Its the day after TechEd US and I’m on the plane as I write this post, travelling at 39,000 feet above the Grand Canyon. A nice cloud band running up the centre of the country means I don’t get to see much of this landmark as well as ensuring that I grab the laptop every now and again to make sure it doesn’t jump off the tray table

I’m sitting next to fellow Aussie Martin Granell who is also on his way back home after his first presentation at TechEd US. He had a successful presentation entitled “How to get your grandmother building Missile Defense Systems”. The unusual title alone meant that there was standing room only in the 400+ seat theatre. His session combined DSL Tools, GAT, VSTS, TFS and FXCop to show how these tools can really help in the SDLC. While I didn’t get a chance to see this session personally, I would love to have seen how he managed to get through such a range of tools in the alloted hour timeframe. Maybe I’ll get to see it at TechEd in Australia where he will be presenting it next.

Source Fource The Source Fource team were out and about at TechEd and they were creating quite a bit of interest. Here’s a photo of fellow-Australian and BizTalk MVP Mick Badran and I with Visual Studio Guy and Virtual Labs guy. The following day, SQL Server Gal and MSDN Webcast Guy were walking about but I think that one photo was more than enough. I took the photo only because I knew it would entertain my wife who would have rolled her eyes and mumbled something like “Geek” when she open my email   I also managed to collect all four rubber Source Fource figurines so that will be her next surprise when I line them up above my monitor….

Party Time This year the TechEd party was held at Fenway Park, home of the Boston RedSox. It was an awesome experiece to be able to walk around the outfield of the oldest major league ball park in the US. The history in the place was just amazing and there were staff on hand to explain many of the things so we didn’t miss anything. A number of the RedSox players were also on hand as well. We basically had the run of the park and all the food stalls were open serving up a wide variety of food you’d expect from a ball park. Microsoft arranged a concert in the park featuring the band Train who played a number of their hits from a stage placed infront of the RebSox dugout.

One of the highlights of the party was convincing VSTS MVP, Boon Tiong that the batter actually ran around the outside of the field (not around the diamond) and that the net behind the catcher was there to prevent seagulls from distracting the pitcher 🙂 While I am no expert in Baseball, the rules of the game were completely foreign to a visting Singaporean 🙂