Tech·Ed 2007 - Day 2: Opening Day

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So.  I started my day out battling a non-late night out based headache ("yeah, right Hameroff" -- no, seriously, I hit the hay around 10:30p) and then confused by the TechEd 2007 shuttle buses.  I'll explain the latter more.

At 9:30a-ish, I stood in front of my hotel for the #2 shuttle bus to arrive.  My new friend -- who I call "the dude sitting in the beach chair outside the front door of the hotel on his cell phone and half reading a novel of some sorts" -- let me know that the next bus was moments away. 

First, the #9 when by and about 5 minutes later my bus arrived.  We made one more stop at the hotel adjacent to mine, and then (I assumed) we were off to the convention center.  Well, we continued past the South O.C.C.C. (where TechEd is based), confusing most on the bus.  I thought that we were going to take a different entrance than we did on Sunday, but that theory was shot dead as we sat in the left hand turning lane, waiting for the light to change so we could turn into the West building of  the O.C.C.C.  Just as I was about to leap up and say, "hey, wrong building dude!" we pulled up to a sign outside of the West building that read "TechEd 2007 Keynote -- Hall D." 

Even with this obvious clue, just about everyone got off the bus.  Two of us asked the driver if he was going to South building next, and we stayed on for the rest of the right.

Exciting, eh?

Today's edition of the show was a great way to start off TechEd '07.  The booth had some decent traffic through the day (with the normal ups and downs in crowd sizes).  Our expert booth staff spoke with customers and partners about our network solutions, and even took time out to reach expo floor characters like Sean Siler did in the picture below:

TechEd02

We also had a visit from Ron Beekelaar (MVP and creator of our Server and Domain Isolation demo), and we chatted about the next generation of the demo kit to include Windows Vista and eventually Windows Server 2008.

Rodrigo, our MVP booth staffer, was a bit surprised by the limited knowledge of the power of Server and Domain Isolation.  But, it's great that we have this new demo to increase awareness.

Okay, time to head out the Contemporary Hotel on the Disney World campus for dinner with the crew.  More to come tomorrow!

-- hama