So I am back at Winnipeg now. DevTeach went well, as my previous posts imply. But the end of the conference was interesting too....

Friday Daytime

This was the Silverlight session from Rod Paddock and Jim Duffy. Was a great intro to all aspects of Silverlight and what it is capable of right now. Although I have seen a ton of writeups of bits and pieces here and there, I am the kind of person who needs to see something in action first to learn it - I cannot learn from a book alone. This was great, though - a brief but thorough overview, and teasers of where things may be going. Now, it was said that this is Microsoft's replacement/answer to Flash. If so, it has a bit of a ways to go (which is true - this is still a beta after all). But looking at it, here are some initial comments:

• There are only a limited number of fonts allowed. This is because if it is not cross-browser compatible (eg. the mouse wheel working) then it is not included. This does not bode well for those of us who have to use specific client fonts that cannot be given away to all customers. What about including embedded fonts, like Flash? That would be ideal for such a situation.
• How much of a subset is it of WPF? In Silverlight, labels are called Textblocks. In WPF it's still a label (at least according to Expression Blend). Could we not get some consistency there?
• It's a real pain to not be able to drag controls onto the form/grid/canvas in VS 2008. Yes, you can drop into the XAML, but it's not the same. A basic button could still be added by a developer who may or may not know XAML that well, but full designs should be done by a designer using Expression Blend (I fully agree there).

Overall, though, a great session.

Friday Night

Started out with drinks and dinner with my aunt and uncle who I hadn't seen in a year. So, one plate of chicken fingers and 5 Strongbows later, I got into a cab to meet up with a friend of mine for drinks. We found a martini place and went there and met up with a few more friends. 7 martinis (and one shot) later, we all proceeded to head out somewhere else. An Irish pub with a live band, which was great. BUT, another 5 beers (not Strongbow, but something comparable). After that... to bed, massively drunk, after like 5 glasses of water. Now, this meant getting back to the hotel around 5 AM... so no longer Friday night. And checkout was at 11 AM.

Saturday

Got up massively hung over. Got ready to check out of the hotel. Had a nice long shower and drank about 5 more glasses of water. Went down to the lobby, checked out, and went to the airport. Now, my flight didn't leave til 6 PM and this was around 11 AM. So, hung around TO airport all day (didn't have the strength or will to go ANYWHERE else). Hung out there, read a lot, and relaxed until my flight back.

So, the flight. Got on the plane. Found my seat and sat down as one is wont to do on a plane when you board. Well, most people at any rate. About 15 minutes after the plane was SUPPOSED to leave, we get an announcement apologizing for the delay but that there is a luggage issue. OK, so we sit back and relax. Then, we watch as passengers are moved from the back of the plane to first class. Again, sit back and relax. First class was empty when I boarded, and many of them are seniors so all appears well. I went back to my book. When I look up, 3 cops are walking past my chair. NOW I pay attention. They go to the back of the plane, where the individuals were moved up to first class from. There is a "discussion" with an individual back there. Not of North American heritage, as the accent (and eventually seeing him gave away) gave away. This was an individual whose accent I would place as being from India (this is due to the fact that i have some friends from India and the accent was very similar - not 100% certain, but fairly certain). They started escorting him off when he turned around and started to walk back to his seat. The officers behind him asked what he was doing and he said he needed his things, which the cops had in hand. He reluctantly turned around and went out with them, another officer with his bag and passport. About 5 minutes later, the individuals moved up front went back to their seats. The captain made an announcement, indicating that the individual refused to listen to the attendants, was not sitting down but was causing a ruccus (I think some other passengers complained), and was causing some red flags in them. It turns out that not listening to an attendant is an offense and gets you arrested. Now, keep in mind, WE HAVE NOT LEFT THE TERMINAL YET. So, an eventful show there right from the get-go. They offered us a free drinkn to compensate... but I was having none of that in my hung over state. Hot tea it was (also to soothe my throat).

But there we have it - another fun-filled, eventful conference attended. I can honestly say that the flight back was the most interesting flight I have ever had. At any rate, time to go back to reading and then crash and catch up on my insomnia-riddled trip.

Like the rest of this week, not starting off well. I couldn't fall asleep until 6 AM, so getting up for the morning sessions was out of the question. This is going to be bad for tomorrow, as the all-day Silverlight presentation is tomorrow. I better get my @$$ out of bed.

So far this afternoon, attended one full session and in the middle of another. First, was Markus Egger's presentation which served as an introduction to WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation). It was an introductory session, which was good to have as I know some but not a ton. What's nice is that Silverlight is a subset of WPF, so getting to learn Silverlight will give me an idea of what to expect when playing more with WPF.

Currently, am in Rod Paddock's presenting on AJAXing your ASP.NET application. A few nice tips and tricks here, but is more or less the basics of AJAX of which I understand the root basics as well. However, some of the tweaks are really cool.

I said I was gonna blog after each session yesterday afternoon, but didn't. Turning the laptop on and off each time... nah, didn't want to.

I planned on doing it from the hotel. However, I was not planning on my hotel having no internet all night. So, no update for yesterday. Now for today...

A bunch of good talks, but as usual the more interesting (and fun) conversations take place out of the rooms. Over lunch, sat with a bunch of people including Dave Laribee, James Kovacs, Oren Eini, Peter Ritchie and Scott Bellware. There were some interesting talks there, with Scott and another individual (whose names eludes me) talking about an upcoming Agile conference in Vancouver in the fall. There was also a pre-recorded video interview from Dave with the aforementioned name-I-cannot-remember which was kind of cool (Dave's phone automatically streamed video up).

After that, went to Oren's session on Zero Friction Development. Was really good. But then the day went to the REALLY fun...

D'Arcy managed to get 4 tickets to The Hour. So, Henry, D'Arcy, Donald and I headed to the show. Tonight's guest was Sam Roberts. (There was also an interview with Ivan Reitman, but it was pre-recorded.) After the show was done, the Q and A with George S was just going on - he took the time to answer everyone's questions! It went on for like an hour after the show ended. It was still going on, but alas, we had to leave - we needed dinner before our evening entertainment. So, we met Rod Paddock and Dave Woods for dinner. The meal was quick, but good.

So, after dinner, Henry and Donald parted ways with us and the remaining 4 of us went to see Evil Dead: The Musical. Yes, you read that right. A group of Toronto playwrights took the movie trilogy (well, mostly the first 2 with many quotes from Army of Darkness) and turned it into a musical with such classics as "What the ^&*% was that?". We sat in the 3rd row. The first 2 rows were more or less right on stage and were arranged like seats on a bar. We were in the first tabled area right behind it. Those first 2 rows are called the "Splatter Section", and after act 2 began we know why. During intermission, theatre staff handed out ponchos to the first 2 rows. They offered them to us, but we were mostly safe they said, although some splatter may hit us. That phrase was about 75% true for us. I was fine, Dave was fine, Rod was fine, D'Arcy was not. You know it's bad when you have a homeless guy come up to you and ask you if you're OK, a random street vendor ask what caused it (and his specific question was just WRONG), and a cop really look at us funny as he was watching traffic. We stopped in at Fran's for food (our local diner hangout) and had the same waiter as last night. He just looked at us like we were crazy, but that's what happens when one person in your party looks like he just domated a kidney in a back alley somewhere and his stitches ripped open.

Overall, a really good night. And perhaps heading back to it AGAIN on Friday with Rod and a few others. Should be interesting...

Woke up this morning. Kind of. After hacking up a lung last night, stayed back at the hotel in the morning, which SUCKED! I really wanted to see Scott Hanselman's keynote. The morning sessions, not a big loss, but the keynote I really wanted to see.

I managed to steam most of the sore throat out of me this morning, so am at DevTeach this PM. Hopefully will be much better. Will post on each presentation as I go through.

Well day one is now done.

 Got up in the morning and met DL for breakfast. I have a feeling that Fran's will be the place to go for this DevTeach.

We made it to the UG summit and spent the day talking to other UG leads around the country, and planned for a special event for a new WebTV channel MS is doing called UGTV. All the UG leads were interviewed for this channel, and then a special project was going to be filmed Tuesday morning... and I have a feeling that a certain senor will make an appearance there...

After the UG summit was complete I went back to the hotel and took a bit of a nap. I was wiped, and my throat was extremely scratch. A package of ultra-strength Halls didnt seem to help. But, still managed to get up and head to the Party With Pallermo on Monday night alongside DL and Henry. That was good, and met up with a few familiar faces: Kyle Baley, James Kovacs, Dave Larabee, Oren Eini. Was a good night in all, but many guys were wiped and wanted to prepare for the next day. (Memories of shooters at the Vancouver PWP probably still rang true within their minds....) That being said, DL, Henry and I, along with an individual from Belgium whose name currently eludes me, went... yes, back to Fran's for a late night snack.

After all was said and done, went back to the hotel, hacking up a long. Found out I had packed some Sinutab (THANK GOD!) and fell asleep after a few minutes. However, kept waking up to myself hacking. Of course it always happens that I get sick during such things. Just my luck.

Arrived in Toronto yesterday for the DevTeach conference.

 After arriving at the hotel, got settled. Am here for 6 days. This was the first time that I have ever unpacked in a hotel, but since I am here for 6 nights... why not? Makes sense.

After getting unpacked, headed out for dinner which changes to drinks which changed to dinner with D'Arcy Lussier, Donald Belcham and Jeffrey Pallermo. Was some good discussion around a local diner near the conference centre, and seemed to set the tone for how discussions will be this week. And that's probably just the start of the week...

May 12-16 is the DevTeach conference in Toronto. I will be attending. This will be my 3rd DevTeach, and since I am not a presenter this must tell you something about the technical quality of the presentations and presenters there.

 One of my fellow Winnipeggers, D'arcy Lussier, posted on his blog about some of the presenters who will be there. Including himself. And with his post, he labelled himself D'Arcy "Don't Dare Me, I'll Do It" Lussier.

So... I now open up the floor to accept the list of dares that will be presented to D'Arcy at DevTeach. I will collect them all and take them with me, and at random times around the conference will present D'Arcy with a "Community Dare".

Let the antics begin...