What a week in Silicon Valley

Have I had one of the best working weeks of my life?

As previously mentioned I have been attending the Office Developer Conference in San Jose and I met Scott Hillier, Andrew Connell, and Ted Patterson. Well the following day I met John Holiday, Wouter Van Vugt, Chris Johnson (MSFT) and Paul Andrews (MSFT).

I attended the party at the Tech museum which was a lot of fun. But I decided to retire early and head back to the hotel lobby where I thought for my last night in the US I will grab a drink, sit down and reflect on the trip. I had been sitting by myself for a couple of minutes and then I was joined by Ted Patterson and Andrew Connell. It was lovely to sit down in a relaxed environment and have a chat outside the conference.

I caught Andrew’s talk the next morning on best practices in SharePoint performance. Again it was standing room only and he delivered another great presentation.

So at the end of the conference there was one more thing left to do. I will give you a quick recap. At the beginning of the conference Bill Gates gave a Key Note speech. Due to his retirement Fed Ex (one of the major sponsors) delivered Bill a special parcel (see pics below). It was s Xbox 360 guitar signed by Bill himself, and the Fed Ex package box was made by the same guy who made the Fed Ex boxes in the movie Cast Away with Tom Hanks. So Bill was giving the guitar back to the conference so it could be raffled at the end of the conference.

So off I went to the crowded announcement area and guess what….Clayton James…is there a Clayton James here?

Suffice to say I jumped up and was in a state of amazement. After I settled down and the photos were taken (not with Bill) I was thinking how am I going to get it back to Australia as I was already overloaded with baggage and the last thing I wanted was to carry this parcel around with me? Then Paul Andrews saved the day by getting Fed Ex to send the parcel back to Australia for me, greatly appreciated.

So to answer the original question, a resounding yes!

 

Just to let you all know I am not making this up.
http://blogs.msdn.com/johnmullinax/archive/2008/02/14/and-the-winner-of-the-billg-signed-guitar-hero-guitar-at-odc-2008-is.aspx