Hello Dear Reader! We had a beautiful weekend here in Florida. Spring is in the air, mainly because the temperature is ranging between 85 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit. This has lead to some rather pronounced sneezing on my morning exercise routine. The type of sneezing that has scared children and small animals.
It was a really nice weekend, enjoying the tale end of February before a busy March.
This was a good time to get some recordings done, have some outings with the Mrs., and meet the gentleman for a morning of golf. I'm not good at golf, quite terrible actually. It is a good excuse to spend two hours with friends talking about life, family, and generally trading our perspectives on things.
As we say goodbye to Winter and begin to focus on Spring it seemed like last week was indeed the perfect way to send off February with a bang.
Off to the wrap up.
Tuesday 2-21-2023
On Tuesday we had a little bit of Christmas in February with out Elfster show. Our good friend Lonnye Bower (Twitter | @ilovesql) had the brilliant idea to have a gift exchange! Andrew Nathan (Twitter | @AndrewNathan05) & Daniel Taylor (Twitter | @DBABulldog) were quick to sound off their excitement and we planned our eventual holiday extravaganza!
We all were super excited for this. No technical topics in this show, just a bunch of friends joking around, playing Secret Santa, and opening presents. If you are looking for some fun and a laugh, please tune in. This was a really fun time!
Wednesday 2-22-2023
On Wednesday we dropped our latest MS Tech Bits. These are videos that will cover different Azure technologies and how you can incorporate them. Neeraj Jhaveri (Twitter | @Neeraj_Jhaveri) & Andrés Padilla (Twitter | @nodestreamio) walk us how to use BICEP templates from our GitHub repository to walk you through deploying Pattern 1 in order to deploy you Azure Synapse Analytics environment.
This is a great video and it is just the start, personally I'm really looking forward to additions to this series.
Thursday 2-23-2023
On Thursday we had our Community Round Table featuring amazing content by you the Azure Data Community & sometimes great authors from our community at large!
Josh Luedeman (Twitter | @JoshLuedeman) wore his hat from the Tuesday show, and we kicked off reviewing the content our team had seleted for the week. But you don't want to here me talk about it, here are the links!
We've got a big week planned this week. Vicky Harp (Twitter | @vickyharp ) Principal Product Group PM Manager will be on the Tuesday show!
On Wednesday I have some MS Tech Bits that will be posted, on Thursday we have the Community Round table featuring data from the Azure Data Community, and it maybe featuring your content! Let us know if you are writing a blog, producing a video, or doing something noteworthy in the community!
Hello Dear Reader! After a weekend with a lot of activities, it was a down week here at Casa Balls. Woke up and walked a lot. I'm still not back to running. A groin pull is not something I've had a lot of experience with, yet it entered my life in December and I cannot wait for it to leave.
I miss running, last year I ran 755.1 kilometers. Right now I can walk, as long as my pace is not too quick, and I can ride a bike. The key is really to get out in the morning, take in some sunshine, and get the blood flowing.
If I can do that I find that helps put me in the proper headspace to be productive during the day. One of my favorite things as of late it take pictures.
In the morning I set out and take pictures as I walk around the neighborhood. Even when I did "run", it was actually interval running. The reason I note that is I tend to take pictures when I'm in the walking portion of my interval run. With the exception of my phone, I do not carry a camera on me. I still manage to get some really great pictures of the day.
So this weekend was a lot of walking, cooking, and hanging out. I hope you had a great weekend, and made it out to enjoy some time outside or inside amongst family and friend. On to the re-cap!
Tuesday 1-31-2023
On Tuesday we had Andrew Nathan (Twitter | @AndrewNathan05) Principal Engineering Manager from the Azure FastTrack Core team was our special guest. We discussed the Zero Trust Security imitative by Microsoft that all customers should consider when building their architecture. We also discussed International Travel Tips ahead of SQLBits! SQLBits is the largest Microsoft focused Data Community conference in Europe. This year it is Hybrid which means Dear Reader, if you cannot make it in person you could still attend this fantastic conference.
We played our hosting show, I was the host this week! Want to know who won? Check out the video above to enjoy the show and find out!
Wednesday 2-1-2023
NEW THIS YEAR! We will be dropping weekly technical content every Wednesday, our MS Tech Bits. This week it was my turn to produce a video. I was working with a friend and they wanted to know how to troubleshoot deadlocks they were experiencing. The first step in that process is understanding what is a deadlock and how to find them when they occur. So I made this video How to Monitor Deadlocks in Azure SQL Managed Instance to help.
This is a fun little video where I walk you through the process. Also there is a bit of an easter egg in this vide. If the shirt I'm wearing on the video looks familiar that's because I wore this in another blog post, and it means a lot to me.
Thursday 2-2-2023
On Thursday we had our Community Round Table. This is one of my favorite shows every week because we get to give a shout out to the great content producers in the community. People writing blogs, producing videos, or even GitHub repositories that help people get things done. It's just amazing.
Here's a list of the content featured on the Round Table in order of appearance:
And now we draw the blog to a close. We have a great line up this week! Make sure to tune in Tuesday at 1 pm EST for a very special guest. Wednesday we have our second MS Tech Bit coming up with my co-hosts Andres Padilla and Neeraj Jhaveri covering Tips and Tricks for Migrating Azure Data Lake Gen 1 to Gen 2.
On Thursday we will wrap up our week with our Community Round Table also at 1 pm EST. I hope you all have a wonderful week, and as always Dear Reader. Thank you for stopping by.
Hello Dear Reader! It's been a while since I had time to sit down and write out a Monday re-cap
This past week was my birthday week. With all the stress of the current modern world it was really nice to have some dedicated family time.
The fun started on my actual birthday, my wife gave me an amazing birthday present for me and my oldest son to go to the Mega-Con comic book convention this year!
My parents drove over and took me plus my youngest son to lunch at Yellow Dog Eats, an AMAZING BBQ joint nearby.
That evening the family went out to eat, we played games, checkers, and topped it off at home with a Double Fudge Coca-Cola cake. Not on the list of approved items for diabetics, but the goal is to have a little fun. This was genuinely one of my best birthday.
This weekend we went to Disney Springs with a group of 10 friends. We headed over to Splitsville Lanes and to go bowling.
The music was surprisingly good, food was solid, and the drinks were flowing. Which is good, because none of us will becoming professional bowlers anytime soon.
We walked around, enjoyed some live music, and because it was Disney, the shopping. Enough about that, let's move on to the recap!
Tuesday 1-24-2023
We Had Paloma Garcia (Twitter | @PalomaGarcia40) Sr. Support Engineer from the Azure SQL PaaS Solutions team on the show! The theme of the show was IT Troubleshooting Skills!
We had a lot of fun, some insightful, and some surprising conversations. In a very lucky turn of events, I won the hosting duties and will be the host for the Tuesday show on 1/31/2023!
Thursday 1-27-2023
On Thursday we had the Community Round Table!
Our good friend Dan Taylor joined the show in place of Josh Luedeman who was out for the day. The guys surprised me by singing "Happy Birthday", very sweet of them to do so, and we covered amazing community content!
Here's a list of all the content covered in order of appearence:
Quick Programing Note: We have to move the Elfster show. Coordinating schedules with so many wonderful people can be tricky. But everyone who is on our list is exceedingly important to one another and we have to make sure everyone is there! So we are moving the Elfster show to Tuesday February 21st. So a little Christmas in February!
Alright Dear Reader, I'm heading out for some quick morning exercise before the day begins in earnest. We appreciate you and hope you have a wonderful day!
Hello Dear Reader! This past week was an extremely fun time over at the Tales From The Field show! Fall is here, the leaves change and fall in Florida very quickly, & today is Halloween!!! Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year. It is also my daughter's birthday, which makes it extra special!
This is my favorite holiday because everyone can participate in the holiday, the cost to celebrate is low, & everyone is there to give freely. We will be giving out candy bags, and the house is decorated in a Nightmare Before Christmas theme!
Decorated while I listened to Wrexham AFC streaming in my earbuds. Nothing better than listening to Mark Griffiths (Twitter | @m_griffiths92) talk about the pies or bursting my ear drums as Paul Mullin scores away!
Hopefully all of you will have a fantastic, candy filled, costume wearing day today!
"So Balls", you say, "what happened on the show last week!?!".
Ahh, thank you Dear Reader for keeping me on track! Off to the recap!
TUESDAY OCTOBER 25TH
We had the great Karen Lopez (Twitter | @DataChick) on the show. Karen is an 11 time Microsoft Data Platform MVP, a NASA Datanaut, & a Senior Project Manager & Architect at InfoAdvisors. As the world re-opens and we look at traveling for work and conferences again, we discussed Tips & Tricks as well as #KarensTravelStories.
Josh hosted the show. I shared the crazy story of my bachelor party flight to New Orleans, somehow I was disqualified, Andres WON!! Andres will be the host next Tuesday!! There was something weird going on about Andres, Josh, and a VENMO payment.... let's just say Dear Reader, I have my suspicions.
THURSDAY OCTOBER 27TH
We had Chris Ayers (Twitter|@Chris_L_Ayers) join us for the Community Round table on Thursday.
Chris is a Senior Azure FastTrack Customer Engineer that is DevOps & Developer focused. Chis is part of the same FastTrack team that Neeraj, Josh, Andres, & myself are all part of. We talked about DevOps Days Tampa Bay 2022 and some of the upcoming presentations and events Chris has planned.
We covered a ton of great content on the show, here's a summary of the posts:
Ok Dear Reader it's time to land this plane. Put your tray tables in their upright and locked positions, take small children by the hand, and DON'T FORGET we are live this Tuesday & Thursday at 1 pm EST! Comment on the stream on any of our Twitter pages, Youtube Show page, or my Linkedin page as we are streaming and your comments will make it onto our show!
Hello Dear Reader! We had a big week on Tales From The Field! We've got some great stuff planned for you this week, but before we get to the Live shows tomorrow 10/18 & 10/20, I wanted to do a quick recap of last week.
Ignite is always an exciting time, announcements are in the air, and we have truly arrived at what I like to call Fall Conference season. This is a lot like pumpkin spice season, but technology flavored. ...it still has a lot to do with Starbucks as we are all in line to get coffee.
Ignite returned to an in-person gathering at the Washington State Convention Center for the first time since 2019 when it was in Orlando. I always love when it is in-person. Hopefully, we have more in person with a streaming component next year. It is really impowering to allow the millions at home who cannot attend in person to attend remotely.
All right enough talk, let's get to the shows!
TUESDAY 10/11 SHOW
Last week was Microsoft Ignite and we kicked off our show with TWO big guests. We had Niko Negebauer Sr. PM from the Azure SQL Managed Instance Product Group, (Twitter | @NikoNeugebauer) join us on the show! For years Niko was a Microsoft MVP, contributing to the community as a chapter leader, Presidente of the TUGA in Portugal, a PROLIFIC & amazing blogger. Presenter at many international conferences, and user groups.
We also had Anna Hoffman, (Twitter| @AnalyticAnna) Sr. PM from the Azure SQL Data Platform join us! Anna is a Data Scientist, The Host of Data Exposed, the co-host of Something Old Something New which is a series about the math behind data science & how it applies to Azure ML, presenter at International conferences, one of the most recognizable faces in the world of Azure Data.
I was the host! Neeraj won!! We discussed our favorite Ignite experiences and Niko flipped the scripted and asked us questions. Check it out at the link above.
THURSDAY SHOW
On the Thursday show we had the Community Round table and covered Community & Ignite content all in on location. Here's a summary of what we covered on the show:
We love our Sr. Escalation Engineers at Microsoft. These folks are our hero's and our firefighters. When you have a big issue, you call and put in a ticket. These are the folks that come in when that ticket is escalated. One of the blogs that we featured was by Paloma Garcia Martin and she was so kind to give us another Shout Out on their team blog last week!
It's been a while. I've been busy working with a few colleagues on our show Tales from the Field. This has been a learning experience.
I've had to brush off some old skills on graphic design, bone up on some new skills namely how to run a YouTube channel & Video Editing!
This week we had two amazing shows. First up was our Tuesday show where the Hosting Duties are on the line!
Let me quickly back up, the Tuesday show is a bit of a game. We have a Host. The Host pick's the topic. The Host then awards points or deducts points based on how we do.
Sometimes we also have a guest. Our guest this week was Bradley Schacht Principal Program Manager from the Azure Synapse Analytics Product Group.
"But Balls", you say. "What's a Product Group?"
GREAT QUESTION Dear Reader!! At Microsoft teams that produce products are in our Engineering Organization, and they produce a product for example SQL Server, Azure Synapse, Azure Data Factory. Each of those teams are called Product Groups. So when I say, "Someone is a member of <insert product here> Product Group", that means they work on the team that builds or shapes the future of that product.
These are the people you want to know. Bradley joined the Tuesday show and as the guest he also gets to award points. Whoever has the most points, wins the hosting duties, and will be the host for the next show and they will pick the topic.
So on Tuesday Hosting Duties were on the line and I WON!! Here's a link to the show below.
This is exciting because next week is Microsoft Ignite, don't forget to sign up it's free!! So I get to host next week, pick the topic. Plus we have TWO special guests. Anna Hoffman, host of Data Exposed, & Niko Neugebauer from the Azure SQL Managed Instance Product Group!
On Thursday we had Hope Foley guest host for my buddy Josh Luedeman. Josh was out with a bad case of Pizza is better than Ninja's..... best explained by this clip from the Tuesday show.
Back to Thursday. We had Hope Foley & special guest Lonnye Bower for the Community Round Table!
Sooo much great community content from the round table. Here's a list of that content!