Voice of the DBA

Tag: travel

  • Redgate and Rome

    I’m at the UK Redgate office today, meeting with senior leaders in all areas of the business. I was honored to be awarded a spot in our President’s Club. This is where the top performing sales people get to meet with leaders in the company and then head off for a few days of relaxation and excitement.

    I’m here today and tomorrow and then off to Rome. We’re heading to tour the city, see the Vatican, and visit some great restaurants. I’m excited for the trip and I’ll have a few photos and thoughts next week, but I’m off this week.

    Hopefully it’s a quiet one for you.

  • SWAG Saves the Day

    PASS Summit East is in one week.

    I was on the road last week in the UK and then Houston for the Houston AI-lytics event. I had been a little under the weather all week, and when I arrived in Houston, I decided to stay in the hotel and rest. Plus the 6:00 arrival was midnight for my body.

    I walked next door and got some takeout and then grabbed a beer from the hotel store to relax and get to sleep early. Unfortunately, the bottle needed an opened. Fortunately, I was prepared.

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    This little opener is a piece of swag I got from Redgate years ago and I’ve kept it in my bag for just such occasions. No walking back to the desk, no disappointment, just a handy item that let me relax and get to sleep by 8.

    I don’t know what swag Redgate or others will have next week at the PASS Summit East 2026 in Chicago, but if you don’t go, you won’t know. Register for the event, book a flight, come join me.

    Sure, you might get some just-in-time training from a precon that lets you learn about PostgreSQL from Grant and Pat or how to secure your estate from Andreas. Did you know Andreas did this job for Microsoft for years, architecting security features?

    There are lots of sessions where you might get inspired by a demo or get a question answered about your environment. Those are great, but who knows what SWAG you’ll find. You might get a handy tool you didn’t expect that saves your day, or night.

    Send yourself. Send a colleague.

    Send someone today to learn a few things, connect with others, and collect some swag. Register for the PASS Summit East and join me in Chicago next week.

  • The 2026 Redgate Summit in New York City

    We’re coming back to New York, which is exciting for me. I love NYC.

    The Redgate Summit 2026 – New York City comes back on May 5, 2026. You can register today and I’ll see you back in Manhattan the first week of May. Once again Bob Ward is giving the closing keynote, with me and fellow Redgater’s giving the opening one.

    We’ll have three tracks, but I’ll be hosting a session with one of our customers, so you can hear how and why Redgate Monitor helps them out and what it’s like to work with Redgate. We did this in Chicago, and there were some great questions from the audience.

    We’ve chosen customers who have had good experiences, but feel free to ask them anything about how Redgate Monitor works and how we are as a vendor. I’m certainly proud of how we partner with customers, so come get a first-hand view from a large financial services organization.

    New York City is such an amazing place, and we’ll have a drinks reception after, but there is lots to do. I’ll be bringing my wife and we’ll likely go see a Broadway or comedy show the night before. You should do the same.

    We also have a Redgate track and an AI one, so this is a great chance to see how Redgate views the world and how we’re approaching building software that helps you become more efficient inside your organization.

    Register for the Redgate Summit 2026 – New York City and I’ll see you in May.

  • Whiling away an afternoon, thinking

    I come to Heathrow often. Today is likely somewhere close to 60 trips to this airport in my lifetime. After over 19 years of working with Redgate (plus a trip in college), this is the airport I’ve visited most outside of Denver (my home).

    This is the view outside my hotel window. You can see an A320 (or a Boeing 737) taking off. This is a good sized plane I fly all over the US. It is about 35 meters (100ft) wide and carries 150-180 people.

    As it took off beside the A380 pulling into the terminal, it looked like a toy plane. Those things are massive.

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    I’ve stayed here a few times after landing to try and get some work done, and to check in early to take a nap. I landed at 10am after flying all night, and I could use some rest. Rather than heading into London and getting stuck sitting in a restaurant waiting to check in, I booked a room here. Already had a nap and ready to work.

    Thinking Time

    This is good thinking time, which is sometimes rare to get. Years ago on one of our multi-times-a-week SQL Server Central calls, Andy told me that he needed time to think about his work as a DBA and manager of others. Time to just consider how things are going, why things are going well or not, and which direction to go.

    Time just thinking about a topic.

    It has stuck with me all these years that time to just think is important, and it helps me clarify how I view things.

    It’s often how I get editorials written. Turning vague ideas into something concrete. I’ll look at a note I’ve made or re-read something and think about it. When inspiration strikes, I’ll start writing.

    Today I was thinking, watching planes take off when I realized I hadn’t seen a plane in awhile. Normally they take off around every 45s at LHR. Then I saw this little vehicle doing down the runway, something I’ve never seem.

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    I watched for a few minutes and realized there was another one coming the other way. They met in the middle and circled a few times before leaving the runway.

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    I’m sure this is some FOD (Foreign Object Detection) process looking for pieces that might have fallen off planes (yikes) or vehicles, or somewhere. A pilot friend said that this is something that is done in the military, sometimes by grunts walking the runway looking for something that might get pulled into a jet engine.

    In any case, it was something new and unusual and inspired me.

    I don’t know that everyone needs thinking time, but if you manage or lead or are trying to develop strategy, I do believe you need some quiet thinking time when you’re not really getting anything done, but just thinking about work.

    Glad that I took the time today and grateful to have the opportunity.

    Now back to writing about AI and other things impacting the data professional.