So here I am sitting in the back of the big hall waiting for Alex to speak. I did my first talk this morning (Visual Studio .NET "Whidbey"), and it went fairly well, apart from my inability to type, and one of the demos toasting itself (worked fine in my trial run through). Alex and I have just done a talk together (ASP.NET "Whidbey"), where we build a few pages showing some of the new features, such as data source controls, master pages, site maps, and so on. Some good interaction between us, and one of the most enjoyable talks I've done. Great fun. Alex is now about to start his data talk, which is going to be tough - trying to fit ADO.NET 1.0, 2.0 and XML into a single talk. Eek. On after Alex is Bill Gates, so we're effectively Bill's warm up act. Of course most warm up acts don't get kicked off stage by burly security guards with sniffer dogs. Perhaps they just wanted Alex out of the way so his aftershave wouldn't sent the dogs whining into a corner covering their noses.

Bill's talk was quite good - much shorter than normal but he took the time to answer a few questions from the floor, which I've never seen before. It was good to see him tackle questions, answering in both an informative and funny manner. In the evening we went to the Sky Bar with the other speakers and some Microsoft guests, for some excellent food and wine.

It's been great here so far. We arrived Monday night and went out for a meal with the conference organisers and a few others, to a great Italian restaurant. Tuesday started early, but not by design. Next door to our hotel, and overlooked by my room, is an empty site, and getting emptier as they are still digging it. Unbelievably they fired up the CATs and trucks at 5:30am. Yep, construction starts real early out here (which is Vienna by the way, in case I forgot to mention that - it's a Microsoft .NET day, with about 1400 people in four tracks). So anyway, we head out into the snow (yep, it is -2 degrees), down towards the museum district and the church. Wandering from coffee house to coffee house (purely to keep warm of course), and generally freezing the extremities. Alex even bought a woolly hat.

Tuesday was of course Alex's birthday, but we couldn't celebrate in style as we were presenting at the Vienna .NET User Group. We did have a beer with our meal afterwards, but only one since we had three sessions today. Tina had smuggled a small cake out (as in hidden from Alex, rather than it being a offence to move small items of confectionary across European borders), so we did the cake, candle, and bad singing thing.

Thursday was spent wandering around town again, before being picked up by Peter Koen, who took us up to Grinzing for a meal. We went for the huge platter of assorted dead animals, salads, and large quantities of wine, all excellent. We also played the blackmail game, whereby the musicians (violin, double bass and accordian) assault our ears with louder and louder music until we paid them to go away. After the meal Peter took us up to a classic lookout point where you can see nearly all of Vienna. The drive up was on one of those winding hillside roads, covered in snow, and Peter's ESP (Electronic Stability Program, not Extra Sensory Perception) kept kicking in, and sometimes not kicking in early enough. He managed to avoid any large skids, and kept us from plunging down the mountainside. Once up at the top the view was great. OK it was night time, but the lights were nice. What wasn't nice was the cold. There'd been more snow while we were eating and up on the hill the wind was bringing the temperature down even further. Damn it was cold out there. It was also interesting because there was a large parking area, covered in snow and ice, with a couple of wannabe Marcus Gronholm's skidding around in their cars. Gronholm being a rally driver, for those amongst you who aren't petrol heads.

This morning I've just been trying to relax. I'm tired from the constant early mornings (those damn diggers), and the next couple of weeks are going to be busy. I've a chapter to write for Alex's Insiders book, and a book to do an English edit. It's written by someone for whom English is a second language, so it just needs tidying up a litte.

Oh, and here are a few pictures.