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It’s now 3 events that I’ve canceled in the last 6 months, and a 4 or 5 more that I’ve declined an invitation to, despite having a desire to go. I got a note this morning, reminding me of a presentation tomorrow more, a remote webinar, that is supposed to start at 9am EST.

The problem is that time is 7am MST, which is when I’m sitting at the bus stop with my son, trying to get him to school. Even allowing for a delay, I then have to get my daughter up, and to school by 8, which isn’ t likely to happen if I’m on a presentation. I could get her to the bus at 7:20, but then I’d be starting at 7:30, and that delay kills the schedule for the webinars. Fortunately Brian Knight will step in and do his best. I’m cleaning the deck (it’s built for 75 minutes), and adding some notes now for him.

Most of my cancellations are due to my wife needing to work. Both of us are busy, and successful, and we have some collisions. In this case she’s out of town for the next few days, called out on an emergency, and so I’m stuck. Her job is a little more important than mine, at least to our household, and so I get the short end of the stick for now.

I missed SQL Connections last year and the MVP Summit last week. I’ve also declined a few SQL Saturday’s (Boston, Dallas, Richmond), as well as the Indy Tech Fest because of other commitments. Hopefully I’ll still make Charlotte, Pensacola, and Baton Rouge!

I know it’s daunting and a little intimidating, but there are so many people with knowledge to share. I see them answering questions, sharing knowledge, and being helpful to the community, so when are you ready to start speaking?

The answer probably varies, but what I’ve seen in many areas is that when you think you’re not learning much from hearing other people speak, you are ready to give your own presentation.

There are other things you need to learn, how to present effectively, communicate, not die of stage fright, etc., and those are skills to develop, but the hard one, the knowledge, is something many of you already have.

Most people want to be an expert in a topic, but the reality is that you don’t need to be. You just need to be organized, brave enough to stand up, and willing to try.

Actually it’s not as big a deal as it sounds, but still a little exciting. I was asked to be one of the keynote speakers at SQL Saturday #33 in Charlotte.

My business partner, Andy Warren, and the President of PASS, Rushabh Mehta, were asked to say a few words about SQL Saturday. The topic is the history of SQL Saturday, though I think I’ll add in some SSC stuff as well.

I posted a note to allow snapshots to be backed up in SQL Server. The inability to do so, and the lack of a transition of a snapshot in a DR scenario means they have limited usefulness in my mind. So I added a suggestion to Connect: Allow backup/restore Snapshot databases

It’s gotten a few votes (2) over the last few weeks, and recently I got a notification that MS had responded. Kevin Farlee gave two scenarios, both of which I find interesting. The first, to allow snapshots to be backed up as snapshots with the source database, is interesting, but ultimately I think it might be too confusing for users. It’s what I’d prefer in terms of disk space, though I’d hope I could back up a single snapshot and not all 6 of them I have on a server.

The second is that snapshot backups would be regular database backups. So they’d be the size of the original database at the time the snapshot was made. I think that’s reasonable and it’s logical, and it means the backup works like every other backup.

We’ll see if it gets implemented, but it’s definitely one that I would like to see in future versions.