Couple of final shmoocon thoughts...

Things to do differently:
-get my ticket next year in the first batch of tickets and not have to sell my soul to Don for a ticket :-)

-stay in the hotel instead of heading home at night. next year i am requesting a kitchen pass so i can just stay at the hotel instead of heading back on the metro.  Alot of great conversation, networking, hacking, & drinking was missed because i had to head back.

-bring business cards, yeah i forgot them :-(

-bring a book or two to get signed.  again i forgot and i even knew i was going to meet some people whose books i had.

-take more pictures

Things to sustain:
-force myself to chat up the tons of smart people running around.  its easy to get overwhelmed with the brainpower, but people are people and most of them are really approachable if you have the patience to wait in line to talk to them.

-taking notes and doing some sort of write up to share thoughts, hopefully people thought they were useful.

-show up on time and not hungover, of course if i do #2 above that might be a tough one to do

Other thoughts:
-Richard Bejtlich has a good shmoocon wrap up on his blog
http://taosecurity.blogspot.com/

he also has a good post way at the bottom about being able to program and being a security professional. i recommend people check it out.  search for "Programming and Digital Security" on his site (sorry no link to the specific post)

-there are several good security groups (shmo group, NoVA Sec, etc) in the DC/NoVA area, i will definitely be checking those out to join once we move back that way.  if you have one in your area i would look into it.  you have to tread carefully though.   hanging out with idiots either turns you into an idiot or allows everyone else to lump you in with those idiots which is almost as bad as actually being an idiot.

-i unfortunately missed day 3 because i had to catch a flight, so need to put stay for the whole con above, but watching the talks i missed will be on the must do list once they are released on the shmoocon site.

i guess that's it.  i would appreciate any feedback on how to make "how the con is going" posts better/what you would like to see. I am sure Brian wouldnt mind the feedback before he heads up to notacon.