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May 15, 2006

Seattle and Sharepoint

I am going to be in Settle for 5 days at a Microsoft SharePoint Conference. I decided to just jot down random notes from the trip.

 

Sunday May 14, 2006

 

The car service picked me up at 4:30am. The driver is Jim – he is a good guy, and it is nice to see him. We get to LGA with plenty of time of time to spare. I am bumped to first class, so the trip should be pleasant

 

Flight down to CLT is uneventful, and I have slept almost the entire way. CLT is packed out, and it is only 8:30am. There is a posting for my flight to SEA that all passengers must check in. I still have first class, but instead of 4A I am in 1A, the crappy bulkhead. When I get on the plane I instantly see there is an equipment change, and we have gone from a 321 to a 319, so I am no longer mad about the seat, and am just happy to still be in first class.

 Picture 002

 

 

 

I sleep, I read, the trip again is uneventful, and I get to take a couple of photos of the mountains. The last (and first) time I was in Seattle I flew in and out at night, and it was raining. Today it is 11:30am, and beautiful. The mountain tops are covered in snow.

 

 

 

I am staying at the Hyatt Regency in Bellevue, and get this – they charge $10 a day for broadband. I am not happy.

 

Charlie and I ate a late lunch at a local restaurant. I had a good Hefenwiezen and a burger.

 

At 5:30 we walked over to the convention center. We are two of the first people there. Cool stuff – a briefcase, and a nice pen and binder. We go into the main meeting room, and there are row after row of computers.

 

computers

 

There is a lot of beer (Alaskan Amber – very good) , wine, water and soda is available and some really nice food and cakes. Charlie and I grab 2 diet cokes and fire up a couple of SharePoint labs running on virtual machines. Our first reactions to the new version are mostly positive. The app is clearly still in Beta, as we Charlie Tboth cause crashes very quickly. We are talking to the guys sitting in front of us. They are from Connecticut, and they are also crashing the systems. Within minutes Charlie is hacking code, and ripping the system apart. I join in, and as nerdy as it sounds, I am having a blast looking at code with Charlie, and trying to understand what is going on “behind” the scenes.

 

Some Microsoft guys stop and ask us if we are coding. We look up, and decide to be honest:

 

US: Yes

 

THEM: Cool

 

Tomorrow is keynotes from Bill Gates, and then 3 lectures. I’ll let you know how it goes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted by pmadsen at May 15, 2006 08:59 PM