Not too much to say today as I was at the Summit events almost from the time I woke up until now. You can read the geek-related stuff here. Tomorrow will be my day to really see some more of Seattle as the sessions do not last quite so long, so I will write about my shopping adventures then.
In the meantime, check out some pictures I found of the Summit:
Well it was colder in Seattle today, at least I thought so! It was around 10 degrees, but still nice and sunny for most of the day. Today we were at the Microsoft campus in Redmond, you can read the geek related stuff here. The campus is really a lot bigger than I thought, easily covers more space than the University as far as I can tell!
Continuing a tradition Dickson and I started, I caught the very last MVP bus from the hotels at 7:30 am today. No idea how I made it up and out the door either. They had some awesome stuff in the sessions today, and I also saw some of the famous Microsoft fridges! Yes they had Pepsi crap, but there was also Coke, Vanilla Coke, Diet Coke, Diet Vanilla Coke, Diet Caffeine Free Coke, Cherry Coke, Cherry Diet Coke. Didn’t see any of the lemon or lime ones in the two fridges I saw. Also tons of other “sodas” (Kevin made fun of me when I said “pop” lol).
I discovered another Starbucks within walking distance of my hotel. This one is a block west and a block south – hadn’t looked in that area earlier. Speaking of Starbucks, I swiped a paper cup from the Starbucks in one of the cafeteria’s on campus as it has both the Starbucks and Microsoft logos on it! Thats cool too, Starbucks right on campus! Too bad the UofA doesn’t have that!
Tomorrow looks interesting, lots of important people speaking! And I don’t have to get up quite so early as the Convention Center is only a 5 minute walk from the hotel. That makes me happy, because these “heavenly” beds in my hotel room are AMAZING (all the stuff seems to be called heavenly, beds, soap, shampoo, etc). Hope you people back home are having fun in class! HAHA!
Well today was the first day of my trip, and it has been quite exciting! You can read my post about the geek-related stuff here. I arrived in Seattle around 3 PM local time.
First off, big airport. At least big enough to have its own subway to get to the terminal! Secondly, very humid. Compared to dry old Edmonton at least, the air feels very heavy. Thirdly, there is so much green! Edmonton is so brown and drab and dusty right now, the green grass and trees is a nice change!
The trip from the airport to the hotel was crazy for a couple reasons. There really is a Starbucks on almost every corner! I lost count of how many I saw today (I went to one tonight too, not the original yet tho). Also, I was instantly reminded this isn’t Canada, as there is a huge Niketown, three level Gap and three level Old Navy, Kenneth Cole, Louis Vuitton, Barnes and Noble, Nordstroms, etc. all within four blocks of my hotel (Westin Seattle Downtown). I am definitely going to have to visit the Barnes and Noble and Old Navy.
Nice hotel room too, two beds, broadband Internet, TV, alarm clock, fridge, the normal stuff you expect in a hotel room. Unlike our room in Barcelona, right Dickson! I am going to steal the coffee mugs as they are emblazoned with the Starbucsk logo 🙂
Looks like this is going to be an awesome week, I will post updates here when I can (and at my .NET blog). Tomorrow we are the Redmond campus, so that will be neat! Oh, so far the free shirt count is at 2 (usually events like this are full of free t-shirts).
I will blog more later, but just wanted to post that I have now arrived in Seattle. I am typing this looking outside my 42nd floor room at the entire city pretty much!
Just wanted to say a quick happy birthday to Courtney! Hope you have a good time tonight 🙂
Dickson and I have a new motto: With Ease! This is a direct result of our 391 project which I talked about earlier. You can read Dickson’s excelllent recap on the weekend here.
So what is left? 379…with ease! Imagine Cup 2004…with ease! Paramagnus Imagine…with ease! I just hope we live up to the motto 😉
I just found out an interesting definition:
CHERNOBYLNIK: A variety of absinthe (wormwood) with a red-brown or deep purple stem.
Chornobyl (also seen spelled as Chernobyl, Cernobyl or Chernoble).
Chornobyl is a little known Ukrainian word for a plant named Wormwood (absinthe)!
So I guess I can describe consuming absinthe as going nuclear! Haha!
Here are some engineer jokes for all of you in that faculty. Here’s one for you Andrew:
What is the difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil Engineers?
Mechanical Engineers build weapons and Civil Engineers build targets!
This weekend Dickson and I were working to start and finish our term project for CMPUT 391 (databases). Over the weekend I learned a valuable lesson – but it has nothing to do with databases! First, here is how our weekend went:
So what did I learn? You cannot give up both food and sleep! At least not if you drink a 2L of coke during the night. After lunch on Monday, I felt so much better. In any case, the project was *mostly* completed, an amazing feat given the amount of time we left ourselves! You owe me five dollars Greg, haha!
Yes I have finally reached 100 posts on my blog! This is a major milestone for me, and I look forward to many more posts in the future. After I had my 99th post completed, I thought to myself – post #100 needs to be special! So I went looking for answers, and I asked Dickson and Andrew for suggestions.
Dickson: porn!
Andrew: porn!
Andrew later helped me come up with a better idea, which I have called “Inside the Blogger’s Mind“. As it was quite lengthly, I decided to turn it into an article. I hope you enjoy it!
Of course, we live in a democratic world, so I cannot ignore the desires of the people! Enjoy your porn boys!
Thanks for reading!
