“Gotta say it was a good day…”

On The SQL Saturday Circuit

I’ve been speaking at all the regional SQLSaturday events I can go to. I kicked off the year with SQLSaturday #57 in Houston. Then did a turn around to SQLSaturday #63 in Dallas, my second one there. I have submitted to Baton Rouge figuring I could drive it but after that I’d be tapped out on vacation time and money. Lucky for me, Idera started the A.C.E. program and chose me as part of the very first group to sponsor for this year. I’m now gearing up to submit to more SQLSaturday’s. Hopefully I’ll get picked!

Is this Thing On?

I did my first live webinar on Idera’s Secrets of SQL Server  webcast series. It was a three part series over SQL Server and storage technologies. My first part pulled in around 900 people. Part 2 around 500 and part 3 around 350. All in all, I would call it a success. I had a great time doing them. I was terrified to do them. I have done a ton of public speaking and a short stint in radio broadcasting, but this felt completely different. It was in a way. I couldn’t just ham it up like I would on the radio and not having the feed back from a live audience made it difficult to tell if I was going off the rails.

On The National Stage

I was notified by SQLRally that I would be presenting my storage talk at the very first event in Orlando. I was stunned. First, that I made the initial cut. Secondly, that I was chosen by all of you over so many other great abstracts and speakers. I resolved to make this the best presentation I could. Later, I got the call that I had been chosen for a 90 minute deep dive session. I knew I could carry 90 minutes with the amount of material I’ve got handy so that wasn’t an issue. Not wanting to disappoint those who attended was though. Just to keep things interesting, I helped perform eScan’s first move into a real data center, got the flu oh and resigned to go to work for Dell. All of this right before SQLRally. My last day at work was on a Tuesday, I left at lunch got on the plane to Florida an gave it my all. The reaction was just overwhelming. The amount of people that kept coming up to me through the rest of the conforince to let me know how much they liked the session was just staggering. People that I’ve known for years kept telling me just how solid it was. I didn’t disagree with them but when I got the evaluations back I knew I’d knocked it out of the park.  They also just announced the top rated speakers and I came in number second, Adam Jorgensen (twitter|blog) just squeaking past me. I would have been jazzed just to be in the top 10. Again, I am humbled to be in such excellent company.

The Big Show

If all of that wasn’t enough I got the nod. For years I’ve dreamed of speaking at The Summit. I’ve been to almost every one of them. I submitted two sessions. My talk on the fundamentals of storage got the green light and my solid state storage was selected as an alternate. What do I say? I’m humbled, honored and very excited to be a speaker at the premiere SQL Server event of the year.

Now What?

I’m not sure to be honest. It is only June. I’ve got more stuff to get done for the local and regional PASS chapters, a SQL Saturday to host in Austin by the end of the year. I got to say, this is going down as one of my best years ever serving the SQL Server community.