Brian,
You make me envious! :)
It sounds like you had a great time and the camaraderie is evident. I have to check out meetup.com and see if anyone is doing the same here in Bellevue, or Seattle, WA.
It looks like you had a good number of community members present. 17 just from the picture. Were there even more there than that.
Thanks for sharing, and best of success to you!