Public Class GeoffAppleby

Tech Ed Australia 2004 - Day 1

Today was Day 1 of Tech Ed, the free day. For those who weren't aware, they opened up teched to a free for all for the first day. So along i went, since it was the only access i was going to get.

Well, they kept it up to standard (i had a full ticket last year to the Brisbane one). Everything was looking pretty schmick, and it was just as i remembered it. There were some very interesting stands to look at, and i got my quota of free pens and stuff.

The best freebie, of course, was the very cool beanie. I got mine, and promptly decided to give it to my partner. She's got a much smaller head than me, and unfortunately, one size does not fit all. But that's ok, the important thing was that i got it.

Actually, the most important thing was the people sightings. It was great to put a face to a name I'd seen a little bit - Eddie de Bear, a guy I've seen mailing a few times on the aus-dotnet mailing list. Nice to meet you man :)

I also got to meet some other aus-dotnetters, as well as Microsoft employees - Finula Crowe, Andrew Coates, the infamous Caroline Price (infamous only due to the association with Matty Hardman of course - who I've heard is going to be at Tech Ed as of tomorrow), Chuck Sterling, and the others who were around in the MSDN Connection Executive Lounge (who were mostly too busy playing the XBox, i didn't want to interrupt the game :)

And then there's Mr Man himself. Frank Arrigo, you just plain rock. I wanted to make sure i found him today to say hi. He's been a massive help in so many things over the last 6 months for me. If you want it, and he knows how, he make sure you get it. If you express an inkling of interest, he can point you in the right direction. In my case today, you stop by to say hi, and he takes the time to to do more than just say hi to both me and the friends that were with me, he makes us all feel welcome and takes a big interest in what we do. Frank, if you're like this with everyone you meet, you must have a whole heap of groupies. Thanks for everything.

Oh, and depending on how the edits go, there a good chance i was on camera at least once for the Channel 9 video!

So today was mostly just celebrity (in my eyes, anyway) sightings. It was great fun, and I made sure I grabbed my copy of the VS2005 beta. It's a shame there weren't any copies of Yukon beta2 about...