About 5,000 people from Microsoft's technical field is here in Seattle for the twice annual field readiness event. I'm hanging out in the study hall next to the test center (run by... wait for it....Pearson VUE!). The attendees are all MSFT people and get to take the exams for free, which is cool; they take a ton of exams during the 4 days they are here.

Things to report include:

• I just met Andrew Coates! That was nice. He just rocked his VS2005 exams. We talked about how TechEd AUS and TechEd NZ are sold out, and how I should get my shiz together and log-in to the speaker portal like I was supposed to. 
• I met MCP #1015, who has worked at Microsoft since 1989.
• I had a Snickers bar from the crew room
• One guy put on his headphones in the study hall, but they weren't plugged in to the computer, so all of a sudden this computer-intro music started blasting in this totally quiet room and everyone was giving him dirty looks but since he had his headphones on he didn't catch on that he was causing a scene and he kept poking away at his practice test.  
• The test center has 95 seats and it has been full on and off since I've been here. At this very moment, someone is taking 296, someone is taking 541, and two dudes are taking the 649 beta
• An intern from a business across the street just walked in to find out what we're doing. I would have called security but he works on SQL2005 and might get certified... so I didn't have him roughed up.