I had a great time at the geek dinner.  I started the evening off with great conversations with Glen Gordon, Jim Wooley, Chris Wallace, and Brendon.  Glen was telling me that at MGB they just were going over the sales analogy for the year - winning a race, all teams working together like all the cylinders and pistons working together, the race car and the pit crew, blah blah blah.  Then Mario Andretti came out on stage.  Yup - THE Mario Andretti.  Awesome!

After a while, I wandered off to chat with almost the entire INETA board, who showed up from the MGB conference happening downtown.  I had a great chat with them and ended up pitching them an idea Glen mentioned.  They loved it, Glen loved it, and it looks like we're going to do it.  I'll post more on THE IDEA when we do a bit more planning and it looks like a reality.

I chatted with Shawn and Michael about independent consulting.  Shawn's doing well and Michael is excited about the future.  I'm sure they're both going to do well - they're among the brightest people I know.

I wandered back over to the INETA people and Brendon and I sat there for a while bragging to them about the dynamic and highly active Atlanta user group community.  They loved some of the ideas we talked about with them and they were highly impressed at how much stuff actually goes on here in Atlanta.  I think Brendon and I might have come across as a bit more super than we actually are (they called us Super UG Leaders) but they were impressed by the cohesion of the entire UG leadership team and the dedication of the UG members.  I think that right now INETA is struggling to find it's value for the average UG member, and the board is interviewing the community to find out what we need.

It was also good to talk to Paul for a while.  I've not seen him for a bit as he's been working hard on stuff that actually helps him pay his mortgage.  Paul's a great guy and I hope he manages to work user groups back into his schedule on occasion.  Even if he doesn't, I'll make sure I don't lose touch with him.

Over all, I had a great time at the meeting, even though I never got a chance to talk to Robert Scoble.  Oh well.  I'm sure he's a great guy, he just kept happening to be on the opposite side of the room I was on all night until he left and skipped out on his tab

-- Matt Ranlett