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In the land of Jazz and Meat

I’ve been on the SQL Saturday kick lately.  Truly, these are great events that really tell you what the SQL community is all about, even more so than the Summit.  This time I was at SQL Saturday Kansas City, getting my community involvement on.  The best thing about these events is you get to interact with folks who are getting their first taste of the SQL community, which gets me really excited to share and enjoy.

I was tapped to present on two sessions, my SQL Server Security session (which I’ve done several times now) and my new Query Plan Primer session, where I do a basic rundown of reading query plans and some of the operators we can find within.  Both went well, though I’ve got my presentations lined up to be ~60 minutes each and the KC folks slotted the sessions to be 75 minutes.  This worked out well becuase I got into some good Q & A time with the audience in the remaining time.

I’m getting more and more comfortable with the whole presentation thing. It’s a ton of fun and really stretches my learning.  As I’ve told many people, the act of building a presentation really drives you, getting you to study up on the subject matter.  Open Q & A time is also a bonus, because while you can read all that material and build a nice little presentation, having 30 people quiz you on it is even better because it forces you to think about the subject from different angles.

I also attended a couple sessions that were good.  But it worked in Dev! with the illustrious Randy Knight(b|t) was great fun.  Randy’s a heck of a speaker and was able to express some of the cardinal development sins we find in our production environments in a straightforward, understandable way.  His presentation is that kind that needs to be given at any shop with a serious developer presence.  I caught a solid powershell session by Mike Lynn(t) that was a good introduction to the fundamentals of the language.  Finally, I learned about service broker from Sanil Mhatre(b|t).  Service broker is one of those cool solutions that has a lot to offer, but it’s hard to find the right problem for it to solve.

The KC group did a solid job with the event, from a comfortable speaker dinner, to an excellent event venue, and wrapped it all up with smooth exection.  Shout outs to Bill Graziano(b|t), Bill Fellows(b|t), Kris Nessa(b|t), Andy Cross, and everyone I couldn’t remember.  You guys have got this <<redacted>> DOWN.  I’ll definitely try to be out for next year.

One Comment

  1. Bill says:

    Thank you so much for coming out! Unfortunately we won’t invite you next year but everyone else from Colorado is invited back. :P I’ll keep an eye on the calendar and let you know if there are any jazz festivals going on. If nothing else, we’ll get you down to the Blue Room

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