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!

Earlier today I happened to be reading my friend Rick Turoczy’s blog and imagine my surprise when he offered to buy me lunch! Well having had a good experience last time I had lunch with Rick I figured I would be foolish to pass up his offer. So off I went to CubeSpace and imagine my surprise when I saw a number of people there whom I recognized! Turns out Rick had extended his invite to a number of others as well, but somehow I had mistakenly read it as just for me.

Anyway! Portland geek fave Nicholas brought a TON of food for us to eat, and we had a great time. Plus Shizzow was there handing out beta codes like Ritalin to 6th graders. it was a REALLY good time. Some of the more memorable moments:

* My excitement at not having to make my nametag sticker look pretty since I brought my own LED nametag which scrolls my Twitter nick, my online alias, and my real first name.
* Compliments on my LED nametag.
* Discussing purses with Audrey (@spinnerin) and having one of my Tweeps introduce himself as my mouth was FULL and we were talking purses.
* Miss Cami Kaos getting my attention and begging me to follow her to sit and eat lunch, to which I replied “but we’re talking Star Wars!” She said “oh ok” and told me to come her direction when I was done.
* Explaining Twin Ion Engine (TIE) Fighters and talking Star Wars with some folks who wanted to know.
* Actually sitting with Cami Kaos and her husband and getting to eat lunch.
* Looking down at my plate and feeling my sunglasses slide off the top of my head, then watching them SPLAT into my hummus.
* Letting Mister Cami take a photo of my glasses while they were still upright in the hummus.
* Sitting in awe of Mommy Cami as she immediately pulled two hand wipes and a package of kleenex out of her purse to help me resolve my hummus/shades issues.
* Watching TheInfovore scroll “Banana Lee Fishbones” across his iPhone as he held it to his chest as though it were a nametag.
* Hearing Cami say “But you’re not Verso!” and TheInfovore say “But I wanna be!”
* Getting a hug from the man behind the event, my friend Rick.

So that was my lunch with the Silicon Florist. It was a really good time. Maybe next time you should join us. (: I’m sure Rick will talk ALL about it on his blog so you have lots of time to plan in advance.