I'll be attending the Visual Studio 2005 launches in both Vancouver and Calgary next week.

I'm definitely looking forward to both. I'm up to Vancouver all the time, being only about 2 hours to the Canadian border from Redmond, plus parts of my family lives in Cloverdale. I'm very curious what the Vancouver .Net crowd is like. I have to admit that the Toronto crowd blew me away, with a turnout of >3000 developers and IT professionals. I guess I should admit that a bunch of those might just have happened to be there for SQL Server 2005 or Biztalk 2006. That being said, it did seem like the VS 2005/.NET Framework "experts" in the "Ask the Experts" area were particularly busy.

I haven't been to Calgary since ~2001. My best friend lives there, so we'll likely hit the slopes (Rockie mountains) if the weather co-operates.

Please introduce yourself at the launches if you are able to make it. I'll be in the experts area most of the time. Also, please mail me if you'd like to setup some time to meet, either at the launch or elsewhere, to discuss development issues. I had good luck meeting with banks in Toronto and would like to have similar meetings in the West. I guess I should ring up the oil patch while in Calgary and see how they're using .Net.

Us "experts" typically have dinner together directly after the launch. Please mail me if you'd like to join us. This is a good chance to spend 90mins with the likes of John and Jerome. John refers to himself as a plumber.