The last PASS board meeting for the year has happened, and the portfolio handovers are well under way. Sadly, having new board members elected means having existing board members step down, and this last board meeting was the last one for both Allen Kinsel (@sqlinsaneo) and Kendal van Dyke (@sqldba). In 2012, these guys had the portfolios of ...

Today was SQL Saturday #146, put on by Mike Walsh, Jack Corbett, and a host of other volunteers and organizers. Scott and I missed the speaker dinner last night, but we headed up from Rhode Island at 6:00 AM and made a good day of it. We had lots of great conversations with both existing friends and potential customers. After lunch I ...

Well, East Greenwich, RI. Another successful event, this one put on by John Miner, Brandon Leach, Steve Simon, Scott Abrants and a host of other folks. Several #SQLFamily friends in attendance as well: Grant Fritchey, Mike Walsh, Jack Corbett, Wayne Sheffield and others. I gave a session in the morning and then a session to cap off the day. Thanks ...

Yesterday I presented at SQL Saturday #162. My slide deck and samples are here:     Slide Deck & Samples: Bertrand - T-SQL Bad Habits & Best Practices I also wanted to answer a question from an audience member after the session about how to generate YYYYMMDD strings to represent yesterday's date in order to append to a backup ...

I've been to a lot of SQL Saturdays. They are great events to attend - from a community standpoint, from a learning standpoint, and from a speaker growth standpoint. Who could ask for more, right? Great sessions, from passionate speakers willing to both teach and learn, fantastic networking opportunities and lunch. All for free, or at a very low ...

Well, 8 days not including lead and lag travel time. A quick summary of the three events, and the flights it took to get me to each: SQL Saturday #105 - Dublin, Ireland Flights on March 21st:Providence -> Philadelphia (236 miles)Philadelphia -> Dublin (3,260 miles)Time zone change: +4 when we got there, plus Daylight Saving Time kicked ...

Today I presented my ''What's New in SQL Server 'Denali''' deck to about 40 attendees at SQL Saturday #65 in Vancouver, British Columbia. Attached below (and here) are the slightly updated slides and samples.

Last weekend I spoke at SQL Saturday #60 in Cleveland, Ohio. I had a great time catching up with some existing friends and colleagues, and met a bunch of new people too. I presented two sessions: What's New in Denali, and T-SQL: Bad Habits to Kick.  Yesterday the organizers passed along the scanned-in speaker evaluations (this was the first ...

Every time I attend a SQL Saturday, I leave with a rejuvenated and even further reinforced sense of community.  Cleveland (SQL Saturday #60) was by far no exception.  Allen White (blog | twitter), Erin Stellato (blog | twitter), Cory Stevenson, Brian Davis (twitter), and all others involved put on a fantastic event that endured some ...

It hasn't been 24 hours since I left behind a slew of new and old friends in Seattle, and I already feel - as someone else put it - that I've left summer camp for another long, cold winter.  Okay, it's not going to be that bad - I'll soon be heading home to my new wife, and ramping up in my new job.  But still, it is weird to be ...