This draft was originally written in 2011. It was unfinished. I am publishing it now unfinished. I will say that due to the wishy-washy nature and bad communication of my manager at the time, I missed going on an Alaskan Cruise with my family. The manager told us we were going to drive to Atlanta. This would take 3 days. Therefore, we would not be back from TechEd until the day after the limo left for the cruise. Then, after the cruise reservations were booked, the manager changed the plan – and did not even tell me directly, instead letting me find out through a co-worker- that we were, indeed, flying, and the return flight was the day BEFORE they left for the Cruise. I got to send everybody off in the limo as I stayed behind.. with all my TechEd swag. Which I still have the T-shirt from, and am wearing still at this very moment.
So, for the first time in my life, I’m going to a big huge conference for work! It’s called Tech-Ed and it’s Microsoft’s big show-off convention. Man, is it HUGE. it takes 20 min to walk from one end of this place to the other. It’s being held in the something-or-other big-ass convention center, which I’m pretty sure you could fit every single person IN Atlanta into.
So I woke up early yesterday, said good-bye to my daughter and wife, and picked up a couple of my co-workers, drove to the Bloomington, IL airport. I love checking into small airports… SO much nicer than the big ones! Case in point: I accidentally had a POCKETKNIFE in my luggage!! Small Airport: they gave me a heavy duty bubble-wrap envelope, let me write my address on it, and mailed- FOR FREE-, my knife back home! Big Airport: TERROR ALERT! GET AGAINST THE WALL!!!
so upon arrival to Atlanta, I had to separate from my group, because I was late getting my hotel reservations. On the way to my hotel, I was told by my taxi driver to “not walk at night” near my hotel. Great! as we approached the area, I saw what he meant. it looked like a pretty rough neighborhood. I think I might have spotted one or two corners without graffiti or a shady bunch of guys randomly milling about. So… luckily, Taxis are easy to find: This morning, I made a call and a taxi came around the corner to pick me up less than 30 seconds after making the call, no exaggeration!
Oops, battery is dying. And phone battery already dead! oh well… guess I need to find an outlet!
