Hull in the Evening

Went up town this evening to fetch number one daughter. Took the little camera (of course) and the light was very kind to me.

New York has definitely seen better times

Fast Food

Mending Headphones with McDonald's Straws

I got some Ultimate Ears headphones a while back. They sound wonderful. However, they have a little problem which has been causing me grief recently. They use an "in ear" design, with a tight fitting plug which goes inside your ear so that all the sound comes your way. Nothing wrong with that, until the plug bit starts to come off and stay in your ear when you try to remove the phones. I think this is caused by the rubber stretching slightly and becoming slack on the fitting. Whatever causes it, I don't like it as it then leaves me picking bits out of my ear canal, which doesn't look very cool.

Anyhoo, I've fixed the problem by the use of some drinking straws from McDonalds. I've put them around the outside of the rubber sleeve that goes over the headphone bit. This stops the sleeve from stretching quite so far, and makes it fit really tightly. I don't think it is the kind of thing you can get the Nobel prize for, but it works for me.

Earpiece with straw power

Oh, and while we are in a McDonalds mood, don't the drink lids look a lot like faces?

Scary face or coffee cup cover? You decide.

Universal Saturday

With the conference over we headed out to Universal Studios for another visit. We went there on Thursday, but we wanted to see it again in daylight. Even though this time we'd have to pay for food.

..we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes....

This picture is in no way faked.

The Simpsons ride (good but nowhere near as good as Spiderman at Adventure Island)

TechEd Party Time

Imagine a theme park where the queues for the rides are around 10 minutes, all the food and drink is free, and there are people wandering around just giving you stuff. I don't have to imagine this (lucky me) because I've been to the TechEd 2008 party. It was at Universal Studios, which was nice because we got to go on the brand new Simpson's ride, which is ace by the way.

Entering the park.

Invasion of the nerds....

The Simpson's ride is quite a big deal, and great fun.

...indeed it does

The end of a perfect evening.

The .NET Micro Framework in Action

Today I went down to the Hands On Lab area at TechEd and had a go at the Micro Framework lab, just to see what it was like. The first exercise was to drive an LCD panel from a Micro Framework device....

Shameless .NET Micro Framework promotion....

Then it was on to building a little burglar alarm controller. Great fun. And the lab section was enormous.

We think our labs are quite large at the university in Hull, but this is just silly....

In fact the conference itself is just plain enormous. This is one part of one part.

If you want to find out more about the .NET Micro Framework, including devices and how to get hold of the development kit you can go to their site on MSDN. They also have a very active blog.

From C# to Sea World

I feel terrible about this, but whilst other folk were working in the conference hall myself and number one wife went to Sea World.  (actually, my conscience was clear in that I have got all my slides done and checked in, and my demos all work fine).

Obligatory jumping killer whale shot

Seaworld was excellent. Gave me plenty of chance to play with the new camcorder (this including recording five minutes of "non-video" when I forgot to press the record button...).

There is probably something very interesting and fish related in this picture, but I'm darned if I can find it now...

Experience those penguins...

Back to work tomorrow, my session is at 10:30 in the morning, right after the keynotes. I quite like this, in that it means that I get it over and done with.

Sign of the Times

These "lucky" people were at my XNA talk today.

..and here is the rest of the room

Another smashing audience, thank you for laughing in all the right places..

I'll put all the content up here tomorrow.

Then it was off to do  book signing. The man who runs the bookshop had, perhaps somewhat optimistically, got 100 copies of my book in to sell.

I ended up selling 10, which was nice. Then I went around and took a look at what the students here are doing with XNA.

The answer is lots, and very well. I saw some Imagine Cup entries and some very impressive work. Well done folks. And now I'm zooming of to catch a plane home for fish and chips.....

A Night for the Geeks

Geek night was a blast.

 

I've always wanted to see my name in lights. This is the project of the team presenting before me, who showed what happens when you marry dance floor displays with Wii remotes. They could draw on it, play games and, as you can see above, write silly messages.

The audience. Sorry it is a bit blurred, but the house light were off at this point..

The talk was fantastic, even the 8 player button bash game went well, although the players on controller one did suffer a bit when someone reset the counter....

I'm doing it all again tomorrow. And a book signing.....

Micro Framework at DevDays 2008

So today it is time for another chapter in my jetsetting life...

The view from the plane was nice.

They had this special machine for installing tall presenters..

The talk was on the .NET Micro Framework, which is something I really enjoy taking about. The audience were great, and put up with my jokes, which is nice. I got to know them so well that I told them about "My Awful Experience in Schipol Airport a Toilet" this morning.....

I always take the pictures at the start, while the audience is still smiling. And in the room....

Hornsea Bank Holiday

Good weather on an English Bank Holiday? Shurely shome misthtake. We went to Hornsea for the afternoon.

Baby geese

Hornsea mere looking good

Even the sea front looks good today. Although that water does look a bit brown...

I love stalls like these.

This is Hornsea Sunday (and Bank Holiday) market. Amazing place, with a water feature and a place you can buy old photos that might have you in it. I checked, but there were none of me.

Collectormaina Calls

Today saw us up at the crack of dawn and haring down the motorway to Milton Keynes to take part in another Collectormaina. Well, at least it is a trip out.

So, who is this chap?

..or this lass?

The "throng"

I don't think this is a family portrait as such....

Any nightclub owners out there?

A Lego shop opposite an Apple shop. Seems somehow appropriate.

The Milton Keynes Tree. And some concrete cows.

Cramped Saturday

Before flying back we had our last "Breakfast in America" at our favourite diner. Which has very shiny stools. Then it was up to the airport to be crammed into a metal tube for 9 hours.

At the airport they had this lovely little thing. Sort of robbery target and getaway vehicle all in one.

I didn't get any extra space on the long flight. But the bloke who was sat next to me, who must have been all of four feet tall, had one of the precious legroom seats. And my in-flight entertainment thingy didn't work. Oh how I suffered.

Friday Food

Went out for a meal with Andy and Andrew tonight. Andy suggested a place where they come to the table and cook your food in front of you.

We had "The Chef in the Green Hat". He was very cool. And the food was delicious.

The right way to burn an onion...

A great place to eat

Cunning use of minimal space on the ground. But I wouldn't like to live there...

Friday Boat Trip

Today we went for a boat trip out from Seattle to Bainbridge Island, which is around half an hour away. There was nothing particular on the island we wanted to see, but it was a nice trip nonetheless.

On the Boat

Seattle from the bay

The weather could have been nicer, but the views were excellent. It just made me more determined to come back here in sunnier times.

MVP Keynote

Today was the last day of the summit proper, and we had keynote addresses from Ray Ozzie and Steve Balmer

Gathering for the keynote

Ray Ozzie was first to speak and take questions.

Steve Balmer arrived looking like this:

..and left dressed like this

I think we had better find a University of Hull sweatshirt to give him next time.

I've never heard Steve talk before, and I must say I'm impressed. He was knowledgeable, smart, self aware and, above all, funny.  A great way to end a very interesting four days.

Campus Calisthenics

Today was our final day on the Microsoft Campus. Yesterday I carefully scoped out the best place to sit on the bus for photographs and today I took some.

Driving past the bay

The view down the road

The road is interesting, in that for parts of the journey you are pretty much level with the lake, which is a bit strange. Once we got to the campus we again went off for some sessions, and then I got to "Have lunch with my publisher". I've always wanted to say that. We went to a very nice place and I showed my poise and breeding by choosing the one thing on the menu that came with chips. And very nice it was too. The good news (for me at any rate) is that I think I'm going to be writing another book. 

After lunch I met up with Brian, another MVP who teaches with XNA (all these acronyms - don't we sound cool) and then I shot across the campus to meet up with Andy Sterland and Andrew Neil, ex Hull students who now work for Microsoft. As we were talking I noticed a chap outside the building who looked a bit familiar. It turned to be the legendary Phil Price, another Redmond employee from Hull. Out came the camera......

Andy, Phil, Andrew and Andy. If you see what I mean.

Then I shot back to another meeting (they have these amazing shuttles to ferry you around the place), and finally made it onto the bus. The journey back took a while, but I did get some interesting pictures.

This guy is using his laptop whilst driving....

I love the idea of a "Super Heavy" sticker. And talking of "super heavy"...

I took this at the Summit party, which was ace. They had Rock Band set up in a theatre and were letting folk have a go. These guys got booed off after around 30 seconds....

More entertainment

The party in full swing

Deep in the Mothership

Microsoft Redmond Campus is huge. No other word. Lots of buildings, lots of people, lots of software. And quite a bit of rain.

The rainy view of Building 118

..a more conventional view.

Today we had lots of sessions about this and that. I'm always surprised by how Microsoft send their chief product managers to get roasted by us. I'm glad they do though, it is always very interesting.

In the afternoon we slipped over to the fabled Microsoft Company Store, where you can get software at cost prices. We had been allocated 120 dollars to spend on stuff, so I duly did my bit. I was very pleased to be able to pick up a cost price copy of Microsoft Home Server, which I'm looking forward to having a play with. I was even more pleased to find that they had a big display of my book.

Rob in the Microsoft Company Store

I'm never sure whether having lots of copies left in a shop is a good thing ("We've sold loads") or a bad thing ("Nobody is buying it"). Anyhoo, it was just nice to see it there. I've found my book in Barnes and Noble and Fry's as well, so if people aren't grabbing copies it isn't for lack of opportunity......

They had a Microsoft Surface in Building 117. Think of it as a huge iPhone which lets you do wonderful things with multi-touch. Wonderful stuff.

Added Value

Today was the first day of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Summit. Before everything kicked off we went for a walk around Seattle.

We found this really cool magic shop. Check out the Elvis Zoltar inside...

I managed to blag a visit to Alan's room. His hotel room is rather high, with some nice views.

Overhead view of the monorail

Seattle skyline, with clouds

Gathering for the opening session. I've never been to one of these before, but the thing that struck me was just how many MVPs there are. This is a big affair. And there are people from all over the world.

This was the gathering before we went in for dinner.

The food, and the company, was excellent. On the way out I grabbed a picture of the view from the conference centre.

Shopping Trip

The quality of the weather dipped a bit overnight, but at least it wasn't raining. Went over to meet up with Boss at his hotel and it looked like they were prepared for him.

Did somebody call the cops?

Turns out the Dalai Lama was in town, and staying in the same place as Boss. These were the outriders for his trips out. We went off in search of breakfast.

This place does good sandwiches

This place does nice peppers

The Dalai Lama hits the road.

Boss and hired car

Boss in hired car

Lego bits, lots of them.

Lego pigs

I nearly bought lots of things, but was actually very good. Perhaps tomorrow.

Seattle in Good Weather Shock

We went out for a look around Seattle. And the weather was lovely. I'm breaking in a new camera (what a surprise). It is a tiny Fuji FinePix F50fd. I was unsure it would improve much on my old FinePix F10. But it does. It has already taken some lovely shots. Fuji seem to put some magic pixie dust or something in their cameras that make them just take good pictures.

Like this

Or this.

We had tea in a super little place on the waterfront. Seattle seems to give priority to the quirky, home grown kind of establishment, and I reckon this is a seriously good move. It gives the place real character.

This is where ate. When I took this picture they were playing a Bay City Rollers track ("Saturday night" if you must know..). If that's not personality, I don't know what is.

It had a good view of the bay too.

After tea we had a walk around.

How tasteful. But not as scary as....

Of course they have skyscrapers

"Pig and Pigeon" Sounds like a good name for a pub.

 
I think Seattle is going to replace San Francisco as my favourite city in the US. Then again, the forecast is for rain tomorrow.....