Sleepy in Seattle

Hi all,

So I am back from the land down under. I was accused of "cavorting in Oz" while I was gone by one higher up manager that shall remain nameless, but I told him anything having to do with vegemite hardly counts as "cavorting." Or if it does, I don't want to know about it. :P

The real news event this week is the Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles. From my team, Jim Newkirk is there, as is the amazing Gotdotnet ops lead Pete Coupland, Jana Carter,...there are more Microsoft.com people there...George Bullock, and Tarlochan Cheema from the CCT side of the house and a couple of people I've spaced on.

Aussie MVP Angus Logan I guess actually met Pete Coupland. How cool is that?!!!

While in Australia I actually met the folks who were working on this great mapping app. It was nice to see it came to fruition at PDC.

I was at the last PDC (2003)  where essentially we all expected LA to burn down from forest fires. People who shall remain nameless in marketing (largely because I forgot which group this was) rented a limo and bought booze and rode in that all the way to PDC when their plane got cancelled. Never let it be said that Microsoft is not a company of resourceful people willing to take risks for their customers. :)

What amazed me while in Sydney was to hear that being stranded in the city by "a ring of fire" really happens, and that the Blue Mts. area we were looking at, all the wooden houses could expect to run the risk of burning down each season. The next TechEd in Australia I am told might be in Sydney, so we can continue the tradition of trial by fire for technologists there.

I'm tired enough writing this that I am willing to call out the fact: I am joking about risking death at technical conferences. You only do that by agreeing to go on the upside down rollercoasters on "Theme Park night." :D

More later when the time zone actually works for me,

Betsy