i get by...with a little help...from blue badges...

altho our day in huntsville was a long one, it went much more smoothly than it could have...thanks to the help of some key microsoft folks.

the first of whom was jeff lin, the presenter for the morning connections event. jeff was energetic, supportive, and a great help to us. he gave me plenty of time to present our case study, and also to field a few questions from the audience about the case study and sbs in general. considering how pressed for time presenters always are, i'm very grateful that jeff was so generous during our presentation of the case study.

second...mitchel weiss, the technical specialist on the across america truck (seen in the middle here), couldn't have been nicer. mitchel offered tons of advice and info about the truck and its setup, and we were able to quickly hash out some things for our private truck event. mitchel was also cool to let shellie use the truck's satellite internet connection to send in some of her homework, so she and amy could stay for the afternoon session, and the user group meeting that evening.

last, but certainly not least, was ron grattopp, the presenter for the afternoon ts2 event (in blue on the left). ron was very generous to carve out a few minutes for me to present a slide on the alabama smb user group, and one about the sbs podcasts. throughout the session, ron continued to mention both the user group and the group meeting we planned to have after the ts2 event. ron also came to the group meeting, picked up the tab for the appetizers, and had some swag to offer to those who attended the user group meeting. all in all, a big boost for our group...and your friendly neighborhood happyfunboy can't thank ron enough!