02Jan 2015 by Grant Fritchey 5 Comments

Speaker of the Month: January 2015

Professional Development
I love it that my first post of the new year is going to be Speaker of the Month. I'm really enjoying doing these because I'm getting to attend a lot more sessions at the events I go to in order to get choices. But, please, don't bug me. If I can attend your session, I will. If I can't... Anyway. Speaker of the Month for January 2015 is William Wolf (b|t) and his session "Common Coding Mistakes and How to Mitigate Them" that was delivered at SQL Saturday DC. This was a good session. It was informative. I really liked how Bill (I'm going to use that because it's easier to type and despite looking like the Demon Biker of the Apocalypse, he's a bigger sweetheart than I am) kept…
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08Dec 2014 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

Speaker of the Month: December 2014

Professional Development
For the month of November I was at the PASS Summit and Live360, so I didn’t get to find new speakers to see (heck, I didn’t get to see any sessions at Summit this year). But, that didn’t mean I didn’t get to see great speakers. I did (Rimma! Rimma! Rimma!). Live360 had some amazing presentations. I do like the mixed events like Live360 because I enjoy crossing into dev sessions as well as database sessions. My speaker of the month for December 2014 is Bradley Ball (b|t) and his session “Inside the Query Optimizer” Oh, before I go any further: HEY BALLS! Sorry, but Brad had us do that at the start of the session. I figured I’d just carry it on. Anyway, wow. What a great session. Brad’s delivery…
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05Dec 2014 by Grant Fritchey 1 Comment

Speaker of the Month: November 2014

Professional Development
I have been very remiss in my blogging of late. Apologies. One thing I haven’t blogged about is Speaker of the Month. I’m behind. So, I’ll be posting two of them over the next few days in order to catch up. First up, Speaker of the Month for November. I went to quite a few events in October, but I actually didn’t get to see too many sessions. However, the few I saw were actually quite good. Speaker quality is just going up and up. I finally got to see someone present that I’ve known for years and years, but just never had the opportunity to sit in on a class. Well, I sat in on one, and this is the result. My speaker of the month is Kathi Kellenburger(b)…
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05Sep 2014 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Speaker of the Month: September 2014

Professional Development
This month I'm very grateful because I was given the opportunity to present at DevLink in Chattanooga. I got to meet a lot of new people and see presentations by people that just don't hang around SQL Server specific events. It was great. I'm going to apply next year (depending on scheduling of course) and I'm applying for a lot more development conferences. I still get to see friends present, Louis Davidson, Kevin Boles and Kevin Kline were all there. But I get to see new people. Speaking of which, speaker of the month for September 2014 is Josh Lane (b|t) and his presentation AWS vs. Azure, Which One Is Right for You. The thing that I found the most amazing about this presentation was how even-handed it was. Josh Lane…
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11Jul 2014 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Speaker of the Month, July 2014

Professional Development
Another month another bunch of great presentations. I almost don't want to do this any more. It's hard. I sit through a presentation and I think, "Well, here's the winner this month." Then I go to another presentation and I think, "Well, fudge, now one of these people loses." Then I go to a third and I'm simply blown away. And now I have to pick. Well, it's hard. So let me do this, I'm going to declare two winners this month, but only review one of them. Hey, my blog, my rules. First, I want to award speaker of the month for July 2014 to Wayne Sheffield(b|t) and his presentation Table Variables and Temp Tables that I saw at SQL Saturday 294. What's my measure? That I learned stuff…
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06Jun 2014 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Speaker of the Month, June 2014

Professional Development
It's not like I can't find plenty of great presentations here in the US, but, while I was over in Belgium at Techorama I checked out several of the presenters there. They were awesome. This was the first ever Techorama. It's a developer focused event, but there was stuff there for data-centric people too. They had a great international collection of speakers from all over. The venue was a movie theater which was a lot of fun to present in, although may be a little too comfy to watch presentations (I fell asleep in one, I sure hope I didn't snore). It was such a great event that I decided to pick my speaker of the month from there. I saw a bunch of very good presentations (even the one…
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04Apr 2014 by Grant Fritchey 4 Comments

Speaker of the Month, April 2014

Professional Development
I'm really enjoying picking a speaker of the month. It forces me to sit through a lot more sessions at the events I attend. I had been getting rather slack about attending sessions. It's easy to get caught up in networking so much that you're not taking advantage of the learning opportunities. This month we're on to the East Coast to pick a speaker from the Boston SQL Saturday event. The talk was called, "What I Wish I Knew Before Becoming a DBA." The speaker of the month is Mike Walsh (b|t). Mike's session was just a general discussion about the job of being a DBA. He didn't get into a lot of technical detail. Instead it was like a conversation with your friends talking about personality traits, work/life balance, restore…
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07Mar 2014 by Grant Fritchey 3 Comments

Speaker of the Month, March 2014

Professional Development
This never gets easier. I was able to attend a bunch of sessions in the last month from a number of speakers that I'd never seen before. A lot of them were good, very good. In fact, I'd go so far as to say I think the general level of speakers within the SQL Server community is improving. Which means we'll all need to up our games. I also saw several that I've seen before because I always learn from them. In short, my cup runneth over. Anyway, the person I picked this month, well, I'd never seen him present before. But, I have hung out with him. He's got this incredible, fast, sharp wit and he'll protect you from dangerous objects in orange. I'm picking Mark Vaillancourt (b|t) and his…
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07Feb 2014 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

Speaker of the Month, February 2014

Professional Development
I didn't get out to many events in January, so I was somewhat limited in the pool of presenters that I could choose from. Luckily for me, that pool primarily consisted of the entire Caribbean since I was on the SQL Cruise. There I got to see some of the best in the business doing serious teaching (and networking, and water slides, and rum, and beaches, and rum). I could easily cop out, cheat, and name the Cruise as speaker of the month, but I have not yet sunk that low (plus, the rum is gone). Every speaker I saw was great too. Tim Ford doesn't let just anyone present in his watery venue. So, I could pick from any of them and be 100% right. But, I had to…
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03Jan 2014 by Grant Fritchey 2 Comments

Speaker of the Month, January 2014

Professional Development
A whole new year. Cool. I was at SQL Saturday DC, #233, at the beginning of December. I sat through several really good presentations. I could honestly give the award this month to any of the ones I took notes on, but I have to pick one person (although, not always, my award, my rules). So, speaker of the month for the brand new year is Konstantin Melamud (li|t). Yet another speaker without a blog. Maybe I should enforce my own rules at some at some point. <sigh> Anyway, I enjoyed Konstantin's presentation. Let's talk about it. Performance Tuning - Index Optimization was an excellent presentation. Konstantin came at the topic very carefully. He started off with a knowledge level baseline, right at the start. I thought that was a…
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