TechEd 2007, Day 4

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TechEd 2007, Day 4

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11:00AM
 
Everyone is looking a bit rough this morning.  Darrin Bishop looks like he’s been run over by a bus.  I feel his pain.  Whose idea was it to go out and party every night of TechEd?  Oh, right, Bob Fox.  It’s all his fault (’cause he really twisted my arm hard, y’know?).  Like the song says, no one to blame but my own damn self.
 
Visitors are coming in waves today.  Gabriel Bratton from Microsoft is holding down the fort.  Great guy from the product support team.  I’ve really enjoyed talking to Microsoft guys like Gabriel and Rahul Sakdeo, who is on the SharePoint product team, this week.  They don’t get a chance to interact with customers and partners very much so it’s good to get their view from the inside.
 
3:00PM
 
A bit slow today as there are some really good sessions going on.  About 4:00 Adam Buenz and I bail out to meet Andrew Connell and the Pattison team for Ted’s sesion on workflow.  Nothing really new for me in the presentation but Ted and Scot Hillier’s interaction was quite entertaining. 
 
6:00PM
 
Dinner at Capital Grill.  The Combined Knowledge team from the UK (Steve, Penny, and Olga) join us, along Polly and John ‘Doc’ Holliday from the Ted Pattison Group.  Stephen Cummings, Andrew Connell, Brad Smith, Bob Fox, Adam Buenz, Gayan Peiris, Stacy Draper, Spence Harbar, Todd Klindt, and the list goes on.  Whoever I missed on that list can smack me upside the head next year.  The meal was incredible (special thanks to Brad Smith for picking up most of the tab).  I guess they had advance warning of what a bunch of rowdies we are as they stuck us in a back room and closed the door.  Probably for the best – watching me tear into a massive steak had to be a disgusting sight.
 
10:00PM
 
Here we go.  Last night out and we’re at a piano bar called Howl At The Moon.  How appropriate.  The musicians are really terrible but they have a lot of spirit.  It’s not long before someone pays them $25 to write ‘SharePoint MVP’s Rock!!!’ on the big mirrors behind the stage.  That gets followed up with ‘Happy Birthday Ted Pattison’ (who had long since left by then) and another one specifically for the Florida MVP’s (I suspect AC is behind this one but I have no proof).
 
What happened next was the most ridiculous scene I have ever observed, drunk or sober (and I was somewhere in between the two at the time).  The MC lines all the MVP’s up on the stage and makes them do the Hokey Pokey.  Oh man, if I only had a video camera.  Nobody is ever going to live that one down.  I laughed so hard I cried.
 
But the best was yet to come.  Mike Fitzmaurice from Microsoft had been dancing the night away for about an hour when, out of nowhere, he climbs on stage and launches into a karaoke version of Word Up.  Yes, the Cameo song.  Yes, he knew all the words.  Yes, it was very frightening.  I couldn’t believe my eyes (or my ears – he wasn’t half bad).  I may never see anything quite like it again.  I don’t know if anyone got video but it was straight out of The Twilight Zone.  Simply unreal.  (UPDATE: Don’t believe me?  Here’s the video.  See for yourself.)
 
By 1:30AM we were still going strong.  A tip o’ the hat to Steve Cummings for creativity.  Steve wanted some drinks but he can’t carry them so he made the bartender pour him an ice bucket full of booze with a handle and stick half a dozen bright pink straws in it.  Now that’s thinking outside the box!  At 2:00AM them boot us all out.  Probably a smart move as we would have carried on until dawn if we had our way.  I find my way back to the hotel but I just can’t get the Hokey Pokey image out of my head.  Good thing I had enough to drink that I could just pass out ’cause I didn’t want to experience a dreamland version of that.
 
UPDATE 2: I’m not sure if this is really a good idea but I’m going to do it anyway.  Here are the pictures from the scene of the crime.  Notice the Get Drunk Crew in Pic #4.  I told you it got ugly, didn’t I?