I just got back from the DevTeach conference in Montreal. While small, (about 250 attendees) there were many great questions from the developers there trying to soak up tips and techniques. The conference was held in the downtown Sheraton—modern and clean, but their internet left much to be desired. It turns out that they had failed to attach the modem to the underside of the desk in my room which made it somewhat intermittent—it was hanging by the power cord and kept disconnecting. There were plenty of good places to eat (and the conference lunches were stellar). We were directed to the Baton Rouge restaurant across the street and over a block from the hotel. It featured a great mean of BBQ ribs. We also discovered a whole street of interesting and vaired restaurants about 5 blocks away—including a Burger King (which I can’t recommend as their service was in the French tradition—escargot slow). Montreal is definitely a French city. Every street and business sign is in French with very (very) few English hints. Fortunately, everyone speaks and understands English—whew. The conference organizer (and his family) took the speakers (about 50 of us) on a tour of the city and a (long uphill) walk through the park (and cemetery). We had a great dinner at a Greek restaurant where the service was typically French—slow, but the food was great. The conference itself had both previews of coming attractions sessions that talked about .NET futures and others that showed best practices for current technology. I hope they invite me back.
Getting to the conference was not too bad but flying back was a royal PITA. We took a wide-body flight from Montreal to Toronto on Air Canada (eh?) which was fine. However, the Air Canada flight (if you can call it that) from Montreal to Seattle was simply awful. I have flown what seems like millions of miles over the last six decades and except for the Thai “stang” buses I rode in Bangkok, I have never felt so cramped. The seats were too narrow and very close (way too close) together. Yes, I’m a tall guy (6’2”) and my knees were crammed up against the seat in front of me the whole time but my wife is far shorter and she also felt cramped. If this was a short hop, it might have been tolerable, but this was a 5 hour flight punctuated by an hour on the ground taxing (or sitting) with inane elevator music. To make matters worse, their “courteous” flight attendant abruptly told me to turn off my MPX-220 phone’s solitaire game—even after I told her I had disabled the radio. I noticed the guy up the aisle using his laptop (up on end). I expect his wireless and Bluetooth radios were still on doing untold damage to the flight navigation systems. I won’t get into the “food” they served as I’m not a fan of curried chicken—it was virtually inedible and I generally like airline food. When I suggested to the Air Canada staff that the plane’s configuration was too dense for a flight that long, they blew me off with a flippant answer. Sure, every airline has to fly the planes they own. But airlines that want to keep new customers (this was our first time on Air Canada) don’t configure their long-haul flights so passengers paying full fare have to sit in seats designed for children and midgets. I won’t be flying Air Canada again if I can help it—they join the list of banned airlines like NorthWorst.
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