Yesterday and today, I was in Vermont with Sam at the User Group meeting. Sam was presenting an INETA talk on the CLR. Along with others in the group, I have to say it was one of Sam's best presentations I have seen, if not the best. It was something new for him -- not a COM Interop or Managed C++ talk, but a history and use of the CLI/CLR. No IDEs were open -- just a plain text editor and some code, along with our best friends ILDASM and Reflector. Great stuff.
I also enjoyed being a part of Julie's Vermont User Group. I have never seen a better user group experience -- people were very interested, questions were intelligent, and even after the 3+ hour presentation, a large number were still there, eager and alert to learn. That's what its all about. I also enjoyed meeting Dave Burke and Ali Aghareza in person, both bright guys that you should be reading.
I especially enjoyed meeting Julie and her husband Rich. As she mentioned in her post, they were both gracious hosts to me, and I enjoyed my stay with them. The only glitch, as she mentioned, was that we didn't sync up about her cat and my cat allergies. I brought my allergy medicine (which I keep with me all the time), but I didn't have my breathing medicine. That is what affected me adversely last night (and still a touch of it today/now). But, it will pass. I wouldn't have traded the opportunity to get to know both Julie and Rich better.
I wish I had more time to stay in Vermont, but back to work. It is a beautiful area. I took plenty of pictures, and brought back the required Vermont Maple Syrup and Vermont Cheddar Cheese.
