Ah, back home in my comfy work chair, feet up surrounded by the warm glow of computer monitors with the football game on (and at the right time, not 3 hours too early!) It was quite a week, and I learned more stuff this year than normal, and have a few nuggets I really should have known before, that I know now. I will say that there was an ...

Every September for the past 12 years, not only does summer slowly come to an end, but it is the time that final preparations for the SQLPASS Summit are being made by just a ton of people. I have always focused on speaker preparations myself for the most part, but there are hundreds of other folks furiously prepping to make the trip up to ...

In July and October, I will be doing my "How To Design a Relational Database" full day conference in two places. First on July 26 for the East Iowa SQL Saturday, and then for the big daddy SQLPASS Summit in Charlotte, NC on October 14. You can see the entire abstract here on the SQL PASS site. It is essentially the same concept as last ...

I admit it. I am tired and I have not blogged nearly enough. This has been a crazy year, with the book I finished writing, the pre-cons I have done (teaching is NOT my primary profession so I do a lot more prep than some others probably do), lots of training on Data Warehousing topics (from Ralph Kimball, Bob Becker, and Stacia Misner, to name ...

I will be doing my Characteristics of a Great Relational Database, which is a session that I haven’t done since last PASS. When I was asked about doing this Summit Preview version of 24 hours of PASS, I decided that I would do this session, largely because it is kind of light and fun, but also because it is either going to be the basis of the end ...

One more week until we get to SQL Saturday 122 in Louisville KY. I have a couple of sessions on the calendar this time. First, the one on Sequences: ------------------------------------ What Sequence objects are (and are not) SQL Server 2012 adds a new object to our arsenal called a sequence that can will give us the capability to implement ...

Edit: As I reread this, I felt I should clarify.. As usual refers mostly to the ''Scary'' part. I have a lot of stage fright that I have to work through. And it is always exciting to be picked.   I have been selected this year at the PASS Summit 2012 to do two sessions, and they are both going to be interesting. Pre-Con: Relational ...

Well, we are finally here at what is the secular version of the holiday season for Microsoft SQL Server nerd types, the week of the SQLPASS Summit. This year, I am speaking 3 times and will also be doing the Quiz Bowl at the Welcome Reception, so I am going to be busy. If you are here and are interested in database design, please do stop by and ...