Logical Days? Well, the Conference doesn’t /technically/ start until Wednesday (tomorrow, as I’m writing this), but, 1) we’re here, and 2) I really do think of Pre-Cons and other organized functions as part of the conference itself, so these days counted for me.
Monday
Our conference trip started at 1:30 PM Central Daylight on Monday. With pushback scheduled for 4:45, this was wayyy out of whack for my usual scheduling. Because of how long it had been since we had flown, I didn’t know what security would look like at BNA or how long the process itself would take these days. Turns out, there have been little changes in the duration of things, so we wound up downstream of Checkpoint Charlie almost 2 hours before preboarding would start. Damn.
Anyway, ~5 hours later, we were in the back of a black Tahoe being driven by a Russian dude. I didn’t arrange the ground transportation; I was merely a pawn in a greater game passenger.
One of THE places to hang out & see people at, other than the Sheraton Lobby, of course, is the Tap House (it plays music, I’m sorry). We went there for supper, along with a couple of Tammy’s coworkers that are here. They have 160 beers on tap, and I had a few different Porters throughout the night. I was able to meet a good chunk of SQL Celebrities for the first time, and it’s always kind of fun to meet people like this. Twitter’s really good at making this happen—you feel like you’ve known these people for half your life, yet you’ve never actually met face to face. This happens a lot. In fact, because of my whole picture situation (I’ve got the Ray Bans on in all of the close-ups), Jorge Segarra (blog | @SQLChicken) was beginning to think that I was just a well-written bot. I thought that was pretty funny. For all you may know, he’s right.
Then there was the Mladen (blog | @MladenPrajdic) stuff, but I think that’s under NDA.
Long story short, we finally got back to the hotel at 0300 Tuesday morning. We’re off to a good start.
Tuesday
- Seattle Transit Tunnel
Tuesday was mostly uneventful. We had an errand to run in the morning, which involved the usual public transportation crash course that happens in a new city. Turns out Seattle has this cool underground tunnel system for busses in the central downtown area. It’s just like the subway, except the bus routes run through there when they’re in the area. It’s a bit weird & pretty cool.
Tonight there were a few official events. The first was a First-Timers orientation & mixer session. We decided late to not go to that, instead going straight to the Welcome Reception/Quiz Bowl. The Quiz Bowl is where pairs (or three) SQL Server “Experts” compete in a Jeopardy!™-style competition where they basically are subject to the whims of Tim Ford (blog | @SQLAgentMan). Many LOLs ensue. After that was the SQL Server Central/Red Gate Exceptional DBA Presentation/Party. Got to meet Steve Jones (blog | @Way0utWest) finally, along with lots of other community members.
Of course, there is more SQL Karaoke going on tonight, but we decided that after the night we had last night, and the nights that we will have for the rest of the week, we should take it easy once. Just about to pass out for the night, to be rested for tomorrow and all of the crazy learning (and just crazy) that will be going on for the next few days.
I’m here now, and I still can’t wait for whatever is going to happen next #sqlpass
[…] or start cleaning the house on a Tuesday morning. So, now, I’m finally going to finish what was a little series (err.. OK, two posts don’t a series make) about PASS Summit with this post, which will […]