The Tablet PC tour came to town last week and we were treated to a great talk from Roman Snytsar a Development Engineer on the Tablet PC Team. His enthusiasm for the ink generating properties in Tablet PC development was like that of a teenager showing off his latest video game! The only disappointment was that there were only six attendees in a city of eight million. When will they learn that the User Groups are in place all around the world waiting for opportunities like this to learn more about the latest technology?
We had a memorable meeting of the NYCDOTNET User Group the following night, I asked Roman if he could attend, but he had to fly back to Redmond. I arrived late because I was attending a Samsung Partner party two blocks away. Brad McCabe was giving his talk on Thinking in Ink as I went to the back of the room to grab a slice of pizza. A few friends came back to ask about the Samsung giveaways (we love giveaways) but before I could finish the slice of pizza an alarm went off. Our fearless leader Steven Forte went out to see what was the matter, he quickly returned to tell us it was “NOTHING”, so Brad continued his talk and I worked away at that pizza. Then a Microsoft employee stuck his head in the room and we clearly heard the words “fire” and “evacuate”, so the first thing everyone did was to come to the back of the room to rescue the pizza, then we headed out. There was some confusion as to which stairway we should use, but fifty sharp software developers found the <EXIT/> We could smell smoke in the stairwell and it got stronger as we descended the six flights. The fire trucks were there and New York’s Bravest were running in as we were going out. We had a good time on the sidewalk talking and taking photos, after about twenty minutes I asked Bill Zack and Andrew Brust if we were going back in, but just then two firemen passed carrying a stretcher….
A few of us headed down Seventh Avenue as more fire trucks arrived, then two blocks down NYPD was closing the Avenue, crime scene tape was going up around the entire block and we soon learned that a man had just been shot!