Most of this I can't disclose, other than to say that I've got a new Business Intelligence talk to work on based on some of what I've seen. Really neat stuff.
Bill Gates gave the keynote. He actually talkked for an hour or so about his vision of technology today and in the future before siting down to answer questions from the audience for about half an hour. Questions ranged over a variety of topics including computer science education, philanthropy, and technical mineuta such as multilingual speech synthesis in Vista. Bill was a great sport and answered every question he received, even when the question was unintelligible or an attack from a Mac fanboy. The rest of the day was filled with some overview and roadmap type of presentations. The content is actually under NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) so I won't be revealing any dates or upcoming technical details in this or any other post about the event. Sorry. I don't want to get in trouble.
After the training sessions Microsoft offered a pair of parties. The exclusive party at the top of the Seattle Hilton was the Regional Director party. Brendon and I crashed for a few minutes, mostly to have a conversation with one of the attendees. While at the top of the 29 story building, I took this snapshot of the Seattle Space Needle (it's the tiny disk in the distance). Since we weren't invited, and frankly the RDs didn't seem to be drunk enough to keep us entertained, Brendon and I left and headed to the Attendee Party at the Museum of Flight to the south of the city. Below are a few photos of the event:
- SR-71 Black Bird hanging above a crowd of people. Shawn Wildermuth shared with us that this is one of his favorite planes b/c it has been so well designed to operate at low pressure altitudes that it leaks fuel on the tarmac.
- Brendon and I about to take off in the flight simulator. This was awesome, like a roller coaster. For two minutes we got to control what direction we were facing so we naturally did a ton of barrel rolls and loops. The seats we're strapped into are on a large machine which literally spins us any way we want to go and does it quite quickly. Brendon and I each got to control the stick for a minute, so we dedicated ourselves to seeing who could make the other sicker. I think I won, but it is one of those things where whomever wins really loses.