Kevin’s TechEd 2011 Diary - Day 2
Dear TechEd Diary,
Tuesday at TechEd North America 2011 was another long day, but a good one. I managed to get some good sessions in, as well as do a quick pass through the exhibit hall. After breakfast, the day started by filling in as a helper (or “proctor”) in an instructor-lead lab. The instructor was my friend Brian Prince, and the lab was COS371-WRK-R Windows Azure Workshop - Part 1: Set Up the Tools and Create Your First Cloud Application. And they did.
Here are a few photos of the first part of the day:
“What was the best session you attended, Kevin?”
If I were attending it to learn (rather than work), and if I weren’t already intimately familiar with the content, I'd say Brian Prince’s session was the best. He really is a top-notch presenter, and very knowledgeable about Windows Azure.
But of the other three sessions I attended…
- VIR323 What Are the Bridges between Private and Public Cloud?
- SIM207 Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 Overview
- VIR317-R Understanding How Microsoft Virtualization Compares to VMware
I’d have to say that my favorite was the last one. Matt McSpirit really put the hurt on VMware. I hope he doesn’t mind that I’m going to “borrow” his content and leverage it heavily in the coming months.
“So what did you do for fun in the evening?”
Like many – who learned that free food and beer were provided – I attended the Community Party. I had a really good chat with John Weston, Tim Vander Kooi, and several of the GITCA folks. And as a great cap on the evening, I attended one of my favorite TechEd traditions.
“The Jam Session?”
You got it.
“Did you sing this time, Kevin?”
No. The music was good (mostly), but after the long day I quite honestly wasn’t in the mood to try and navigate the chaos that is a bunch of people trying to figure out chords and what they want to play next while somebody is filling the void with a drum solo or “How’s everybody doin’ tonight?!!!” drunkenly shouted into a microphone. I had a great time.. but obviously I didn’t have as much fun as that guy.
Anyway.. here are a couple of photos from the evening.
On Wednesday I'll be attending some more sessions, plus a super-secret meeting of some-sort. Don’t ask.