Next week I head out to SQL Saturday #197 in Omaha NE. I’m looking forward to it as I’ve never been to Omaha, and only been to the state once, in the far SW corner to Oshkosh for a horse race. I’ll arrive Friday and have a short time to look around the city before the event gets started.

If you are in the area, there three great pre-cons you can register for and attend on Friday. These are a good, low cost way to get some practical knowledge for your job from some knowledgeable experts. The choices are:

• Practical Self-Service BI with PowerPivot 2012 for Excel – Bill Pearson
• Prof. PowerShell Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love PowerShell – Jeff Hicks
• Scaling SQL Server 2012 – Glenn Berry

I’ll be presenting a talk on encryption in the afternoon, but am looking forward to watching a few other sessions earlier in the day. I missed Kevin Boles talking about Window functions earlier this year, but I’ll catch him here. I’ll also be looking to see Bill Fellows talk a little T-SQL and Joe Sack talk about Troubleshooting Query  Plans. There are lots of other great options as well, and if you’re in the area, consider attending.

This should be a fun event, and if you’re a SQL Server professional looking to learn a bit more about the platform and improve your skills, this even is worth a Saturday of your life.

Register today and I’ll see you in Omaha.