4 days on a train (2 each way) and 3 days in Seattle. And back to work in a few hours. Sounds about right.
I'll have more detailed stuff to say about the conference in some follow-up posts. It was a good time. Good to put some faces to the names I've learned over the last year or two. There were some good discussions overall.
I can't say that I had any 'epiphany' type moments. In some cases, I think I confirmed some of my more 'contrarian' opinions about alt.net practices, in others, I think I confirmed that I need to take a closer look (and in one case, both at the same time).
Jeffrey Palermo made a comment the opening night about how the first Alt.NET conference had lead to a bit of negativity afterwards. I don't know that it directly had anything to do with it, but there were no fistfights, etc. There was a lot of disagreement on particular topics but overall it was a positive experience.
As a side note: if you are traveling by yourself and have some work to get done, Amtrak does a good job. As one woman put it (paraphrasing), "When you travel by plane, they make you feel like dirt. Here, it's almost like they are glad to see you." It costs a bit to upgrade to a private room with a private shower, but it was remarkably comfortable, and I was able to get a lot of coding done (as beautiful as Montana and North Dakota are, I've seen them before, and there isn't much else to do traversing them).
More later.