After being in Seattle for 24 hours, I thought I would recap briefly for everyone. After a few travel snafus, the first 24 hours were amazing.

I started off seven pounds over on my suitcase and had to do some last-minute shuffling at the baggage counter to my back pack which did not have much room to begin with. That was after driving in the fog where I could only see ten feet front in front of me. My first flight was delayed 20 minutes for fuel and I only had an hour layover in Atlanta. I was worried and stressed out early in the morning to say the least.

After getting to my gate on time in Atlanta I met a twitter friend from South Africa and that was the first of many great encounters for the next 24 hours. I thought I was out of the woods, only to have someone take my suitcase on the shuttle to the airport. Honest mistake, just an aggravation which caused me to not be able to make the duck tour around the city that I wanted to experience. Then I get to my room in the Sheraton and the air conditioning is not working properly. At this point, I am thinking this is going to be a difficult week.

Things turned around quickly though. I met Tom Fox, another twitter friend, and we took the monorail to the space needle. What a blast that was! Then on the way back Tom and I got hustled into buying a couple of CDs on the street from an up and coming artist. We knew we were being hustled, but it was a fun experience to tell everyone back home.
At that point we registered early for the Summit and got lost in the convention center but then we met lots of twitter friends and received some great swag from the conference. From there we got invited by Pam Shaw, my chapter leader, to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. At that point, I got to meet and eat with Jason Brimhall, Andy Leonard, Amy Lewis, Doug Purnell, Michelle Ufford, Jorge Villalobos, Tim Mitchell, Jim Murphy and a few other presenters that honestly I cannot remember because I am horrible with names. What a great time and the cheesecake was awesome but I never saw Penny or Bernadette, weird. I also got meet Denny Cherry and his wife in the lobby of the Sheraton. I went to bed early because after getting up at 130 I was exhausted and I hoped an early first night would help with the rest of the week’s activities.
For breakfast, I ate with Tom Fox and got to meet Neil Hambly, Mark Broadbent, Amy Lewis, and two others. What a great conversation that was. I then headed to Redgate’s SQL in the City event and met a few new people but what was great was walking in and knowing people there. Now you are up to date. Check back tomorrow to see what happened next!