Voice of the DBA

Tag: travel

  • SQL in Albuquerque

    It’s a little less than two weeks until SQL Saturday #271 – Albuquerque. The second event in that great city, and the beautiful state of New Mexico. I rarely get there now that my brother moved away, but’s always neat to visit.

    I was lucky enough to get chosen to speak and attend the first event last year. When I got my acceptance, a few of us from Colorado got together and planned a #sqlski day on Friday. It worked out well and we have plans to do it again. A few less of us this year, but a few new faces as well. Some of us will be driving to Taos on Thursday night and skiing Friday before driving the rest of the way to Albuquerque.

    This event was a lot of fun last year with an amazing lineup of speakers from all over the country. It was amazing to see how many speakers came from different states, though I do prefer to see more local speakers. Perhaps we’ll inspire a few more New Mexico SQL speakers to jump into the event next year.

    In any case, we have people from Missouri (Bill Fellows), Nebraska (John Morehouse), Texas (Tim Mitchell), Utah (Pat Wright), California (Denny Cherry and Lori Edwards), North Carolina (Bill Pearson) and of course, Colorado. There are at least 13 of us coming down from the north, by my count, and a few more that might be attending.

    I’ll be talking Encryption at the first session at 8am, and from there you have a great choice of lots of other sessions.

    If you’re anywhere near Albuquerque, I’d encourage you to register and come. It will be a fun day of SQL Server learning in New Mexico.

    And it’s FREEEEEEEEE.

    If you want to ski on Friday, keep an eye on the #sqlski hashtag on twitter and we’ll let you know where we are.

  • Traveling in 2013

    It was a busy year for me. As I look back at my speaking CV for 2013, here’s what I see:

    What a year. I also had two trips for Red Gate in here that didn’t involve any speaking.

    For the year, this gives me totals of

    • 30 events
    • 20 trips (2 non-speaking)
    • 58 talks

    Wow. The busiest year by far for me. Almost 60k miles in the air, which is the most I’ve ever flown. I know some people do a lot more, but this was quite a bit for me.

    The upsides of the year were meeting lots of neat people, getting to 6 or 7 new cities I’ve never seen, and not traveling in January, and only a short, business trip in August.

    I don’t know what next year will bring. In the first quarter of 2014, I’ve already got 3 or 4 trips tentatively planned along with a couple local events. I suspect I may end up with more trips next year, but likely no more events or days gone from home as I aim for shorter trips whenever possible.

  • SQL in the City and SQL Saturday–Washington DC

    Actually, Maryland, but close enough. I’ll be in Chevy Chase this weekend, first for our SQL in the City Seminar on Deployment Friday, and then SQL Saturday #233 on Saturday. Both events are free, so if you can come to one or both this weekend, register and come. The registration is mostly so we can plan on the number of people, so please register or cancel if you can, or can’t, come.

    Both events are free. This is a great chance to learn something new. Friday is a look at database deployment, building from Version Control to Automated Build and Testing your database, to deployment. We’re presenting some of the things we’ve learned at Red Gate from our own internal work and our customers, and people this year have really enjoyed these sessions and learned a lot.

    Saturday is a chance to learn about all sorts of technologies. From BIML to Columnstore to Indexing. There are a ton of sessions. My session on Saturday is about branding yourself, and if you want a new job, a better job, or more money, come see me at 2:00pm.

    This trip closes out my year, and I’m glad for that. It’s been an up and down year for travel, but overall, I think this was the most travel I’ve ever done in one year. I managed well, but there were a few spots when I was definitely worn out.

    I would love to say I won’t do it next year, but I’m not sure that’s the case. I really enjoy many of these events, and I’ll probably do the same number, or perhaps more, in 2014, but I’ll try to spread them out a bit more.

  • Learn about Database Deployment in DC

    SQL in the City is coming to the DC area in a few weeks with a seminar on the Stairway to Database Deployment. Both Grant Fritchey and I are traveling to the Washington DC area to deliver a half day, free seminar event on Friday, December 6, 2013. We are likely going to be in the Chevy Chase, MD side of DC that afternoon, but I don’t have a location right now.

    If you are in the area, and want to see our vision of how to streamline your database development and deployment and make it run smoother, register today. It’s free, it’s a half day, and afterwards Grant and I will be chatting with you at a happy hour to talk shop, deployment, anything you want.

    The seminar is three sessions. I have been presenting the first 2, and Grant the third. The sessions build on each other and are the following:

    • Team-based Development with Version Control
    • Automated Database Build and Test
    • Best Practices for Database Deployment

    I’ll also be at SQL Saturday #233 – Washington, DC on Saturday, December 7, 2013. I think I have one session, and I may leave early as I have family in the area, but I’ll be there all morning and happy to chat with you, shake hands, or even just say hi.

    If you can attend, please register for SQL in the City or SQL Saturday #233. Both events are free, but we’d like to know who’s coming so we can plan.