Looking back on 2011, I'm surprised by two occurances. First, I got a lot of work done, despite myself. My biggest obstacles to high-performance are all self-derived; procrastination, disorganization, and plain ol' laziness. Second, I'm surprised I survived my personal travails. I've had my fill of frowns this year, from wayward children to ...

I hate to admit it, but I'm a hoarder. Yes, like those insane people on the A&E TV show. Only my hoarding is all virtual. For example, take the image above. That's just a tiny part of my Google Reader home page. That's a tiny part of my Google Reader home page AFTER reading most of the day on a recent Sunday. I still had thousands of ...

As I finish up preparing for the Sep 20 (@1pm ET) webcast, I thought a final blog post may be appropriate in order to quickly reference many of the areas that I have touched upon.  Naturally, much of this information is geared towards First Timers, but Alumni are welcome to join in the webcast as well and are encouraged to help spread even ...

Now that I have covered just about all of the ''official'' Summit activities, it is time for a blog post about ''After Hours'' activities. There is a webpage that lists some of the activities that we are currently aware of.  You can find that page here. Monday Night Networking Dinner - Last year, Andy Warren and Steve Jones started a ...

One of the most valuable parts of the entire Summit experience is the networking that goes on. In this post, I will go over some of the opportunities for you to network with others.  Once again, this post will not focus on ''after hours'' activities which will come later. Badge and Ribbons - Once you get to the Summit and pick up your ...

The last quarter of the year is usually my busiest due to the fantastic PASS Summit and SQLBits events. The fall looks a little different ... BECAUSE IT WILL BE EVEN BUSIER! Here's a rundown of where I'll be this fall through mid-October:   BASTA! SQLCON.NET September 26 to 29; Mainz, Germany This big developer and admin conference ...

Yeah, alright. I know PASS puts on heaps of free training all the time. There are meetings around the world all the time, as held by hundreds of chapters. Seriously, there’s over 240 chapters in the world. If you figure that they typically have a 2 hour meeting once a month, that makes over 480 hours of training per month. That’s an average over ...

A bit of background:  Those aren't grand daughters of the Clampetts in the picture at right.  Those are my three daughters and three stepdaughters, all of whom I want to inherit the world - as little or as much as they want to take hold of.  (I already talked a bit about this in a post on my personal, family blog.  ...

In last month's column, ''2012 Might Really Be the End of the World as We Know It,'' I described a number of major developments in the IT industry that are likely to disrupt the life of database professionals everywhere.  I categorize those four disruptors - virtualization, cloud computing, solid state drives (SSD), and advanced ...

First, an apology. I haven’t blogged for the last couple of months, except for T-SQL Tuesday events. I make myself blog for these, for two reasons. One is the simple fact that I like the concept – I like the idea of getting a blogging assignment, and the fact that it’s a monthly event. I’m not saying that I want to sign up for every blogging meme ...