Back from TechEd
Well, I’m back from a GREAT week at Microsoft TechEd 2011. I had a great time and learned a ton! I know, what a way to talk about a conference of geekdom! 🙂 I stayed in the Ritz Carlton in Atlanta and it was a wonderful hotel. The staff was great and I slept pretty good for being away from home!
The conference was very informative and the sessions I attended made it worth my while for going. I brought back a lot of things to implement at work. The only drawback was the size of the conference center (as I mentioned at the first of the week). The way it was laid out, you had to walk over a half a mile to get from the dining area to the trade show part of the conference. The crazy thing was that the two areas were about 100 yards from each other. They did have a passageway between the two as a huge shortcut, but it wasn’t always open. It was very crowded. There were over 10,000 people there at the conference. You can see how big the dining hall was and that wouldn’t even fit everyone if they all came at the same time…
I talked to a lot of vendors as well. In addition to the knowledge I got from them, I got a TON of junk that I brought home to the kids! I have everything from rubber light-up balls, to cell phone holders, pens, pads of paper, tons of other toys, and 21 t-shirts… YES! 21 T-SHIRTS! It was hard to get everything packed in a single suitcase to bring home! 🙂
The last night we had a great conference party. It was over at the Atlanta Aquarium and World of Coke. We had a great time and drank coke samples from all over the world (a room with kiosks from each continent and cups to have unlimited refills of your favorite coke products… see below). We all got a mini 125 year anniversary bottle of coke.
It’s good to be home how and see the kids. They were really excited to have me home because of all the junk I brought back for them! They each got a couple of t-shirts and are enjoying them as well. 🙂
