My first MVP award was on July 1, 2003. I received an email this morning that I have been awarded an MVP (Developer Visual Basic) again. This is my 5th. I am always a little surprised since I never really know year to year what the criteria is. I just do what I do and if that makes Microsoft happy, I find out on July 1st.

I was smart this year to spend every last dollar of the past year’s Microsoft bucks before the end of June. When I was down to $5, I found these cute little “beanie baby” type MSN butterflies for $2.50 each. They will be a fun thing to give to someone’s kid. Not bad for a non-shopper like myself. My nephews got some pc games and Office 2007 Home & Student edition. I was able to get copies of Office for my sister as she expands her business. It’s nice that I can share this benefit with my family, whom I steal time to go to conferences, run my user group, etc. Before the airlines got more strict with their carry-on rules, my husband’s benefit was that I brought home a 6-pack of local brew in my backpack when I did INETA speaker trips to user groups around the country.

Loren is a long time TabletPC guru and developer. He has also been very involved with teh UMPCs. So it was only natural that he wanted to check out an iPhone. He blogged while he stood in line and has written his first impressions, from testing out the touch screen in a bouncy car, how it looks in the sunlight, how the touchscreen works in general,  to wishing there was an open SDK that he could develop against.