Flew out of Orlando direct to Seattle, leaving at 8:30 and arriving about 1130 am Seattle time. Nice flight, no problems! Waited at the airport for Mike Wells and Bonnie, fellow Florida user group leaders, and then took a limo in to the Sheraton. First time on the limo, found it costs the same as a town car - $45 per trip. Limo seats more, but still same size trunk, so space constrained – could probably put 4 in a limo vs 3 in a town car. Ran into a few PASS people along the way, including Andy Leonard and Karla from Pensacola.

Spent the next next couple hours working in my room, then headed over to the Convention Center to see what was going on. PASS HQ was in busy mode, getting the final stuff done for the 4 pm open of check-in and registration. We tend to take that for granted, but for them it’s a period of high stress, making sure all is ready so that everything goes smoothly. Happy crew though, stress and all!

Went up to check in, we’ve got a big  monitor up with the #sqlpass Twitter feed. Probably fixed by now it was showing time since last post as something like “-42000 seconds”, mildly amusing! Got my bag and tshirt, ended up staying there for about an hour of networking as all the early arrivals came in. At 5:30 met up with some people for a networking dinner, walked down to the market and eventually to Pike Place Bar and Grill, decent food, and a long dinner. About 15 people total at the dinner, nice low key discussion, lots of fun.

Then it was back to the hotel for coffee and more discussion, more networking as there were a lot of attendees in the lounge. Finally called it a day about 10 pm. I’ll try to post more details the rest of the week, funny how it gets busy and the event hasn’t really started yet!