It’s Saturday, two days before the official start of TechEd 2005. I’m travelling down to Orlando with Brendon, courtesy of Microsoft and the fine folks over at the CodeZone Refresh department. Brendon and I participated (along with about 20 or so other people) in the beta testing program for the Code Zone refresh, and our participation in the beta test program earned us scholarships from Microsoft – free travel, hotel, and TechEd registration. I want to thank Doug Turnure for getting us into the beta program, as it’s been AWESOME so far!
Brendon and I get on a 4pm flight to Orlando where I end up sitting next to a guy from California who works for a Defense Department subcontractor building and maintaining armored vehicles for the military. Interesting conversation, that one. He also bore a striking resemblance to the guy who played Bernie from Weekend at Bernie’s (the dead guy). Brendon and I get off the plane at 5pm and go down to get our luggage. On the way to the luggage carousel, we meet Hugo, our limo driver, who is holding a sign with our names on it. No shit – a limo (well, a Lincoln Towncar, but still nice)! We get our luggage, drive to the HUGE J.W. Marriott which is attached to the Ritz Carlton down here, and get checked in by a pack of greeters and desk clerks who swarm over to us like bees to honey. We thought we’d done something wrong, but they were just trying to be incredibly nice and helpful. We get our stuff dumped off in our rooms and go to explore the area. We managed to find the INETA pre-conference prep room and wander in to say “Hello”. We meet Samantha Spears, Chris Wallace from Denver’s UG (not to be confused with the Chris Wallace of Atlanta), and more. We chat and help them get all the name tags set up, along with Caleb Jenkins from Tulsa and D’Arcy from Winniepeg. After helping out for a while and talking to the fine folks, Brendon, D’Arcy, Caleb, and I decide to share a cab over to the Geek Dinner hosted by Jeffrey Palermo. $25 one way! Anyway, we find the dinner and Rob Zelt of Raleigh and Chris Williams of Charleston. Also in attendance is Scott Hanselman (who makes it away before Brendon and I can introduce ourselves) and lots of other really nice people. We eat some food and make fun of Canadians (D’Arcy and Rob are Canadian) while the main group retires to the bar. We were going to join everyone in the bar, but the true geek pops out and Chris announces he’s got to get back to his room quickly so he can charge his PDA. Chris and Rob aren’t staying at the same hotel as Caleb, D’Arcy, Brendon and I, but because we’ve decide that the $25 cab is too expensive to take back to the hotel, so we convince Chris and Rob to give us a ride back to the hotel. We then discover that, “Yes!”, you CAN fit six developers into a two-door Chrysler Sebring hardtop! Expect fun photos from D’Arcy’s camera soon. Everyone goes their separate ways back in the hotel. I get back to my room to find a welcome food basket on my bed – chocolates, cheese straws, truffles, fancy water bottle, and a pocket knife of some kind. I didn’t open the shrinkwrapping yet, so I don’t know what else is in there.
— trouble with the photo uploads = photos at the end of the week.
Expect sporatic reports from TechEd. I’ll be recording as much as I can, but I don’t have Internet access in my room (I’m not paying $10 a night for Internet!). Why do the more expensive hotels charge for the stuff you can get for free from the cheaper hotels? Courtyard Marriotts give away wireless Internet access like it’s going out of style!
— Matt Ranlett
posted with BlogJet