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.