A few metrics that of course got out of hand, but some may find interesting:

 

The overwhelming feeling I have returning from the Silverlight Firestarter: Priceless

There is absolutely no way that I could personally thank everyone that over the last few years has held their hand out and offered me a step up to get to the point that Scott Guthrie called me out in his keynote.

So I'm just going to hit the highlights here...

Scott Guthrie Thanks for not only being the level you are at Microsoft, but for being so approachable, easy to talk to, willing to help everyone, and above all knowledgable. My first level manager at my last position asked if Visual Studio was a graphics program... and you step up to a laptop at a conference and type "File->New Program" ... 'nuff said... oh yeah, thanks for the shoutout!

John Papa Thanks for being a good friend, ramroding the Firestarter, being a great guy to be around, and for the poster... holy crap is that cool.

Tim Heuer Thanks for all you did as a great DE in Phoenix, and for helping out so many of us, of course being a great guy, and for the poster as well... I think you and John shared that task.

In no order at all my buddy Michael Washington, Laurent Bugnion (the other half of the first Silverlight MVP of the Year) Tim Sneath, Mike Harsh, Chad Campbell and Bryant Likes (from back in the day), Adam Kinney, Jesse Liberty, Jeff Paries, Pete Brown, András Velvárt, David Kelly, Michael Palermo, Scott Cate, Erik Mork, and on and on... don't feel bad if your name didn't appear, I have simply too many supporters to name.


Silverlight Firestarter Indeed

All the people mentioned here, and all the MVPs knew Silverlight was NOT dead, but because of a very unfortunate circumstance, the popular media opinion became that.

Consequently the Firestarter exploded from a laid-back event to a global conference. People worked their ass off getting bits ready and presentations using those bits. All to stem the flow of misinformation.

All involved please accept my personal thanks for an absolutely awesome job. I had the priviledge of watching the 'prep' on Wednesday afternoon, and was blown away the first time I saw the 3D demo... and have been blown away every time I've seen it since. Not to mention all the other goodness in Silverlight 5.

Yes I hit 1000 on my blog, but more importantly, all of you are blogging and using Silverlight, and Microsoft hit one completely out of the park... no... they knocked it out of the neighborhood with the Firestarter.

It was amazing to be there for it, and it will be awesome to use the new bits as we get them.

Keep reading, there's tons more to come with Silverlight and SilverlightCream following along behind.

As usual, this old hacker is humbled to be allowed to play with all the cool kids... Thanks one and all for everything, and

Stay in the 'Light