I’ve already made my own intentions clear. I’m casting one of my votes for Allen Kinsel. But, I get three votes. Some of you may be asking yourselves, why didn’t recommend two other candidates?

Honesty time.

First, no one else asked me to. I’m actually glad of this. If I received requests for help from more than three of the candidates, I would be very hard pressed to choose. Yes, I ultimately have to, but I don’t have to publicly reject anyone. At this point, it looks like I’m ready to vote for every other candidate. That’s a good thing from my standpoint, maybe not so much from theirs. However, if anyone wanted a little help, they should have asked. That’s a good policy with life in general.

Second, I want Allen on the board. Rather than tell you three people to vote for and watch votes possibly dissipate, I want you focused on one thing, Allen… and two other people. This is pure selfishness on my part, but hey, look at that, I’m the Scary DBA. I get to be selfish on my own blog.

Third, I’m kind of stuck. I know where my second vote it is going (and no, I’m not going to tell you), but I am frankly agonizing a little about my third vote. Look at this list. If you know these people as I do, you’d be stuck too.

Fourth, I’m actually considering not casting a third vote because of how this EMEA/Open/US thing is laid out. It makes me think we could see someone win the vote, but not get the seat and that kind of sucks. Discussion on it here. That might be something to address in the future. It feels wonky, but maybe that’s just me. Note, I said considering. Nothing is carved in stone here and I get three votes, pretty sure I’ll use them all. Think of it like Chicago, vote early & often.

Finally, like every single election ever held, to a degree, this is a popularity contest. And I honestly hate that. I hate it about all elections (traditionally, prettier people win, and just how messed up is that), but especially about this one because these are all my friends and I’m going to see friends win and see friends lose. Trust me when I tell you, the friends who lose will be very unhappy. Just be glad that the vote results will be announced next week, not at the Summit the way they used to be. Great googly moogly that made for some really depressing (if, later, fun-filled) evenings (if you weren’t there, you weren’t there). It was much simpler to point to one friend out of many and give you good reasons to vote for him (that’s Allen Kinsel by the way in case anyone lost the thread).

At this point, voting is open. If you met the qualifications you’ve received your email. Go get it done.

Thank you to everyone involved in this. Thanks to the Nominations Committee. It’s a pretty horrible job, but you stepped up and took care of business. Thanks to each and every person who volunteered to run for the board. You’re all better and braver than I.

Oh, and if you are eligible and you don’t vote, please do not let me hear you complaining about how PASS is run. This is your moment to make a difference. If you don’t take it, you just gave up the right to complain about the outcome.