May 2004 Blog Posts
TechEd started confusingly. We were all (myself, Alex and Dan Kent) meeting at the airport. Alex & I arrived close to each other, so joined the queue. Dan didn't appear, but that wasn't that worrying. We checkin, do the security thing, and head for the pub (a pre-trip tradition). Dan still doesn't appear. We board the plan. No Dan. The plane takes off. No Dan. Ho hum, says we, wondering where he is. Next day still no Dan, so we head for a bit of shopping, mainly to get me some new clothes and that's easier than trying to lose...
Just gearing up for TechEd, trying to finish off anything urgent before heading out early on Saturday morning. We'll be hanging around the SAMS booth quite a lot, as well as various book and author events, so come say hi. I think I'm going to spend quite a lot of time in meetings, despite the fact that there are lots of sessions I want to go to. This may sound odd, coming all the way for a conference and then not attending sessions, but being so far away from the action (Microsoft, our publishers, etc), face time is really important...
I've just returned from a short 3 day break to Berlin with Dan and his fiancee Jane. We were attending the opening of the new European Blue Man Group show. This is the show that Dan audtioned for as a guitarist, so the trip was tinged with "it could have been you" moments. Also around were Vera (who used to translate the Wrox books into German), her husband Karsten and friend Carolin. Karsten's sister joined us for the performance.
We arrived in Berlin on Sunday morning after a ridiculous 3:30am start (2 hour drive to the airport for the first flight...
So, I've just installed the WinHEC build of Longhorn in a VPC image, installed the additions with everything working fine. I then joined the domain, which prompts a reboot. Upon restart the screen displays "Use Ctrl-Alt-Del to login" but it doesn't work. The usual VPC method of Right-ALT+Del, nor using the VPC menu to send the command work. So, a nice new trial OS into which I can't login. Anyone got any ideas?
Saw Van Helsing today. Good fun. Dracula a little too camp I think. Worth a watch to see how many film references you can pick up. Also has the delectable Miss Beckinsale, which quite frankly is worth a couple of hours of anyones time. I've had trouble concentrating since I read this. That final quote is an image I just can't get out of my mind.