Sunday, June 05, 2005

Pre-TechEd

I've been lax in posting recently, its been a whirlwind with my daughter's birthday party, sister's graduation, and getting ready for my three trips in June. In the event you care about our experiment with South Beach, it really seems to work. Whatever flab I did have around my gut was gone at the end of the two weeks. Unfortunately some splurges at the birthday party, graduation party, and homecoming party of my brother Cain have negated any benefits. In all the diet seems to really have helped stabilize Megan's sugar levels, which was one of the main goals.

My first trip of June is TechEd '05 in Orlando. I flew into Orlando Sanford this morning, a small airport slightly north of the bigger Orlando International. Getting shuttle service to my hotel was a bit hectic. Why did I fly in there? When booking the direct flight from Toledo, I guess thats where TMA goes!

When checking into the Wyndham I was asked if I had transportation...answering no she pointed me towards the bell hop and said to talk to them. As it turns out, the Wyndham here has its own convention center, 3 pools, various nature areas and restaurants. So I joined one of the hotel golf carts and headed off to the back 40 for my room. The room was small and had a very small table, so I politely complained and they moved me to a suite, with desk, king sized bed, fridge, etc (for the same price). Someone needs to give that lady a raise!!!

I checked in to TechEd and picked up the yearly swag. The laptop bag this year is not quite as impressive as last year's backpack, but decent quality. The thing weighed about 20lbs from the massive amount of marketing literature and software included. Before I left Megan said she expected me to pick up some sun screen, and the bottle had better be half empty by the time I return. Problem solved--I have Microsoft sunscreen from my pack. There will be far fewer geeks walking around sun burned this year...if their testosterone permits them to use the thoughtful gift!

There is an Alien Ware area set up with Far Cry gaming tournaments. I walked in and played a round thinking I would get trashed since I don't play that game. Turns out I only missed qualifying for the next higher round by 1 'point'. There are about 30 people playing together, and the top 2 from each round are deemed worthy.

Tonight I plan on hanging out with my old friend Andrew.