02 June 2008

Tech-Ed 2008 - Day Zero

After roughly eight hours of travel time (including layovers) I finally made it to Orlando.  This is my third time here in Orlando for a Microsoft conference (one PDC and, now, two Tech-Eds) and it's nice to be back.  This year I am traveling with another Tech-Ed veteran, and co-worker, Philip Wolfe.

We basically went straight from the airport to the hotel just long enough to drop our luggage off and head over to the conference center.  We planned on attending the INETA mini-summit and arrived at the conference center about 15 minutes before the end of the session.  However, the security personnel would not let us pass through to the conference room until we went through the registration line.  There really wasn't a line so we were through fairly quickly.  We ended up getting to the mini-summit right as it was ending so we were still able to get the swag as well as meet some of the INETA personnel (e.g. Nancy Mesquita, David Silverlight, etc.) which allowed me to finally put some faces with names.

Afterwards, we headed on over to the Glo Lounge for the Party with Palermo.  We arrived pretty early and there were already quite a few people there.  Shortly after arriving, there was a piñata game with the idea being that various attendees would get a chance at breaking the piñata and releasing the prizes imprisoned within it.  However, the first participant knocked the piñata off the hook so the piñata was ripped open and the various prize tickets thrown out on the floor.  I ended up with a few Starbucks gift cards, however, one lucky attendee walked away with an XBox 360.

After hanging out at the Glo Lounge for a while we ended up heading out in search of some grub.  We ended up at Adobe Gila's where I has some great chicken enchiladas.

I'm looking forward to a great week of learning and networking starting tomorrow morning with the keynote from Bill Gate's.  Also, I will be moderating a Birds of a Feather (BOF) session on Wednesday (Using Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server in your Organization) and Philip will be presenting the Interactive Theater Session More Windows Workflow Foundation Hosting Options than You Thought on Thursday.  It's going to be a fun week!

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