Special convention thank you edition: the official thanks are pretty straightforward. Thanks to Barry for putting the event itself together. This was the strongest program in my three years of attendance. Thanks to Bob Frank for his continued support (and thanks to Oakton for continuing to underwrite the event). Thanks to sponsor Peter Baylies, who said such nice things about this site. And special thanks to keynoter Kyle Pruett.

The unofficial thanks list is much longer, and I apologize for those of you I’ll miss. Noonan gets extra credit for arranging everything everything outside of the official program, from drinks on Friday to dinner last night to the excursion (which I somehow missed) to some kick-ass bar (look forward to the photos, Chris). Thanks to Dayv and Dave for providing (or at least encouraging) the wonderful midnight entertainment Saturday night. Reindeer and cats and three-speeds, oh my!

Thanks to Phil and Tim for continuing the tradition of strolling Chicago, thanks to Gary for the reminder that we all have the same headaches. And thanks to all the new guys for coming out this year -- see you next year.

I have a few final items in the notebook (snippets from Pruett’s talk, my Powerpoint, etc.) that I’ll post in the days to come. And if you’d like to share your experiences with the readers, feel free to use the comments here or e-mail me, and I’ll post those musings.