We enjoyed it Gil, thanks for bringing us. I agree that there was a lot of buzz and it ran right through the end instead of people trying to escape as you see with many conferences. I kept hearing over and over that that was the best DEC to date.
I think in addition to all of the folks you mention below are the constantly returning attendees who in many ways are contributing just like the presenters and MVPs. It certainly adds to the feeling of a nice friendly user group, people are talking to each other and recognizing each other from previous DECs and having a generally great time. I personally knew it was DEC when I saw Hunter and Stuart as they are seemingly permanent attendees. If I attended a DEC and they weren't there I would feel lost. :o) Also of course it is great to see the Microsoft folks there. At this point, they practically seem like family members to many of us, hey look it is cousin Brian or cousin Nathan or uncle Stuart.... I think that is great for the sense of community. My biggest regret for the show itself was not having enough time to actually touch base with all of the folks I had met at the previous DECs and the new folks whose names I knew but hadn't seen a face. Hopefully I can pull it off next year. Until then, good luck to all of the DEC friends including both the year after year returnees and the newbies. Oh yeah, as the others mentioned, Christine and Stella were lovely as always. They always amaze me with how they recognize everyone and recall their names even when they are extremely busy, I purposely don't wear my name tag when going up to them just to test them and they always pass. I thought I had tripped Christine up at first when I walked into the preconference session and she started to kick me out saying it wasn't ready yet and then she recovered and was like, "oh its you, come on in". Again, quite impressive. :) To make sure this has something to do with the list... Tony, I refused to order wine since you weren't there to pick it out. Better luck next year. :o) joe (I put the j into www.jadonex.com) -- O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition - http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Gil Kirkpatrick Sent: Friday, March 31, 2006 3:30 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [ActiveDir] Thanks to all who came to DEC 2006 Thank you to everyone on the list who came to DEC this year and helped make it a success. I've had nothing but positive comments ranging from "really great" to "un-f***ing-believably great". I've had four different people tell me (including Stuart) that if they can only go to one show a year, DEC would be it. Certainly the Joe & Dean Show stands out as a popular (and hillarious, and informing) event, but even more critical to the show's success was having the expertise of people like joe, Dean, Guido, Ulf, Jorge, Laura, Wook, and the other list-denizens wandering the halls and talking to people. There was a _scary_ amount of expertise attending the show, and _that's_ what brings people back. One of the things I do during DEC is wander the halls during the parties and between sessions and listen in on the conversations... I usually don't pick up on anything specific, but I can usually get a sense of the conversation... is it positive/negative, is it energetic, are the people engaged, etc. And this year the halls were positively buzzing, all the way through the final sessions on Wednesday afternoon. It has _never_ been like that before. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank joe, Ulf, Dean, and Laura for helping Guido and me with the pre-conference disaster recovery workshop. They wandered into the room where we were setting up, and stayed with us till well after midnight testing and configuring the lab systems. Hmmm... funny, that's about when the Scotch ran out as well... :) To give you an idea of how cool these guys are, they showed up at the workshop the next morning around 7:30 (after getting very little sleep the night before) and spent the next several hours configuring the IP settings in the 150+ lab VMs because the code I wrote to automate the process crashed and burned. And then they spent the rest of the workshop helping the attendees get connected to the wireless net, helping them do the exercises, answering questions, etc. etc. All voluntary, just to help out. I have to give special thanks to Jorge for running through the pre-conference lab docs until about 3:00 in the morning, just out of the goodness of his heart. Jorge is touring the Southwest US for the next couple of weeks with his girlfriend Nellika (sp?) and I hope he has a great trip. And double-special-thanks to Guido for partnering with me to produce the whole pre-conference workshop. Guido spent more nights and weekends than either of us want to remember to put the workshop together, and I certainly could not have done it without him. As big a PITA as it was, working with Guido made it a lot of fun.... except for the part when the VMs started to blue-screen an hour before the workshop was supposed to start. That part truly sucked. :) Thanks again to all of you who came, and I hope those who couldn't make this year can make it next year. -gil -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Grillenmeier, Guido Sent: Friday, March 31, 2006 12:37 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Quiet? DEC? Related? > $20 of it was spent showing Guido how US slot machines worked in the Belagio. and that was so complicated to learn :-) Obviously I lost all of what I've put into the machines as well (hadn't expected anything else) - a whopping $12! But now I can gamble all I want since on the last day I went to the M&M world-store on the strip and bought a Slot-Machine-Type of M&M dispenser for my kids - it's way cool and I'm sure I'll use it more often than they will ;-)) -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of joe Sent: Donnerstag, 30. März 2006 19:00 To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Quiet? DEC? Related? Would be interested in hearing the survery results. Oh that reminds me, I forgot to hand mine in. :o) I had to fly out Wed evening and was running around like my shorts were on fire trying to take care of some stuff that was absolutely mandatory prior to trying to get through security at McCarran. I would say that venue would be suitable for next year unless Sydney was an option... You could rent a jumbo jet and fly everyone going to the presession down in it and actually have the presession on the flight, that would certainly make it seem like the flight went faster. My return ticket though would have to be valid for a month as I know a lot of folks down there and would need to go say hi and collect on some beers I am owed. Odd thing is I spent no more than $60 on gambling. $20 of it was spent showing Guido how US slot machines worked in the Belagio. $20 was spent when I was passing a $1 Wheel of Fortune progressive slot on the way to the rest room because it called out to me and said it would make me financially independent for the rest of my natural born life (it lied), and finally $20 was spent while I sat at a bar playing Jacks or Better waiting on Dean and company to go to dinner not realizing that they didn't see me sit down next to them and were waiting on me to get there. I was up $80 bucks on that thing and then gave it all back. joe (The joe of the Dean and joe show, the j in www.jadonex.com) -- O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition - http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Gil Kirkpatrick Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 6:07 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Quiet? DEC? Related? Just wrapped up Day 3. 530 people. General consensus is that it was the best DEC ever. More to follow when I can type on something bigger than a credit card. -gil -----Original Message----- From: "Ayers, Diane" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Sent: 3/29/06 1:23 PM Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Quiet? DEC? Related? Maybe we should ask a question on the merits of doubling down on an 11 when the dealer has a face card showing... :-) Diane ________________________________ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Almeida Pinto, Jorge de Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 9:35 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Quiet? DEC? Related? Don't worry.... we're still here.. ;-) Met vriendelijke groeten / Kind regards, Ing. Jorge de Almeida Pinto Senior Infrastructure Consultant MVP Windows Server - Directory Services LogicaCMG Nederland B.V. (BU RTINC Eindhoven) ( Tel : +31-(0)40-29.57.777 ( Mobile : +31-(0)6-26.26.62.80 * E-mail : <see sender address> ________________________________ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Moon, Brendan Sent: Wed 2006-03-29 19:26 To: [email protected] Subject: [ActiveDir] Quiet? DEC? Related? Hmm.. everyone must be having fun at DEC... this list has been very quiet this week! - Brendan Moon List info : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/ List info : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/ List info : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/ List info : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/ List info : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/
