Flying with Dutchmen

Today it was time to pack up and head home from Seattle. I was on the same flight to Amsterdam as loads of other MVP delegates. Most of whom were from Holland. And had seen my memorable Kinect session last year at Tech Days Geek Night. And were quite happy to remind me of it again. I’m doing some sessions at Tech Days this year too. Some with gadgets. Now might be a good time to be very afraid. Or at least test the demos a bit….

My Next Car

 

Look at the size of that SatNav screen.

While we were walking around Bellevue Mall we noticed that Tesla Motors had a shop and one of their cars on display.

Want one.

The Tesla is an electric car powered by Lithium Ion batteries (the ones that they put in laptops and mobile phones). These give it high range (up to 300 miles) and amazing performance (0 to 60 in 6 or so seconds). They have a rather clever plan to put “Supercharge” stations over the country which are 200 miles or so apart. These can deliver a decent charge in around half an hour and should make it possible to drive right across America in the car. Because the stations will be solar powered Tesla are even offering free power top-ups for the lifetime of the car. I’m not convinced on that part, it will take an awful lot of sunshine to fill up the 40kWh batteries in even the lowest range vehicle, but you can’t knock them for trying, and I’d love for it all to work the way they say it will.

I really fancy a car like this, even though it apparently doesn’t have an engine.

Of course it is far too expensive for me, and anyway I love my Nissan Cube, but should I ever be in the mood to drop 50,000 pounds or so on a new car, it would have to be one like this.

Although I probably won’t buy the base model. (thanks to Peter for the line).

MVP Summit Party

Another day, another party with free food and drink. Sometimes I love my life. Anyhoo, today was the day of the MVP Summit party. It was held at CenturyLink Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks and Seattle Sounders FC.

This is the view from the stadium steps.

This is the view from the Player’s Loft, where we met up with some Windows Phone team members and talked shop for a while.

The view of the pitch. They had a soccer goal at one end and American Football goalposts at the other end, reflecting the dual use of the stadium.

Oooh. Fireworks.

Walking the pitch

The hallowed (astro) turf.

I may be wrong, but I don’t think that this is an MVP doing karaoke.

Thanks to the MVP Summit folks for a great night out.

Windows Phone MVP Pub Crawl

Fancy a drink?

Tonight Desiree took the Windows Phone MVPs out for a pub crawl. And it was superb. We went to three places in all, starting at the Elysian Brewery Company where we got started with some great food and drink.

After that we headed to Tavern Law, which had the most amazing “Speakeasy” vibe and more great food.

Finally it was on to Unicorn for more drinks, and, joy of joys, pinball and video game action.

Nothing improves a bar like a moose head. Or two.

Pinball Wizardry

Desiree’s sister, who came along as part of her birthday celebrations (and was rewarded with a Geek Chorus singing “Happy Birthday”), told me that Desiree has got venues planned for the next 5 MVP pub crawls. I’m sure she has, and I hope I get to go to some of them too. Splendid stuff.

Early Start with Donuts

Not a bad sky for an early morning. Almost worth getting up for..

Microsoft campus looking good

“An early start is fine as long as there are donuts.”