PASS Summit 2013 – Part 3

November 4, 2013November 4, 2013hopefoley Leave a comment

Friday

The beginning of the end day at Summit began and doesn’t take long to start running into people leaving and the good byes begin. It’s so nice catching up with people that you may only see once a year, definitely sad when it’s over. I made it in time to catch Lenny Lobel’s (blog) session on spatial data. He was such a vital role in my learning of spatial data, was very excited to see his session. He concentrates more on the development side so nice seeing some applications involving spatial data. And also one of his queries helped to trigger a potential method to help me with an interesting question I got while in Orlando. After his session I went to the Birds of a Feather luncheon. It’s a lunch where they have tables that contain topics and assign some expert resources to sit at them. It’s a great one and I always have good conversation. I ended up sitting with folks at the replication table. Interesting hearing some experiences with it and some large applications using it.

PASS Board Q&A

After lunch I made it over for the PASS Board Q&A. It is an opportunity to ask the entire panel of board members questions. If you have any issues or concerns, it’s the one opportunity I know of to get them answered directly. I didn’t have any grievances to air but it normally is good conversation and nice to hear the thinking behind decisions made. It was very interesting to hear outcomes of the BA Conferences since it was a new endeavor. Next I went to a session on Always On that was done by a customer panel. I love hearing people and their experiences! This panel contained people who have some very challenging environments. Enjoyed hearing what they had implemented to assist in those challenges. After that was the last session of the day and Summit. I went to see my friend and colleague at BlueGranite, Josh Fennessy (blog|twitter) and his session on Excel 2013 for analytics. It was an excellent session and I’ve already used some of the material I learned there. Josh always seems so very relaxed in his sessions. I knew he was a little nervous and it was almost sickening how it didn’t show AT ALL.

Always On Customer Panel session

Josh in his session on analytics in Excel 2013

And then it was over! I went over to the community zone again to make sure to say goodbye to as many as I could. I then went with a large group of SQLfamily to a nice dinner at Fleming’s. It was very relaxing to sit down to a great meal where they brought the food to me. After that went to Dillinger’s for one last drink and called it an early night since my flight was fairly early next morning.

Warning: Mushy Content to Follow

<mush>

It was so great seeing so many wonderful SQL family members! I have said several times that getting involved in this community has forever changed my life and career! I couldn’t help reflecting on things at Summit since I got to speak this year after trying for so long. I am honored to be considered caliber to speak at this wonderful event! I am so grateful to the extremely long list of people in the community who helped encourage me to get out there and helped stop some of the negative voices in my head. You know the ones saying things like “who wants to hear what you have to say when they have <insert super smart other speaker> out there giving sessions”. I am still just amazed at the good nature of this community and I will keep making sure I do my part to make sure it stays that way.

</mush>

PASS Summit 2013 – Part 2

October 31, 2013hopefoley Leave a comment

Wednesday

It may have been the nerves at work again but it seemed as soon I opened my eyes I was wide awake. I got up in time to catch a super quick breakfast and get to the opening keynote. It was a fairly tame and without incident keynote. Watching Twitter it seemed the only large flair up was when “ask” was used as a noun. The demos were good but I missed seeing Amir Netz (twitter). I just love his demos! After the keynote I spent the rest of the day chatting with folks and preparing for my session in the afternoon. Had some great conversations at the chapter lunch. For those unfamiliar with this, they have maps and tables setup for the local user groups so you can find groups in your area. I met several people in Indiana that are a bit too far south to make it to IndyPASS. There is some interest in potentially setting up a new user group in Bloomington. If there are any others interested in this please let me know. I would love to help this effort but need to make sure I have enough dedicated people to lead the group.

Great pic that Melissa got of us BlueGranite ladies

GO TIME! Then comes time for my presentation and my room is very well filled. I am always worried I will be presenting to an empty room but elevated a bit at Summit, especially when I know Bob Ward’s (twitter) is on at the same time. It was true what others kept reminding me, different audiences want different things and a 500 level session isn’t for everyone. I get started and think I did pretty well at hiding my nervousness. I remember at BA Con I could feel/hear the nerves in my voice. I didn’t notice that in this time. It’s one of my favorite sessions with absolutely my favorite demo dataset, a database of microbreweries! I know I can always tell when someone is passionate about the topic they are presenting, I hope that came through with my attendees. I felt it went pretty well and had several stay and chat and ask questions after my session. I had some very positive feedback afterward which some comments were just so good it just about floored me. It felt so good to be done and it go well! Could just feel the weight come off my shoulders.

Picture Rob Kerr captured of people staying for questions after my session

After floating around on cloud 9 for a bit, went to the Exhibitor Reception. This is where they get folks in to talk with sponsors with the enticement of free food and drinks. I made several rounds to make a meal out of the appetizer stations but little easier with hearty items like shrimp and grits. Ended up leaving fairly early to head to Prohibition to get a table for the Pragmatic Works karaoke party. Oh the SQL people and their karaoke! It was a really nice party and some very memorable displays like Colin (twitter|blog) and Patrick (twitter|blog) yearly performance of “Forgot About Dre” and chicken appearances from Jorge/SQLChicken (twitter|blog). From there went to SQLSentry’s party at the Ale House. It also was a very great party and was honored to be invited. The highlight was meeting and talking with Paul White (twitter|blog). I was shocked at how nice, humble, and gracious he was in person.

Patrick and Colin and the tradition of “Forgot About Dre”

Who doesn’t love that chicken?!

Thursday

I again surprised myself by waking up in time to catch some breakfast, I mean bread before keynote. My list of complaints is small from this year’s Summit, but breakfast this year was disappointing (I know, I know…I like food). Every day was the same very bread laden meal. The only other options to pastries/bagels was oatmeal or yogurt. I know logistics of feeding that many people is tricky but would have been nice for some other options like there has been in previous years. The keynote was Dr. David DeWitt which is always a great one. I was super distracted during it though since was planning to try to take a certification test. They had half price certification testing going on at Summit. Knowing the keynote was going to get deep I ended up leaving early to go try to take 70-465. I was planning on doing the normal course and starting at 70-461 and go on up from there. I’m not sure what possessed me to take this particular test. I had been solely focused on my presentation so went in completely cold, and came out with….a better understanding what I will get into next time. Can’t win them all and I felt better keeping focus on presentation and getting my win there.

***

I made it back just in time to make it to the WIT luncheon. I am involved with the PASS WIT VC program so would have been very upset to miss it. The panel consisted of Erin Stellato (twitter|blog), Rob Farley (twitter|blog), Cindy Gross (twitter|blog), Kevin Kline (twitter|blog), and Gail Shaw (twitter|blog). There was good conversation there but it ended up being initially very lop sided in who was speaking. That worked out better in the second half. And honestly it seemed to be missing some of the fire in belly moments that drove me to be involved in WIT. Erin ended up saving me from missing out totally on that with her exchange with a member of the audience. A woman mentioned a comment being made to her that she had all the traits stacked against her success in IT in that she was an athlete, foreign, and a woman. Erin’s response was that she should have responded with “How am I not going to succeed?”. Thank you Erin for that highlight of WIT luncheon in my opinion!

The WIT Luncheon

From there I was excited to finally go to my first technical session. I took too long to get to a session over PDW and was denied entry as it was full. Doh! The next session I decided to head over for morale support to Colin’s session on policy based management. He was a first time Summit speaker and was very nervous as well. I hated seeing when I got there that he was having some technical issues with the projector. It was something I had run into before too where you couldn’t see on the laptop and only on the projector. It’s a workable situation but makes it VERY difficult during demos. They ended up getting him a second monitor and it worked out fine. He handled it much better than I would. My face started to flush a bit with speaker sympathy symptoms. Was a great session and I learned about EPM Framework from Lara Rubbelke’s (twitter|blog) team that extends capability of policy based management to SQL Servers across environment that is available on Codeplex.

Colin presenting like a boss while tech guy works out issues.

Next I made sure to get to the BI Power Hour session. I caught it last year and was one I definitely didn’t want to miss. When I’m figuring out sessions at Summit I always try to think about which sessions will lack full impact on recordings. This is very high in that category. They aren’t moving mountains admittedly with technical content but have a damn good time with the BI tools and is just fun. Did learn that Power Pivot was “just so metal that it caused the split in the name” from Matthew Roche (twitter|blog). Also Matt Masson (twitter|blog) showed how he impressed his kids with business intelligence and how vast his knowledge is of My Little Pony.

The wonder that is the BI Power Hour

After catching up with my youngins back home I made it over to the Nascar Hall of Fame for the Community Appreciation Party. This party was good but I am little biased to the party last year at the EMP. I’m not exactly a Nascar fan so the material around at the hall of fame wasn’t getting the oohs and ahhs but that’s just a personal preference thing. Only complaint that I had was the space was a bit smaller so was cramped in some areas.

A view of the masses at the Community Appreciation Party

PASS Summit 2013 – Part 1

October 23, 2013October 23, 2013hopefoley Leave a comment

Monday – travel day

Ah Summit time! The biggest and best time to meet up with SQLfamily. You always get pockets of SQLfamily at SQLSaturdays throughout the year but this is the time when EVERYONE is there for an all out SQLfamily reunion. This year was a little special too…it was my first year going as a speaker! Even on the way to the airport I could feel the difference, I had never left for Summit with presentation anxiety. I had a one hour delay on the way to Charlotte but even then was much less time to get there than Seattle. It was a nice change of pace too to be on the same time zone as home. I get to hotel, drop my stuff in room, and immediately head out to try find people. I was excited to start having those “heey, long time no see” moments. I went over to Buffalo Wild Wings for the very end of the networking party hosted by Andy Warren (blog|twitter) and Steve Jones (blog|twitter). I definitely found plenty of “hey” moments there. You have to give yourself extra time to get anywhere at Summit due to those moments. From there folks decided they wanted to try to do some sqlkaraoke and we walked a few blocks to try to find a place called Dixie’s. We walk up to it and find it was closed, permanently closed so decided to head back go to Carolina Ale House. We had amassed a fairly large group by that time and the folks at the Ale House were not prepared, staff-wise. Maybe it was just coincidence in the locations we chose but for being in close proximity to the convention center, places seemed unprepared for such a large conference. Next time the conference moves from Seattle it may help to make some calls into the local establishments for warnings if that wasn’t already done. From there we just ended up having drinks at the hotel bars and hanging out there.

Room full of crazy/dedicated SQLSaturday organizers

Tuesday

Wake up fairly early and head over to grab a crepe with my good friend, Colin Stasiuk (blog|twitter). I then get registered and spend a little more time preparing for presentation. After that I went over for the SQLSaturday organizers meeting. It was a good meeting but it’s always hard to move mountains in meetings that large. There was mention of some changes coming to the website. If anyone has recommendations for changes they are collecting them now. I was also intrigued by a mentoring program that was mentioned for organizers. I have a circle of people I know who organize and I reach out to with questions so have created my own organic circle/support group. I would be afraid there are folks out there floundering without one so seems like a great idea to me. That and I always hated to be constantly bugging Karla (blog|twitter).

Quiz Bowl prep

Amazes me every year the number of First Timers at Summit.

After the meeting I went through more prep for my presentation. At this point I was EXTREMELY nervous! Trying for so long to be accepted as a speaker at the Summit, the idea of it not going well just about make me sick to my stomach. Going back and doing a run through and saying the words out loud in my room helped calm the nerves. I did that until it was time to head over to convention center to prepare for the Quiz Bowl at the welcome reception. I was very honored to be asked to participate in it this year by Tim (blog|twitter). So we do some preparation and then head over to get ready to welcome the first timers. Had some good conversations with my group even though I looked ridiculous donning a spinning beany hat. They always try to help folks locate the volunteers and I’m sure someone somewhere had fun with the decision for those hats. Then it was Quiz Bowl time and we had fun even though we didn’t win for our contestant. Next I went to the volunteer party at Strike City, a bowling alley. After catching up with folks there and a terrible display of bowling I went over to see how things were going at Fox and Hound. Mr. Denny Cherry (blog|twitter) was hosting a party there sponsored by SQL Sentry and SIOS. It was packed and had a good time watching folks do karaoke. I set a decent curfew for myself that night so headed back fairly early. No way I wanted to be super tired for my presentation the next day.

My view from Quiz Bowl

The very busy Fox and Hound SQLKaraoke party

Sidelines no more! Speaking at the PASS Summit!

May 28, 2013May 28, 2013hopefoley 6 Comments

This time last year I was partaking in a Twitter pity party for fellow folks who had gotten the thanks-but-no-thanks-better-luck-next year letters from PASS Summit selection committee. I was used to it. I have submitted to speak at the PASS Summit regularly for the last few years but was denied each time. This year I am skipping the pity party because I got selected!!! I will be presenting one of my favorites, spatial data, to the fine folks in Charlotte! I am so excited but a bit out of sorts since I haven’t been in this spot yet but have wanted to be for so long. Making me think of dogs who chase cars, they wouldn’t know what to do if they caught one. This dog caught a car! I have had this as a top one on my professional wish list, what next? I will need to come up with some new goals and new cars to chase.

Get that car!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thompsonchan/5388337372/

To my peeps having the pity party, keep your heads up and keep on kicking butt out there! You’ll catch that car next year. And until then I’ll tip my 40 IPA to my homies! Well no I won’t tip beer since that’s wasteful but I will definitely drink this one in your honor!

Here’s one for you!

PASS Summit 2012 – Final Days Recap

December 6, 2012December 6, 2012hopefoley 2 Comments

Final day of Summit 2012

This is the day it starts to get a bit sad. Folks start heading back home so those I-probably-won’t-see-you-for-a-year-hugs start happening. I get up and go grab some lighter fare at La Panier with Colin (blog|twitter) and Josh (blog|twitter). After that head back and catch the PASS Board Q&A session. Was glad I caught that after someone mentioned it to me. It wasn’t on the schedule but it should have…a lot of great discussion! The most interesting topic I thought was the BA Conference coming up in Chicago. People asked if it was the path/direction for the Summit to split audiences. They said that wasn’t the intent and it was more to reach out to a different audience and pull them into the community. I was relieved to hear that.

How many members you think are on Twitter now?

From there I head to the Birds of a Feather lunch. I helped represent a SQL Family table with the help of Colin. I really love the conversations I had all week at those big round tables in the lunch room. These are probably my favorite times at the conference. I think we did well explaining how great it is to get involved in the community.

***

From there I go catch Wes Brown’s (blog|twitter) session “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My SAN”. Wes is a super great guy and has just the best metaphors. That and he is the SAN man. I really enjoyed his session especially since how many times I have had the “oh it’s striped against all the disk and it lives in a magical wonderland” conversation.

The SAN man, Wes Brown

After that was my family time session. The 3 hour time difference made it hard to catch them at a good time. It’s their bedtime by the time the last session is over. So I have a video chat with them then catch up and get a jump on some of the goodbyes that start flowing. After that I went over to catch Tim Ford’s (blog|twitter) session. I enjoy Tim’s sessions but this time I went more have expecting a train wreck. I catch catching him the couple days before saying he was ripping up his whole session and kind of winging it on a different format. He’s either full of it or works well on that just winging it nature. The session was far from a train wreck.

Tim Ford for the last session of Summit

After lingering around after the last session to say more goodbyes and catch the finale of the PASS TV, head to grab some sushi. Went over to Japonessa with Jessica Moss (blog|twitter), Denny Cherry (blog|twitter), his wife Kris (twitter), Colin , and Josh. From there we head to the last night of Bush Garden. Folks never really wanted to leave so stayed out late enough to require another late meal at 13 Coins.

Final Day in Seattle

I went down to the Daily Grill and grab some blueberry pancakes with a huge group. We kept having pull tables together sessions. I sit down and we all start having a really great discussion on what we loved and what could have stood some improvements at the Summit. Luckily Scott Stauffer (blog|twitter) had his tablet so took a lot of notes. Yeah no pressure on that blog post Scott 🙂 After this I then have to get to the train to the airport. The wonderful and delightfully deranged Rob Volk (blog|twitter) walked me to the train.

***

So then I’m on the train and heading out and have that very movie moment thinking back on the week. Thinking over all the great people and great times. I’m not sure what song should be playing on that movie moment soundtrack but there’s definitely one of those slowish I’ll miss you type songs playing. It almost aggravates me how sappy I have to get when I talk about these community events. So the Summit is just like that to a power of 10 so it’s extra sappy. So I can’t help it so warning for those squimish to sap. It was such a wonderful week at Summit. I feel truly blessed that I have found such a wonderful community of people. I met so many new people this week that afraid it will get harder leaving each year. Even so there is no doubt…wouldn’t miss it for the world.

PASS Summit 2012 – Day 4 Recap

December 2, 2012December 2, 2012hopefoley 1 Comment

Traumatized the previous day by missing a meal, skipped the keynote for a good breakfast with my roomie Julie (blog|twitter), Colin (blog|twitter), and Josh (blog|twitter). After a decent amount of food and giggling we head over to community zone for a few. Then I went over to Mark Broadbent’s (blog|twitter) session “READPAST & Furious: Transactions, Locking, and Isolation”. I was really glad I went, he did a really great job. I was really enjoying him talking about how implicit transactions are “evil muthas” but had to leave a bit early to get over to help setup for the WIT Luncheon. On my way out I finally crossed paths with Jimmy May (blog|twitter)! It is next to impossible to find one person at Summit but finally caught him.

Mr. Broadbent doing a great session.

Me and the man, Mr. Jimmy May

I’ve been involved for a little while in WIT so was really looking forward to the Luncheon. I go and assist in setting up the tables but things were in fairly decent order so it wasn’t too frantic or difficult. Grab some food and get prepped to watch the discussion. This year was the 10th anniversary for the WIT Luncheon so the topic was “Women in Technology: Where Have We Been and Where Are We Going?”. It was really great to hear how it has grown over the years. The panelists were Stefanie Higgins, Kevin Kline (blog|twitter), Kendra Little (blog|twitter), Denise McInerney (twitter), and Jen Stirrup (blog|twitter). Wendy Pastrick (blog|twitter) was the moderator. It was really great discussion and the panelists did a great job. I thought some of the live questions were a bit redundant though…seemed a few of the where just the same “how do we get more women in technology” vague question. I was really glad Wendy caught a great one via Twitter of “what do you do to silence the critics of WIT initiatives?”. Wow too much goes through my head on that one so will have to save for a future blog post. I absolutely loved Kendra’s response of “Haters gonna hate”. I did have one complaint of the Luncheon in that they should have wrapped it up at least 10 minutes before they did. It didn’t end until the next set of sessions were set to start. I tried to get into two sessions after it but they were full by the time I got there. So I roamed and chatted for another session which was completely fine.

WIT Luncheon

I ended up finding a quiet corner and had a video chat with the family. Was having so much fun seeing my family that ended up running over into the next session. After that roamed and chatted more until the last session which I caught the BI Power Hour session by the group of Matt Masson (blog|twitter), Chuck Heinzelman (twitter), Matthew Roche, Patrick LeBlanc (blog|twitter), Peter Myers, and Sean Boon (blog|twitter). I had never attended one but had a few folks mention it to me and oh so glad they did. I have never in my life attended a technical session that laughed so much in. I had tears streaming down my face from laughing so hard! Also imagine is one of those that just isn’t the same on the DVD as it was in person. It was a really fun session guys, great job!

The hilarious BI Power Hour

After sessions were done, Julie and I grabbed a bus to head over to the Community Appreciation party at the EMP Museum. It was a bit of a change up as they normally have this party at Gameworks. I LOVED the change! This place was great! They had live band karaoke going which a lot of folks seemed to enjoy. I wasn’t digging the karaoke area. At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old geezer, it was too loud and crowded. I didn’t yell at any of the young kids for their loud rock and roll but did avoid it other than in passing. I took in the sites of the museum though and was a bit like a little kid. They had some sci fi areas with some Star Wars paraphanelia which made me just damn giddy. There was also a great area with horror movie exhibits. I thought I was going to lose my mind when I saw they had a zombie suit from Michael Jackson’s Thriller video. There were also plenty of quiet areas for chatting so was really great…big thumbs up PASS on that party!

Me giddy at some Star Wars stuff at EMP community appreciation party

My daughter’s little traveling buddy and Thriller costume. How cool is that?!

PASS Summit 2012 – Day 1 & 2 Recap

November 17, 2012hopefoley 1 Comment

There’s no way I can fit the whole Summit experience into one blog post so going to break into a few posts. Here’s my recap of my first couple of days heading out to the loveliness that is the PASS Summit 2012.

***

PASS Summit Day 1

I flew out on Monday afternoon. Flights were on time. I had a stop on the same airplane in Kansas City. I was off in la la land when I hear my name. I look up and it’s Kevin Kline (blog|twitter)! Was very excited to have my first SQL person sighting! So head to the train with Mr. Kline and chat his ear off on the the whole way until they kick us off the train. They had an issue with a bus in the tunnel so gave us the boot. It turned out to barely be a bump in the road as there was a bus right there waiting and took us the rest of the way to Westlake station. I then catch Ted Kruger (blog|twitter), Jes Borland (blog|twitter), and Colin Stasiuk (blog|twitter). I was starved and figured could grab a sandwich to go since they were on their way to Bush Garden. I thought wrong. It was just a hair past 8:00 PM which is when sandwich shops close downtown. Ted and I end up finding a Bartlett (pharmacy/convenience store). So yeah, I totally ate convenience store turkey sandwich and Doritos at Bush Garden. It was actually not bad and didn’t get sick so good job Bartlett Pharmacy. I finished my sandwich on the curb of Bush Garden though, I never considered Bush Garden as a restaurant so didn’t dawn on me that it would be a health code violation to bring in outside food. Food was accomplished and then on to the wonderful spectacle that is SQL karaoke. It was great and added bonus of being the first place for many sightings of my SQL family. Running off of adrenaline and good SQL mojo vibes went to the Tap House after that and shut the place down.

PASS Summit Day 2

I didn’t have too much going on Tuesday during the day other than the SQL Saturday organizer meeting. That was really fantastic though! You’ll probably remember I learned a lot doing my SQLSaturday (blog). My scars from that always had me picking individual brains on what they did right/wrong for their SQLSaturdays but was wonderful to get a roomful of organizers sharing their experiences. I got a lot of great information that I am taking back to Indianapolis with me. Appreciate the organizers for setting up that meeting. Thank you very much Kendal (blog|twitter), Karla (blog|twitter), and Niko (blog|twitter)!

Panel answering questions on organizing SQLSaturdays

Then after some relaxation and a video chat with the family I head to the first timer orientation. It was a bit chaotic but when you have that many folks enter a room at the same time you’ll have that. At first they have folks trying to find their dedicated alumni volunteer that had been communicating with them prior to the Summit. I really like having someone assigned to first timers getting them info and being available for questions prior to the Summit. Just not sure feasible to have them try to meet at the event and it’s really not a necessary portion. Just have alumni available and have them go and find a table to sit and chat with whoever. Once they gave up on that and just had folks sit down it was fine and we all had great conversation. I got to talk about the SQL community and peer pressure them to join Twitter and check out #sqlhelp so yeah I had a good time. I hope they did too. I did hear later one of my first timers succumbed to the peer pressure and joined Twitter…win! Thank you so very much to Sarah Strate (blog|twitter)! She put in overtime getting alumni volunteers and planning a great event.

***

From there was the welcome reception. By this time I’m really floating on air. I can’t throw a rock and not hit one of my SQL peeps. I was really glad I was in the far room to have the chance to catch the flashmob and some of the quiz bowl. I think they should have had some of the far room action on the screens in the other room. Plenty of networking down there but wondered if folks on the other side had any idea what was going on down there. From there made the trek to the speaker and volunteer party at the Garage. Thank you to PASS for hosting a great party! Caught up with lots of folks there. It felt like I was somewhat isolated on a different planet since it was election day and very different from my usual election day back home. The election caught up with us all though in the area down by the Garage. Folks in Seattle were out in the streets partying it up…big time! Come to find out in Washington they passed gay marriage and legal marijuana that day. I never talk politics or religion in any place remotely related to work so not going to do it here. No matter what side of the fence you are on, I had to admit it was really great seeing people happy about the electoral process. With all the piss and vinegar and BS involved in politics it was nice to see people happy and see the instant impact it made on a large group of people. Running off of SQL happiness go go adrenaline juice I made it a late night that was finished off at the Tap House.

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Category PASS Summit