Microsoft Convergence 2013–March 18-21 2013–Blog 1– Arriving

Greg Olsen, 25 March 2013

Well this blog will start a series of hopefully a few blog posts during my time here in New Orleans.

The journey to the USA started from the Auckland International Airport. Boy did it start! What I mean by this is that the automatic link from NZ to USA for check-in failed and AirNZ had about 150 people (approx) backed up for check-in. “Anyone on the Los Angeles flight? Please make you way forward now”. Cry’s from the AirNZ staff as check-in is about to close for those passengers. I had more time as my San Francisco (SFO) flight was a bit later. The next laugh I had was with the people leaving Auckland to head to USA after being on a cruise ship and having way to much luggage. “Sorry madam, you are over your allowance to board this aircraft”. Little did they know they couldn’t take there 4 suitcases onto the the plane with the 1 bag, 23kg limit. Why did they need so much stuff? I’ll let you guess the answer to that.

Well I managed to get through check-in and security with enough time to spare. Met up with Joerg Rau from Theta Systems (NAV expert). He was having the same laughs as I was, so it was good to compare the jokes.

Landed in San Francisco in good time. Managed to get about 5 hours sleep on the 12 hour flight. Arriving in San Francisco photos below.

From San Francisco we jump aboard United Airlines and head to New Orleans (p.s. I have to get the pronunciation right, it’s basically new-OR-linz. Keep working on it Greg!). Just under 4 hours later we arrive to a nightly lit city and it’s time to grab our suitcase and taxi to the hotel.

Below are some arrival photos into New Orleans.

Once the taxi arrived to the hotel we get greeted by the party goers on the footpath. Gee a bourbon would be good right about now, but I need sleep. So it was check-in time, have a shower and off for a sleep!

Next day begins (Sunday 17th March 2013)….

Eyes open, it’s 10am. Nice I had a good sleep. Time for another shower and get ready to meet up with the others. Starbucks for a hot chocolate. Facebook check-in begins!

Next its off to the Convention Centre to register and pick up the goodies. Another laptop bag and the essential agenda material. “Where is the Microsoft Surface Pro”, we ask the attendant at the materials collection counter. Blank face. Don’t think she got the joke.

Here are some convention centre photos below.

Right, time to fly. Need to keep moving. Off to the next “event”.