Why is it that more than 27,000 Berkshire Hathaway shareholders made their way this weekend to Omaha to pay homage to the world’s most famous investor? This year I traveled to America’s Great Plains to find out why Warren Buffett’s annual shareholder meeting is the talk of the investment world. It was my first time attending this event that Buffett calls “Woodstock for Capitalists.”

My flight from New York to Omaha was packed with capitalists. Everyone -- and I mean everyone -- was going to the Berkshire meeting. The passengers were hedge fund guys, money managers, CEOs, and individual investors. The money manager sitting next to me said he’s been going to the meeting every year for 22 years. His son made headline news in the 1990s -- he was ten years old then -- when he asked Buffett at the shareholder’s meeting why he invested in shares of Coke and not Pepsi. In fact, all weekend people told me stories about their “first time” meeting the Oracle of Omaha, and they bragged about how many times they’ve made the pilgrimage since. When I told them this was my first visit, they gave me loving looks that seemed to say “you’ll never be the same after this experience.”

I met Buffett on Friday night. It was at the Ironwood Country Club in Omaha at a private dinner hosted by a former Morgan Stanley analyst who’s writing a book about Buffett. I liked him instantly. He’s warm and friendly; easy to talk to. He’s the least pompous billionaire CEO I ever met. I asked him about doing an interview, and he said he had a few minutes to talk before the annual meeting on Saturday morning. “I’ll be there at 6:15,” he told me.

It was rainy and windy on Saturday, but the stormy weather didn’t dampen shareholder enthusiasm. When I arrived at the Qwest Center at 5:45 a.m., there was already a long line at the entrance. One man had been waiting since eight o’clock Friday night. Another since 11 p.m. Two brothers had traveled from Paris. They said they had been talking about doing this for years -- it was their “dream” to meet the legendary investor. Shareholders came from 30 countries. Others traveled from Missoula, Montana; Peoria, Illinois; Seattle, Washington; and Los Angeles. One man told me he lived down the street. They stood in the rain to make sure they would get a good seat in the arena. Like at a rock concert, they wanted to sit as close to the stage as possible to watch and listen to Warren Buffett and his witty sidekick Charlie Munger, Berkshire’s long time vice chairman, perform their magic.

A good seat also means a closer look at The Movie. The one hour movie of hokey skits starring Buffett (and produced by his daughter, Susie) is the highlight of the meeting. Besides Buffett, there have been cameo appearances in past years by celebrities including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nicole Sheridan and Jamie Lee Curtis. This year’s film featured basketball star LeBron James facing off against Buffett. In a hilarious one-on-one court session the Cleveland Cavalier star “loses” to Buffett, who is fifty-some years older and ten inches shorter. Following the movie, the meeting opened with the surprise appearance of pop singer Jimmy Buffett who performed a reworked version of his hit “Margaritaville.” He sang, “Living on sponge cake, and Omaha beef steak, watching shareholders running around.” The chorus was “wasting away in Berkshire Hathaway-a-ville.” By the time Buffett and Munger finally walked on stage to thundering applause, it really did feel like a rock concert.

For the next five and a half hours, Buffett and Munger answered more than 60 questions from Berkshire investors. One by one shareholders sought pearls of wisdom from these two sage investors. They asked about the subprime mortgage crisis, the dangers of derivatives, the private equity takeover boom, the unfairness of executive compensation, the multi-billion dollar bid for Dow Jones by Rupert Murdoch, the struggling housing sector, the outlook for the insurance business, the Chinese banking system, the future of gambling companies, the pros and cons of shorting stocks, the global warming debate, the profitability of the railroad industry and on and on. One young man asked how he could get a job working for Buffett. A 10-year old girl asked Buffett for some advice on the best ways she could make money.

Boring? Hardly. It was fascinating watching Buffett in action. He gave simple explanations to complicated issues. He used folksy anecdotes to make his points. He joked with Munger. He laughed. He made the audience laugh. There was something to learn even when Buffett was asked trivial questions on seemingly boring topics.

I was impressed to see how he handled special interest groups that appealed to him to weigh in on social issues. In an unusual move, he allowed 45 minutes of discussion on Berkshire's controversial investment in PetroChina. Some shareholders urged Buffett to sell Berkshire’s stake in the Chinese oil company because it provides financial support for the genocide in Darfur. Buffett listened intently. His response was respectful and sensitive. He genuinely acknowledged the problems in Darfur, but said he saw no effect from Berkshire “trying to tell the Chinese government how to conduct their business.” Where else in Corporate America do you see a CEO deal with prickly issues like this?

The meeting was over. Shareholders were both dazzled and energized by the powerful information they received from one of the smartest and shrewdest investors of modern times.

But that wasn’t the end of this event. The Berkshire Hathaway party continued on Sunday. The indefatigable Buffett played a ping pong match with young champion Ariel Hsing. Then Bill Gates made a surprise entrance and joined Buffet in more ping pong followed by a game of bridge. The crowd went wild. What could be better than this? Here they were with two of the richest -- and smartest -- men in the world.

At 76, Buffett shows no signs of slowing down. How does he keep up this pace? An especially good question once you watch the man spend all weekend drinking Cherry Cokes and munching on See’s Candies (a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary). “I don’t like diet anything. I like lots of calories,” he chuckled. “I never smoked. I’m in a job with no stress. I’m surrounded by people I like. How could life be any better?” He also remarried last summer. And, when asked about the big “R” – retirement, he says he has no plans to stop working. In his own words, “Retirement is a terrible thing.”

So, Buffett will certainly be back next year. And, so will I. I may have made this trip simply to report on a shareholders meeting, but I couldn’t help but glean something personal from the experience. I discovered what most Berkshire Hathaway shareholders already know -- it is fun to learn from the Oracle of Omaha. And, like those shareholders, I’m hoping that some of Buffett’s legendary ability to make money might rub off on me.