Janet, my girlfriend, and I went to Colorado Springs a day early, Thursday, to ski on Friday before SQL Saturday #104. It was her first time skiing and for me it has been about 3 years since the last trip on a mountain. The altitude at Monarch was about 10,700 feet above sea level at the base, and this had me breathing hard just going up the stairs.
We meet up with Jason Horner and Christian Leo on Monarch Mountain. It was great to spend some social time with other SQL geeks before the event. Janet is trying to get used to techy talk but at least she is trying.
I meet Jeremy Lowell from Data Realized as sponsor of the Friday night event. They gave us ski vests with SQL Patrol on the back like the Ski Patrols on the mountains. The ski theme was even part of the schedule, Chris Shaw and gang did a great job. There were others that promoted the event and helped the day go by that were awesome.
I attended an Introduction to BI which was given by 2 individuals, Marc Beacom and someone else, because it was right before mine. The rooms were small, but packed 20-30 people. I thought that would be a problem, but actually was good for everybody could see without using Zoomit. They introduced a new term for Data Warehouse calling it a Data Vault. Very interesting!!!
My session was on Dimensional Modeling 101. I tried to demonstrate methods from the Kimball Group while showing flow in SSIS and display in SSAS. The reviews were what I expected for the first time doing this session – from excellent to you were all over the place. 60 minutes is just not enough time, need 75-90 minutes.
The best session of the day was with Thomas LaRock and Jason Strate, that I attended. It was an attendee group effort to get to the root cause of a performance problem. Jason drove while Thomas guided. I am are sure this helped every one understand that the native tools of SQL Server can diagnosis a problem while helping all learn how to cooperate with each other to solve a problem. They also guided us in how to communicate with other departments and the importance of being able to say the right things and showing your worth in the company.
Lunch was spent socializing with attendees and catching up with some SQL friends William (Bill) Pearson and Grant Fritchey. Janet and I talked more with Grant waiting for the plane Sunday morning.
Mike Fal did an excellent job with Partitioning, so good he is doing the session for the PASS Performance and Data Architecture Virtual Chapters. Also, David Eicher showed some tips for using maps in Reporting Services. I caught some of Always ON 2012 from Austin nut Jim Murphy.
I am amazed that I gained all this knowledge and excitement and fun from a SQLSaturday. This site is loaded with 20-30 events coming up in the next 4-5 months, so please do not missed these opportunities to learn and/or teach.
God Bless, Thomas
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