A Reasonable Man   

I was at the Microsoft Tech·Ed Conference last week.

I try to avoid writing about my job on this blog, and I'm not going to change that (much) now. I just thought I'd mention that I found it very valuable and enjoyable. Microsoft did a great job, as usual, of keeping a large event like this fairly well organized.

The non-techie highlights worth mentioning are:

• Mary Lynn Rajskub (the actress who plays Chloe O'Brian on 24) appearing at the Keynote address. I'm a "24" fan, and I liked that they had her there, and that they used "24" as a theme for their amusing keynote videos.

• The party at Fenway Park on Thursday night. Microsoft finally found a place with enough seats for everyone! I'd never been to Fenway before and it was pretty cool. Also the Train concert was much better than I expected (I didn't really love the music from listening to downloads, but I really enjoyed the live performance).

The other thing worth mentioning is how I'm constantly impressed by Microsoft. They're far from perfect, but they manage to continually advance their products and technologies in ways that are likely to satisfy the actual demands of their customers. Most other large companies fail in their attempts to do that.