14Dec 2011 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

SQL Saturday #104: Colorado Springs

Professional Development
I’ll be presenting at the Colorado Springs SQL Saturday on January 7th of 2012. The session is called Seven Ways to Fix Bad Parameter Sniffing. Please, if you’re in the area, register and come to the event. There are going to be some truly excellent speakers there. There is also evidently skiing on Sunday, although I won’t be taking part in that.
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04Apr 2011 by Grant Fritchey 4 Comments

SQL Saturday #71 Wrap-up

PASS
It’s over. It’s finally over. This year, unlike previous years, Adam Machanic (blog|twitter) was very good about delegating the work. Which, is actually a mixed blessing. I did a lot more work this year than I have done in years past. Luckily, we had more help this year from, new MVP, Mike Walsh (blog|twitter) and Tom LaRock (blog|twitter). The team came together and pulled off the event with the help of a great set of volunteers. Of special note, Allen White’s (blog|twitter) wonderful wife, Cindi, stood at the front desk all day, and in other ways helped us organize and run the event. It would not have been the same without her. Thanks so much. We couldn’t have pulled it off without our vendors. Here is the rather substantial list.…
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28Mar 2011 by Grant Fritchey 10 Comments

SQL Saturday #67 Wrap-up

PASS
Just… Wow. What an event. What a great group of people. I’m just so lucky to be involved with fantastic individuals like these. Thanks for having me out to play everyone, I really appreciated it. SQL Saturday #67 started for me with my second FreeCon (follow the link for details on the first one). Brent Ozar (blog|twitter) put together another great session where we spent a lot of time talking about blogs and blogging as well as swoops through other topics. We, by the way, is like a who’s who of great SQL Server people. I’m not going to post the list just in case everyone doesn’t want to be outed. However, I found the event extremely useful. I have a ton of notes and action items for myself and…
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15Feb 2011 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

SQL Saturday #60, Cleveland Speaker Evals

PASS
I just received 35 speaker evaluations from SQL Saturday #60 in Cleveland. It was a great event (although I had a hard time getting there) and I really enjoyed giving my presentation on “Gathering and Interpreting Performance Metrics” (a warm-up presentation of part of my SQL Rally pre-con). Feedback is a wonderful gift. Thanks to everyone who filled out the eval and especially to those who commented. The evals have six questions and an area for comments. The questions are rated from Very Poor to Excellent. I’ve decided to assign them number values from 1-5. The overall average is 4.82. Here are the breakdowns per question: How would you rate the usefulness of the session information in your day-to-day environment: 4.79 How would you rate the Speaker’s presentation skills: 4.85…
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07Feb 2011 by Grant Fritchey 13 Comments

SQL Saturday #60: The Saga

PASS
First, let me thank Erin Stellato (blog|twitter) and all the volunteers for running such a great event. Nicely done. This event was to be my very first walk on to the public stage as a Red Gate employee, so I was excited about getting there. About 10 minutes before I left for the airport, I got a call from the airline. My flight had been cancelled, but no worries, they rescheduled everything for me. Instead of flying to LaGuardia and then on to Cleveland, I would fly past Cleveland to Chicago and then back to Cleveland, getting there at 7:30PM instead of 4:30PM. Ah well. What are you going to do. I’d prefer not to go to Chicago, but everything should be fine… The plane was supposed to leave Chicago…
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25Jan 2011 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

SQL Saturday #71: Call For Speakers

PASS
The SQL Saturday #71/New England Data Camp #3 call for speakers has been open for quite a while. But, we had not yet sent out an official request. That email has now gone out the door. Here it is for those who might be interested in presenting. Please consider this your personal email: Let me tell you a little bit about our event. Last year we had over 300 attendees. We plan on doing that well again this year. That’s a guaranteed audience for your presentation. We’re holding the conference in the Microsoft offices on Jones Road in Waltham. The venue is well appointed and set up for presentations. We’re already gathering sponsors from all over the country and the region. It’s going to be a great event. Please submit…
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09Dec 2010 by Grant Fritchey No Comments

SQL Saturday New England, #71

PASS
I've finally got everything together to get the web site going for SQL Saturday #71. The call for speakers is open. We're open for registrations. I'll be contacting sponsors shortly (or you can always contact me). In short, SQL Saturday #71, New England Data Camp #3, is a go!
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12Oct 2010 by Grant Fritchey 1 Comment

SQL Saturday New England: The New Date

PASS
The real world can get in the way of important things like SQL Saturday. In the case of SQL Saturday New England, the original date was the same time as the Boston Marathon. Unfortunately, that means that Boston's somewhat limited hotel space will be tweaked. Rather than try to compete with that, we moved the date. Please mark it as April 2nd, 2011.
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