Yesterday Microsoft hosted an open house in their offices for all the local Certified Partners.  There was a 30 minute introduction slideshow (which I missed most of thanks to traffic) and a short tour of the offices.  Aside from that, you were supposed to wander around and talk to people.  Of course, I was perfectly willing to talk to anyone but I had other things on my mind.  So rather than talking to more than 4 people I retired to a corner office and whipped out my tablet.  I brought it in b/c I didn’t know what kind of meetings to expect.  Brendon and I sat together and wrote the blog entry about not being able to create an ASP.Net application.

Microsoft brought in a catering company to put out some food – they must have spent a fortune, there was a TON of food.  Like 10 different catering stations.  Everything from salad to dessert (all the other courses too) and a beer and wine bar.  Since I was heading out to dinner afterwards, I didn’t really eat much.  Just a sample of the sesame chicken strips and a brownie.  MS also stepped up with the door prizes – 2 Xboxes and 2 portable DVD players.  I didn’t win anything (and neither did Brendon, for a change) but they gave us some consolation T-Shirts (while supplies lasted).

— Matt Ranlett