Career Express Day 9 Training To You Phoenix AZ

What do you get when you combine the Phoenix hot sun desert, a BBQ and Training?  You get the indoor Technology Round-up Barbeque featuring Training To You!

I don’t know about you, but I love getting greeted as we get off the bus! It gives you that special kind of “We’re cool” feeling, because perhaps that’s further reinforced by the fact that we’re so cool?! :) (Can you be cool when it’s 100 degrees outside?!?!)

It was great to meet Tim and Brandyn as we exited the bus, on a Saturday afternoon, to also be greeted by students of their programs at the door, and then to be greeted even more by this massive table of coolness as we step inside! Oh my! So coordinated, organized and the attendance was just amazing (read: Saturday Afternoon, Phoenix 100 degree day – These people could be outside, but instead they attended this great educational set of sessions!)

Greeted at the bus and greeted at the door! Welcome to Training To You!

Test drive your futureKen pulls out a winner!  

One thing about Training To You is that they’re not shy about giveaways! The giveaways were just astounding with prizes prizes prizes to be won by so many! Not to mention the amount of swag we were giving away, everyone walks away a winner!

Rick Taylor is a winner!Everybody is a winner, walking away with so many prizes!

Excellent shot of Harold Wong! Hello Tim, Brandyn and Elise!

Just like the event earlier in the day, Harold Wong delivered the presentation on Windows7 which was well received, infact I can call it super-well-received, and it was quite spectacular and lots of laughter and engagement :) For what it’s worth, during Harold’s Bitlocker To Go demo, I BitLockerToGo’d an 8gb USB drive I had in my bag :)

We also were blessed with the presence of another Microsoftie who attended, Rick Taylor @slkrck who brought some light to our day as well as being a beacon to those in attendance :)

As the day drew to a close, the attendance was great, the interaction was excellent, and the audience was absolutely amazing.   The whole experience was perfect and I’m glad we had the opportunity to meet up with Training To You and partake in this unique experience in beautiful Phoenix Arizona!    I encourage you to check them out if you’re in the Phoenix area as they provide training solutions which will be with you for years to come, through relationships and through the education you learn.    That brings Phoenix to a close, and here I sit in Las Vegas writing this!   Look forth for the new stories coming soon! :)

Career Express Day 9 Glendale Community College Phoenix AZ

What do you get on a Saturday, last week of Finals on a 100 degree day in the Arizona Desert? (Alright, it’s Phoenix but it’s still 100 degrees). Oh, did I mention that this is a Saturday at 8am?

What you get is some people who are passionate about their education, certification, their future and the future of technology, oh and Windows 7 :)

The folks at Glendale Community College in beautiful Phoenix Arizona we’re excited to see us when we arrived!    I didn’t get as many pictures as I would have hoped to, but my camera was charging so these are the ones I was able to get near the end!

Students and Faculty Elise Eckel runs Are You Certifiable

This was quite a competitive game of Are You Certifiable, the likes of which we’d never seen! The teach of the group came out on top, and everyone else… came in as a solid tie for 2nd place: Result? Everyone wins, since we give prizes to 1st and 2nd place :) Elise ran quite a rocking game as shown here.

Glendale Community College campus viewTjeerd and Janet Brooks

While there is a beautiful picture of the campus, and of Tjeerd here walking with campus instructor MCT, Janet Brooks here is the low down on what I wasn’t able to get as a picture!

We were honored by Microsoft Presenter, Harold Wong @haroldwong who talked all about the cool stuff available in Windows 7 as well as Windows Server 2008 R2.   He didn’t bore us in the realm of slide death, and instead took it to the core with demo after demo, real engaging and the interaction and questions taken with the audience were great!   The whole of the experience was great, and the students and faculty were excited by the whole event and prospect.   Their future wasn’t set in stone, and still isn’t, but the opportunities have presented themselves in a whole different light, so the future is most definitely now!

So, thank you Glendale Community College for the beautiful weather, passionate discourse and the ability to distribute swag to you :)    We’re on the road now rolling towards Vegas and only time will tell what goes on before we pull into Los Angeles for TechEd at 8:30AM with the Swag Express!  See you all there! :)

Career Express Day 8 Off the bus in Santa Fe

What do you get when you have a bus load of SME’s, technology people, education zealots and Certified Professionals and coop them up?  You let them roam free in Santa Fe!   One thing, you may notice that these photos are much better than previous photos.. reason being: I had to use my camera (which only works in well lit areas) because my iPhone was bricked when I woke up in the morning and it took me several hours to recover ;)

Lunch at The Shed TJeerd and Joanne discuss the art work on the wal! (Okay, no they didn't... ;))

We started our day in Santa Fe with lunch at The Shed where we ate some of the most interesting and amazing food in our journey.  And considering we are in New Mexico, the authenticity was not to be questioned!   

Gnarly, eh? Designs.. by Alex! :)

We went on a walk around Santa Fe, the gnarly trees above were found in the Shed’s sitting area, but we carried out into the streets!  Came across this cool Designs by Alex sign :)

Joanne signs a postcard, while somehow... my arm makes it in a photo from my own camera?! One of the few, rare and terrible photos of me :)

We came across this weird and interesting mailbox… for some reason, it was worth taking a photo of… Infact, multiple photos, but that is neither here nor there :)  After this point, we got on the road to Bandelier National Monument!

Bandelier National Monument Bus and the landscape

Welcome to Bandelier National Monument…! Be careful for Mountain Lions! Got an amazing shot of the bus here with that beautiful background! It was a cloudless sky, and a day filled with not a whole lot of wind (So, can I say hot? yea I think so :))

Blinded by... the light? Modern day office block - Cubicles

Another random shot of me (Look ma! no eyes!) That beautiful shot down below is of an ancient day office-block.   This is where people went to work, as you can see those are open air cubicles for the people to work and attend to daily business.  I think that’s actually a call center!

Dating photo?! Hey I can walk backwards on a ladder! Do not handle bats!

Yea, this is my classic dating photo, right? It shows how adventurous I am, and look I’m a property owner! I have a hole and a ladder to climb in to! Oh, and do not handle the bats!

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This is one of the first flat screen televisions – It’s obviously Organic LED (OLED :))

Watch quietly as the MSLearning team treads softly into the dark.. softly.. softly…

It was a great day, beautiful sights, decent food!  We finished with Dinner at Atomic Grill! On a side note, it appears that Atomic Grill supports Windows Live ID on their website – Wow, quite an updated Website and Restaurant! :)

The Atomic Grill

Art work in the grillKen and Jay, Certified PC! Chris Rue and our amazing waitress

To sum up dinner, it was a great dinner with a lot of variety.  We were cared for by an amazing waitress who was working –every- table in the place, constantly on the run and she did a spectacular job!  They had some amazing artwork on the inside and have a menu leaving you with options, options and options!    After a quick rush back to the bus we proceeded on to Phoenix AZ where we are now as I publish this! 

Career Express Day 7 TrekWars? Err, Star Trek Outing!

You ever try to take pictures in a dark theatre with an iphone? Well, if you do, you end up with photos which look like these!   For what it is worth, here it is in its form :)

Liberty didn't come out at all! Tjeerd cannot look me in the eyes! Self-shot..!

Here is the best I could get in a low-light condition shot of all of us as we sat there in the theatre waiting for TrekWars to start!   Liberty didn’t come out at all, the sinister Psychometrician that she is, but I did get decent shots of the team who attended the  movie, and an obvious “I need a haircut” shot of myself!   The movie was good, was attended by many in the theatre and all around just another portion of our adventure we headed out from there to sleep before driving down to Santa Fe!

Career Express Day 7 AmeriTeach Greenwood Village CO

Welcome to AmeriTeach, where Education, wine and cheese come to meet! (They had wine and cheese tasting, mixed with the finest in Technology solutions and training!)

Welcome to Ameritech! Suite #150! Winners!

If the sign is any indicator.. if you can find AmeriTeach, you’re definitely going to find winners, like Shannon Bray above.

And the crowd goes wild!  Chris Rue and Joanne EmCee the crowd!

The room was packed to the gills while people attended, watched and competed in Are You Certifiable!   Chris Rue and Joanne Lin put on a spectacular show while Elise Eckel on the keyboard ran the spinner!    While not every person who plays the game gets all the answers right, everyone walks away from the game a winner! Both in prizes they earn just for playing, as well as the education they walk away with and the knowledge for years to come!

Installing Win7 while watching a Win7 demo?!? Tjeerd behind bars, these Denver Prisons are horrible!

Joey Snow does have a way of getting people interested in Win7! While giving his presentation on Win7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, someone in the crowd even started an install of Win7! (Okay, that was me, and I did an in-place upgrade of Windows Vista! … On my production machine! ;))   Sometimes though, when presenters are naughty like Tjeerd, they have to be put into the naughty room behind bars.   Shameful Tjeerd, Shameful!

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One of the best parts about this presentation and all presentations for that matter is the community interaction.   The gentleman on the left provided some excellent questions and all around insight from his perspective, to be followed by Shannon Bray who went indepth.

Shannon Bray, a Senior Solutions Architect for Qortex is an IT Professional Extraordinaire! He holds his MCT, MCPD, MCTS and more so than that, he also holds a wealth of industry knowledge and experience (@noidentity29 on twitter!) !   During Liberty’s session on Certification, Shannon was able to provide insight into Hiring Managers and Certification.   Like many hiring managers, Shannon looks for Certification as proof of not only your knowledge of technology but your investment in yourself, while you may not have the Certification of what they’re hiring for, merely having a certification shows that you raise yourself above the rest and you’re one who is worth investing in.    We all appreciate Shannon’s insight directly from the field as I see it from hiring managers quite often.    Having skills and having those skills validated is something which stands out on resumes and furthermore allows you to stand out in the industry.

I’d like to thank again the fine folks of AmeriTeach for organizing this great event and the turn out was amazing.    The attendance was stellar and everyone had a wonderful time while attending various sessions, drinking wine, eating cheese and winning swag!   Thanks AmeriTeach and thank you Denver Colorado for being so hospitable!