My Apologies

Sorry about the ridiculously long gap in blog posts.  Not only is November the start of the holiday season, but it's also the month of this year's PASS 2006 Community Summit.

For some reason, I was about 10 times as busy with PASS business this year as in previous years.  Plus, I was under the weather before, during, and after the conference.  During the conference itself, I was commonly seeing days that began at 6:00 am and continued until midnight.  So I was extraordinarily busy.  On top of that, I simply collapsed into a heap of badly needed R&R upon my return home for the entirety of last week and hardly cracked open my laptop all week.

I did, however, post some pictures and stories related to my week at PASS on my personal blog.  I encourage you to take a peak there if you can put up with my constant gushing about my kids and my personal musings.

In the meanwhile, here are some quick notes about the PASS conference.  First, it was our biggest ever, with total attendance of more than 2300.  Second, it was our best executed event to date, with very few complaints or issues.  Finally, it was a landmark year for us in terms of Microsoft executive support, highlighted by the Thursday morning keynote presented by Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer.  On a personal level, it was also a great year because we were able to bring such a large cross-section of our community together with the industry's best known writers, speakers, MVPs, and Microsoft SQL Server team members. 

It's always enormously satisfying for me to encounter people who say something like "What a great conference.  I can't wait to come back next year."  I have to tell you that statements like that totally make my week.

I'm always interested in applying your feedback toward making the PASS Summit even better.  Feel free to drop me a note with feedback from the event or even experiences at other events that greatly added to your experience at [email protected].

Cheers!

-Kevin