Day 3, pre-DCA

Day 3 is winding down, tho, sadly, the smell of boiled Maryland crab and Old Bay lingers pretty much wherever we go. Allison, Jenn, and I are sitting in the atrium of the hotel waiting for Karen to finish her last session and then it's off to DCA we go.

Wherever I've gone today I've heard stories about the fairly epic levels of partying last night. After 10 pm, lots of people went upstairs to the hotel's disco (that's right, we're calling it a disco) the Sky Bar, and things went on til at least 2:30 am. There's a tale of some man who lost some kind of bet and was then forced to wear a navy blue Deltek sweater vest with no shirt underneath; sadly, I didn't see him last night or I would have chased him around with my camera.

Accountants Gone Wild

Tonight was the big party, Celebrate Insight, and it was, as always, a lot of fun -- good food, lots of loud music, and, as Karen pointed out, a lot of accountants letting their hair down.

Crabs. Lots of 'em.

Crab wranglers

Click play -- sound definitely suggested.

These are for Britt, especially

Which of the GovWin Girls rode the mechanical surfboard and, prior to understanding exactly what the thing did, declared "I don't care what it is, I'll go on it..."?

Beer and Haagen-Dazs FTW

Dancing Karens

Cha-cha'ing

Making friends in the lobby. Bit waxy.

Oh, and in case you were interested, hotel engineering had to come up, haul the fool safe out of the armoire and drill holes in it to basically break in and rescue the laptop -- over an hour of waiting and working on it total. They left a new safe behind that I am avoiding. Sheesh.

breaking bad

okay, allison and i have been watching different parties of hotel people attempt to get into my safe which i locked this morning and is now, in the words of one of the hotel people, "acting the fool". mind you we could be noshing & boozing it up. hopefully this saga ends soon.

My kingdom for a cow

Medium coffee, Viennese roast... and there is no dairy *anywhere* to add. Moo.

Day 2

It's lunchtime at the Gaylord National and we're refueling over baked stuffed potatoes and chili. Sessions today have been useful, tho Allison wandered in to an Advanced Deployment session and finally called it quits after 30 minutes of talking over integrating Windows security in IIS... I, of course, stayed and enjoyed further talk of Virtual Machines (supported or not) and SQL Report Services. Juicy stuff my friends... no really, it is, and I love it.

Day 1 wrap up

Day 1 is in the bag and it seems we all learned a good deal both useful (at the conference sesssions) and useless (a cell phone next to your hotel keycard will demagnetize it - fun!). Tonight was our free night so we 4 went walking in the chilly evening air looking at menus and getting a bit of fresh air before dinner during which I ate half a cow disguised as a cheeseburger. Tomorrow we start over with (hopefully) recharged brains.

Oi

I'm fairly sure that I was sitting next to a woman who, at last year's conference and during the session I was presenting, uttered a sound like a wounded walrus when I told the attendees that our firm uses Lotus Notes for email.

Day 1, update

We are here, up to our necks in wonders of Deltek, us and 3,000+ of our closest buds. I managed to track down the other GGs over breakfast and from there we went to the keynote address which is, always, quite a production with lots of loud music and flashing lights, etc. Brings me back to my nightclubbing days, though without the cigarette smoke (not mine, generally), cocktails (mine, nearly always), and hideous restrooms (bleh).

The first surprise of the day was a musical number at the opening -- students from the Duke Ellington School sang and danced through a rousing song that was all about 'the best is yet to come', etc. They were quite excellent though their youthful energy and abundance of talent made me feel very dorky indeed, not really a stretch considering I'd been up since 3:45 am.

Then several speakers, all quite good, including the president of Deltek, and reps from several Deltek customers including the firm that built the new Dallas Cowboys stadium which, truly, is amazing and a bit disgusting in it's redundant hugeness. Finally, Dave Barry, the humorist/author/etc., arrived and spent at least 45 minutes being incredibly random and really very funny -- Allison and Karen N were wiping away tears of mirth, and Jenn and I did a fair amount of chuckling on our own. 

All in all, I'd have to say that Dave Barry's speech reminded me all too strongly of some books that my kiddo has become entranced with, all of which begin with offering an animal some food and that gesture going 9 million different ways into random activity.  If you're not familiar with what I'm talking about, let me suggest "If You Give A Moose A Muffin," which is, thus far, certainly my favorite of the bunch. Wait, where am I going with this... ah well.

Insight 2010... obscene earliness

First day of Deltek Insight 2010. Or it will be once the sun comes up. It's 4:47 am and I'm waiting to go to the airport to catch my flight to WDC to meet up with Allison, Jenn, and Karen. It is really far too early for a human to be awake. And chewing gum. And blogging, for that matter. Interestingly, it turns out that even I don't have much of an appetite at this hour of the morning; I put my yogurt back in the fridge uneaten. All bets are off by the time 6:00 am rolls around, though. Oh, the cabbie is a bit early, bless him. Off to Logan.