With a big dose of reality, I walked into this place this morning and found out "yeah, I really do write .NET web apps and MS Access for a living" :( ... but it pays the bills and I've gotten *way* used to eating 3 times a day :)

MIX10 was great, although the buzz didn't seem as big as MIX09, and I'm not sure why. It also seemed like a different crowd and other folks I talked to agreed with that.

Of course now I can outwardly admit that the "Windows Phone 7 Series" is programmed with Silverlight ... how cool is that? I've been biting my tongue about that info for over a month!

I cloistered myself in Ballroom A for the week, not counting the Keynotes. That's where the phone sessions were located. I tried to collect the full set, but ended up bailing on the last one because it was ending at the time that MIX10 was ending, and I hadn't spent a whole lot of time in 'The Commons'.

I met a bunch of folks I've blogged about, or exchanged email with, and that's always fun. Renewed associations with folks I only see once or twice a year and way too long a list and don't want to mention some and leave off others...

I did have an opportunity to meet Charles Petzold... wow that was interesting... I got into Windows development through Charles' Programming Windows 3.1 book 'back in the day' ... couldn't find anyone at Honeywell wanted to join my journey, so it was just me and 'Chuck' :) ... read every word of that book more than once... all marked up, tags sticking out of it. And now he's writing a WP7 book ... gotta get it: Free ebook: Programming Windows Phone 7 Series (DRAFT Preview)

I went through my Big List-o-Blogs^TM last night and it took over 2 hours because of all the new content since MIX10. I've got 90 posts tagged as of 9PM on 3/21. If everybody stopped right now, it would take me 9 days to push what I have now, so you'll have to be patient!

I had another event on Thursday that was *extremely* tiring, so I ended up staying over another night. I drove back into the strip on Friday morning to try to find a non-cheesy souvenir for my wife, and didn't find much. Then I went to Blueberry Hill restaurant for 3 eggs, 3 strips of bacon, and 3 awesome potato pancakes. Check them out if you have time! And then hit the road.

In case anyone is wondering, the 2-1/2 hour drive I took across Hoover Dam on Sunday afternoon only took 30 minutes on Friday afternoon... that was a more normal trip!

I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent with everyone. Thanks to John Papa and his crew for the great Insider's party on Monday night... the Blues Brothers were a fun surprise and they did a good job! And the swag was great... thanks to all the contributors for a fun evening at their expense!

All I can say is stay tuned, go to live.visitmix.com/videos and watch everything, get the phone tools, start working... everything's different and everything's fun... jump in, it's all Silverlight!

Stay in the 'Light!

Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone     MIX10