OK seriously it’s the best I could do. We keep having these and I’m going to need to keep posting with goofy titles.

This time I was there in one small capacity: Sponsor Entourage. Initech has sponsored every single Ignite event thus far, which is cool. So this time all I had to do was show up early as part of the cow-orker carpool and that was fantastic! Plus, Teh Scoot and I got a new video camera That Very Day which was shipped to my office so I got to try it out on unsuspecting presenters. Here are my thoughts in no particular order:

* YAY sponsor video! It’s so much faster and I liked the interstitial graphics and some of the videos were creative and fun. However this is a missed opportunity for geeks to scream their fool heads off in appreciation of The Silicon Florist, one Mister Rick Turoczy himself. While that bit is disappointing I think sponsor vids are generally fab.

* YAY audience! I saw a TON of people I didn’t recognize at all and that was awesome. I also saw people I knew or recognized who were hanging with other people I didn’t know. Not that I am some sort of social director or anything but it is fantastic to see that such a cross section of folks show up to Ignite since it started as a pretty geeky event. I love love love that it is not another Tweetup. (:

* BOO audience! Shut up. I know you got in free. I know you have been drinking beer since whenever you started drinking beer. But please. Shut. Up. I asked nicely and got nowhere. Don’t make me suggest to the organizers that we need ushers or drink limits to keep loud idiots like you from effing it up for everybody else.

* YAY organizers! I love that this event comes together the way it does, and useful feedback (read: not just people bitching) is always taken to heart. I love that there is a ticket system, and that showing it on your phone (i or otherwise) will get you in. I love that we are a community such that tickets are needed. I love that when I was the volunteer coordinator for #3 my experience was awesome.

* YAY volunteers! Organize all you want but it doesn’t do you any good if you have no backup and volunteers are all about having your back. Especially in Portland, I love that we have so many volunteers to help out. It’s so nice to know that if I’m hoping to have some sort of event where I need bodies it will totally happen. We are helpful and that is awesome.

* YAY Bagdad! They sort of volunteer for this too, but the staff is phenomenal and they put up with a full house just for us and I want to make sure they get appreciated for it. I know they don’t do it for free but they could make it a really painful experience if they wanted to and they totally don’t. It’s awesome!

* YAY speakers! It is awesome that we have people willing to talk about The Ten Commandments (of Karaoke), or How to bluff (by my wonderful friend Cami Kaos). I even discovered What Portland can learn from Kentucky. Which was awesome, I might add. It is amazing that we have people willing to get up in front of a Bagdad full of people and talk about whatever it is with slides for five minutes.

* YAY Twitter! You knew I’d get here eventually right? Just because I didn’t know everybody doesn’t mean I didn’t give or get hellos from a LOT of people. I forget how many people I actually do know or am at least acquainted with until I go someplace like Ignite and I’m there with cow-orkers who don’t know any of these people. From that point of view I do kind of look like I know everybody. (: Plus it was a couple of fateful tweets about Ignite Seattle that created the one we have! (And in case you didn’t know, we were on the Twitter trends list!)

* YAY community! I got to say hi to people and wave to more and cheer for presenters I knew and it was a really really good time. Plus someone said to me, and I quote, “That’s just reason 101 why you rock!” which made my day. I love that Portland turns out like this for events like this. We rule! This is why I love living here.

I won’t even go into the afterparty we had at the Spaceroom where Miss Cami and I had two glasses of punch and decided our husbands, who share the common quality of quietly tolerating their wives and their rampant geekery, should TOTALLY hang out. And that we managed to get the Silicon Florist himself to take a great chinposin avatar picture and even though I had to go home and wash my hair (nosmoking January can’t come soon enough!) I had a great time. I can’t wait for Five!