The last two days have been an absolute blur. As I first posted this week, I had planned to blog daily about my goings-on, but I’ve been running nonstop – all good things, fortunately – but it interrupted my plans to blog every day.
Day 3: Tuesday
08:00am: Headed back to the MVP Summit. Rain again.
06:00pm: Back in Seattle, and off to the BI Over Beers event with my friends from Varigence.
10:30pm: More karaoke at the event sponsored by Denny Cherry and SIOS. Lots of fun, but it’s really loud and crowded (or perhaps I’m getting old). I take some pictures, including a few incriminating mechanical bull snapshots, and head back to the hotel. Surprisingly in bed by midnight again.
Day 4: Wednesday
08:15am: Today is the first full day of the SQL PASS Summit. It’s keynote time. Usually the first-day keynote is marketing heavy, and that is the case for today. There are several interesting demos, including one from PIer 1 in which they are mapping store traffic areas using the Kinect (yes, the XBox gaming interface) to detect which areas of their stores are most heavily trafficked.
10:30am: I’m sitting in Ryan Adams’ session on AlwaysOn. This is a bit outside my area of expertise, so it’s good to see some of this administrative stuff.
11:45pm: Lunch with the Microsoft executives. I love how open they are to chatting with community influencers.
12:30pm: Hanging out at the Linchpin People booth in the exhibitor area. Lots of great conversations with friends and passersby.
06:00pm: It’s time for the exhibitor reception. We are getting lots of folks at the Linchpin booth! Looking forward to seeing these folks at our party later tonight.
08:00pm: Linchpin People party at the Rhein Haus. We’re hanging out with about 150 of our closest friends, learning to play bocce ball. It was great seeing some folks I know and meeting some new ones.
12:15pm: Back at the room, exhausted.
Day 5: Thursday
08:00am: Arrived in the keynote room a bit early. A much smaller crowd than yesterday. Sadly, I fear that the marketing presentation yesterday may have scared away some of the attendees, but today is likely the content they really came to hear.
10:00am: Dr. Rimma Nehme is one of the best speakers I’ve heard at a PASS Summit, ever. She’s done a great job of laying out the cloud offerings and how they might fit into a larger data ecosystem.
10:30am: Hanging out at the Linchpin booth, thinking through my session for this afternoon.
11:15am: I found the speaker lounge (not to be confused with the speaker ready room). We have an actual fire pit in here. And snacks.
01:30pm: My presentation entitled “Building Bullet-Resistant SSIS Packages”. Wow, what a crowd! Rough guess, 325 people including those sitting and standing in the back of the room. Thanks everyone for coming and for staying awake and engaged (which I know can be difficult right after lunch 
).
02:45pm: And my official work at the PASS Summit is officially done. Now time to enjoy some sessions and networking. First thing: Meet up with my friend Phil to talk through a Biml problem he’s having.
04:45pm: On my way to a session and I run into one of the guys from Pluralsight. They’ve been doing some cool things lately, and I’m considering partnering with them to do some online content.
06:00pm: I missed lunch today due to my presentation. Grabbing a quick bite with my friend Rafael Salas.
07:00pm: Stopping by the attendee party at the EMP Museum. I was here two years ago for that year’s attendee party, but I ended up chatting with a bunch of folks and never even made it past the lobby. This year I took a little time to explore the museum. I particularly enjoyed the shrine to Nirvana.
09:30pm: A half-hour of actual downtime in my hotel room, before heading out to meet some friends.
12:45am: Exhausted but happy. What a great day.
Tomorrow is the last day of the summit. Normally, I’m ready for some quiet me-time by the end of the week, but this year I’m very much looking forward to networking as much as possible before I leave on Saturday.
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