TechEd 2006 - Day 6 - The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Now that TechEd is over it’s time to reflect. To look at the good, and the bad, and of course the ugliness that we experienced. Here’s my take on the week.

The Good

  • Lenox hotel. Nice service, great rooms, excellent price. They even leave 2 Lindt chocolates on your bed when they turn them down each day for you. Hint to those traveling as couples, order the room with the double bed (even though you’re going to shag in one) so you get double chocolate intake.
  • Mini-parties with various people, too long into the night but still a great time.
  • Being an Office Booth Babe and chatting it up with so many people.
  • Meeting up with the product teams and various uber-smart people at Microsoft and elsewhere.
  • Walgreens open 24 hours when you got the munchies.
  • Twinkies, Häagen-Dazs, and Cocoa-puffs at the conference. About the only good food there.
  • Free soft drinks ala Micrsoft campus style. It was nice always having a diet-coke or something after talking for dozens of hours.
  • Team System for Database Professionals. This is going to kick-butt and take names. I’m glad they’re adding this much needed product to the lineup.
  • Speaking to a million people about SharePoint 2007 goodness and watching their eyes light up with the cool new features that they’re going to love.
  • Zappa does Zappa. Brilliant.
  • Fresh lobster.
  • Feeling a Sony Vaio UX50 (thanks Scott!)

The Bad

  • $6.50 toll just to drive from the airpot to downtown.
  • Cab drivers that don’t take plastic. That’s just plain odd from where I come from.
  • Not enough Häagen-Dazs. The bins quickly ran out and there was no real schedule of when they got filled.
  • Walking 30 miles throughout the convention centre.
  • Working the Office Technical Learning Center booth at 9AM after getting to bed at 3AM from the party.
  • Crap swag. Nothing really that great from what I could find (but then maybe I’m not looking in the right place).

The Ugly

  • The bus company we were using (Peter Pan, what the hell kind of name is that for a bus line?) went on strike mid-week so most of us were waiting for buses or hopping in cabs.
  • Cab drivers that don’t know where anything is. I talked to a few people and they all felt the same way so I’m not alone on this.
  • Bus drivers that took a different route to or from the conference center and the hotels every single time.
  • Meals. While I haven’t been to hundreds of conferences, this was the worst food ever.
  • Wireless-ness access everywhere. At one point they ran out of IPs but for the most part, coverage sucked so I plugged in when I was on the floor.
  • Crazy ass tunnels everywhere, makes me feel like the mole-man.

In addition, it was great seeing everyone. Shout outs to some old peeps (April, Lawrence, Fitz, Susan, Scott, Mark, AC, Bob, Spence, Todd, Bill, Carl, Richard, Julie) and some new ones I met or finally came face to face with (Jim, Korby, Chad, John, Jeffrey, Michelle, Heather, Amanda, Shane and Shane, Woody, Arpan, Bill, and Julia). Sorry if I missed anyone as there are so many names and my brain hurts.

Good times.

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