It’s over. It’s finally over. This year, unlike previous years, Adam Machanic (blog|twitter) was very good about delegating the work. Which, is actually a mixed blessing. I did a lot more work this year than I have done in years past. Luckily, we had more help this year from, new MVP, Mike Walsh (blog|twitter) and Tom LaRock (blog|twitter). The team came together and pulled off the event with the help of a great set of volunteers. Of special note, Allen White’s (blog|twitter) wonderful wife, Cindi, stood at the front desk all day, and in other ways helped us organize and run the event. It would not have been the same without her. Thanks so much. We couldn’t have pulled it off without our vendors. Here is the rather substantial list.…
Just… Wow. What an event. What a great group of people. I’m just so lucky to be involved with fantastic individuals like these. Thanks for having me out to play everyone, I really appreciated it. SQL Saturday #67 started for me with my second FreeCon (follow the link for details on the first one). Brent Ozar (blog|twitter) put together another great session where we spent a lot of time talking about blogs and blogging as well as swoops through other topics. We, by the way, is like a who’s who of great SQL Server people. I’m not going to post the list just in case everyone doesn’t want to be outed. However, I found the event extremely useful. I have a ton of notes and action items for myself and…
As I have done in previous years, I’m going to post the results from my sessions at the PASS Summit. Feedback is a gift. I received a great many gifts this year and I’m extremely happy about all of them. There are a set of questions with ratings, the higher the rating, the better you did. One exception to this rule is the question on time for the session. I think there, somewhat lower scores are better. There were 183 technical sessions rated during the Summit. I’m very honored to have been included in that list. Identifying and Fixing Performance Problems using Execution Plans: 286 Attendees, 172 Responses, Avg Score of 4.23, Placed 136th How would you rate the usefulness of the information presented in your day-to-day environment? 1 2…
I ended up with 131 posts (1 late hit, sorry), not counting any duplicates with Brent or Steve. It was clear that people really took this thing seriously and put thought and effort into the posts. I wish I had about 60 iPad's to give away instead of only 10. But, decisions had to be made. The point system is utterly meaningless, but, points were awarded for pithiness (I warned you), for a well-turned phrase, and as much as I'm loathe to admit it, for poetry (just because of the work involved). Originally, I planned on just randomly picking the winner. But, I only had 131 entries, and you all worked so hard, I decided to read them all and work hard for you in return. This really was a…
After all the conversations at FreeCon last week (more on that later, when I've assimilated it better), I finally decided to make some changes. The list of things I'm hitting is extremely long, but I'm going to be going through them a few at a time. First, and easiest, was getting moved off the WordPress domain to my own, hosted, domain. You're seeing the results. This is the new ScaryDBA blog. I suspect the theme may change once or twice over the next week, but basically, all the functionality that has been added, better feeds, conversation tracking, other stuff, will remain. Thank you for visiting in the past. I intend to provide you with plent of reasons to visit in the future.
Today is Kilt Day at the PASS Summit. We're going to try to arrange a group photo at lunch time. The network connection is extremely slow. I suspect the tweeting about the kilts. Bill Graziano is leading the key note and he started off with having all the kilted stand. Only about 12-15 of us, but that's five times better than last year. Then it was time for the volunteers to stand up. It was excellent to see so many people. The Outstanding Volunteer of the Year was Lorie Edwards. The PASSion award went to Wendy Pastrick, who really earned it. Unfortunately the next segment was on governance... blech! But necessary. Everyone here is a member, so they should know how the money is spent. Luckily Bill is not digging…
Adam Machanic (blog|twitter) has put on a SQL Saturday/Data camp event in New England for the last two years. I've helped him both years. It's been very successful. In January we had over 300 attendees, making it one of the larger SQL Saturday events. But, with a single exception (thank you Tim Ford (blog|twitter)), we've only had local speakers. Mind you, we're somewhat lucky with speakers here in New England and have several MVPs and others who are truly excellent when presenting. I'm taking over from Adam to lead the effort for this year, and due to my schedule we're moving the event to the spring sometime. We were thinking about maybe making it the the weekend before SQL Rally. But, I've got a question for all of you who present at SQL Saturday events.…
I was privileged to be able to attend and present at SQL Saturday 46 in Raleigh, NC, this last weekend. It was a great collection of people presenting some amazing stuff. I want to say, right off, I think this is the best SQL Saturday event I've been to. I say that despite the fact that I've helped put on a SQL Saturday. I also say that despite the fact that my sample size on SQL Saturday's is fairly low. I've only been to three (including the one I put on). You have to understand, the people who put on #sqlsat46, the Triangle SQL Server Users Group, did an absolutely outstanding job. They had clearly done the early work of getting sponsorships and organizing. This weekend, all that early work…
It's a Friday, the day governments & companies traditionally deliver bad news. I recived the bad news earlier in the week, but I'm passing it on now: The Standard is dead. Let me first say, a couple of authors are right in the middle of finishing up articles. Those will be completed and published and you'll get paid. Andy sums up some of the reasons why the Standard failed very nicely in his blog post. I agree with them, if not where the responsibility lies. Andy takes most of it on himself because, well, he's that kind of guy, may the gods bless him. But, the fact is, I took on the job and just wasn't prepared for what it would entail. The "editing" part of the job was hard.…
I attended, and spoke at, the inaugural meeting of the Seacoast SQL Server User's group last night. There were about 60 people in attendance. An excellent turn-out and congratulations go out to Mike Walsh (blog | twitter) and the other organizers. I was curious about something after watching Mike present the PASS monthly slide-deck. He asked how many people were PASS members. Approximately a third of the audience raised their hands. When it was my turn to speak, I asked how many people had heard of Buck Woody (blog | twitter). I was honestly shocked when only about 6 people raised their hands. Then I asked how many had heard of Paul Randal (blog | twitter). This time I had about 9-12 people. Finally, I asked about Brent Ozar (blog…