SQLSaturday KC! #SQLSatKC

Wow, is it already September? Can't believe how time is flying by! Sorry for the lack of posts, it has just been crazy busy with a new job and getting the Denver SQLSaturday setup for 9/19 (if you haven't registered, you better soon since we are up over 250 attendees now).

Enough about that stuff, I'm getting back out on the speaking circuit again after taking the summer off! I'll be presenting at the Kansas City SQLSaturday on 10/3. Currently I'm scheduled to present "Date Dimension: Past & Future in One Script" @ 9am, so first session right after the keynote! I'm really looking forward to presenting my freshly updated version of this session that I will also be presenting at PASS Summit 2015 later in October. If you are going to be in the KC area on 10/3, make sure you register for one of the best SQLSaturday's in the region. It is at a new location this year, but they are still having BBQ for lunch. Can't wait to eat as much BBQ as I can and see all of you in my session.

SQLSaturday #392 Atlanta #sqlsatatl

I'm very happy that I was selected for the 2nd year in a row to speak at the SQLSaturday event in Atlanta on 5/16! This is one of, if not the biggest SQLSaturday's in the world with over 500 attendees! If you are going to be in the Atlanta area on 5/16, please register and plan on attending my session, "Near Real-Time Data Warehouse Updates with CDC & SSIS" at 2:30pm in BI Room 3 (keep you eyes on the schedule page or use Guidebook in case the schedule changes).

Also, if you are going to be around on the Friday before, consider registering for one of the all day pre-cons. These pre-cons are just like the ones that you would get at the large conferences like PASS Summit, but at 1/3rd the price!

Looking forward to meeting and seeing everyone in Atlanta in less than 2 weeks!

SQLSaturday OC (Huntington Beach) #sqlsatoc

This last weekend I was in California for an extended weekend with my family at Disneyland and Huntington Beach to participate in the Orange County/Huntington Beach SQLSaturday! Awesome weather and great times visiting Disneyland and the Huntington Beach/LA area. I finally got to cross off visiting the Griffith Observatory from my list of todos in LA, it was quite the hike from where we had to park, but worth it for the view and the amazing show in the planetarium.

Back to the Huntington Beach SQLSaturday, thanks to the great crew there in the OC on putting on another successful event! For the first time I did 2 presentations at this SQLSaturday and both of them went very well with great interaction from the attendees that helped make the session extra informative for everyone there. Below I have posted the links to download the slides and demo materials from both presentations.

    

Thanks again to everyone that came out and I look forward to making my way back to the LA area again in the future!

Next SQLSaturday for me will be Atlanta on May 16th!

SQLSaturday Phoenix #sqlsat370 #sqlsatphoenix

I'll be traveling to Phoenix, AZ in less than 2 weeks to speak at SQLSaturday #370 on February 28th! Looking forward to going back to Phoenix again after making the trip down there a couple of years ago with the family for Phoenix Comicon (yes, I am one of those geeks that goes to Comic/Sci-Fi Conventions). Looks like I'll be able to meet up with a bunch of my Pragmatic Works friends as there is big group of them speaking along with a a few from the Colorado area as well and many others that I haven't seen since PASS Summit last year! I am currently scheduled to present "Change Data Capture (CDC) with SSIS" at 1:30pm in the Kachina room. If you are in the Phoenix area on February 28, please make sure you register for this great free event and stop by to see me! :)

Also, for anyone that is thinking about going to the PASS Business Analytics Conference on April 20-22 in Santa Clara, CA, you can use the discount code USSE27 at registration to save $150 off the current registration fee!

SQLSaturday #362 - Austin #sqlsataustin #sqlsat362

For my first speaking event of 2015 I'll be presenting "Capture Change and Apply It with CDC & SSIS" at SQLSaturday #362 in Austin, TX on January 31st @ 9am. Looking forward to going to a city that I have wanted to visit for many years and going back to the area where I was born (Fort Hood, TX). My family moved from Texas when I was only a few weeks old as my Dad completed his service in the Army and went back into the private sector. I'm going to be flying in early on Friday, January 30 so that I can do some sight seeing for the day.

If you are going to be in the Austin area, it would be great to see you! To register for SQLSaturday #362, just click on this link and I'll see you there!

SQLSaturday Oregon & PASS Summit 2014 #sqlsat337 #Summit2014

Next week I'll be leaving for SQLSaturday #337 Oregon and PASS Summit 2014 where I will be speaking at both!

SQLSaturday #337 Oregon will be my first trip to Portland, so I'm looking forward to seeing a new city and speaking to the Oregon SQL Server community. My session will be "Date and Time Dimensions for Every Day and Time in No Time" at 1:15pm in Room 204 (keep your eye on the schedule page or Guidebook just in case it changes). I love giving this Date Dimension talk as it is something that every Data Warehouse needs and everyone hates setting them up, so I help with a single script and some advice. If you are going to be in the Portland area on Saturday, November 1st, please make sure you register and I'll see you next Saturday!

After SQLSaturday #337 I'll take the Amtrak from Portland to Seattle on Sunday for my favorite conference, PASS Summit 2014! PASS Summit is a yearly SQL Server conference that has thousands of SQL Server professionals and speakers from across the world. For the second PASS Summit in a row I'll be presenting a session. After attending this amazing conference yearly since 2007 I have become very involved in the SQL Server community and love that I now get to be part of speakers/volunteers that make this event great. I'll be presenting "What Version of SSDT do I Need?" at 3pm on Wednesday, November 5th in Room 606. I'll also be volunteering at the PASS Community Zone, so make sure to stop by and say hi!

Looking forward to seeing everyone in Portland and Seattle in a week and hanging out with my #SQLFamily at both events!

SQLSaturday #300 and Other Posts

I'll hopefully be flying out of Denver first thing Friday morning for SQLSaturday #300 in Kansas City, assuming we don't get too much snow (currently only forecasting .2", so not too worried). Love visiting with all of my KC #SQLFamily each year and happy that I can get out there early Friday to do the BBQ Crawl! I'll be presenting my "Capture Change and Apply It with Change Data Capture and SSIS" (I really need to shorten that title) talk at 2:15pm on Saturday.

I was happy to contribute my first blog post to the RevGen Partners brand new UpShift blog this week, SQL Server Development Tools. Check it out if you are curious about what versions of SSDT work with what in the different versions of SQL Server.

I also had my review of Microsoft BI posted to the TrustRadius site as well today, "Why is Microsoft BI Right for Me?". I tried to present as fair of a review as I could based on my 10+ years of experience with the tools.

Denver SQL Server User Group August Meeting

It was great to present at the Denver SQL Server User Group again after a year plus on my birthday, last Thursday (8/21). I'm up in front doing the introductions and running the meetings every month, so no need to also present there all of the time too. :)

I presented a 30 minute version of the Date Dimension talk that I have done in many different forms over the last year (including a 10 minute version at PASS Summit 2013). Below is the link to download the slides and zip file with the SQL script to create a Date Dimension in seconds.



DATEDIMScripts.zip
Thanks again to everyone that attended the meeting, and looking forward to seeing you all again at the September meeting on 9/18. Also, don't forget the Denver SQLSaturday is coming up on 9/20 and we only have around 30 open registrations left before we start up the waitlist. Also there are 3 great pre-cons on 9/19 that only cost $125 for a full day of training. Go to http://denversqlsaturday.com to register for both!

June Presentations

I have a few presentations that I'll be doing in June that I wanted to highlight here in case anyone is in the area or attending these meetings.

First up on June 12th, I'll be doing a new session that I created "Building a Better Workstation". This session is a collection of a bunch of my lessons learned trying to figure out the best strategy for working with OSs and SQL Server installs on workstations and laptops over the years. I will be doing this presentation remotely for the BIG PASS group run by Mickey Stuewe (blog | Twitter).

On June 18th, I'll be doing another new session titled "Business Intelligence (BI) for the .NET Developer" for the Denver .NET Meetup Group. This session will help .NET developers and anyone that is just starting out in IT know what Business Intelligence is and some ways that you may not of even thought of for getting into BI. Should be a fun session that I really hadn't thought of putting together until Andreas Taber (blog) requested I present at his group. I will be doing this presentation in person.

On June 19th, I'll be doing another presentation as part of Pragmatic Works' Free Training on the T's. This time I'll be doing the "Building a Better Workstation" session that I will do the week before for BIG PASS. Always happy to do a presentation as part of this free training series, will be strange now doing it as an employee of another company though.

Further out in my calendar, I have been selected to speak at SQLSaturday #312 in Sacramento, CA on July 12th. I don't know what session I'll be presenting yet, but as soon as I find out, I'll let you all know! This will be my first time in Sacramento, so looking forward to spending a couple of days out in that part of CA with the #SQLFamily.

SQLSaturday 285 Atlanta - #sqlsatatl

SQLSaturday #285 in Atlanta is this Saturday! I will be attending #SQLSATATL for the first time and presenting my "SSIS 2012: More Than Just a Pretty UI" session at 2:30pm in the ETL Room #211 (please check the Schedule page on the website or the Guidebook app just in case it changes). This is one of my favorite sessions, since it only has 2 slides, the rest is all demos! If you haven't seen the new features added in SSIS 2012, this session will give you a demo of as many of them as I can get through in the time allocated.

If you are going to be in the Atlanta area this Saturday, you should register and attend this FREE event that is put on by volunteers with speakers from all over. SQLSaturdays are always a great event to learn new stuff and do a lot of networking with your fellow peers! Also, don't forget to stop by the sponsor area and see what they have to offer, without these awesome sponsors we would not be able to put on these great events.

See you in Atlanta!

SQLSaturday #297

SQLSaturday #297 in Colorado Springs is this coming Saturday! If you haven't registered yet, why not? It's a free event that has the best SQL Server professionals traveling from all over to present and attend this awesome event. If you able to make into Colorado Springs by Saturday, you should be at the event! I will be presenting "Capture Change and Apply it With Change Data Capture & SSIS" at 3:15pm (keep your eyes on the schedule page or use the Guidebook app to track any changes to the schedule). I'm looking forward to seeing everyone this Saturday, make sure you register and support all of the sponsors of this event when you are there.

Below are some more details from Chris Shaw's blog about the food drive that is also being done as part of the event:

What we are asking is that when you come to the event on April 12th that you bring with you food items that you would like to donate the more items that you bring the better your odds are in taking home one of these awesome SWAG items. We will soon be sending everyone who is signed up more details on individuals can participate in our food drive. You don’t have to bring any food items to be registered for the giveaways and there will be opportunities to participate in our Data-Rodeo for additional chances to win. Why a Data-Rodeo you ask? This year’s theme in going to be centered around the old west, our event will be taking place in a historical building that is over 100 years old, in the heart of the oldest part of town.

See y'all on Saturday!

Upcoming SQLSaturdays

Sorry for the lack of posts over the last few weeks, it has been very busy, but I will get the last post in the encryption series up very soon.

Wanted to spread the word about a few SQLSaturdays that are coming up, which I will be at!

SQLSaturday #295 - Las Vegas, NV (4/5/14)

This is the first SQLSaturday in Las Vegas and while I did not get one my sessions selected to present, I will still be in Vegas that weekend thru Wednesday (4/9/14). Was a great excuse to take some time to visit Vegas, which I haven't been back to in around 10 years. Looking forward to seeing how the Vegas crew puts on a first time event and meet up with all of the #SQLFamily in a very fun city! If you are going to be at SQLSaturday #295, I'll see you there!


SQLSaturday #297 - Colorado Springs, CO (4/12/14)

Glad to see the Colorado Springs SQLSaturday back on the schedule again after taking a break for a year. Also very happy to be presenting at the event again this year. I'll be presenting my CDC with SSIS 2012 session "Capture Change and Apply It With Change Data Capture & SSIS" later in the afternoon (schedule is always possible to change, so make sure to check beforehand for exact time and room). The organizers are going to do a food drive at this event as well, to help out the local food banks which have been very stressed after all of the wild fires last year. The group down in the Springs always puts on a great event, so please register to attend this event if you are going to be in the Colorado Springs area on 4/12!


SQLSaturday #285 - Atlanta, GA (5/3/14)

The Atlanta SQLSaturdays are typically the biggest in the country (maybe even the world), so I'm very honored to be speaking at this event for the first time! Looking forward to spending some time in Atlanta, instead of just transferring from one flight to another at the airport. I'll be presenting my review of the new features in SSIS 2012 session "SSIS 2012: More Than Just a Pretty UI" in the afternoon. As mentioned above, make sure to check the schedule on this page to verify when and what room I'll be presenting in. If you are going to be in Atlanta on 5/3, register for this great event with over 50 sessions!

Best thing about all 3 of these events, they are all FREE! These events are held throughout the world and put together by community volunteers that want to share with everyone the SQL Server technology that we all love. Also be sure to talk to the sponsors at each event as it would be impossible to put on these events without their support. For those in the Denver area, we are working on the announcement for our 4th SQLSaturday in the coming weeks!

SQLSaturday #271 Albuquerque

Saturday I had the privilege to present a session at SQLSaturday #271 in Albuquerque, NM. This was the 2nd year in a row that I have presented at the SQLSaturday in Albuquerque and I love going back each time because Keith Tate, Meredith Ryan and the whole ABQSQL crew do a great job putting on this event. This year the event was in a different location that was pretty amazing looking and the spaces they made available were great too. My session was at the very beginning of the day at 8am, so I had to make sure I didn't party too much the night before at the Speaker/Volunteer party. Speaking of which, that party was held at a local micro brewery and we even had a room that with a glass wall so that we could see all of the beer vats. Beer was great and I even shared this with my wife and son who traveling with me to this event to make it into a mini-vacation from Thursday - Sunday.

Was awesome to spend a few days in ABQ this time as I drove in for last year's event on Friday and left right as the event finished on Saturday. This time with the family we were able to go up to the Sandia Peak Tramway, visit Old Town Albuquerque and Petroglyph National Monument. All great places to visit and always nice to learn about another area of the country!

Back to the SQLSaturday event itself, things started a bit slow (it is a Saturday morning so this is expected), but quickly there were over 100 attendees going to sessions throughout the day. Since my session was first thing I expected that I would have a lower attendance, and while I only had 10 attendees in the room they all commented to me afterwards that they enjoyed it and learned something new, so that makes it all worthwhile! Here is a link to download the file that all of the content from my "Master the Date Dimension Like a Time Lord" session. For those that were not at SQLSaturday #271 and may have seen this presentation in the past, I have updated it to make the script to generate the date dimension for both SQL 2008 and SQL 2012. I also took sometime to clean up some of the code to be more SQL centric instead of Oracle that it was originally written for. I will continue to tweak this script and the presentation over time, so keep your eyes here for future updates to the scripts!

Thanks again to the Albuquerque SQL group and I look forward to coming back again in the future!

SQLSaturday #271 Albuquerque

I'm a bit late in getting the news out on my blog, but I will be presenting at SQLSaturday #271 in Albuquerque, NM on January 25th! I will be presenting my new "Master the Date Dimension Like a Time Lord" presentation that I did for the first time at PASS Summit 2013 as a Lightning Talk.

Now you will be able to see it as a full hour long session and dig into all the details on using a single script to create a Date Dimension that can cover all of the uses you can think of for a data warehouse! And yes, if you can't tell from the title of the session, there will be references to my current favorite TV show, Doctor Who mixed in! :)

Please register to attend SQLSaturday #271 and I'm looking forward to going into Albuquerque early to enjoy the area with my family and see all of you at the event on 1/25!

SQLSaturday #237 - Charlotte BI Edition 2013

Sorry for the late post, but I'm still recovering from everything that has happened over the last 2 weeks and on top of that I'm still on the road.

Just as PASS Summit 2013 in Charlotte ended (see my post from earlier this week about everything that happened there), SQLSaturday #237 BI Edition began! SQLSaturday #237 was in Charlotte on 10/19, but the activities leading up to it started with the Speaker Dinner on Friday at Blackfinn in the EpiCentre shopping area. Even after going to many different places in Charlotte the previous week I had not yet been to Blackfinn and regret not going there earlier as the beer choices and menu is great. The Speaker Dinner for SQLSaturday #237 started at around 6pm, I got there a few minutes early as I was at my hotel room just up the street recovering from helping tear down the Pragmatic Works booth. The dinner was great with lots of very active discussions going on and over 30 people there. When the dinner finished off there were some ideas of finding another place to go to and there was also the QCity BBQ Festival going on as well. I was pretty tired from all of the previous week's activities so I decided to just go back to my hotel and rest.

I decided to sleep in on Saturday and get the chance to wake up without an alarm for one of the first times this week. I missed the opening keynote and the first session, since I didn't get to the Central Piedmont Community College (CCPC) Levine Campus until around 10am. As soon as I got there I could see that things were in full swing with the organizers (Javier, Jason, Rafael and Melissa) and volunteers all keeping everything running very smoothly. The setup at the location was very easy with just a long hallway that most of the rooms were right off and all of the drinks/food that you could ask for throughout the day. My session wasn't until the last slot of day, so that gave me time to see a couple of sessions and get some lunch. Sessions that I sat on were great and attendance was very good from what I could see in all of the rooms. My "SSIS 2012: More Than Just a Pretty UI" session is the one that was selected for this event and I had around 20-25 people in it, which is great for the last slot of the day. There was a lot of interacting in the session, especially in the section where I covered the new Project Deployment model in SSIS 2012. Hopefully everyone that attended got something out of the session and from the feedback I received it sounded like they all enjoyed it.

After the event finished with the raffle giveaways a nice sized group of people headed over to the Beantown Tavern in Matthews for the after party. This was very well attended by both the speakers, organizers, volunteers and attendees. The bar appeared to be a bit unprepared for the number of people that came and had some issues getting orders flowing. I hung around until most of the people had already left and we found out that a bar just behind was going to host Karaoke that evening! Oh yeah, more #SQLKaraoke! Kristopher's is where we ended up and the karaoke didn't start there until 10pm, so we had some time to kill. We started spreading the word to everyone else that might still be in the area about #SQLKaraoke and we did end up getting some others to come over and join us, had around 10 or people there in the end. By the time we got to 1am everyone was looking pretty tired and we knew that we still had a 30 minute or so drive back to Charlotte Uptown, so we left and made the trip back to Charlotte.

Another great SQLSaturday event that I was glad that I was invited by Javier, Jason, Rafael and Melissa to speak at and thanks to all of the volunteers that helped them along with all of the other speakers that made it such a great event.

My post PASS Summit 2013 & SQLSaturday #237 activity on Sunday was to head down to Carowinds amusement park and ride some more #SQLCoasters that I have yet to be on. For those that don't know I have been a coaster enthusiast for most of my life, thanks to my Aunt Margie getting me on a coaster in Cedar Point (if you have never been to Cedar Point, it is the BEST coaster park in the world and yes I know they also run Carowinds)! Got to the park just after it opened at 10:30 and I was able to ride every single coaster and a few of them at least twice within 2.5 hours! If you have not been on the Intimidator coaster at Carowinds, I highly recommend it! Probably the most air time I have ever had on a coaster and one of the smoothest rides ever as well. After that I headed down to Columbia, SC to work the next week onsite at the client's offices. The perfect ending to a fun filled week in the Charlotte area!

PASS Summit 2013

PASS Summit 2013 was in Charlotte, NC this year for the first time and after a few years in a row in Seattle, WA. Was great to get away from Seattle and I have been flying in and out of Charlotte all year, so it was nice to spend some time inside the downtown (Uptown) area itself. After spending a whole week in Charlotte, I really love the city and hope that I will be able to spend more time in the city again. Now for my summary of the week at PASS Summit 2013!

I got into Charlotte at around 1am on Monday, October 14th after the 6 hour drive from Jacksonville, FL after 3 days of PDW training at Pragmatic Works HQ (more on this in a later blog post) and some off-roading fun with co-workers. I was not signed up for any pre-cons on Monday or Tuesday so I had all day Monday off to enjoy the sights and tastes of Charlotte! Started the day on Monday with a guided Segway tour of Uptown Charlotte. I have never been on a Segway before, so there was a brief intro to how to use it and surprisingly it only takes a few minutes to pick up how it works. The tour was awesome and I would highly recommend it to anyone that is thinking about. From there I got my registration materials for PASS Summit 2013, which I got to use the Speaker registration area for the first time! The one recommendation I have being a first time presenter at PASS Summit is to still give the speaker shirts to even those that only do a Lightning Talk session. I understand that they are only 10 minute sessions, but this is how speakers get their first chance to present to a large conference and it shows that you are still part of the speaker core for the event.

After registration and saying hello to all of the #SQLFamily that were already at the Charlotte Convention Center we made our way to The Olde Mecklenburg Brewery for lunch and some beer! Was great to find a place in the US that makes an authentic Düsseldorf style Altbier. I lived in Düsseldorf, Germany for a year right out of college and Altbier was one of very first beers I ever liked to drink (didn't like American beer at the time) so I was really happy to have it again after 15+ years. They also had a lot of German food, which was very good as well. The next stop on our Charlotte craft beer tour was supposed to be Birdsong Brewery, but the were not open on Monday, so we then wandered over to NoDa Brewery which was right across the street and they weren't open for another 30 minutes or so. We decided to walk the extra half mile or so to Heist Brewery, which probably one of the larger craft brewery facilities with lots of dining/bar space. Beers at Heist were very good and the Beer Cheese with Pretzel sticks was excellent.

By the time we got back into Uptown it was time for the annual Networking Dinner that Andy Warren and Steve Jones organize at the Buffalo Wild Wings attached to the NASCAR Hall of Fame and right across the street from the Charlotte Convention Center. Was a huge crowd of people at the event this year, was great to see so many new and familiar faces again. After the Networking Dinner wound down I walked over to the Carolina Ale House, which became the unofficial home for many before/during/after events during PASS Summit 2013.

Tuesday was a day full of meetings with PASS for me, being a local Chapter Leader and SQLSaturday organizer, PASS always sets up this day at Summit for us to get a chance to talk with them and the other leaders/organizers. Meetings were good and I think that many new ideas were expressed. I have to say that I think the format of the meeting at last year's Summit went a bit better, especially the SQLSaturday Roundtable where I heard about some great ideas for helping the event run more smoothly, which did implement for SQLSaturday #190 a few weeks ago and it did make a difference. Tuesday evening was the PASS Summit Volunteer Party at a local bowling alley in the EpiCentre. Another great event that PASS puts on for those of us that help organize and speak at the event each year. This is the 2nd year that I have been able to attend this event and it is always a great time to wind down and enjoy some fun with everyone that helps make this event what it is every year. Later that evening was also the first night of #SQLKaraoke at Fox and Hound (conveniently only a block from my hotel, Dunhill Hotel). I stay way too late at the karaoke event, but it was just way too much fun.

Wednesday is the first actual day of the Summit, and since I was out way too late for #SQLKaraoke I didn't wake up early enough for the keynote (plus I knew it would be recorded and online) and I wanted to make sure I was well rested since I had my first presentation at Summit later that afternoon. Wednesday is SQLSaturday shirt day at Summit, so I made sure to put on my Kansas City #191 speaker shirt before going to the convention center. I stopped by the Community Zone to see how things were going with the setup there and also visit some of the community leaders there. I also stopped by the Pragmatic Works booth to see how it was setup and meet some of the people from our sales offices that I had not yet met. The lunch on Wednesday is always the Chapter lunch, where each chapter has table(s) in the lunch area and they encourage everyone to sit at the appropriate tables for where they live. The Denver group had 4 tables this year and we had at least 3 of them filled during the lunch and there were some new people that we hope to see at future meetings! Always love that PASS does this at the Summit each year and we have found a few new members each year from that, so it is more than worth it. The afternoon went by very fast as I spent some time preparing in the speaker room before my presentation slot late in the afternoon. The setup for the presentation didn't go as smoothly as I would have hoped. They put the Lightning Talks in a smaller room again (this is a not so good tradition at Summit as Lightning Talks are becoming more popular) and while there is a 6 port video switcher in the room, only 2 or 3 are setup. For the Lightning Talks it would be nice if all of the ports were made available and we could all get our laptops setup and tested, instead we each had to rush up there when it was our time and get connected. There were some very good presentations during the Wednesday slot I was in, including Rob Volk and Ed Watson's "DBAs in Toyland" presentation. The scariest thing about this presentation that I learned from Ed Watson afterwards is that all of the nightmare scenarios they covered all really happened! I think that mine went ok, my resolution did not get setup like I wanted in the VM, so some things were getting cut off on the screen. I was able to get through all of the material and I think that at least a handful of people got my Doctor Who jokes/references. After finishing my presentation I needed to get back to the hotel to change for the Exhibitor Reception at the Pragmatic Works booth, since we have done a free book signing now for the last 2 years which is very popular and we need everyone there just for crowd control. We were also passing out wristbands for our #SQLKaraoke event at Prohibition/Sip later that evening as well. The reception went well, had some issues with the line for the book signing, but we were able to give out all of the books we had in about an hour. I left the reception early to get to our event (which was conveniently across the street from my hotel) and see how the prep was going. Surprisingly there were already quite a few people there even though it was clear on the wristbands that it didn't start for another hour. The location quickly filled up and there were a lot that got up a did karaoke in front of the live band or just traditional karaoke. Another very successful event with over 600 people attending!

Thursday was the one day that I knew I would be able to attend some sessions, as I only had to work in the Pragmatic Works booth from 9am-noon, the rest of the day was free. The booth duty was very easy since most of the attendees were in the keynote at that time. After lunch I did attend a SQLCAT session on PDW, which I have to say was quite disappointing since there really wasn't a lot of PDW specific content as the title/description indicated. For the next session I went to see the 2nd Lightning Talks sessions to show my support for the other speakers doing what I had done the previous day. These talks were all good as well, but the standouts were Niko Neugebauer and Richard Douglas. Richard did a session on explaining T-SQL to a Star Wars geek, which was very funny. Niko had the assistance of Scott Stauffer for a very funny and informative session on NodeXL. Also, the Denver area had a 2nd presenter in the Lightning Talks with Jeff Renz doing a quick overview of his favorite topic, DataVault! The last session of the day is one that I have gone to at many conferences over the years and love it every time, the "BI Power Hour". This is a session as they point out that has absolutely no content that you will be able to use in your normal work, but does show some ways to use the Microsoft BI tools that you have probably not seen before. We finally got a very valid explanation (at least in Matthew Roche's view) of why the products all have Power at the beginning at are collectively called Power BI. As always there was a lot of SWAG that they threw out into the crowd, and since most of us in the front row got into the room 30+ minutes before the session started, we were each given one of these SQL Server 2012 USB 8GB flash drives/phone chargers (called 8GB Powerstick).

Pretty cool device, but definitely the largest USB flash drive I have ever seen. Thursday evening at PASS Summit is the Community Appreciation Party which all attendees are invited to and this year it was held at the NASCAR Hall of Fame, which is right next to the convention center. Since that event didn't start until later in the evening I decided to get some dinner with friends at a sushi restaurant, fantastic food and even better company and discussions. This is by far the best thing about going to PASS Summit is all of the side networking that goes on during the week. After dinner I headed back to my hotel to change clothes and drop off my bag. Since it was so late and the event was going to end soon I used my hotel's free limo service to drop me off, saving at least a half hour. The event was good, was closed to the public, so only the attendees of the conference were let in and we had the chance to see the whole place. Nice setup in there with the cars, but not being a NASCAR fan (love Formula 1 and IndyCar) I didn't really get much out of it. A group of us decided to try and find another #SQLKaraoke location and there was a place near the Carolina Panther's stadium called, Hartigan's. Very interesting place (those that attended or know about this place will know what I'm talking about) by far the funnest place I've been to for #SQLKaraoke. Had to leave early though since I was scheduled to be in the Community Zone from 7am - 8am on Friday.

Friday started way too early, especially after a late night at #SQLKaraoke, with getting to the Community Zone before 7am. Not sure why we needed to be there that early since the only attendees coming in that early were looking for coffee and breakfast. It was fun to talk to other community leaders though and get/share ideas on running our groups. Worked out well to be sitting down in that area though, since I got pulled into a PDW Roadmap meeting that I was not directly notified of ahead of time, but got pulled in to represent Pragmatic Works. Very interesting information, but nothing that I can talk about here since it was a NDA protected session. After that, I grabbed some early lunch with co-workers and then headed back to the exhibit hall for more Pragmatic Works booth coverage. Got to do a lot more demos during this time since many attendees were trying to get through all of the exhibitors before the floor closed at 2pm. Once the hall closed it was time to break down, amazing how fast most of those big booths can get torn down! I had to leave for a few minutes to get my rental car to use for my speaking at SQLSaturday #237 (more on this in a separate post) and getting to my client site in Columbia, SC on Sunday.

That ends what happened as part of PASS Summit 2013 for me, but my time in the Charlotte area did not end until Sunday! Overall, PASS Summit 2013 went by way too fast (as it always does), but it was great as always to spend time with #SQLFamily and get some more learning on to keep up with all of the changes are always happening with Microsoft SQL Server. My biggest to-dos that I still have left is to watch both keynotes that I missed via streaming media, if I pick up anything from that I'll make sure to put together a separate post on that as well. There are also many other sessions that I missed, but I knew that our chapter would be getting access to the recording for all sessions, so I wasn't too worried about that and will catch up on those as soon I get access to the recordings. Attendance at the event seemed very good and the convention center did work very well. The main complaint that I would have about the convention center itself is that the exhibit hall was kind of out of the way, being on the lowest level with the meal hall, but nothing else down there. Some exhibitors that I talked to were saying that it was hurting them, since there was not as much traffic as there would normally be when that hall is in the main traffic flow of the convention center. I'm sure that I will think of other things in the days ahead as I'm able to process things more, if necessary I'll add updates to this post or create new ones.

T-SQL Tuesday #47 - SWAG

It T-SQL Tuesday again, and for this month's topic it is about the Stuff We All Get (Stuff sometimes replaced with another word) or SWAG!

I have been going to technical conferences since around 2000 when I started going to TechEd and PDC as a .NET developer and PASS Summit for the last 7 years along with the short-lived Microsoft Business Intelligence Conference. Through all of those conferences as you can imagine I have received a literal ton of SWAG.

While the conference bags are usually really nice and I do end up using some of them afterwards (I hate using them at the conference I get it for though because I'm afraid of mine getting mixed up with everyone else's). I'm going to pick my one favorite as something that I pack for almost every trip and grab to take with me almost every evening in the fall and spring.

This is the pull over that was given to all of the speakers and organizers of SQLSaturday #169 in Denver 2012! We debated on what we were going to do for a speaker shirt to be different that year and since our SQLSaturday is in late September, we thought it would be great if it was a pull-over that could be worn over any other shirt on those colder evenings/morning. We even had a version for women that was slightly different, in that it was cut more for women in the middle and had the holes at the end of the sleeves so that it could be pulled down on the arms and would not roll up. I actually like that we didn't do that for the men's version since I tend to pull up my sleeves sometimes.

That is definitely the one bit of SWAG that I have received over the last 13 years that I really like and use a bunch. Looking forward to seeing what the SWAG will be next week at PASS Summit 2013 (if you haven't registered yet, there is still time and use code SUM521CH to get $150 off!). For those of you going to Summit, see you next week! :)

SQLSaturday #190 Wrap-up

SQLSaturday #190 in Denver was this past weekend and based on the feedback was another great success for us. The Denver SQL Server User Group Board organized this event with lots of help from volunteers, speakers and the support of our sponsors. Without all of these pieces there would be no way to put on such a big event. We had around 230 attendees on Saturday that attended over 30 separate sessions. We also offered 3 pre-cons on Friday 9/27 from Carlos Bossy, Tim Mitchell and Dmitri Korotkevitch. The pre-cons were also very successful and we will definitely consider doing it again next time.

Also want to put a very special thank you to all of the speakers that presented at our event! It is always great to see all of the speakers that come out for these events and I'm happy to be part of the #SQLFamily because of everything that I get each of them!

If you attended SQLSaturday #190, please look at the Schedule page on the SQLSaturday site to download all of the presentation materials that are made available by the speakers.

Not making any announcements for 2014 at this point, as we all recover, but keep your eyes and ears open for more details!

Thanks again to all that volunteered, presented and sponsored this event!

SQLSaturday #191 & PASS Summit 2013

For those that are in the Kansas City area, I'll be there this weekend to speak and enjoy the area (hopefully getting to ride some coasters at Worlds of Fun too). So, if you are in the area, make sure you stop by to see my session in the Amazon room at 11:15am on SQL CDC and SSIS 2012, titled "Capture Change and Apply it With Change Data Capture and SSIS". Currently registration for the event is full, but you can get in on the wait list. Hope to see you all there! This is my 2nd year in a row at the KC SQLSaturday event, so I'm really looking forward to catching up everyone that I know in the area, and meet a bunch of new ones too.

Today, PASS released the full schedule for PASS Summit 2013 in Charlotte, NC where I will also be presenting! I have attended the PASS Summit every year since 2007 when it was in my backyard at Denver. This year I'm really excited that I get to join the long list of great speakers, while I'm only doing a Lightning Talk session (10 minutes or shorter presentations) this year, I'm hoping that will lead to being chosen for regular sessions in the future. My presentation titled, "Master the Date Dimension Like a Time Lord" will be on Wednesday, October 16th at 3:00pm in 212A-B in the Lightning Talk 101 or LT-101 session. I have made a point of attending the Lightning Talk sessions over the last few years, because it is a great way to see new speakers and lots of great quick presentations in just a single session (yes, I know there are 2 separate Lightning Talk sessions, LT-102 is on Thursday, same time, same room with fellow Coloradan, Jeff Renz presenting).

SQL Community Updates

Just a few quick updates on things going on with the #SQLFamily!

SQLSaturday #190 Denver Pre-Cons

We are offering pre-cons for the first time this year at SQLSaturday #190 in Denver on Friday, September 27th. There are 3 different pre-cons to choose from and they are priced at $99 until 8/31 on 9/1 the early bird price will expire and the cost will go up to $125, so register before 8/31! Below are the 3 pre-cons we are offering:




Carlos Bossy - Predictive Analytics in the Enterprise 
Tim Mitchell - Real World SSIS: A Survival Guide 
Dmitri Korotkevitch - SQL Server Internals from the Practical Angle

Go to http://denversqlsaturday.com for more details and to register for the pre-cons and the SQLSaturday itself on Saturday, September 28th!


SQLSaturday #237 Charlotte BI Edition

If you are in the Charlotte area for PASS Summit 2013, stick around through the weekend and come to SQLSaturday #237 on Saturday, October 19th. I am honored that I have been selected to present my "SSIS 2012: More Than Just a Pretty UI" session at the event. Looking forward to seeing everyone that was at PASS Summit earlier in the week and those that were not able to attend Summit.



Charlotte BI Group - October Meeting

And while I'm talking about the Charlotte area I am also planning on attending the Charlotte BI Group meeting on Tuesday, October 1st as well. I'll be in the Columbia, SC area that week, so why not spend some time with other #SQLFamily and get a preview of what Melissa, Jason and Rafael will be presenting at PASS Summit a couple of weeks later!