MVP Summit: Headed to Seattle

This week I will be in Seattle to attend the MVP Summit. It is one of my favorite weeks because I normally just show up and soak in the new technology Microsoft has to show us under the standard Non-Disclosure Agreement. I don't have to prepare for the MVP Summit like I do for the conferences where I present.

It is always a fun time seeing MVP friends again, meeting with the folks formerly known as the Fox Team, and geeking out with Visual FoxPro. I come home exhausted and energized at the same time. I am looking forward to returning to the Seattle area again, staying downtown, and soaking in the city atmosphere and mountains off in the distance.

Cloudy Observations

Seattle got a "pineapple express" storm Sunday while Igor and I went sightseeing around Washington state. If you are not familiar with this weather term - it refers to a powers low pressure storm that has much of the energy flowing from the tropics near Hawaii.

So we observed lots of clouds around Mt. St. Helen's and around Mt Rainier. The roads were closed as I expected. We did see part of the crater at Mt. St. Helens from 24 miles away. Nothing impressive, but fun any way. Igor was impressed by the massive forests and the different number of trees. He told me the Czech Republic harvests their trees and replant so they never get very big and the number of varieties is very low.

We headed up to Mt. Rainier to check out more clouds around the dormant volcano. We stopped to get some food for lunch and talked to some locals about the roads. We found out the entire park is closed because it was hit by a storm last November that wiped out an entire campground and the roads near the southwest entrance. Naturally we were bummed. We thought we would head up anyway to see what might be around. Good thing too, because while the park is closed it was open to foot traffic and we could hike in and see the storm washout. It was impressive. I felt bad for the locals because their businesses have been hit really hard because no one is visiting except for a few morbid observers.

So we observed the clouds around Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Rainier and headed back to the Olympia peninsula. It started to rain (what a shock in Seattle). We stopped to take some pictures of a suspension bridge under construction which was cool. We took a ferry back to Seattle which was fun and allowed us to observe more clouds over the city and the sound. Lots of pictures.

A very nice day indeed. Now off to work at the MVP Summit.

OzFox 2007 - Wrap up

The post conference buzz is abound with OzFox and I am feeling it as I spend 13 hours flying from Sydney to Los Angeles, push/rush through US Customs to change terminals, and hop on my four and a half hour flight back to Detroit Metro. The best part of traveling back to Detroit is I arrive three hours after I took off. Looks like I found a time machine after all {g}.

We headed to the Sydney International Airport by cab. I'm still not used to the driving on the opposite side of the road. The only other time I experienced this was back in 1995 when I was on a business trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina. You also have to be extra careful as a pedestrian too, or you could get blindsided. I also noticed Aussies are a bit more aggressive drivers than I am use to.

I have mentioned how nice the weather has been during our short visit. Storms hit the airport just as we were about to board our flights and this delayed us for the better part of two hours. Fortunately the winds were kind and pushed my flight to LA. We arrived only an hour later than expected. I was concerned because I had to clear customs in LA, get my luggage and walk 15 minutes to another terminal. I was expecting the same long lines I have experienced in Detroit and Sydney, but instead got the short lines I experienced in Frankfort last November. There was even time to grab a veggie burger and make a couple of phone calls. Shocking - I did not have someone sitting in the seat next to me on both flights. What a treat!

There is one thing I want to point out that I forgot to mention in previous posts. Andrew Coates mentioned something at OzFox, something I have been looking from Microsoft to make my life easier. I have battled the beta software installs and the disclaimers that you might have to reformat your machine to fully unload the product before you install the RTM'd version. I have asked Microsoft to just provide me a virtual machine with the product loaded. This saves every beta tester the hassle of building their own VM, and simplifies setup. The negative drawback is the vendor (in this case Microsoft) don't get the software tested on a variety of machines and configurations. No matter, Andrew's "reveal" during my Professional Developer Toolkit session is the VHD Test Drive Program. He discusses it on his blog. Andrew also mentioned it costs nothing to register as a Microsoft Partner (which I have already done to get the Action Pack) and the program is available to registered partners. So at least we can offer this service to our customers. Now I hope Microsoft (and other software vendors) start offering this to me. The big deal on this is you don't have to worry about distributing your OS license. This program makes it ok to do so via the VHD redistribution agreement.

I am back home now. I love to travel and see different parts of the world, but there is nothing like coming home to your family and your own bed. Gotta get my rest because tomorrow is going to be a big day with a couple new projects to get started, a conversion to run, and a big announcement too! Whew, no rest for the jet-lagged.