TechEd: the big day arrives

This morning, I woke up early, got dressed, checked out of the hotel, and hit the speaker lounge to get some work done. Of course, I ended up talkin to several MS folks, including some for whom we’re now doing work, so it wasn’t entirely productive in terms of the number of pages I wrote. I had a good visit with the folks from Solid Data, who make a cool solid-state disk for speeding up Exchange recoveries, and I got some cool swag for the kids– always a key objective at these events.
After a couple more vendor visits (including with the fine folks at Good Technologies, who had darn well better come out with a PalmOS device so I can buy one), it was time to deliver my session. Mark Mortimore of TechNet fame suggested some additional topics, which I totally forgot about once I got on stage. I was completely in the groove, even though I went about 15 minutes long; the whole session was pretty much a blur. People who’ve been to my presentations in prior years can testify that 15 minutes isn’t all that long; at least this time I wasn’t scheduled right before lunch. I got to see several friends (hi, Darcy, Kevin, Kim, and whoever else I couldn’t see while blinded by the stage lighting!)
The session seemed to go really well, but I guess my eval numbers will tell the tale. Jesper Johansson was telling me that he was surprised by the eval numbers– the high session got an 8.4/9.0, and even luminaries like Don Box were hovering around 8.2. My high session last year at the MEC was a 7.9, so I’ll be interested to see whether my numbers this year hold up. Of course, since I totally forgot to tell people to fill out their evaluations, I may get a big fat zero!