Microsoft Convergence Atlanta 2015 (#CONV15) - Day 2

Wow, Day 1 sure proved to be very exciting with all the big keynotes, general sessions, and presentations, not to mention the whole Expo reception. It also seemed like the night went by flying and sleeping was overrated. To add to the mix, Atlanta's Tuesday morning traffic came back with a vengeance and did not really allow David and I to make it down on time for some early sessions we had planned to attend, oh well!

As a result, we ended up going to the Speakers' Room to finalize our last bits of demo code for our upcoming session, only to discover we were not using "best practices" as noted by our Microsoft friend Rob Bernhardt. Since we are very keen to deliver best practices in our Service Based Architecture code (more on this on a separate post). This put us in a tailspin, so we went looking for Kevin Racer to offer some advise. We finally got what we were looking for, just 10 minutes before our session.

Off we went to look for our dual A313/314 room where we would host CS15G024-R1 Microsoft Dynamics GP 2015: Customizing the user interface. We walked into the room and saw a gentlemen sitting in the front row with a t-shirt that read "David Musgrave", but couldn't quite make out the entire text until he decided to unbutton his shirt. The results can be seen in the picture below.

David Musgrave and mastermind Steven Vallarian

Our session started with the traditional introductions from David and I and our work within the community and off we went into demos. We definitely tried to provide some humor to a dry subject. Development sessions tend to be that way, so I believe we only lost like 3 or 4 attendees out of the 131 who assisted. We also were able to demo the cool Service Based Architecture posting routine using Google Postman which is a Chrome application extension.

After our session, I went back to the Expo to catch up with a few folks. It's always good when I can say hi to my buddy Brian Roney, who I consider to be one of the brightest Dexterity minds in the business.

Mariano Gomez and Brian Roney

Walking around for so many hours can definitely make anyone hungry, so David and I caught up and decided to move over to the Omni Hotel's bar. After a few drinks (all on me, since David doesn't drink), we decided to have a quiet dinner evening at the Omni Hotel's Prime Meridian restaurant. After going through a good session of explaining MSG intolerance to the waiter, we were shortly joined on David's request by Cindy Reeves and Tanya Markwit from Tribridge who were on their way to be seated for dinner as well. The view from our table couldn't have been any better.

Ferris Wheel in the foreground, the Westin Atlanta in the background

After dinner in excellent company, we all jumped in my car and off we went to the Rock & Rave party, down at the Georgia Railroad Freight Depot. After a frustrating 40 minutes of trying to find this place, we made it (mind you, I'm a local)!

However, the night just got weirder and weirder from this point on as we were greeted by (gasp!) a zombie. My good friend Ora Goldman from Mekorma was manning the door in her costume, which I must say looked really awesome!

Ora Goldman (Mekorma) as a Zombie

Inside the place, music was pumping at an exaggerated loudness, rendering the place just one big noise hall. After a beer, it was simply time to leave.

Rock & Rave at the Georgia Railroad Freight Depot 

Again, on the way out, Craig, Ora, and Ora's daughter were acting the part, so we decided to snap one more pic for the evening.

Craig Klapman and Ora Goldman playing a scare tactic on Ora's daughter 

David and I got back in the car and drove to my place to get a bit of rest and recharge batteries for the next day - note I said "get a bit of rest", as it was almost 1:00 AM when we got home.

Until next post!

MG.-
Mariano Gomez, MVP
Intelligent Partnerships, LLC
http://www.intelligentpartnerships.com/