Went down to breakfast again with Amy this morning, and sat with Tom and Debra Shinder. No Dalai Lama today (he and his entourage checked out yesterday) so we were in a different room, but the boxed breakfast returned. I opted out of the “warm” chipotle wrap, so Amy and I ended up making a run through Starbucks on our way to the bus. I grabbed a coffee cake, and she picked up a hot chocolate.

We bussed over to the Redmond campus again, and went through another full day of NDA material, some of it really, really, really NDA, which makes me wonder if I just violated NDA by saying that we heard stuff that was extreme NDA. Maybe not.

At the end of the day, we shuttled back to the hotel, and we got back early enough that Amy and I made a side trip over to a Cold Stone Creamery for ice cream (something I learned about Amy from our Australia trip is that she hardly ever turns down an opportunity for ice cream). We got back to the hotel and eventually took the shuttle over to the Experience Music Project (EMP) near the Space Needle.

Wow. Several of the MVPs mentioned that they had an event at the EMP two Summit’s ago, but I was blown away. First, they had karaoke with a live band (the band was great, the singing varied greatly) going throughout the evening. Second, they had a room dedicated to Rock Band performances (I lasted all of about 30 seconds in that room before I had to leave). Third, there were buffets and bars set up in multiple locations throughout the venue.

Amy and I browsed through the venue together for most of the evening. We started off in the Science Fiction museum, and wow was I impressed. Definitely worth a repeat visit when there are fewer people going through (and fewer people who either didn’t read/understand the “no photography” signs or decided to ignore them, leading to several staff members throughout the night telling people to stop taking pictures), but quite an impressive collection of historical items related to the Science Fiction industry. Brought back a lot of memories of favorite TV shows, movies, books, and magazines from my younger days. Also had me thinking that it’s about time to re-read Frank Herbert’s Dune series once again.

After we finished the Science Fiction Museum, we started through the Music Project proper. As it would take too long to describe all the exhibits we saw, I will point out that I spent most of my time drooling through the guitar history exhibit, longing to reach out and play a number of the guitars that were encased behind the glass. We also headed upstairs to the “studio experience” area (have no idea what it was actually called) where we witnessed (and got video) of Dean playing drums and Stuart either egging him on or trying to play bass along with him.

Dean "playing" drums (105MB, will edit and compress later)
Dean drumming, Stuart on bass (50MB, will edit and compress later)

I still managed to get totally exhausted fairly quickly, so we headed back to the Hyatt a little after ten. Still, an invigorating and exciting day all in all.

Labels: Summit2K8