Tonight, dear readers, I am completely drunk. I have reached the point of full happiness, without branching into the realm of sickness or dangerous waters. This is thanks to the WebmasterRadio party at Studio 8 on First Avenue here in San Jose, which I will get to later.

This morning I had oatmeal and yogurt from the upstairs lounge for breakfast, downloaded the MetaBold font so I could make changes to my Site ECG presentation, and proceeded to work until it was time for the advanced linking strategies session at 10:30. At noon, I met up with friends and chatted on the topics of search inclusion, then ran upstairs to change for my presentation at 1:45. According to the fans, the session went quite well, and I plan to upload audio with this session as well, so readers can have a sense of the information contained within - primarily on the topic of sandboxing and spam penalties. BTW - I confirmed directly last night that Google acknowledges the filtration system we call "sandbox", which is a step forward in proving its existence. Apparently this has now become infamous around SES.

After my session, I watched Tim Mayer & Matt Cutts and a representative of Ask Jeeves, Kaushel Kurapati, on the topic of link building. Danny Sullivan then gave his evening forum, where many issues surrounding the conference were raised. It sounds like SES's new owners, Incisive Media, are going to be fully supportive, and the conference structure won't change much.

Finally, it was off to the WebmasterRadio party, where Ian McAnerin, Steve, John & others, opened the back bar (without being noticed by staff or anyone who worked there) and proceeded to drink copiously before security finally realized we were not the real bartenders and threw us out. Of course, this was after a security guard from the back door came over, leaned into the bar and said "get me a red bull", I swear I nearly split a gut. UPDATE - The bartender himself (in a totally unofficial capacity) was none other than Matt Van Wagner of Find Me Faster (now that's the way to get a link).

There was dancing, drinks, hors d'ouevres, and 2 nearly naked pole dancers in the upstairs booth at the club. A group got together to pay Brett Tabke (of WebmasterWorld) $1000 (for real) to dance with them (the naked pole dancers), but he wanted $2K, so instead a Silicon Valley venture capitalist went up to the glass booths to "shake it up". While I dont' mind nearly naked dancers, it certainly isn't what I was expecting at an SES show. I chatted with Mikkel, DaveN, Patrick Gavin, Chris Boggs & tons more folks tonight, until I got too drunk to make it home, at which point some friends who work with Ken Jurika (not sure of spelling) accompanied me back to the Hilton (thanks a ton). Tomorrow I'll try to post more relevant search info, but needless to say, it's worth coming to these shows, if only for the wild and crazy nights. My guess is that Elizabeth Osmeleski and Mike Grehan are downstairs in the hotel bar right now...