So I got myself registered to go to the MIX coming up from April 30th to May 2nd in Las Vegas.  I am really looking forward to this conference for a number of reasons.  Some of the highlights of the conference as I see them are:

• First stop in the trifecta of Microsoft conferences this year.  Now that Vista and Office have launched, it clears the way for a number of new cool tools for developers and designers to use.  This year we have Mix in May, TechEd in June and the PDC in the fall to learn about all the new tools coming out.  I have no inside knowledge about what they will and won't announce at Mix (honest!), but I assume that we will see some cool new stuff.
  
• Michael Arrington of TechCrunch and Crunchnotes.  I have been reading Techcrunch since the readership was in the 60,000 person range (it is now read by over 318,000 people).  I really like Mike's contribution to Web 2.0 and he always has some insightful commentary.  I know some people hate him, but I really like his writing style and you can not argue that he is plugged in.  I understand he will be part of the keynotes.
  
• Glowing Apples and RoR Developers.  Microsoft is trying very hard to make this a conference about the web, not about Microsoft (Go to the PDC or TechEd if you want 100% Microsoft).  I hope to see a lot of Macbooks at the conference and a lot of conversations about non-Microsoft technologies.  Even though I work for Microsoft, I am a technologist first and foremost and I am just as likely to got to a talk on Ruby on Rails as on ASP.NET.
  
• Burger Bar.  I don't gamble, so in many ways Las Vegas is wasted on me.  Last year I discovered the Burger Bar, which is in the skywalk between the Luxor and the Mandalay Bay hotels.  Home of the best burgers ever.  It is quite a haul from the Venitian to the Burger Bar, but it is worth the trip.

I hope to see you there.  If you can't make it, be sure to set your RSS Readers to this blog.  I will try and put up a entry at least once a day from the conference.