The Orange County Convention Center, which housed the event I staffed last week, is one of the biggest buildings in the world—very close in size to the Boeing assembly facility in nearby Everett. I hear that the two buildings comprising the convention center are, in total, larger than the Boeing...
On Sunday morning on our way out of town, we stopped at an IHOP somewhere in Orlando for breakfast. Unfortunately, IHOP is probably the last place you want to go on a Sunday morning, but we were damned hungry and weren't about to order room service again. This was one...
Yes, the rides at Universal Orlando were a giant scam, but the park itself had one awesome moment that redeemed the entire experience. Part of the park is a giant lake, and on that giant lake are four or five ... bigass balls. They're probably 10m across and have projection...
In the theme park business, there's no sin greater than making the entrance to something that isn't a ride look like the entrance to a ride. A rope maze in front of the gift store or puppet show is surely a tresspass of divine proportions and while warnings for pregnant...
There's something to be said for being able to assemble a team of a dozen willing volunteers to help out at a conference on 10 days notice and ending up with a genuinely functional and damned effective workforce. I haven't seen this happen anywhere outside of Microsoft and I certainly...
I've been on my feet working today from 6am through 8:30pm. 95% of that was dealing with customers and helping solve miscellaneous tech issues. Stick a fork in me. It was fun, but I'm done....
So it turns out that the Windows Mobile folks brought an Alfa 159 wagon to the conference as a showcase piece—Microsoft and Fiat (who owns Alfa) announced a parternership a while back and the Euro-only1 159 bears some of the fruits thereof. Oh, that's hot. 1 Damn, damn. Damn damn...
Don't ever go there. It's hot and humid and fly-ridden and smells entirely like lotion and doo-doo. Also, the Orange County Convention Center has quite possibly the world's most confusing parking lot...ever. Take a look at the image at right—that's what it takes just to get out of the lot....
In a day and age of idiot-proof and strongly secured information systems, the airline electronic booking system is a delightful anachronism of trust and efficiency. Where else, for example, can you view and modify (!) passenger data on another company's flights with little more than a text terminal and some...
We've got a red-eye flight through DFW (hoorah) in our future, so this may be the last post here for a while. As usual, I'll be composing posts while I'm on the road and will upload what I can when I get the chance....
Ignore the "peaches" part of the title. Anyway, we're going to Orlando next week to help out with an internal MS event. I can't really say a whole lot more about the actual event (it involves Windows Vista) but we'll be working for about four days and partying for one....
