I spent today at the MSDN Technical Roadshow in the fair town of Harrogate. It's strange but wherever I go – even back home to the place that I grew up – I never bump into anyone I know. It's like I'm permanently anonymous and I've kind of gotten used to that fact. I remember going out on a stag do once where one of the guys there was the sort of bloke who knew everybody – wherever he went someone would come up to him and ask him how he was – I've always been the opposite.

So imagine my surprise today when I bumped into an ex-colleague. As if that wasn't surprising enough, I then proceeded to bump into a guy I play football with over in Skipton (whom I didn't even realise was a developer). Just as my eyebrows were returning to their normal position from being raised well beyond recommended safety levels another ex-colleague walked up to me and said hello. He then pointed out that he was in fact there with yet another ex-colleague! His first words to me after not having seen me for a year or so was "you've got more grey hairs than me!" which made me laugh. (Note: I disagree with his assessment).

I was starting to get the hang of picking out people I know and it was just as well as I then spied another ex-colleague I'd rather not have to speak to so I kept my head down. "You ain't seen me, right…".

The roadshow itself was very interesting. I make it a point to not look at pre-beta Microsoft software since it's invariably got some really cool features that I wish I could use now but won't be available publicly for a year. Now having been forced to see some of these things I can see a lot of it will be quite useful, particularly LINQ in C#. I look forward to checking it all out. But the real surprise for me was meeting so many people I know – I guess I've been living in Yorkshire too long that I feel I'm starting to belong here! 😉