I said I'd have a TechEd post up before long, so I 'spose this might as well be it.

I'm still recovering, actually. TechEd is not easy. I found myself thinking the whole week that it's like Vegas for nerds. Everywhere you turn, there's somebody ready to give you some free thing, a subscription to this, a DVD of that, a slice of cake, some tequila to wash it down, and a full body massage as payment for having entered a contest to win entrance to the Kingdom of God for four days and three nights, all expenses paid, offer not good in Puerto Rico, void where prohibited, one submission per entrant please.

There's a lot going on at TechEd. There's a lot of pampering. There's food all over the place, drinks all over the place, and enough ice cream to make you sick if, like me, you decide that it would be OK to try eating three frozen Snickers bars at the same time (not one after the other, mind you: at the same time).

If you've ever wanted to know what Henry VIII felt like, then TechEd is the place for you. Just to get an idea of the gluttony that wealthy pigs from centuries past might have gotten to experience, I walked over to a snack table, grabbed a candy bar, went to the freezer to grab an ice cream cookie, went to the cooler to grab a Coke, went back to the snack table to grab a non ice cream cookie, took one bite of each thing, washed it down with one gulp of Coke, and then threw everything away where I stood without feeling the slightest bit of remorse. The only thing missing was a servant to spit on who could pick the sock lint out from between my toes at the end (and thank me for it).

It was awesome.

However, it isn't the sort of lifestyle that's easy to keep up with. By the third day, you're so full of sugar, fat, alcohol, DOW Chemical sweetening agents, and other assorted substances, that you really don't know if you could possibly take another bite of that Tollhouse Fudge Pizza without passing out.

I'm going to tell you something, and I want you to be ready for it. It's going to be tough for the geeks out there, so you've been warned. Just find a chair, sit down, and hang on. Stay with me to the end. This won't be easy...

There's so much free junk food that, by the third day, you will begin eating the fresh fruit and vegetables laid out next to the snacks.

Are you OK? If you're woozy, then get a little fresh air. Open a door and fan it back and forth a few times. You're at home, gripping a Mountain Dew in each hand, and nobody's going to come take them away from you. You're safe. You're all right. Everything is going to be OK.

Once you get past the junk food, though, the Vegasness doesn't stop. Although you might not run into Tom Jones, James Brown, or Neil Diamond, you will encounter Don Box, Anders Hejlsberg, and Eric Gunnerson.

However, when you're not out hobnobbing with tech royalty, you're probably in a session as either a presenter or an audience member.

Carl and I gave a couple sessions. They were a lot of fun because the audience was mostly .NET Rocks listeners, so there was good interaction, and we were allowed to get a little off topic. We got to meet some of our friends who visit the chat room during shows, and others who have emailed us. It was great.

The first session was a BOF entitled ".NET Rocks Presents the Future!"

People kept asking me what it was about. I always thought, "Good question. Let me get back to you on that." The truth is that it's one of those things that Carl and I thought up with each other at about 3:00 AM over either too much sugar or too much alcohol. When I was living in New London, we used to stay up all night, hitting each other with weird ideas for sessions, books, and hygiene products. The BOF was one of those things that sounded awesome at the time, so Carl submitted it for approval. Once it got back to us that the session was going to happen, it was one of those, "Awesome! Oh, sh*t!" moments. We didn't have much of an agenda except to try to engage a room of fellow geeks in a conversation about the Future. I was worried at first, but conversation picked up quite well, and Carl and I eventually became audience members rather than the hosts as we listened to the conversation unfold across the room. I loved it.

Bob Reselman, author of Coding Slave, arrived halfway through the session and immediately became a third host. He didn't know what we were talking about, but that didn't stop him from jumping right in and having a good time. The guy was fearless and full of energy. I was really glad to have him there.

From that session, some of us moved on to the Coding Slave dinner that a few of us had been planning [ thanks, Andrew :) ]. I think there wound up being thirteen or fourteen of us, and we took over the central seating of a nearby Mexican seafood bar. Conversation was all over the place, but that's exactly what I wanted. The dinner was full of interesting people - the kind of people who would assemble to talk about the ideas presented in a book about what's wrong with their industry and how to solve the problems.

[Insert a couple days of drinking here...]

On Wednesday morning, we had a .NET Rocks session up in the "Cabana." I've seen all sorts of reviews of the Cabana, ranging from "It was the greatest thing ever invented that wasn't sex" to "It was about as cool as being neutered by a slow moving bus." The problem with the Cabana, for those of you who didn't go, is that there were a bunch of small areas set up for less formal sessions than the ones going on in the main rooms. There was an intimacy that was great, but there wasn't any amplification, and it was difficult to hear what anybody was saying. They couldn't do anything about it either, as there were Cabana sessions going on next to each other, so amplifying one would have drowned out the others. Conceptually, it was fabulous. In implementation, it was a borderline disaster. It didn't stop Carl and me from having some more fun with listeners, though, and I'd like to thank everybody who turned up for that 8:30 AM session. Really, 8:30 is a bit early on a Conference Wednesday for a session. Conference Wednesdays aren't like regular Wednesdays. Conference Wednesdays are typically going to be sleep deprived, mildly hungover, and coated with sugar flavored vomit. You should sleep in until at least 9:00 (PM?) on Conference Wednesdays. But some people didn't, and we thank them very much for it. The session was a blast.

Finally, a few of us went out sailing on Thursday to discuss .NET 2.0, Object Spaces (no longer 2.0! (argh!)), and Yukon on the high seas. I think the quotes of the day would have to go to Bill Vaughn. He's an excellent story teller, and has more than enough to entertain a crew of nine over the stormy seas of San Diego bay (OK - there wasn't any stormy crap going on - I just wanted to sound dramatic).

At one point, Bill took over the wheel from Jim Blizzard. Jim definitely knew what he was doing. Within five minutes of taking over, though, this is what Bill said (as he piloted the 35 foot sailboat through the bay):

Boy, I gotta get me one of these [pause] And then learn how to do it.

Sailing is strange to us mere mortals who don't understand why the side of the boat is supposed to dip in the water in what seems like a highly unsafe fashion, so hearing Bill say that came as a shock. However, he did well and avoided killing us by a wide margin. My mind and my fanny still thank him.

An hour or so later, we were talking about his days as a helicopter pilot in the military. That's when he uttered this choice quote:

Piloting a helicopter is like having a broom handle up your ass.

I still don't know what Bill meant by that, but at least I now know how to create an accurate simulation of helicoptering in the comfort of my own home. Requirements for activity: One (1) broom handle and one (1) jar of Vaseline. "I'm flying!"

Don't try this at home (but if you do, then send me photos so that I can post them).

As with other conferences, though, most of what I remember through the vodka-induced haze is that I got to see my homies. Peter Provost, Scott Hanselman, Brian Kuhn, Julie Lerman, Sara Williams, this person, that person, and so many other people that it was tough to feel alone (I have a fear of being alone (have you noticed that I'm a little bit of an attention whore?)).

Lastly, I got to hang with Ian White, a guy who's has been reading Neopoleon.com for longer than I've been writing it. I don't know how that works, and I don't propose to find a solution. I'll leave the wormhole, String Theory, multidimensional space bandit theories to people In the Know.

All I know is C#.

And that I'm tired.

After Blog Mint [?] :

Speaking of Eric Gunnerson, he's recently written on a touchy subject that even I won't write about, but which is near and dear to my heart...