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My Inaugural Swearing-In Ceremony

On Tuesday, the day that Barack Obama got sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, my 3-month probationary period at Microsoft also ended and I became a full-fledged Microsoft Developer Evangelist. I figured that if Obama could have a swearing-in ceremony to mark his official entrance into his new job, why couldn’t I?

As luck would have it, I was at the Vancouver Convention Centre to speak at Microsoft’s TechDays conference, where the Microsoft logo was projected onto the waterfall on the second floor. It made a pretty good backdrop for the ceremony, which was conducted by my fellow Developer Evangelist John Bristowe. I swore my oath on a “Techie Crunch” box, a cereal box containing the swag we gave to every attendee:

This magic moment would’ve been lost forever if it weren’t for videographer, blogger and man-about-tech Warren Frey, who was recording interviews for TechVibes and caught it for posterity. Thanks, Warren! I salute you with a filet mignon on a flaming sword!

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Pub Night Tonight at Benelux in Montreal

Benelux brasserie artisnale et cafe

From tonight until Sunday morning, I’ll be in Montreal for CUSEC, the Canadian University Software Engineering Conference. If you want to catch up with me, I’ll be at tonight’s CUSEC Pub Night, which takes place at Benelux (245 Sherbrooke Street West) starting at 9 p.m.. See you there!

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Fogcouver!

I’m flying out of Vancouver this morning to my next stop – Montreal, where I will be speaking at CUSEC, the Canadian University Software Engineering Conference. There, I’ll deliver my presentation, titled Squeezeboxes, Start-Ups and Selling Out: A Tech Evangelist’s Story.

Vancouver has been covered in fog for the past couple of weeks. They’re close to the record number of days of the pea-soup-thick variety of fog, as shown in the photo below:

Photo of Vancouver skyline mostly obscured by fog
Photo by Adrian Eden.Click the photo to see it on its Flickr page.

I think that this photo needs a teensy bit of editing:

The same photo, but with the Millennium Falcon photshopped in
Click the photo to see it at full size.

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Meetup Tonight at The End Cafe

the_end_cafe

I’m in Vancouver for one more night before flying off to Montreal to speak at CUSEC.

I’m meeting up with Boris Mann and the Vancouver Bloggers tonight at 6:00 p.m. at The End Cafe (2360 Commerical Drive). See you there!

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Vangroovy Scenery

Hello from Vangroovy! I’m at the Vancouver Convention Center to speak at the Microsoft Techdays Canada conference.

Here’s the Centre, as shown on the web site and postcards. It does look like this in the summer:

Fog-free picture of the Vancouver Convention Center

Here are the photos I took looking out onto the ocean from the Centre this morning:

Vancouver fog

Vancouver fog

Vancouver fog

My hotel is across the street from the Centre, so I didn’t wear a coat today. The doorman looked a bit worried when I passed him, but I said “Don’t worry. Next to last week’s weather in Toronto, this is tropical.”

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In Transit

Vancouver Convention Centre

Flying to Vancouver today to speak at TechDays Vancouver tomorrow. If you’re in the ‘hood and want to catch up and talk tech, accordions or whatnot, drop me a line!

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Super-Productive Monitor Setup

If two monitors boost your productivity, imagine what this setup could do for you…

Multiple monitors setup for a training desk

[This photo originally appeared in Forex Chronicles.]