Yesterday I drove 450 miles from San Francisco to Irvine to deliver my "Everything ASP.NET" presentation to 100 VB.NET and C# programmers. It was a joint meeting between OCCUG and a local VB.NET UG. I just arrived back to the office this morning to post links from my talk.
My presentation was a "live" version of one of the 9 videos I did for Microsoft. You can currently find them all under the "How Do I" column at http://www.asp.net/learn/videos.
Look for "Create a Full-Featured Customer Login Portal". Terrible name. Wished I had pushed for something better. It's really a grand-tour of everything new in ASP.NET (except for the new portal features).
And although the drive was made better by the Discovery Channel Radio on Sirius, the Valentine One radar detector, and AMG, driving in LA commute traffic is truly hell. Took 1.5 hours to travel 30 miles on I-5; I was nearly late to the meeting.
After the presentation, a group of us, with laptops, hit Denny's (!). Over a rare Sam Adams, Dave (local C# guy with a nice bike) kindly shared some insider tips on choice routes.
That's how I got from Costa Mesa (Irvine) to the Grapevine in only
two hours. It could have been much worse. Notice the spartan direction list. No "go 2 lights past the Costco and turn left at the McDonalds.". No, this is straight-forward, consice left-brain directions. Worked great Dave, thanks!
I hope to return on Sept. 23rd 2006 for a big SoCal joint users-group meeting in Costa Mesa.