Leibson's Law

Last night, I attended my first Denali Night Live! party (live from San Francisco, it's Denali Night!), courtesy of Marketing VP David Lin who snagged a ticket for me because I was part of the Hogan’s Heroes ESL Pavilion Panel at DAC in San Francisco. The party was at Ruby Skye on Mason Street, one of those old theaters redone as a dance club with three bars and subwoofers big enough to enclose a bedroom set.

There must have been more than 1000 people filling up the two floors of Ruby Skye having a great time and getting lubricated after two tough days at DAC. Then the proceedings got under way.

The first part of the party was the EDA Idol competition and it was truly great fun. Six EDA competitors belted out everything from old Rock and Roll to Rap and Hip Hop. Truly impressive talent and lots of guts. Notable to me: Shawn Luna from Infinera belted out a pitch-perfect version of Journey’s Don’t stop believin’ and let me tell you, he’s ready for The Soparano’s soundtrack. The crowd went wild. Nichole Fox from Blue Pearl Software sang a Hip Hop song that I didn’t recognize (honestly, I don’t recognize many Hip Hop songs) and brought the crowd to its feet. Michael Mercado and a friend from Atrenta appeared as the “EDA Boyz” complete with bling. They cribbed a song from the Beastie Boys and brought down the howse. I sure hope Denali got these singers on video.

EDA’s Next Top Blogger and the EDA Community Hero were also announced at the party. I can’t find any of the winners on the Web yet, so I’m not announcing them prematurely. It wasn’t my party. I just had a great time.

CEO Sanjay Srivastava, CTO/CFO Mark Gogolewski, VP of Marketing David Lin, and the rest of the Denali staff are to be warmly congratulated on injecting a big slug of energy into DAC, especially this year. Thanks guys! The entire industry thanks you. Rock on!