I attended DevDays here in Atlanta today, and had a pleasant lunch with Paul Wilson. It was good to catch up with him - it's always refreshing to talk to someone smarter than me. We shared a table with Jeff Prosise for lunch. Ok, that's me name dropping, because I don't believe that I said more than two words to Jeff. I'm always afraid that I'll sound like some FanBoy when I talk to the authors I consider "Great." (That's a short list, by the way.)
The most interesting part of DevDays for me is usually the chance to catch up with some old co-workers and acquaintances. This Devdays was no exception. I saw several people I knew, and took a few minutes to catch up. The most interesting bit was when I talked to Chase Beasely, one of the old directors from my days at Priceline.com. See, Chase was the guy who was tasked with pink-slipping me when Priceline closed their Atlanta office. There was no discrimination here - they pink slipped the whole office. Chase was just drew my name in some sort of strange "manager lottery."
Immediately, I introduced Chase as the "guy who canned me back during my dot-com minute," and his face turned slightly red. He mumbled something about that not being the way that one likes to be introduced, and the laughter quickly turned jovial. I did enjoy putting Chase on the spot, as my experience was not pleasant, back in 2000. However, I don't hold it against him.
The rest of DevDays was uneventful. I think I'm getting a bit jaded over these events, as the presentations seem overly simple, and I find little value in attending. I get more from my monthly MSDN Magazine fix, really.