OK, so maybe I'm cheating by posting my first and second entries back-to-back, but I was just too tired last night. Today started with a wake-up call at 6:30 AM. After getting ready, I met up with Todd in the Rotunda of the hotel and we headed over to the Orange County Convention Center around 7:30. The pre-conference session didn't actually start until 10:00, but we wanted to get there early to register, have breakfast, and walk around. I've attended this conference in the past, but it still surprises me to see just how big it is. You can't really tell from the pictures, but I'll take more once all the vendor booths are set up and everything is opened-up.
We got a nice convertible bag/backpack this year plus some beta software, a black TechEd t-shirt and hat, and an Office 2007 t-shirt at registration. It's always fun to go through all the stuff they stick in the bags even if much of it is just advertising junk. You can see my bag in the photo below under the banana. For some reason, I've gotten hooked on bananas this year. Since they didn't have the official dining area set up, everybody just had a picnic on the floor for breakfast.
At 10:00, we headed to our pre-conference session on ASP.NET AJAX with Jeff Prosise from Wintellect. I had actually spoken with Jeff on the phone several months ago and was looking forward to meeting him in person. The presentation was quite interesting and contained a bunch of good information and tips that you can't just find on the internet. All in all, Todd and I were both impressed with his knowledge and presentation skills. It's also nice to have a presenter who is actually excited about his topics. That enthusiasm is often infectious and leads to a more enjoyable experience for the audience. He actually finished 30 minutes early and announced that because Microsoft's other big conference this year, PDC, was cancelled, he wanted to talk about Silverlight for the last half hour. I guess he's been working on Silverlight presentations for PDC and was disappointed that he wouldn't be able to give them. That was fine by me because the Silverlight technology looks very interesting. Here's a shot of Jeff in action. Sorry it's so blurry. I didn't want to distract him with the flash, so the shutter speed was pretty slow.
The demos Jeff presented are available here if you're interested.
Today's session ended at 5:00, and we stopped by the TechEd store so I could pick up a Microsoft golf shirt. I'm such a geek. This is actually a shot from earlier in the day before the store opened. Doesn't the security woman look like she's having fun? :)
After that, we headed out to Downtown Disney to walk around an have some dinner. We ended up at Wolfgang Puck's Cafe. I'm always a little suspicious about his food because he's become so commercialized and seems to put his name on anything, but the food was actually excellent. It was mainly the smell that drew us to the restaurant. They cook most everything over wood. We were happy when everything actually tasted as good as it smelled.
Good night, all. More tomorrow. Or is it today at this point? I need some sleep...
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