Ten things I noticed at the 2005 PDC

LOL!

James Risto — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 17:32:19 GMT

Thanks, your article made me laugh out loud, and I happened to be on the phone with PSS at the time! Thanks!

re: Ten things I noticed at the 2005 PDC

David Li — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 17:35:28 GMT

awesome article

re: Ten things I noticed at the 2005 PDC

DeepICE — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 17:35:32 GMT

How did he get on the plane in the first place?

re: Ten things I noticed at the 2005 PDC

BTX — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 18:15:57 GMT

he was in the plane already, coming from somewhere else...

re: Ten things I noticed at the 2005 PDC

JP — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 19:20:26 GMT

Was the PDC Dane named Mats or Mads (silent 'd')? Maybe not the same Dane I met at the PDC.

re: Ten things I noticed at the 2005 PDC

Mike Dunn — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 19:25:13 GMT

I wasn't scared of Sara, but she didn't give enough advance notice of her availability. When I'm up from 6am-midnight I don't feel like going through blogs when I get home. That could be tip #11: Blog readership will go way down during the PDC; announce things the week before, if at all possible.

re: Ten things I noticed at the 2005 PDC

Sathyaish Chakravarthy — Sat, 24 Sep 2005 06:40:45 GMT

Off Topic: Watched your PDC presentation video on Channel 9. Liked it very much. Look forward to more of your videos on Channel 9. Thanks.

re: Ten things I noticed at the 2005 PDC

Stephen Jones — Sat, 24 Sep 2005 12:00:18 GMT

If the cop is stopped in front of a RED light how the heck are you jay-walking?

Do they revolve the cocktail lounge faster near closing time so you think you've already had too much to drink?

re: Ten things I noticed at the 2005 PDC

saraford — Sun, 25 Sep 2005 08:10:56 GMT

Sorry about that Mike. I didn't finalize my PDC schedule until the thursday or friday before PDC (hurricane drama distracted me). Usually, I'm better at these things.

However, i have posted where i'll be at the MVP summit. Definitely Thursday night at the product group fair, and potentially Friday at a lunch reception (not sure where off the top of my head). Feel free to contact me if you (or anyone reading this) want to try to sync up at those times or another time.

re: Ten things I noticed at the 2005 PDC

James Kilner — Sun, 25 Sep 2005 19:49:50 GMT

When you have hands that can play running 10ths you probably don't need to worry about them looking withered. They may look like the hands of the BFG if you are not careful!

re: Ten things I noticed at the 2005 PDC

Zman — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 21:06:59 GMT

Darn it I was on the plane with Raymond *and* Sara and didn't recognize either of them....

Anyway, I was sitting right behind 'the incident' so here's the full scoop.

When I boarded there was a guy standing just behind my seat (G1) which seemed odd since the plane was only 1/4 full. After I sat down the hostess (AH) came and fetched him back to the seat in front of me which was already occupied by G2.
AH "Sir, I've confirmed the seat does belong to this gentleman, if you would come with me we can find out what is wrong".
G2 "I confirmed this seat at 8:30 this morning and I've been waiting since then to get to Seattle - when did you get the seat"
G1 "2 hours ago when I checked in"
G2 "So this is mine, I'm not moving becuase I know this flight and the one after is full. I"m not getting off the plane unless he does too"
G1 "OK"
AH "No sir, you need to get off the plane"
G2 "Call your suprevisor"

So we wait 5 minutes for the supervisor (SU).
Repeat the above conversation and add...
SU "Sir, I have to ask you again to leave the plane, otherwise I will call the police"
G2 "Why would I give up a seat when I know I'm not going to get another?"
SU "Because the plane is not leaving until you do"
G2 "Call the police"

At this point I realised that nobody else had got on the plane for 5 minutes and I'm wondering what this idiot thinks he is going to achieve. Its pretty obvious they are not going to let him have the seat.
G1 "This will get bad you know"
G2 "Its my seat, I have a right to it, blah blah blah"
G1 "Sorry, I was just trying to stop you from getting arrested"

Then the policeman gets on and walks towards us. I feel the passengers around us tesning up for some sort of confrontation but as he gets close G2 gets up, grabs his bag and walks off the plane. He knew he was going to lose, he was just being an obnoxious git.

I talked to G1 - seems that G2 had indeed checked in at 8:30am but he had been trying to fly standby all day. Apparantly if you go on a standby list they cancel your actual seat. Of course all the flights that day to Seattle were full so he waited until his actual flight and then used the boarding pass that was now invalid. G1 said that he would have let the guy have his seat but he had to leave for a cruise early the following morning.

re: Ten things I noticed at the 2005 PDC

Dustin Fraze — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 17:05:03 GMT

Very interesting read.

Regarding point 7, I'd like to know more about the speaker training. Did they offer insite as to why you are to keep your hands close to your face? I'd heard you should do so with notecards, but haven't heard of it with nothing in your hands...

re: Ten things I noticed at the 2005 PDC

Andrew Molyneux — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 13:45:24 GMT

I thought number 6 was pretty funny.
I was at PowerPoint Live in San Diego last week, and noticed the chocolate fountain there (Doubletree Mission Valley). I commented on it to one of my colleagues at the time (along the lines of "what the heck is that even *for*?").

Maybe the chocolate fountains are taking over...