I’m tired, I’ve got a huge backlog of work, I’ve got approximately 3000 SQLCat branded strawberry-flavoured rock sweets in my garage, and thankfully I have no 2-hour conf call planned for tomorrow night. Yes, SQLBits 8 has now been and gone – and if you weren’t there, you missed the best SQLBits yet!
Undoubtedly the highlight for me was getting up on stage to introduce Steve Wozniak at SQLBits Insight on Thursday. I still can’t really believe he came but he did, he hung around and he seemed to enjoy himself. His wife even came down to the registration desk to ask for a SQLBits goody bag for him to take home, as a memento of his trip. The thought of the great man drinking his coffee from a SQLBits mug is beyond strange…
Apart from that brush with celebrity this was definitely the most fun event we’ve done so far. The glorious weather and the location right by the beach in Brighton couldn’t have been a bigger contrast with York in the rain last autumn; and unlike a lot of conferences I’ve been to where the parties feel a bit like school discos, with everyone standing round at the side looking self-conscious, everyone at SQLBits seemed to be having a really good time (the copious free booze probably helped to break the ice). And don’t just take my word for it, read blog posts from other people who were there like Ashley Burton, Richard Back, Per Hejndorf, Sascha Lorenz and many others. Jamie Thomson also did his roving reporter thing again and caught some great moments, including Allan Mitchell holding forth on coffee, plus some technical nuggets that do an excellent job of capturing the spirit of the event.
Anyway, I’d like to finish off by thanking my friends and colleagues on the committee and everyone who came for making it such a great three days. I hope to see you at the next one, whenever and wherever that might be!
