Whew! Today I left the house at 6:05 and spent the entire day over at the Microsoft Launch demonstrations of SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005. Both presentations were more like tutorials than marketing and both lasted four hours each. Overall I enjoyed the content and got some free software out if it too. I had fun, so much that I’m going to pay attention to what shows Microsoft does here in Portland in the future, because they mentioned that they come by every few months for something else. The best part of all of this is that both sessions were free.

They provide completely free, fully-licensed versions of the software they discuss, as well a DVD of goodies like the presentation slides and sample code/applications. I can’t to checkout what other stuff is on the disk, but it was great.

Unfortunately, I’m dead tired after sitting in the same seat for ten hours, riding MAX for two, and being cold whenever I’m outside. Lloyd Center Cinemas couldn’t figure out how to turn the air conditioning off either, but that was the only down side to this.

I must say that I’ve never been in a room with so many men before. There were about ten women total and five were there because some boyfriend/husband dragged them alon, and you could tell by their expressions.

Although Microsoft considers this marketing, it is an excellent way to get free demonstrations / tutorials of software that you’ll also get for free.