Quick recap of yesterday afternoon: blur! I know I did stuff, but the pace is brisk and I’m just keeping critical notes for follow through. Hard to convey how much fun and tiring it is to continuously interact with different people over the course of a 16 hour day. From breakfast to midnight a lot going on. The best part of the day was having dinner. I invited attendees of my professional development presentation to join me for dinner, between that and Twitter we had 16 of us go to Von’s after the Microsoft sponsored event at Gameworks.

Breakfast at the Convention Center today, then up to meet people waiting for the keynote to start. Rick Heiges leading off with a thank you to Lynda Rabb, she’s wrapping up six years on the Board. I’m sorry to see her leaving, she’s done a lot of good over those years. Then the projector bulb popped on the screen on the far left, minor interruption. Rick talking about growing to 250,000 members and delivering 1 million training hours. Great goals, ambitious goals for the next five years. Now announcing SQLRally, decent amount of applause. Announcing pre-con winners, see the web site at www.sqlrally.com, registration is also open. Come to Orlando in May 2011!

Next is 24 Hours of PASS coming in the spring, theme not yet announced. Some fun selecting the Wheel of SQL winner, a contest that was running this week. Next Summit is Oct 11-14 in Seattle, going back to having two pre-con days instead of one day pre-con and one day post-con. Registration is open, $995 for the three day Summit, $1295 for the entire week. Great bundle. Tell the boss if you register now what you save will cover your travel costs compared to registering late next year.

Dr Dewitt up next talking about query optimization and the blogger table has largely stopped typing, enthralled! I stopped taking notes at that point too. He talked a lot about statistics and techniques for reducing the number of plans the optimizer has to consider. Really deep topic, looking forward to watching it again on the Summit DVD’s.

The lunch theme was chapters, this year instead of one table per chapter it was broken up into regions. Everyone got a map when they came in the door so they could easily find their table. I joined the southeast region, we ended up needing more tables. After I was done eating I spent an hour walking through the chapter lunch area, at most tables I knew someone and could meet someone else at their table, and it was a chance to ask how they were doing at the event.

My afternoon schedule was mercifully light, a break until 3:30 was nice. From 3:30 to 5 pm I was in an Election Review Committee meeting, and then moved next door for the Meet the Board meeting from 5:30 to 7. The meeting went well, more attendance this year, probably 35-40. I think we’d get a lot more if we can find time earlier in the week, last part of the last day just isn’t great timing. I will see if we can get the notes posted online next week. Lots of good discussion, and thank you to all that attended! Incredibly valuable for the Board to hear what you think.

After that I had a dinner meeting, then a pleasant walk back to the hotel about 10 pm for coffee with my friend Sri, and then just done!

Between the afternoon meetings and going right to dinner it feels like I missed the end of the Summit. I said it last year and will repeat, we need a way to finish well. It’s great to watch Twitter to see everyone saying goodbye, fairly effective, but I wish it was hand shakes and hugs at the door of the Convention Center instead.