Greetings from Seattle

6:30PM PST - Because I know there are many of you folks out there who have continuously hitting refresh on their browser looking for a Seattle update, well here's the first official post from the Marriott Waterfront. So far, just about everything that I've read and heard about Seattle has turned out to be true, but let's first talk about last night's flight out here....

It sucked.

Here's a pic of Lisa and Jenny - pre-flight and happy. I'm pretty sure Jenny has one of me and William pre-flight too....CRAP. I think they have post-flight photos too...CRAP AGAIN. Needless-to-say, I'm not a big fan of having my picture taken.

While Lisa, Jenny, and I were forced to sit in "2nd Class", Mr. Flaiz (everyone please call him that from now on) was lucky enough to get a bump to first class before the flight. He's definitely a pimp. All-in-all, the flight itself wasn't too bad, it was just long (which I guess I should have expected when crossing the country). The additional hour sitting on the runway didn't help much either. Oh! And how can I forget to mention the biggest letdown. No food! Well, at least not for those that had to sit with the peasants. We did get to eat when we got here though, had a few drinks, and then went to our rooms to sleep.

Flashing forward to today, the beds here in the Marriott rock...or at least I think so (pic of my room and balcony view below). It's cold and rainy of course, and I didn't pack enough warm clothes. We did catch a tiny glimpse of blue sky this afternoon, but since then, the skies have opened up.

It was day one of SMX Advanced and all of the speaking sessions are now over. All in all, things were OK. I think Jenny, Lisa, William, and I all agree that of all the content presented, we probably only walked away with a few noteworthy things, none of which I'll bore you with at this time. I'm sure we'll be presenting our learnings at a department meeting in the near future. I did get to see Google Superstar Matt Cutts up close though and I love the fact that everyone drools over this guy and they hang on to his every word. Me? I think he's a dork...but yeah, I guess some of the stuff he says is valuable.

So anyways, we're all back in our rooms and getting ready to grab some dinner and some drinks. Later on, SMX is having a networking party so we'll probably just head there for a bit. Just to prove that I'm really out here, here's a stupid pic of me wearing that stupid gray striped sweater that I always wear (and am wearing again tonight). Proof of the blue sky can also be seen.

Jenny's more photogenic and hopefully and she'll be chiming in later as well.

Cheers.