January 28, 2005
Lotusphere - The Silliness
Posted by Jess in
Tech Talk
I have a whole bunch of stuff written up on the sessions, but first - the silliness!
- First of all, it must be mentioned that Matt is the best. I had a beautiful bouquet of flowers waiting for me in the car at the airport.
- Wednesday night was the Lotusphere party at Universal Islands of Adventure. While I was putting my cell phone in my pocket to get on Dueling Dragons, I accidentally called Bruce's cell phone. Nextel has this "feature" where if you hit the top button, it calls the last number you dialed on speakerphone. I didn't know I had hit the button. We're in the front row, sitting down to begin the ride, and Bruce says, "who's calling me now?" Once we got off the ride, he checked his phone. "Jess Stratton?" As I was right next to him, and sort of surprised at this point, I took my phone out of my pocket. It said I still had a connection with Bruce! He had put my call into voice mail, and it recorded (muffled) the entire ride! So funny. Oh, by the way, it's not Dueling Dragons, we all sort of decided that "Julian's Dragons" has a much nicer ring to it.
- After awhile, I realized how much I was geeking out telling everyone about the engineering feats of the park, such as the coaster technology and the fact that NASA's Jet Propulsion department designed the launch sequence for The Hulk. Which has it's own generator, by the way, lest it takes out power in the entire city of Orlando. The ride doesn't need its own generator. Just the launch. So if you ever need a guided tour of the park, I'm your girl. However, ss much fun as I had with the gang, Matt, it was really hard being there without you, and a little surreal, in fact.
- I had many enjoyable nights at Kimono's, and got up and sung karaoke, man that's fun (and addicting). I sung my favorites, Jefferson Airplane - Somebody to Love, Heart – Magic Man, Nelly Furtado – Turn Off the Lights. You’ll get no ballads from me, I much prefer singing loud, aggressive songs I can rock out to. Oh yeah, Evanescence - Bring Me To Life with Greyhawk! Although, they didn't have his words, so he had to wing it. We had fun, though. I hope someone got some pics of us up there together. If you have one, please send it to me.
- Tuesday I went on Mission Space at Epcot for the Salesplace "launch" party. Yes, Andrew, I didn’t believe you that they had barf bags in the cockpit of the ride, but you were right. I have a cast-iron stomach, and it was almost a little wild for me. The attendant had said that no matter how you queasy you feel, keep your eyes open and facing forward, otherwise it will just get worse. I'm glad she said that. Didn’t stop us from going on again, though! Everyone else went to go get drinks, and the group I was with (Devin, Alan, Greyhawk, Andrew and Efa) decided to do it again. We went after dinner, and nothing was funnier than Devin Olson in the middle of the line for the ride yelling, "Okay everyone, listen up. I just want you all to know that I just had meatloaf and dessert, followed by a pint of Guinness."
- At the conference, some people were mentioning again about the hastiness of the crew to pull the coffee away quickly, sometimes in mid-stir. It should be available all the time. After all, wasn't the whole focus of Lotusphere? On-Demand? Doesn't that include Java? Har... sorry. But c'mon, that was a gimme!
- Steven Wright at the closing session! Bruce, Gayle and I got a great picture with him. I'll post it... And I've talked to several people who also ran into him, and they agreed with me. His face genuinely lit up when we told him how much we enjoyed the show. We told him how great the surprise was when they introduced him, and he said, almost incredulously, "You mean you didn't know I was going to be there until that moment that I came up on stage?" We said nope, and it was a great surprise. His eyes lit up.
- There's something about this week. As the Disney staff says at the end of every phone call, "Have a magical day…." Well, this place IS magic, at least for me. For one week I got to be around people who love Lotus, administration, development, and obscure geek movie quotes as much as I do. It just doesn't get any better than this. A week among kindred spirits. This would explain why I'm running on steam right now. From 7AM till about 1:30AM every day, it was go, go, go. And I loved every second of it. Thanks guys. See you next year, that's for sure.
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Jess - the only thing better than seeing all my old Lotusphere friends is making new ones. It was a pleasure to meet you and hang out, let's do it again next year!
Okay, I just need to go on record as saying that "Julian's Dragons" makes me think of the Stephen Wright "Snatches" joke. Strange image...
Heard you guys all had a blast on Thursday night. I'll have to plan to stay the extra day next year. I hate to miss things like that.
Good to see you again, and hope we can all get another blogger dinner together sometime this year.
- Julian
Yes, you definately have to stay, I was bummed to find out that you were leaving.
I'm still waiting for my invitation to this alleged Chicago meeting that everyone wants. :-)
Hi Jess,
This year's Lotusphere was awesome! I missed last year's but went to the previous four. There was much more excitement this year than the ones I went to in 2002 and 2003. So how did you learn so much about the park?
Cheers,
Jack
As this was my first one, I couldn't tell you about the excitement level compared to previous Lotusphere's, but I've been hearing from others, too. As for the park, Matt and I go every year in October. It's our anniversary, and it's worth it alone just to go for Halloween Horror Nights. If you
like professional grade scaring, it's worth it just for that!
