Tag: SQL Saturday

I’ve been accepted to speak at SQL Saturday #183 in Albuquerque, NM on Feb 9, 2013. This is the first SQL Saturday in New Mexico, and I’m excited to drive down and meet the SQL Server pros down there.

My brother used to live in Albuquerque, and I’ve been there 2 or 3 times, but not in a long time. I was debating if I should fly or drive, but with Taos on the way, I’m thinking to stop by on the trip down and spend a day skiing before the event. If anyone’s interested in a Friday or Sunday out, let me know. I’m not sure which day to hit the mountain.

I’ll be delivering my Branding Yourself for a Dream Job presentation at the event, but there will be a lot of SQL Server learning to be had. Denny Cherry, Aaron Bertrand, Jason Brimhall, TJay Belt, Mike Fal, Ben Miller, Reeves Smith, Caros Bossy and more are coming from out of town to give, and receive a day of training.

Yes, most of us come to learn as well as speak. I’m not sure how busy my day will be or if I’ll be giving a lunchtime talk for Red Gate, but I am hoping to see a few sessions. These are on my list.

• Release Management: A Necessary Evil – (TJay Belt) – Professional interest since Red Gate makes products designed to help track changes, source control, and deployment.
• Table Indexing for the .NET Developer – I’m not much of a developer, but I’m always looking to see if someone can explain things
• Build An Affordable SQL Server 2012 Lab (Todd Kleinhans) – I’ve got a lab, but this always seems like a troublesome exercise. I’m hoping I’ll pick up a tip or two.

If you are within driving distance, consider coming out and enjoying a Saturday of SQL learning.

The Denver SQL Saturday is coming in less than two weeks, SQL Saturday #169 is our second event in Denver, and the fifth in the state and I am honored to be able to speak. I have two sessions on the schedule:

• Branding Yourself for a Dream Job
• Unstructured Data in SQL Server

These are both presentations I’ve done in other places, and they’ve been received well. I’m looking forward to giving them again, and I hope that I’ll see some of you there.

My busy fall actually starts a few days earlier, where I’ll be giving a talk on Contained Databases at the Colorado Springs User Group on Sept 19.

After these two events, I start out on the SQL in the City Tour and then hit Dev Connections in October before finishing up at the other Colorado SQL user groups in November. Across those events I end up going to 11 events and giving 21 presentations.

Whew, I need some tea and honey for my throat.

Packing for SQL Saturday #144 in Sacramento, CO. Dan Hess, one of the organizers, asked me last November at the PASS Summit if I’d come. I told him I’d try, and the scheduling worked out. As soon as I was sure that weekend was free, I submitted sessions and booked my flight. I’m only doing one session, which is nice. I’ve been booked for 3 many times, which makes for a busy day, and less people I get to meet.

I’m doing my encryption talk at 8:30 in the morning, so come early if you want to know what options there are for encryption in SQL Server. I’ve done this one a few times and it’s always a fun one, getting people to understand the basics of encryption.

• The rest of the schedule is out, and while I am going to try and talk and meet lots of people, I do want to spend a little time in sessions watching a few speakers. I try to see speakers or topics I haven’t seen much before, so here is my plan:
• Jason Horner on Spatial
• Mitchell Bottel on PBM
• The WIT panel
• Prakash Heda talking AlwaysOn

That’s all I’ll have time for on this trip. It’s a quick one for me, and I have an early flight to get back home for baseball and a kid commitment on Sunday.

If you’ll be in Sacramento, come on by. If you’re attending, please stop me and say hi.