Graphicalwonder - Shane Perran's SharePoint Customization Blog
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April 05, 2006
TechED 2005, Orlando - Photo Tour
This has been a long time coming. I have always wanted to photo blog while on the road or after returning but it always seems to get put on the back burner. Better late then never and hopefully in the future I will get to post them right after the trip rather than a year later.
Last year TechED was held in sunny Orlando Florida, a true tourist town. The conference was a lot of fun, I took in a bunch of great birds of a feather one noteable by Scott Guthrie, then some great break-outs, one noteable by Ted Pattison and Fitz on Site Definitions. I met a tonne of people and got to finally meet some of very first people I talked to about SharePoint like Sig Webber. Then there was the swag, we took home everything from books to full blown copies of SQL Server 2005 for attending the keynote and WIndows Server 64bit edition.
These photos sum up my TechED 2005 trip to Orlando Florida:
Yet another early morning flight. I Really, REALLY wish there was more room on a plane.
... and we're off
First stop is Halifax - This time however we are not getting off the plane, it's a quick stop to grab more people, refuel and then head west to Ottawa - AWAY from Florida I might add.
Fast forward the approximately 6 hours it takes to get from NL to Florida (with stops in Halifax and Ottawa) and we have now touched down in Orlaodno - My first time to Florida. We were met by our very own driver holding a sign at the airport (that was wierd) and then off to the JW Mariotte hotel. All I can say about this hotel is WOW, absolutely HUGE.
This was my first "real" vision of Orlando when I looked out the window at my hotel room, beautiful place.
Amanda relaxing by the pool
Chillin in my MSDN Tee
TechED here we come -- Orange County Conference Centre
Turns out us geeks like to eat - That's a big meal hall
The keynote room was quite dazzling, lets take a look inside
Lots of screens and pretty lights.
Steve Ballmer is just about ready to go on ..
There he is now ... Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers .... Oh and PS he brought a robot on to the stage to "Destroy" a sever in order to demonstrate fail-over - pretty neat!
Now for the fun stuff - Me hanging with pac-man!
We ate at the worlds largest Hard Rock Cafe.
The first day Amanda had INETA meetings but the conference wasn't started so I did the tourist thing - First up Universal Studios (City Walk)
Thats a big statue huh ...
Amanda and Jared (Another co-worker) waiting outside the convention centre in front of what seemed like 50 MIcrosoft busses which I must say ran a VERY efficient schedule. You could normally get anywhere by waiting 5 minutes and hopping on a bus. Very well planned.
During my Day 1 exploring I found the Hard Rock Hotel which was amazing
While roaming around by the Hard Rock Hotel I noticed a river-boat so I figured hey why not .. and off I went.
As I mentioned - first time in Florida - What next? - Disneyworld of course. Amanda, Jared and I hit the Magical Kingdom - here I am arriving at the main gates.
Oh c'mon who wouldn't take a picture in front of the castle? Amanda and I being true tourists!
Then the inner kid came out - We first took a steamboat ride through the magical kingdom - This was a Huck Finn Theme.
Goofing around
We decided to rent a car toward the end of our trip and extend our exploration to the coast (ie: The Beach). - We dont see many cars like this where I am from - NCE!
Life is rough when the biggest decision is Daytona Beach or Miami
Of course there was a tropical storm that day but hey we made it to the beach! Amanda and I hanging at Cocoa Beach.
This is what happens when you pile a few hundred geeks into a a night-club and pass them instruments. It was hillarious. This is a shot at Pointe Orlando at the Matrix / Millenium where we had a Jam Session.
Later that night Microsoft had rented "The Entire Universal Studios" theme park for us. It was closed to the public and absolutely filled with cool stuff - everything free! Here we are arriving
There is lots to do around Universal, everything from get attacked by jaws ...
Hang with Shrek and the Princess
Track down scooby doo and shaggy over by the mystery machine
Me on the far right walking with Amanda but discovering those on the far left have found beer!
What a great idea - an ice bar in the middle of the street in 100+ degree weather. Who am I to complain? Free beer!
That's more like it - my hand doesn't feel so empty anymore.
That should give you a good indication of how TechED 2005 went. Microsoft did an awesome job of providing food, entertainment and transportation - it was absolutely awesome all round.
This set was a year late so that's why I added so many photos - in the future I'll likely limit it to 5 or 10 top ones with a faster turnover.
On that note - It's almost time to ramp up for TechED 2006 in Boston!
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Comments
Cool stuff (even if it took a year to get online). You should consider Flickr for posting your pics as it's a great way to keep this stuff and you can easily use BlogJet to insert pics into you blog entries. Works wonders for me as it's a breeze getting pictures uploaded (via the upload tool or the browser) and then inserting them into my blog entries via BlogJet. Check it out and keep up the posts!
Bil,
It's almost embarassing to admit but I have not even looked at Flikr until today.
I actually created an account this morning - then I grabbed the "Flickr Uploadr" from the tools page.
I absolutely love it already, the sets+tags is awesome. The upload utility is super nice.
My only qualm will be the 20MB storage - I got a new 7.2 MP camera a couple of weeks ago so I'm click happy.
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