[slat]

I judged my first event on 8-27. It was a great experience. Like you I met a lot of people that had been to a few events, and were very helpful.
I judged an event yesterday in Carbondale, IL. It was very small compared to the first one. The first one I went to was 41 teams yesterday there were only 13, but two of them only entered two categories.
If you don't have a team to compete with then judging is a good place to be.