PASS Summit Day 1.5

So this is the first official day of Summit, but since I got here in the middle of the day yesterday, I’m cramming a brief post in combining yesterday and today.  I could sum up the experience in one word:

Awesome.

I have met SO many people face to face that I normally follow on twitter and other social tools, and it’s been amazing to sit and chat with other SQL geeks.  I ended up buying the DVD set today because I had too many sessions to attend, and too many people to chat with.  It’s truly inspiring to hang out with a bunch of intelligent people who are really passionate about what they do.

Highlights:

• Pinal Dave stole my pen.  Well, he actually borrowed it to fill out his sqlbingo card, and then forgot it.  It’s OK, because I know if I make him feel guilty, he’ll fly back to the States from India to bring it to me.  And I could make him speak at our newsgroup.
• SQLBingo has not taken off as well as I had hoped, but it’s going OK.  They’re drawing the first two winners tomorrow morning, and I hope to pitch it harder tomorrow.  I forget that just because I’m a social person, not everyone else is.
• I learned some new stuff at Michelle Ufford’s presentation on VLDB’s.  Need to check things when I get back in the office to see if they’ll help some performance issues.
• Met Patrick Leblanc, Tim Mitchell, Lori Edwards, Jeff Rush, etc., etc.,etc…
• Met Remus Rusanu today after Brent Ozar’s session, and was told by him that he liked some of my responses on StackOverflow.  That really made my day, because he gives some great advice on that website.
• Kevin Kline gave me AND the user group autographed copies of his latest book.
• MidnightDBA gave me free stuff.
  

LetDowns:

• I didn’t win any blogging awards.  More incentive to keep working at it.
• I realized I should have submitted something to present.  Paul Waters and I made a pact to come up with 3 submission ideas for next year.

OK, I’m officially out of steam.  More to do tomorrow.