I’m writing this at the Seattle airport on Friday night with a couple hours to relax before the midnight flight home. Overall its been a good week. Nothing major went wrong, met a lot of new people, got to see a lot of old friends. Some things that stand out for me:

• The weather was nice. I didn’t need a coat and the sun was out. Wow, nice weather in Seattle, who would have thought?
• Sunday I had lunch with some first timers at Vonn’s – nice to meet new people, nice to make new people feel welcome.
• The Monday night networking party went incredibly well. We ended up with 180 attending over the three hours we were there. We’ll definitely do it again next year!
• Tuesday I hosted the annual SQLSaturday Roundtable discussion and it went much better than last year. We’ve made a lot of improvements and while there were many requests for new features, we’re at least at a point where all the key things work.
• The first timer speed networking event was superb. 900 people in a room talking at once and shifting to a new person every 5 minutes or so. Don Gabor did a wonderful job leading the event. It’s just hard to describe the energy this event generated.
• Wednesday I did my presentation on professional development plans. It went smoothly, good questions, lots of nice sidebars following it, and I continued to chat with some of the attendees as they found me later in the week. I’m hoping to launch part 2 of this one next year.
• On Thursday night I went to the Idera party at the Taphouse, a packed room. A great mix of people from first timers to old hands to MVP’s. I didn’t catch his name, but the guy who did the raffle did a terrific job.
• Friday I hosted the Mentoring table at the Birds of a Feather lunch. Thank you to those that joined me! A terrific exchange of knowledge. Look for more news on mentoring in January.
• Dr Dewitt did an amazing job talking about NoSQL and Hadoop at the Friday morning keynote. Those casual looking slides didn’t get done in a day! Thanks again to him for joining us,and a reminder of my invitation – if he wants to visit SQLSaturday I’m sure we can work him into the schedule!

I did a lot more than that of course. It was a week to recharge,spending some time with old friends helping me figure out some things I want to do next year, and spending some time helping some new friends figure out what they want to do in their careers.

It was a good week, absolutely worth the time and the trip. For all that I’m ready to be home, eat a home cooked meal and spend time with the family.