazing charity, and whack some bad guys, here’s the link.

Have a very happy Thanksgiving everyone, and we hope to see you at the charity dinner!