I went to the Los Angeles Convention Center late morning; this was to avoid the rush of the people who were attending the workshops so I would not have to wait. This year there are no busses from the hotel to the conference center on day zero, I was able to get a ride on a bus for the crew, but I had to walk back. It was a beautiful day and the walk is good for me.

I decided again this year not to go to the workshop even though there seem to be some very good ones.  Last year I heard rave reviews from other attendees of how good these workshops are, but the thought of spending a whole day on one topic just doesn’t appeal to me; I guess it must be my short attention span.

I registered and I received my conference bag; I like it better than last year, but missed the bags that I could carry my laptop in. However, I really don’t need another conference bag have a bunch at home and I never seem to use the PDC bags after the conference. This year there is no PDC store where I usually get a PDC hat and PDC polo shirt on day zero (oh well).  They did however gave us a 20% discount on Microsoft merchandise (I will order something when I get home less to carry back). They also gave us a coupon for a Certification test.  While going through the conference guide in the conference bag. I notice there will be no breakfast, I not a big breakfast eater and this will probably help me from gaining weight at the conference (a very good thing).

I recheck my schedule for the week; I right now have a session (sometimes two) for every time slot except for the first timeslot on Day 3. This will most likely change (for me it always does), because I want to do some hands-on-labs and the Keynote usually makes me decide to check out some session that was not in my plans.

I went to Visual Studio documentary; I got there a little early; which was good because it got crowded. The documentary was very good if you have not seen it check it out on Channel 9. After the documentary I went to the Tweet-Up (free beer) at the Hotel Figueroa and ran into some Mid-Atlantic tweeps. It was a great evening preparing me for PDC09 Day One.

I does seem that Microsoft is cutting back on the extras at PDC this year, something I believe are to save money while other are for going green (for instance I have been on the day zero busses to the conference center and sometimes it could be just me on the bus a waste of gas). The main reason I come to PDC is for the content; I like the extras but if the content was not good I would not come.