Volunteer meetings, PASS business, PASS SIG Quizbowl, Welcome Reception, SQL Server Central Party and the subsequent after party and after-after party, General Session and four breakout sessions and man is my brain tired!

It’s all just a part of being at PASS and being involved in PASS.  Sure it is a great deal of work, but it is also a great deal of fun.  It was brought up in our day-long volunteer meeting yesterday that you may be an attendee, but until you volunteer in some level, you don’t really feel like a member of the community.  From someone who has been a volunteer since their first summit in January 2002 it is hard to explain what that sense of community feels like.  It’s akin to explaining a sunset to a blind person.  Well, maybe I am prone to hyperbole.

The general session provided a nice inside look at some of the upcoming features of (surprise) SQL Server 2008.  It was also noted that there will be no price increase for 2008 versus 2005.

After the general session it was time to make those hard choices that come with wanting to be in two or more places at a time:  which sessions to take?  The good news with PASS 2007 is that each session is being recorded and attendees will be able to view them online at a later time on demand.  On that note I chose the following sessions:

 Notification Services, by Joe Webb

Optimizing High Performance SQL Systems Using Lessons Learned From Customer Deployments (A Microsoft-presented session that used MySpace as the basis of the discussion)

Database Recovery For The Paranoid DBA, by James Luetkehoelter (always an engaging speaker.)

Disk Configuration for the Microsoft SQL Server DBA, by Allan Hirt

Now it’s on to the vendor exposition to pimp myself out for swag.  The kids need more tee-shirts to sleep in!

Oh, James L. reminded us that it was International Talk Like A Pirate Day!  (Wow, hard to believe it’s been a year since the last one.)  So on that note let me close by saying

Gar Maytee!