Blog ala Vidar

I’m never going to get used to Øystein waking me up. We had some breakfast before we headed over to CCIB. First session started at 10:45:
DAT307, Best Practices for Optimizing Procedural Code and Queries in SQL Server 2005 and Beyond with Bob Beauchemin.

This session was not about query-tuning. It was more about understanding the execution plan, and what other things that’s going on when you press F5. Pretty interesting!
Rating: 3

Arriving late means early lunch. Pasta, sausages and potatoes are actually an ok mix! In the lunch we decided to go to something which seemed fancy. Not work related at all, but seemed very interesting after all:
MED03-IS, Microsoft Robotics Studio Demonstrations with Oliver Bloch
Admit it! It sounds really fun! Well, I’ll tell you. It was fun, but not the demonstration in itself. First of all, he is French, so his accent is funny. Second of all, I’m pretty sure he said fuck at least 5 times. He probably said something else, but I couldn’t help myself. I started giggling like a little girl. After about 10 minutes, I couldn’t stand it anymore. He were just repeating himself, and showing a whole lot of powerpoint slides with TEXT. No code, no screenshots, no demos, no nothing. BORING!
Rating: 9

Still giggling, I went down to the exhibition hall, again and walked around a couple of minutes before Øystein and Jan Leon joined me. They couldn’t stand the French dude anymore! We bought 16 books at a Microsoft-stand. 40% discount on all books from Microsoft Press, and 30% on everything else! Total sum: 442€. That’s 28€ pr book. In Norway, they cost about 60-75€!

After leaving our bags at the hotel, we went shopping. I can, of course, not remember the name of the mall, but it was big! Went to the top floor to get some food, and got the worst service EVER! First the waiters ”didn’t” see us, then when we got a menu and tried ordering, the waiter took the menu from us and just said ”NO FOOD!” and left. We couldn’t get an explanation from them, so we left in anger. Beate (one of Ronny’s little helpers) sais she gets good service wherever she goes. Why do three guys, that look like Rangers supporters, not get good service?! I can’t figure it out… Anyhow, found a restaurant after HOURS of walking, and then went back to the hotel. Next: FOOTBALL!

Today is Champions League. For those who haven’t heard of this (USA-dudes), football is when you only use your feet to kick the ball around, not arms and violent tackles! We followed some Rangers-supporters to the Metro. Scottish people know how to drink, and knows how to entertain themselves! We had fun watching them sing all the way to Camp Nou, and learning how to act as a (brain-dead) Rangers-supporter. I’ve never been to a game this big! 90.000 supporters! That’s more than Haugesund’s poor 4000. I got goose bumps! This is NOT going to be my last match! Anyways, the game ended Barcelona 2, Glasgow Rangers 0. Goals by Henry and Messi.

On our way home, we dropped in at Hard Rock Cafe, where the Norwegian participants of TechEd had a gathering. Free beer! We showed up at about 23:30, and they’d been drinking since 19:00. You think they were drunk. YEPP! We had a couple of beers, tried talking to a couple of people, but no luck. One of my conversations were
Vidar: ”What do you do?”
Norwegian-dude 1: ”I’m developing”
Vidar: ”Ok. What are you developing?”
ND1: ”Systems”
Vidar: ”Oooook. See you!”
I’m not a fan of talking to people that are drunk. At least not when I’m sober!

Tomorrow, there’ll be more interesting sessions. I’ve figured out I’m not going to go to any more non-interesting sessions, since we’re getting DVDs of all sessions in (snail)mail in a couple of weeks.
Quick overview of free things I’ve got from the exhibition hall: Pens (even with lights), stress balls, installation CDs/DVDs, t-shirts, advertisements, caps and even a deck of cards!