If there's one thing I could do without then it is travel, especially when you fly in from Europe. But PDCs have always been worth it - I attended every single one since the ยด96 PDC "Building Internet Applications" in SF. Funny enough, I still have the tote bag from that conference, and it made to this years PDC (again, the bag is a frequent traveller in its own respect). The most durable and useful product I ever got from MS <g />. No patches applied so far.
I spent a good portion of the twelve hour flight watching the 2.2 gig Channel 9 videos I brought with me on the plane. It pays off to have two spare batteries for your laptop (did I mention that I really, really like my X31?). I did resist using the Connexion WLAN that was available on this flight. Somebody else couldn't.
Back to PDCs, especially this year's. Originally, I had planned to pay a visit to the Mono user meeting on Tuesday night, however, they scheduled it during the expo hall reception. In a hotel away from the conferene center. Too bad.