First of all the Summit was a great success for SQLServerCentral.com and PASS. There was good attendance, lots of Microsoft people, a nice location, and no hurricanes. The SQLServerCentral.com party went off great as well. We'd booked Aaron's casino, who did a fantastic job, and you can see them getting ready here for the party:

We had a great response to our efforts to get people to attend the PASS Summit and as a result, we had quite a good sized referral fee from PASS to spend on the party. In addition to the casino games, we had a number of prizes, over 40, as we opted for quantity over size. We had been tempted to give away a laptop, but rather than have one or two big prizes, we went with many little prizes to spread things out. You can see Andy and Brian the day of the party out gathering a few prizes from the local Circuit City:

We got setup early and you can see Brian here with the pile of prizes behind him. In addition to an iPod Nano and 2 Shuffles, we had 15 DVDs, 4 or 5 DVD Trivia games, a photo picture frame, 4 or 5 retro video games that hook to your TV, some wireless headphones, a programmable robot and a few more things.

We had about 15 tables of games and as you can see, there were quite a few people enjoying the games. You can see craps, blackjack, and two of our poker tables.

I gave away two prizes for the next roll of a certain number. The first time I picked 11 and it took only 2 rolls for someone to get the prize. The second time I made a mistake since I'm not really familiar with craps. I said the next 7 would win, not understanding that the same person rolls until they get a 7. My bad and apologies to the people that

We had three Texas Hold-Em tables where you can see the concentration was high. These were the places for the real gamblers while blackjack was more for fun.

We gave a way a number of prizes for various hands being drawn. For example I'd approach a table with a prize and give it to the next blackjack. Or the next 3 of a kind, etc.

We also had the opportunity to spend a few minutes with various people that attended. Here you can see Jamie Thomson and Bill Wunder, two friends of SQLServerCentral and Microsoft MVPs. Jamie has contributed quite a bit to the site and Bill has been a longtime friend and someone that I enjoy seeing the few times a year I get up to Boulder.

The rest of the Summit was mostly a blur and I apologize for not taking more pictures. It's one of those things that's not always on my mind. I did get Kathi Kellenberger, Dale Corey, Alex Ji, Chris Hedgate and the three of us in the one above. And as you can see below, Peter Shire of sqlSentry and Kevin Hadas, our salesman, stopped to talk with us at the Expo.

After the Tuesday night party, the three of us get involved in the business side of the conference. Andy and Brian presented on Wednesday, but the three of us also had our annual board meeting, taking some time to talk about the business and site and how we can make things better for all of you. And of course, ensuring that this community continues to thrive as a business.

The Gaylord is a great hotel and rather extravagant in many ways. The main atrium has large water spouts and a very open atmosphere, with the roof made of glass and 8 or 10 stories above the main level. The three of us relaxed outside the coffee shop for part of Wednesday.

And we weren't the only ones, Bill Baker, GM of the BI unit, was relaxing nearby as well.

Thursday was a day of attending a few sessions, including a memorable one from Joe Celko. Memorable in only one way, I'd avoid any future ones. But that's my opinion. He's a smart guy and you should make your own judgement. We saw a few more people and handed out quite a few Starbucks gift cards as well to those members of the community.

The next US Summit is already scheduled for November 14-17 in Seattle and the '07 one will be in my hometown of Denver. If you've never been, you really should go. And if you've been, you know how great an event it is and how much fun the SQLServerCentral.com reception will be. We're planning on doing another Casino night and including lots more prizes, hopefully 100 or more next year.

I know corporations watch their budgets carefully, but get a registration in this year and it will be less than $1000!!!! That's almost half price, which is a great savings to your budget. If you have any training money left over, use the "SSC" source code and register now! This is the time to do it and you could always substitute another person later if need be.

Remember, "SSC" as the source code and you'll have a great time at the 06 Summit in Seattle with hundreds (literally) of the SQL Server development team!