Welcome folks to the second enthralling instalment of 5 days of PASS! As I am sure is about to become very clear, I type with the knowledge that I have a very busy day ahead with various pieces of preparation to complete. The biggest thing that bothers me is that by the time my PASS related workload ends, so will most of the conference. This is perhaps the biggest downside to being involved in events as something more than just an attendee, since you don’t quite get to relax and do as much with your time that you would normally do and your time doesn’t really feel like your own, however if I didn’t enjoy contributing I wouldn’t do it right?!
The highlights of Day 2 can be summarized as follows…
I spent the very first part of the morning working on some of my backlog and eventually had a late breakfast. Bizarrely my waiter didn’t bother pouring me a Coffee and I really didn’t have the energy to ask him for one :). I am still suffering from not feeling 100%, but I think I am starting to improve and do seem to pick up in the evenings. For the rest of the day I worked more presentation materials and then finally quit for the evening to make various engagements.
My first engagement was the SQLSaturday round table in which I found it fascinating listening to all my fellow SQLSaturday leads and how they all expertly run their events. Equally of value was listening to the sponsor perspective and what they expect of you and the event. A huge thank you to SIOS, ApexSQL and Microsoft for contributing to this session, and a big well done to PASS for arranging their involvment.
Right after this round table was the Chapter Leaders meeting in which I attended not just as a Chapter Lead, but as an outgoing RM. Again, listening to fellow Chapter Leaders ideas and passion, and understanding how truly amazing the SQL Community is was quite humbling and there were lots of personal take-aways from this session for me. I’m really happy I attended these sessions.
Tuesday was actually a very busy evening with a selection of out of hours events available. There was the Welcome reception followed by the Volunteer party and finally SQL Karaoke. I am ashamed to say that I didn’t manage to attend any of these (for the first time ever!) and got caught up with a few of my friends chatting whilst having an excellent couple of drinks followed by a most superb meal. There was no Burger and Fries this time for anyone, and each meal was absolutely fantastic -and if I might say, so was their company. I love listening to my peers and what they have to say about their lives, work and future aspirations and their insights into these areas, so thanks to those guys for joining me, it was a great evening and worth the travel to the Summit in itself.
Well, a VERY busy day is about to start, so I wish you all have a happy conference, and if you are nearby the Blogger table (in which I should be on today), please feel free to stop by and say hello. It would be brilliant to meet new and old faces alike!
Bye for now,
Mark.
See also in this series:
5 Days of PASS – Day 5
5 Days of PASS – Day 4
5 Days of PASS – Day 3
5 Days of PASS – Day 1
Filed under: Community, Events, SQL, SQLServerPedia Syndication
