PDC in LA

Every few years Microsoft decides it has enough new announcements for developers and throws a big conference (called the Professional Developer Conference). This year it was in Los Angeles and I headed over to look into some new communications technologies they are planning to release soon. I left Milan on Monday morning and went via Heathrow. The flight was smooth and the time passed quickly – I think being Australian conditions you to 15 hour legs so anything less is a bearable.

The conference itself was very interesting but at the same time very draining. You could start at 8:30am and finish at midnight each day if you wanted. Almost every moment of that time could be used to bombard yourself with technical discussions inside the cavernous conference hall. It was good to walk back up the hill to my hotel in downtown – both for the exercise and the feeling that you could relax a little away from all the important technical details that had been bombarding you.

The conference itself was good but you end up getting a little tired of the self-belief Microsoft has in the brilliance of its products and engineers. It’s all rosy at these sort of conferences – they promise everything - but you know in 6 months you’ll be swearing at the monitor in frustration as you strike some limitation they will never fix for you.

I had stuffed up my hotel booking so had to stay one night in cheap hotel in Chinatown (miles from the conference) then move to my booked hotel (the Omni downtown). I dropped my bag off at the Omni on Tuesday morning and went to conference. I returned at 10:30pm that night dead tired and just wanted a room to collapse into. It turns out the Omni overbook their rooms and no longer had any space. No one had mentioned this to me in the morning when I asked at the checkin counter what to do with my bag. So I wasn’t very happy and communicated this to them. In the end I had to go to a nearby hotel for the night and finally back into the Omni for my last two nights. In compensation they gave me a free meal at their expensive but unrefined restaurant and upgraded me to the “club” level. This was a nice bonus as you had a lounge with free cocktails and free breakfast. The conference had meals but they were quite bad – the Omni club breakfast was much nicer and the lounge had a great view over the Disney Concert Hall.

I flew out on the Friday afternoon and enjoyed the larger seat resulting from me only being able to get a Premium Economy seat back. British Airways seem to have so much strike trouble these days that their fares are very cheap – you just have to cross your fingers that you will get in-flight meals and get through Heathrow without strike action. I managed both and was back in Milan on Saturday afternoon.