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TechEd
2000 was held at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando.
When I arrived, I found a group of nerds sleeping on the lawn
out front. |
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I found the principles of Capricorn Consulting
out on the lawn. I decided I would follow these guys around
during conference since they are in so tight with Microsoft...as
least that's what they told me! Here is the CEO, Stuart
Dickerson. |
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Also in
the Capricorn entourage was another principle, Patrick NeSmith.
He was trying to decide if wanted to cut classes and go to the
hotel pool. He said "I already know all this stuff
anyway!" |
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And
finally, the third renegate from the Capricorn group was Luiz Silva.
Being from Brazil, he was there to show Stuart and Patrick how
to have a good time...or to keep them from getting in
trouble...I forget which. |
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Well the
next day, I couldn't find Capricorn guys anywhere at the
conference. So following a hunch, I went to their hotel pool and
guess who I found there... |
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Well I
returned to the conference center to attend as many sessions as
I could. As you can see here, the nearly 14,000 attendees took a
really big place to house them all. |
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The
Convention Center was massive in size. It took me about 8 days
to figure out how to get around. Unfortunately, the conference
was only four days long...so I was lost the entire time! |
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This was
the "communications center" where about 400
workstations were setup for accessing your email and conference
info. The Capricorn guys were in here once but then claimed
their mail server was down...yeah...right! |
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Wednesday
evening, Microsoft carted all 14,000 plus friends to Universal
Studio Islands of Adventure. Here is one of the wild animals
found running loose in the park! |
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The
Capricorn Consulting guys found me and wanted me to stick with
them. They claimed they knew their way around and would be where
the action was! |
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Here is
Stuart...I think he was saying "honest...I've only had two
drinks so far!" |
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I tried
to lose them but they followed me where ever I went. So I
decided to just give in and see what sort of trouble they would
get into. |
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It
wasn't long before Stuart found a place that gave away exotic
drinks.."supposed to make you go crazy", they said.
Stuart had to have one. |
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Sure
enough, he began to act a little weird and his eyes began to
glow. We were all worried about him except for Luiz who decided
to run back and get one of those drinks for himself. |
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The
entire park had a Mardi Gras like atmosphere. I think these
fellows didn't know what to think of all the geeks in the park. |
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Well, as
the evening continued, both Stuart and Luiz became more and more
crazy. Here, Stuart broke out a loud beat on the bongos
and yelling he was Ricky Ricardo reincarnated! |
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Patrick
was still ok and played along with his buddies...I mean
literally played along. |
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Yes,
even I had wanted to get in on the action. They were able to
take this picture only after the crowd of thousands has
dispersed. |
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Here was
Stuart, back at the bar getting another one of those exotic
drinks. He claimed he was really thirsty! |
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I
decided I better get my picture made with Stuart before he went
off the deep end....if you know what I mean. He was beginning to
look a little weird! |
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Well,
sure enough, the exotic drinks finally resulted in a visual metamorphosis.
Both Stuart and Luiz had turned into wild zombie cyber-geeks! |
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Luiz
kept asking, "are your sure? Does it really
show?"...man, he looked bad! |
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And poor
Stuart was beginning to look bad! Small children
would literally run to their parents screaming as Stuart walked
past them. Even the adults were startled. Yes, both Stuart and
Luiz drank to much of the exotic blue drink. |
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They
staggered around the park looking for victims. Here I caught
them gazing at some poor girl's neck. We pulled her to safety
before anything bad happened. |
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Then
Stuart tried to attack anyone who came near. Here, he attacking
me as I attempted to take his picture. Yikes! |
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Here is
Stuart in the police car as they are taking him off to jail. The
police put these special X-Ray proof glasses on him so that the
light from his glowing eyes would not be so bright or cause any
harm. |
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I got
one last picture with the guys and a poor victim. Jane Huang was
bitten on the neck and it was simply too late to help her. You
can see she is now happy to be part of the wild zombie cyber-geeks. |
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Early,
the next morning, I arrived ready for classes again. However,
the Capricorn guys were no where to be found. Last word was
Patrick and Luiz were trying to get Stuart out of jail. |
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My last
session was in the huge auditorium. It was freezing in there!
Man, I could use one of those big screens in my basement! |
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After
my last session, I decided to track down the Capricorn
Consulting guys and say goodbye before I left. Yep, I knew right
where to find them.... |
