So nice to log in using my fingerprint reader again!  Anyhow, this is my last TechEd entry for the year most likely.  Certainly the last of the Log: series.  This probably gives you one of three reactions:

1. And...?
2. So...?
3. Why did I subscribe to this jerk's feed?

All good questions.  Sadly, like most good questions, this one has no answer.  It was a fun week in the orangest county this side of Knox county, Tennessee (home of the Tennessee Volunteers!) I met some awesome people, chatted with people who have more knowledge in their smallest pinkie than I have in my entire body (and that is saying something,) and ate too much food.  I still have a bag of snacks from where we were begged by the lady who was about to start cleanup to take all we wanted, they were about to trash the rest. 

It was a fun ride back home, the 690 miles being the most I have driven in one sitting for like eight years when I used to drive from Cleveland, TN to Virginia Beach, VA which was just over 700 miles.  Luckily it is the last time I will have to do that until Saturday when I am driving over to Virginia Beach, VA for a week of work on the home planet (er, office.)

In case it is not really obvious, to entertain myself on the trip I listened to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Secondary and Tertiary Phases.  Everytime I listen to this stuff, it gets me a bit silly.  It was my first time with the Tertiary Phase, and it was just as loopy and wierd as the Secondary one.  The Primary Phase (the first six episodes) was not as weird as the second two, and was far easier to wrap your head around.

One last tidbit.  If you are a Star Wars fan and possibly a Disney Fan, the Star Wars weekends are a hoot.  Attached is a picture of the poster for this year's event, plus a picture of lunch for anyone who was confused by my description (plus, it just looks good!)

Anyhow, no more sleeping on uncomfortable beds with no wireless internet (mutually exclusive endeavors I must say)  Tomorrow, I will get back into my routine of posting tidbits of SQL only knowledge.  TechEd is over, and I have a job to do!

Later!

Well, it is over now.  I have taken the long bus ride home to the hotel and am cleaning up my swag.  Some good stuff, but nothing overly amazing.  Certainly some useful stuff, like a 256 USB memory device, a USB hub, a couple of clocks, the obvious bag and a bunch of software.  I didn't learn a tremendous amount, but I did get a good deal of tidbits that I wanted to find out covered.  I did meet quite a few great folks and for that it is worth it.

It is always cool to put names to faces, and I can't wait to get to the PASS conference.  Of course this is as much because of the fact that I will have finished a book, a big project, been on a week's vacation to Disney World and had a birthday before then.  So that should be the "finale" of the year before I cruise into the holiday season. 

Either way, it is relaxing to be done for the week, but the next week is going to be very busy ending another phase of our current project. 

"Mr Davidson, you have just finished TechEd, what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to DisneyWorld!"

See ya...

Just a quickie tonight, as it is getting late (the time on the blog is in Central time, but I am not!) 

Great day in the Cabana (4 hours!) Met some very interesting folks, gave out some interesting advice (just ask anyone!)  I really like the Cabana idea, and according to a PASS Board Member (whom I have coralled as my third co-contributor to my book, this time for a chapter on using XML in your database designs!)  we are going to look at doing the same thing at the PASS conference.  We are going to do something like the TechEdBloggers.net site also (perhaps we might also have a unique idea sometime too!)

The party tonight was awesome.  I really liked Universal Studios, it is kind of like MGM Studios with a slightly meaner edge.  Not as many great rides (Tower or Terror and Rockin' Roller Coaster are awesome) but some really cool stuff.  The Jaws boat ride was fun, as was Men In Black and Back to the Future (a bit of a tight squeeze for me, but fun none the less.)  Earthquake was fun, though the ET ride made Disney's It's A Small World seem very normal.  One thing it does explain is why Stephen Spielberg is a director because he seems very wooden in the introduction. Lots of good food and drink around and all of the lines were very short.  Well done Microsoft, thanks for a great time.

Tomorrow it is all over, and the way my feet feel right now, yay!  I do plan to hit Disney World tomorrow night, or at least Saturday, so I suppose I can't complain too much!  See you tomorrow!

Whew am I tired.  Five hours on my feet at the BI Cabana and the PASS booth combined.  Met quite a few people, learned a lot of new things, and am getting more and more armed to get back to the BI project back home.  Of course, the day isn't quite over yet, as I have to go to a party and meet folks.  Admittedly no one would miss me if I didn't show up, but hey, I don't want to take that chance do I?

One thing that has really hit me is that I hope some of my begging at an earlier conference had some small part in getting Report Builder moved down into all of the paid versions of SQL Server, as well as Reporting Services in ALL versions (even Express!)  There aren't a lot of details on what Reporting Services will actually entail on the Express Edition of SQL Server, but it will be in there.  Either way, it proves that we as a community can change their minds about features if we try!

For pictures just one today, the PASS desk that I was manning alone at the time (it was not blurry on purpose, like most of my pictures are to try to not post too many folks picture on the web without them allowing it, but because folks walked up and wanted information and I was working the booth alone!) 

Log: TechEd Day 0

Today is more of a grab bag.  I didn't get out much today, and I just saw part of the keynote since it was packed.  As staff I had to go to the overflow room, and then I had to leave early to go to the cabana to get some stuff done before my time. 

The one thing I really liked from the keynote was where Windows Mobile is headed.  They are working towards getting the messaging experience as good as with the BlackBerry product, while still giving us all of the benefits of the Windows Mobile platform. 

I DID get my TechEd shirts, so starting tomorrow, no more questions like:  "you don't work here, do you?" etc.  That will be great.  And thanks to the people who I talked to who read this blog.  That is so cool.  One wierd thing is that several folks asked me questions like: "How was the drive down?"  Took me back when I thought, how the heck did, oh yeah, I told everyone here!  So if you blog, be careful, because people are listening! 

So the pictures at the bottom are just some snaps I took from the show. 

The first one of the brown hotel is when I was waiting for the bus.  I am at the lowest hotel on the food chain, so we had to watch a few busses go by 

The second is the convention center.  My has it changed since the last time TechEd was here.  I knew they were changing it, but wow.  Next, there is the mass of people there for the keynote.  Wow there were a lot of folks (I hear that even the attendees had to go to an overflow room.)  The next picture is from the staff room. Man there were just a ton of people here this morning.  Over 12000 I understand.  But in the cabanas it never seemed all that busy.  We actually could have had a few more people, but it was really cool just hanging out with some of the people who I am still impressed with.

I won't name names, if you are attending drop by and see. 

Finally, once it was all over I left and went to get my favorite meal.  Now, some of you are going to think I am nuts, but my favorite meal is not something French (even fried!) any kind of steak, or anything normal.  No, my favorite meal is very low class.  Turkey legs, Doritos, and a Diet Coke.  My favorite place to get it is at the MGM studios (second favorite is the Titan's Coliseum in Nashville, TN, but ironically I get there less than I do MGM Studios.  Anyhow, time to get to work.

One more day left.  Had a really good day today.  Our MVP meeting went great.   I met a few folks that I knew but had not idea that I knew.  Really good time and some nice food and goodies!  The TechEd Bags this year are very nice, and they are chock full of some neat goodies.  Nothing specifically awesome, but some nice stuff (especially if you have a 64-bit machine!)

Then we had staff training, and that was a stone cold blast (well, the pizza was good!)  We did learn tricks of working a booth, so if you are asked a bunch of questions other than "can I help you?" you will know that our training was a success.  However, if we start to clump into groups of "blue-shirts" with our backs turned to the everyone talking, drinking a coke and picking our noses, it failed miserably.  No, picking our noses was not mentioned specifically, but hey, you have to admit that would be pretty bad!  Only one hurdle left, if they were able to acquire me a shirt that fits.  I have a lot of faith in the people who I deal with who set this up, but I am still only cautiously optimistic.  Perhaps a diet is in order...well, maybe next week when the free twinkies are not flowing like milk and honey.

Either way, this is my last ramble on getting ready.  I am already a bit scared by the magnitude of it all.  I have been a PASS attendee for the past six years, speaking at every conference, and it seems so much smaller (for good reason!)  No, tomorrow everything should be in full swing, and I will try to present the best and the worst of what I see/do here at TechEd.  

Wow, what a stinker of a day. First the hotel breakfast was tepid milk and raisin bran.  Didn't pay much for the room, and it slept fine.  Then it rained on and off for much of the drive.  At least I was't that fellow that passed me on the Harley.  That looked wet. 

Next I went to the Magic Kingdom and there was a large contingency of folks there taking up a great deal of space, not to mention I had a shorts malfunction (ripped em on something!) so I went back to my room to work and then couldn't get the stinking wireless internet working (which I didn't think they had, so it was good, but since it doesn't work, bleh!) 

There was one cool thing though.  When I got back to my room, Microsoft had had delivered a box of goodies, shirt, pins, hat, and some little sponge figures (pictures at bottom.)  I mention this because:  1.  The sponge dudes are cute.  2. There is apparently some fun to be had with the hats and a quiz we will all get when we go to the conference.  So feel free to ask me about my hat if I am wearing it or not.  The funniest part was that the shirt is one of the: "No, I will not fix your computer!" shirts from thinkgeek.com.  Seems kind of opposite, doesn't it?

Oh well, we are just about there, just one more day!  And tomorrow is registration, so yee hah!

I do have to say I overheard the funniest thing at KFC today.  A child was eating his lunch and he had taken the skin off the chicken.  He asked his dad "Do I have to eat the skin?" and dad replied "Yes, it is good for you."  Good for you?!?  Wow, that kid is going to get into one huge fight when his teacher discusses nutrition with him.  Tastiest part?  Oiliest part?  Perhaps.  Good for you?  Whew, I don't even think my grandmother would have said that!

I had a hideous day today and it is kind of my fault.  I have never been one to focus on things like project management, tasks, etc.  I am a techie.  I spend my time thinking of how I can solve problems using SQL Server (or some really neat gadget!) and well, I am going to have to stop it, but I digress.  Nothing went right today.  Left the office late, one mile out of my office, traffic is not so much moving forward as it is not moving forward.  One more hour on the road.  Not a problem.  Several mini jams along, and I am rolling

Next, I get a bit hungry and I see a sign for Zaxby's (my second favorite place to get chicken fingers.  The first is HotChickens.com (surf there and see for yourself.)  When I get off at the exit, the sign says Zaxby's four miles!  Four miles?!?  Back onto I-75.  60 miles later, really hungry now, so I pull to an exit and just past Wendy's is a Zaxby's!  It isn't all bad.  Now I am sitting in my Days INN in Tifton GA, getting ready to go to sleed so I can get up and head to MGM Studios for a while tomorrow (they are having Star Wars days!)

Anyhow, just wanted to start the log off with today.  Everything will get started Sunday with an MVP meeting followed by Cabana training!  Here is hoping they got me a shirt that fits! 

As for the initial photos, we have Zaxby's, followed by the happiest sights in a weary travelers eyes:  Door to Hotel, Door to Room, Bed.  Until Tomorrow!

Making my final preparations.  If you are interested in talking about whatever, come by the BIN Cabana (Business Intelligence) and I will talk to you for as long as you want!

Tomorrow I will start my daily log of activities as I make my way from Nashville to Atlanta!  See you there!

Thanks,

Louis

Monday, June 06

9:00 AM - 10:15 AM    Opening Keynote          
 
10:45 AM - 12:00 PM   DAT410 Building Intelligent Applications Using
                                     SQL Server 2005 Data Mining  S 210 B        
 
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM     BIN Cabana        
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM       BIN Cabana        
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM       BIN Cabana      
4:00 PM - 6:30 PM       Private Meeting
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM       Exhibit Hall Reception          

Tuesday, June 07

9:00 AM - 10:15 AM      Keynote          
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM    BIN Cabana        
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM    BIN Cabana        
1:30 PM - 2:45 PM        DAT300 SQLCLR Internals: SQL Server 2005 
                                      as a CLR Runtime  Host  N 220 E        
3:15 PM - 4:30 PM       DAT381 Team Development with SQL Server 
                                      2005  S 220 D        
5:00 PM - 6:00 PM       BIN Cabana        
6:00 PM - 7:00 PM       BIN Cabana        

Wednesday, June 08

8:30 AM - 9:45 AM      DAT470 Service-Oriented Data Architecture 
                                     (SODA): How SQL Server 2005 Fits into the 
                                     Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)  World  
                                     S 210 B        
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM      BIN Cabana        
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM      BIN Cabana        
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM      BIN Cabana        
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM      BIN Cabana        
5:30 PM - 6:45 PM      DAT331 Data Modeling with SQL Server 2005  
                                    N 310 H         
7:00 PM - 10:00 PM    Private Party

Thursday, June 09

8:30 AM - 9:45 AM     DBA318 Securing SQL Server 2005: Securing 
                                    the Server and the Database  N 310 A        
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM  BIN Cabana        
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM  BIN Cabana        
12:00 PM - 12:20 PM  INETA Ask The Experts (location forthcoming)
1:30 PM - 2:45 PM      DAT360 Securing SQL Server 2005: Developing 
                                    Secure Applications with Visual Studio 2005 and 
                                    SQL Server 2005  S 210 E        
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM      BIN Cabana        
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM      BIN Cabana        
7:00 PM - 11:00 PM    Attendee Party          
 

Friday, June 10

9:00 AM - 10:15 AM    DAT384 Together at Last: Combining XML and 
                                     Relational Data in SQL Server 2005  S 210 E        
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM      BIN Cabana        
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM      BIN Cabana        
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM      BIN Cabana         
4:15 PM                    Collapse from Exhaution
 
Saturday, June 11

9:00 AM - 5:00 PM     Disney MGM Studios!

I live in Nashville, TN, and am going to drive down to Orlando for TechEd (so if you see a Red SVT Ford Focus with SQL inspired license plates from TN, honk!) so I have already started the packing frenzy.  No time for technical blogs today, and probably not at least until I get down there (something has to give, right? No, family time should not suffer extra!)

Anyhow, as the week goes on I will highlight the process and starting Friday I will be adding pictures to the story.  I hope to get quite a few pictures for a TechEd photo album, so if you want to be seen by literally tens of people on a nerdy blog, please stop by and ask to have your picture taken!  On Sunday night after some meetings and Saturday at Disney World, I will start posting the next days schedule here on the blog so you can come by.  I am going to blog the entire experience, trying to get as many bits and pieces as I can from the folks I meet.  I do this for me, and also because we are going to try to set up the same kind of site as Techedbloggers.net for the PASS conference, and I want to see what kind of effort it takes to do a decent blog on my little slice of experience at TechEd and then PASS. 

Hope to see you there!

TechEd is only a week away now (actually, a week from now I should be arriving at the gates of DisneyWorld for a relaxing day of waiting in lines for 30 minutes to ride a 1 minute ride!) and my calendar is filling up faster than I would have ever imagined.  I will be at the BI Cabana for about 20 hours, and now I have an Ask The Experts session with INETA from 12:00-12:30 on Thursday, which I am on my own to do what I want.  I will probably have screening of the Simpsons if nothing else, so please come and ask questions about T-SQL or blogging, or the weather (I will probably have to consult my SPOT watch, and it may be out of date if they aren't transmitting inside the conference center!) 

There is also going to be some PASS involvement at TechEd, but not 100% sure yet.  Stay tuned and I will give you details so you will hopefully come see what PASS has to offer.  I will be focusing my efforts on a new PASS website in the next few weeks/months and will keep you up to date here.  If you are not a member of PASS, and/or you have never been to the Summit, please come this year.  It is a great time, and there are a lot of great speakers this year (and if you were one of those who can't make it to TechEd because it has sold out, PASS is just about as good when focussing on SQL Server only!)

Man I am.  It has been like five years since I last attended, and I still have the hat to prove it (picture?)  My favorite memory of all times was when I saw Don Box the first time at TechEd.  He whopped off his shoes, and started talking. And then he called up a coworker and had him run the PowerPoint.  He called him "monkeyboy" and gave him a bananna.  It ws the funniest thing I can remember when attending a presentation.  He also gave a great presentation about objects or something (I have since given up on programming with non-relational programming languages.  This has made writing CLR objects in SQL Server 2005, a challenge, needless to say.)

That may be the best memory, but by no means is it the only good memory.  If TechEd wasn't sold out already, I would feel like a shill saying these things, but since it is, you can rest assured I am getting nothing out of this other than a satisfaction that I am losing a few more minutes of sleep.  I learned a lot from attending these shows, and now it is my turn.  I am a little scared of the prospects of spending 20+ hours at the BI Cabana fielding questions.  For starters, I am unsure if they will have a shirt that fits, so I might look like a sore thumb. 

Accouterments aside, I just wonder what people will ask, or say.  And I have to think back to all of those times I went to a booth looking for information only to be stymied by the fellow who didn't seem to know his rear from a hold in the ground (and that is important information, yes sir ree bobarooni!)  I don't want to be that guy.  We all have to realize that the people that we complain about must have been chosen for some reason, right?  I mean, except for a genre of trade show floor attendees affectionately known as "booth babes" (not my term) the ones we found so disdainfully unprepared were there because they are good at sales, or good technically, right?  Perhaps they just didn't know the current answer...perhaps, but why not just say that?

So, there you have it, I am scared of feeling like a big unsocial nerd like I was back in high school. Oh well, perhaps the best attitude to have is that who isnt worried about that and really, aren't most folks who are at TechEd like that?  Perhaps...Wow this blog turned pitiful pretty quick didn't it?  Anyhow, there, now you know that at least on of the people who is there wearing the big "talk to me about _______" hats is not this super confident, ultra egotistical freak that you might imagine.  Nope, I put my pants on two legs at a time just like everyone else.  What, you put yours on one leg at a time?  Auuuuggghhh!

I was inspired by Kent's post about his top 10 sessions, I decided to do the same.  So after a battle of wills between the time needed to spend in the Cabana versus in sessions, I was hit with the reality of it.  I am not going to spend too much time at Walt Disney World during the week :).  I found only nine sessions that I plan to attend, but if I make it to these and don't end up sleeping in or something, it will be totally worth it to attend just these:

DAT410 - Building Intelligent Applications Using SQL Server 2005 Data Mining
DBA305 - Understanding Index Usage and Indexing Best Practices in SQL Server 2005
DAT300 - SQLCLR Internals: SQL Server 2005 as a CLR Runtime Host
DAT381 - Team Development with SQL Server 2005
DAT470 - Service-Oriented Data Architecture (SODA): How SQL Server 2005 Fits into the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) World
DAT290 - Databases for the World: Designing Multilingual Databases Using SQL Server 2005
DAT331 - Data Modeling with SQL Server 2005
DBA318 - Securing SQL Server 2005: Securing the Server and the Database
DAT384 - Together at Last: Combining XML and Relational Data in SQL Server 2005

If you are going, head over to www.msteched.com to schedule your week.  Man, is it still over three weeks to go?  I can't wait.  Now back to this report I am working on.  Bleh.

For those of you who are going to TechlEd 2005, they have a blog site called techedbloggers.net with some reall funny stuff (this video is a little scary.  I promise, if you see me there, please, nothing like that (I am just fine with carrots! :).  As I have mentioned, I will be there in the Cabana, and I will also be blogging about the experience.  I am really stoked about it (do people still say, stoked, or did they ever?)

This is a really cool thing they are doing for the community to get even more communication going about Tech Ed.  If it is your first time to go to TechlEd wow it is really cool, and very scary if you are from even a medium sized town like Cleveland, Tennessee (no, not Ohio.)  There were 30000 people in my city when we first got there, and there are over 10000 at Tech Ed (and the Orange County Convention Center is big, but not even close to the size of even the smallest city.)  And don't tell me that you are going there just to see me, since I didn't get chosen to go until after the conference was sold out :)