A Little Samba, Anyone...

Got to meet up with my old friend Harry Pierson, and meet his teammates Norman Guadagno and “the lovely Tanya” from the Microsoft Architecture Team who are in Orlando for TechEd at an invitation-only shindig they threw at Samba Room. I had an awesome time, to say the least. Its always great to meet up with old friends and make new, but besides that, the event was amazing! I had heard of Samba Room before and knew it was a latin-focused concept restaurant. What I didn’t know was how well they’ve executed the theme.

First, the restaurant is finished with dark polished wood – all over the place. Floors, walls, you name it. Second, its nicely lit. Third, its really well decorated… capturing and delivering a real latin feel. The food was great, service excellent, the cocktails better and the company awesome!

The restaurant hooked the Microsoft folks up with Sosa Cigars, a family owned and operated cigar shop with a location near the Virgin Megastore (I always get a kick out of that name) in Downtown Disney. I got to meet one of the principals, and had a chance to see one of his folks hand-rolling cigars. Great fun, and a great smoke, although I don’t often indulge. Samba Room sits right on the edge of a lake on Sand Hill Road, and that provided a great atmosphere for a drink and a smoke. It was a BLAST.

I’ll definitely return to Samba Room and entertain there. And, I have to hand it to Tanya, who organized the event, for pulling it off. Its tough to get over a hundred folks with similar interests but many of whom have never met to coalesce into a party. But, it worked. I learned more about what Harry and his team do, had a chance to talk with a couple of experts in areas I’m interested in, and even offered a little advice to one of the System Integrators that attended who’d dealing with company growth issues.

It was great to dip my foot back in the Tech world with this event. It was another reminder that Microsoft has not just the money but also the talent to do many things well. Whatever you think about the company or the products, they did that last night…