One the hardest weeks I ever had...

Hi...

let me tell you about my last week. It started on Monday morning - say - on 3:45 am. I got up that early because I had to take a plane to Frankfurt very early. So far everything went well until we stood on the runway for hours waiting for the Frankfurt airport to be opened because of fog.

Well, when I finally arrived in Frankfurt my whole time buffer was eaten up and I hurried around. Did you ever notice that when you are in REAL hurry you experience things like this: I entered an elevator, the doors closed and I waited for it to move. Instead the doors opened again and in came an old man starting to press one level selection button after the other (first pressing the button, then reading the sign next to the button and discovering, ups wrong level, next button... so on). Until one of the other passengers and myself interrupted him by asking what his destination would look like he pressed about 7 buttons. The elevator showed us every level and it took ages.

I had a rental car reserved to drive to the Advanced Developers Conference (see https://www.adc06.de/) to do a keynote. I got an Opel Corsa (a real small car). I think I should have changed the motor for the whipper with the one to move the car. The machine had 19 kilometers on the tires (it was brand new so to say) but I was in a hurry. So thank you, Germany. No speed limit on the autobahn. The engine was in the red area while hunting with breadth taking 140 km/h down the road. Believe me it felt like Mach 1 in this car.

I managed to jump into the room about a minute before the official start of my talk. It was fun and I met Jyotika Samjee from Siemens Corporate Technologies. Remarkable.

So, I raced back (in the red area again) and dropped of the car while the motor made this "bling" noises and you know "oh, this was too much heat for one small motor...". Now the motor is retracted. It might need a bit more oil than others of the same family...

Back on plane heading towards Hamburg. In Hamburg, new car (this time Mercedes A-Class) and doing another keynote (this time on Silverlight) on a partner roadshow. This was Monday.

Tuesday: Getting up early and driving to Berlin. In Berlin I noticed that my toothbrush and all of the stuff along with it still is on holiday in Hamburg. OK, details... Have you ever noticed that those hotel emergency toothbrushes actually loose their bristles?? Oh, I just did...

That evening I went on to Dresden, again keynote in front of partners. And back to Berlin the same night.

Wednesday, the big day. We worked for nearly one year and finally the XTOPIA started in Berlin. It was a great conference (beside the typical things like that we wrote Microdoft on the feedback form and such). Boy, I am so proud on what we achieved. And I was tired as hell that evening... Also I had to drop of my car again and learned that Karl-Marx-Allee (where the conference was) and Karl-Marx-Strasse (where the station was) are not really the same, not even near to each other...

Next day I had a session on dynamic languages at the XTOPIA. In the evening Partners again in Berlin and on the race to the plane towards Munich. With me was the former president of Bavaria (Stoiber). Interesting to see a person that had been a prominent politician with bodyguards a week earlier and now a standard passenger...

Next day one my way to Kitzbühel doing a press conference and talking to journalists until 2am. Back on my feet at 6am and driving home. One night in my own bed and back on the road.

Writing this posting while sitting in a restaurant in Madrid, Spain...

This week I did 6 presentation on 4 different topics in 5 different cities. Now I am in city number 6...

CU

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