Just a little under 18 and one half years ago, William came into my life. There are a lot of words to describe a new baby, but the one surround Will's birth is hard to quantify. Don't get me wrong. Joy, happiness, elation, wonder, awe, all-encompassing-love, all of those words were there.
Holding Will's hand on day 3
Eventually.
Will's birth was the most intense 24 hours, and then week, of my life.
William was my third child, so having one was not new to me, but this experience was. Whereas his brother and sister had cried loudly, been weighed, and handed over in warming blankets to be cuddled with; William was rushed away. He was born into this world with a collapsed lung.
While I've spoken about this, I've never written about it before. There is a lot flooding back to me just looking at the picture on the screen. He was born just before Christmas and I've always been thankful to the nurses, the doctors, and other stall at the Sentra Hampton Roads Hospital until we moved we used to bring them cookies every Christmas Eve, remembering those wonderful people there over night with us.
The Graduate & Family
Let me skip forward in time. William's lung miraculously reinflated. After 5 days the oxygen hood came off, we were able to hold him, and feed him. He came home a bright beautiful bouncing baby boy, and grew so very fast. We have had lots of adventures.
My Bug, my nickname for Will, loves roller coasters and amusement parks. I think he is the only person in the family that loves theme parks as much as I do. For the last 15 years he has been my roller coaster riding buddy.
Last Thursday he graduated from High School. Roller coaster riding buddy indeed. That first hill was a big one. He is off to college this Fall, but it feels like only yesterday I was holding that little hand. One of my favorite quotes comes from the Little Buddhist Handbook, "The trouble IS you BELIEVE you have time". Yes. That is the trouble.
Next up, we will head to college orentationnext month. Before then we will move, because we bought a house. We've all been doing a lot of work on it getting it ready to move in. William is leading the way on the painting front, having painted his room and helping is younger sister with hers. The move is officially underway, not just because of the hours of work, or mounds of things we've already moved. No, the way I know this is I am sore in places I forgot I could get sore.
THE BIG WEEK
We talked about it last week Dear Reader, but a very big week is upon us. Microsoft Build starts today. On Wednesday 5/24 & Thursday 5/25 there will be a massive Digital Event that will be simulcast across the Guy in a Cube, Power BI, and Azure Synapse YouTube channels starting at 9 am PST.
One hour before we will be live on the Tales from the Field YouTube channel. Adam Saxton (Twitter | @awsaxton) of Guy in a Cube (Twitter | @GuyinaCube), Kal Yella & Bradley Schacht (Twitter | @BradleySchacht) from the Azure Synapse PG, and of course Josh Luedeman (Twitter | @JoshLuedeman), Neeraj Jhaveri (Twitter | @Neeraj_Jhaveri), Daniel Taylor (Twitter | @DBABulldog), Andres Padilla (@Nodestreamio), and myself will be live.
On Monday my friend Daniel Taylor released an AMAZING video. He walked through the process of taking Ola Hallengren's SQL Server Mainteance Solutions and using them with Azure SQL Database using Azure Data Factory.
I don't feel like enough people are aware of the service and what it can do. If there is an item on the list you want to see a longer video on, let me know we always love the feedback!
TUESDAY 5-16-2023
On Tuesday we had our Azure Data Community Round Table featuring content from the creators in the Community for the Community! We had a great conversation opening the show about Mother's Day weekend and the activities surrounding it for each of us, plus a Happy belated Mother's Day to all the MOM's out there!!!
As always the star of the show is the content, so here is the content by the WONDERFUL creators by order of appearence on the show:
Ok Dear Reader remember today is the kick off of MS Build. If you haven't registered go do it, it takes a few minutes and it get's you free access to the big show.
Hello Dear Reader!! We also have some really, really, BIG NEWS for next week! It also happens that next week is Microsoft Build, make sure to register for free! But that news is coming a little later today.
What's that..? I can't drop a teaser at the begining and then not give you a little more? That's fair.
...OK Dear Reader here's a sneak peak.
We have not one, but TWO one hour live shows that will be on Wednesday May 24th & May 25th. We also have TWO big guests.
Brad Schacht (Twitter |@BradleySchacht) from the Azure Synapse Product Group AND Adam Saxton ( Twitter | @AWSaxton) aka one half of @GuyInACube will be there. But that's really all that I can say until a bit later. Other than, this is going to be fun & this is going to be BIG. Enough about the future let's talk about last week.
This past week was Mother's Day, happy belated Mother's Day to all the Mom's out there! My parent's 50th wedding anniversary was this past year. My siblings and I teamed up to buy them a cruise to Europe and they are out having a wonderful time!! Because of this Mom was not here this Mother's Day but there are plenty of Mom's to be recognized in the family, more than just those that we get to see locally. My niece had her first Mother's Day, congratulations Destiny!! To celebrate we did what has become an annual tradition. I make mimosa's, we take the ladies to the spa, and we all get pedicures.
Let's start with the mimosa recipe because it is a good one:
1/3 a champagne flute of Orange Juice
1/2 oz Don Julio Blanco tequila
1/2 oz Gand Marnier Cognac & Orange Liqueur
fill remaining flute with good champagne like Veuve Clicquot
The pedicures started as a simple thing. I took my wife and her Mom, my amazing mother-in-law Judith Gonzalez to get a pedicure and manicure. The next year my Mom & youngest Sister came over and I included them. Instead of just sitting there waiting I decided to join them for the pedicure and the tradition began.
The next is that every year I get the kids to help me cook Mother's Day brunch. The main course was by request. Heart shaped chocolate chip pancakes. I don't do anything simple.
In my house bananas are enjoyed by all. So I made a banana's foster's syrup to go with the pancakes. For this recipe you need banana's, butter, brown sugar, good dark rum (we used my Diplamatico), and maple syrup.
You make banana's foster, flambe, then you add in the maple syrup and stir, finally ladling over finished pancakes. Quick tip, the syrup is hot so if you cut fresh unsalted cream butter and put it on the pancake, then pour the syrup, the butter will be perfectly soft when the plate lands on the table.
Pedicures, pancakes, mimosas, all complete I set about fixing a toilet at the new house and installing a bidet. All in all a very productive weekend. Dear Reader, I hope you and your family had a great and Happy Mother's Day. Ok, on to the recap.
In this video Andres walk through the steps to connect to Azure machine Learning Studio, Importing the required libraries, downloading the data, all the way through training your model.
Then we review how to provision a Serverless Azure SQL Database and why you want to use Serverless. Using demos from Bob Ward's ( Twitter | @bobwardms) demos from his amazing SQL Server 2022 class that is available for free here!! I then show how self-healing Persisted memory grant feedback works in Azure SQL Database by dropping the performance of a query from over 1 minute to less than 2 seconds!
This is in place for Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, and SQL Server 2022 we just need to have our database compatibility level at 150 or above.
TUESDAY 05-09-2023
On Tuesday it's my FAVORITE half-hour of the week! The Azure Data Community Round Table with Josh Luedeman (Twitter | @JoshLuedeman), Andres Padilla, Neeraj Jhaveri, and myself. We recapped the fun that we had at SQL Saturday Jacksonville.
After a conversation that covered Guardians of the Galaxy 3, The Flash, and Andre's amazing drone demo at SQL Saturday Jax we got to the real star of the show. The content. Here is the content covered on the show in the order of appearance:
Hello Dear Reader! I've realized something writting this blog. I don't like to sit still. It is very rare that I have a down weekend, and this weekend was no different. My amazing wife did something really cool for me for Christmas.
You see I'm hard to shop for, or at least that's what I've been told. I don't mean to be, but I am. My birthday is in January. When I was a kid you got presents on your bithrday and on Christmas. Even though they are in different years, mine are so close together that for 10 months of the year there is nadda, then 2 months PRESENTS!
So with that in mind, if I want something I tend to buy it. At this point in my adult life I'm just used to that. So Sue came up with something cool. I love giving people experiences be it with food, giving advice or tips on Orlando, Disney, or Universal Studios or even when peoplke come over playing bartender, setting up events with friends (see last week).
Sue got me experiences, and what a time we've had. That included this Saturday seeing Steve Martin & Martin Short live. I was laughing so hard throughout the event, but it wasn't just comedy. They are story tellers, showmen, and presetors. I couldn't help of people I know like Buck Woody (@Twitter | @BuckWoodyMSFT ), Patrick LeBlanc (Twitter | @PatrickDBA), or so many other amazing people in our community.
The timing and the comfort of doing a show with someone you know well. That made me think of Josh Ludeman (Twitter | @JoshLuedeman). There is no one in this world that I've presented with as much as Josh. As I enjoyed the banter back and forth you could see the comfort that comes from time and practice.
It was a great time and a great day. On Sunday we had that unusual down day. I did some work in the office, getting ready for our soon to be move, and when it came to dinner I wanted out of the house. I snapped a picture while we were out at bartaco. It has be come more and more rare to have all five of us at dinner together. Looking at the picture afterwards I realized something importiant. Serenity is now at the teenage point of making goofy faces in every family photo.
....it'll be a long two years, but I have plenty of her brother's from that period in time. As the youngest this is the last time I'll have to go through this. That acknowledgement came with a bittersweet feeling.
All right enough about the weekend, let's get to the round up!
MONDAY 4-24-2023
On Monday Daniel Taylor (Twitter | @DBABulldog) dropped his first video on the channel. Congratulations Dan! He had a really great point of view, working with a customer he needed to solve the problem of teaching them how to backup SQL Server via URL. The twist is the DBA's do not have rights to get SAS tokens, and so he had to teach the Azure Admins how to do that portion.
On Friday Neeraj Jhaveri, Daniel Taylor, and myself will be teaching our DBA 101: A Full Day of Fundamentals, but Andres Padilla & Josh Luedeman will be presenting at the event as well. The whole Tales from the Field crew is together live for the first time at a conference.
This is going to be a lot of fun. We have 8 sessions on the agenda so come and attend, have a conversation with us, or grab a sticker while we have them!
We hope to see you in Jacksonville, but more than anything Dear Reader thank you for stopping by!
Hello Dear Reader! This past week is a blur. It was a tough week at work. That sentence is an understatement, but its really all I can say at this point. Monday sent me for a tail spin. I was fresh off a weekend relaxing with my wife, planning events with my friends, and thinking things were pretty well set. Life has a way of suprising you.
We powered through last week, had our Community Round Table, and dropped our new content. Internally at Tales from the Field we did some Camtasia training, explored some new technology, and started some planning for the next 3 months. I'm excited about those things. Before I knew it the weekend was upon us.
12 Years Later MegaCon 2023
I'm really tough to shop for, I hear that a lot around Christmas time. I don't mean to be difficult, but if I want something I tend to buy it. Books, collectibles, comics, whiskey, gin, ....I digress. This year my wife did something exceptionally cool for me. She bought me things to give me experiences, one of those was ticket's to MegaCON in Orlando. She bought me floor passes & and extra pass to share.
I shared mine with my oldest son Zachary. My first MegaCon ever was with Zachary when he was 7 years old. When it comes to comic book conventions I've only ever been to two and he was with me at both of them. He enjoyed this so much, I think this is a must do again next year!
One of the things I've always loved it the effort people put into their costumes, how generous they are with their time, and a willingness to celebrate with others. That was as true when he was a little kiddo dressed in a Superman t-shirt as it was this year when he was dressed as Eren Yeager this year.
I hope you had a good weekend out there Dear Reader! On to the wrap up.
WEDNESDAY 03-29-2023
On Wednesday we dropped our MS Tech Bits, Turn SQL to KQL IN SECONDS with Azure Data Explorer. This video is based off the demo I did with Patrick LeBlanc (Twitter | @PatrickDBA) in our Session at SQLBits (Twitter | @SQLBits).
I love Azure Data Explorer, it is an incredibly powerful service for digesting log data and querying massive data sets and returning results in seconds. It has so many capabilities and possibilities. BUT... I don't know KQL and I don't know if I want to learn another language. Fear not as I show in this video you can use the EXPLAIN statement to translate SQL to KQL that you can then run against your data sets.
I'm hoping this leads to peopel realizing that the bar for entry to this service is low, if you know SQL then you know KQL!
TUESDAY 03-28-2023
On Tuesday I once again teamed up with Josh Luedeman (Twitter | @JoshLuedeman), Andres Padilla (Twitter | @nodestreamio), & Neeraj Jhaveri (Twitter | @neeraj_jhaveri) to review the AMAZING community content that you all produced! If you missed that make sure to check it out.
The true star of the show is the content produced by the Community. Here is the content in order that it was covered on the show:
This week we have our Community Round Table on Tuesday where we will once again feature content from you the Azure Data Community! We will be live at 1 pm EST, but you can always catch us after the broadcast on our YouTube Channel.
Wednesday we will have a video discussing the internals of Heaps, Clustererd Indexes, & Non-Clustered Indexes!
Time to say goodbye until next week. Hope you have a great week and as always Dear Reader, Thank you for stopping by.
Hello Dear Reader! Change is the one constant in life and over here at Tales from the Field we've been hard at work making some changes.
Over the last 5 months since we kicked off the show we've been experimenting with different content. We started off with the hosting & interview show on Tuesday and the Community Round Table on Thursday.
We added a few sporadic technical videos, and then in February kicked off our MS Tech Bits every Wednesday.
We are data folk at heart, so after looking at the analytics, we were blown away! In just one month of technical videos we had almost doubled our subscribers, and our viewership.
While we produced 2 Live Shows per week, we received just as many views and almost doubled our subscribers with one technical video a week.
I guess that is another change as well. We appreciate the efforts of Daniel Taylor so much that he is now officially part of the team! Dan is our go-to when we've had someone out of the office and he has an amazing technical mind. We are lucky to have him as part of our crew.
We want to devote more time to producing technical videos. So this week we are moving our Community Round Table shows to Tuesday and we are pausing the interviews.
We will continue our focus on technical content and making sure that we are rolling out a few technical videos a week.
All based on the work we are doing with customers aka friends over "in the field", answering questions, or covering topics we've had to help our friends with. A big important part of our job is also our internal work in Azure Engineering, also technically our field. Hence our name, Tales from the Field.
This week and next week we will be adding a treat of Monday videos and some shorts relating to interviewing for SQL DBA jobs.
In some fun news we've had the logo refreshed, some laptop stickers made prior to SQLBits & SQL Saturday Jacksonville #1041! If you are attending those events and want a sticker please find me and I'm taking about 200 so find me I will be happy to share them!
After SQLBits we will be working on a new channel trailer, getting the logo incorporated into our header, and adding it to our video trailers. We really love it and the graphic designer did a bang-up job!
Ok, enough from me. On to the Recap!
TUESDAY 2-28-2023
We had the AMAZING Vicky Harp (Twitter | @VickyHarp) on the Tuesday show for an interview. The subject was Building a Brand. Vicky is a Principal Group Program Manager for the Windows Developer Experience Team, Vicky has also had a hand in building some of the product, that if you use SQL Sever, you know & love.
This was a fantastic episode were we discussed the concepts of external or community branding as well as internal or building your brand inside of the company you work for. Both of these brands are ESENTIAL to success.
We covered advice and guidance that Vicky had for people new in their careers and also for those that had been around for a while. Make sure you check it out!
WEDNESDAY 3-31-2023
On Wednesday we launched our latest MS Tech Bits Make Azure SQL Managed Instance General Purpose FASTER!!I On a personal note, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE RESPONSE! As of right now this is the MOST watched video on our channel and it has not yet been out a week.
If you liked this video, we have some really great content planned at the channel. We hope you will check it out if you haven't already.
THURSDAY 3-2-2023
On Thursday we had our Community Round Table featuring data from you the Azure Data Community or the community at large.
This is always a fun show where I get to hang out with my friends and share the things we've all found interesting over the past week. The star of that show is the content, so without further ado.
We have our Wednesday MS Tech Bits, this will be yours truly with an Introduction to SQL Wait Stats and we are dropping our SQL Interview shorts all this week.
Most important, Thank You Dear Reader for stopping by.
