If the path to a man’s heart lies through his stomach, then golf is the Cour’souvra for his soul. All kidding, aside it was awesome to get the CEO treatment from Microsoft RIA evangelist Josh Holmes. The funny part is I wouldn’t have had the opportunity if I hadn’t run into Josh at the Mid-Michigan FlexCamp last week–its a strange world.

There are a few takeaways from the whole experience:

• RIA nerds, regardless of their platform of choice, are more alike than different. It’s not a zero sum world and we should dialog / get together more often.
• After talking to Josh I’m totally stoked to see the Silverlight apps and video MSNBC has put together for the Olympics. I hope its a “shock and awe” effort that propels RIA and web video forward.
• Michigan is a great place to live and work. We’ve got bright, funny, down to earth people, world-class universities, great quality of life, affordable cost of living and fantastic entertainment options. Through tech connections I’ve been to Major League Baseball, NHL and big time college football games. Yesterday though, was the icing on the cake. There aren’t too many places where you get to see major championship golf tournaments and Oakland Hills is a national treasure worth seeing on its own. The best part is there’s so much still left to do and see (NFL, NBA, auto racing, etc.).
• We ran into a PGA-IT staff member, Kevin Donahue, at the event and it turns out the PGA is excited about Adobe AIR and is using an AIR app for its POS system (weird how nerdy we managed to make a golf outing). AIR has a ton of potential. In my view, Adobe is riding a big wave in the deep ocean–its going to be interesting to see just how high the crest actually is.

It was a fantastic day and I’d like to once again thank Josh Holmes and Microsoft for their generosity. My expectations for tech evangelism just went sky high. ;-)

For those inclined, there’s a photostream below the fold (pretty much straight from the camera as I haven’t had a chance to weed and color correct).