Hello Dear Reader, what a week! On Thursday my wife and I closed on a new house. We are so incredibly excited! We owned a house for a very short period of time. When we bought the house we did not look at the school districts.
When the kiddos came to live with us full time during the pandemic we quickly found out the schools were..... really bad. Great neighborhood, beautiful house, bad schools. So we quickly came to the conclusion that we would have to move.
We found and even better neighborhood, AMAZING schools, but the cost was the house. We hadn't owned long enough to get much equity. As a matter of fact we lost quite a bit of money. We sold during the pandemic before the housing market went crazy. We thought we would save for a year and then buy a new house in this great neighborhood. What's the old phrase? "Man plans, God laughs". Yeah, the housing market went nuts. One year turned to two, two years turned to three, and three looked like it would turn into four. With three months left before our lease expired I did a lot of calculations and found we might be able to get a house. AND WE DID!!!
We had just started to really enjoy doing the small things that make a house yours. The best part is we only one mile away from our old house, so we get to keep the same awesome schools, we stay in the same neighborhood, and I get to keep my same running & walking routes!
Josh Luedeman (Twitter | @JoshLuedeman), Neeraj Jhaveri (Twitter | @Neeraj_Jhaveri), Daniel Taylor (Twitter | @DBABulldog), Andres Padilla (Twitter | @nodestreamio), & myself all decided we should submit to the conference. The really amazing part, as much time as we've spent with online we've never all gathered together before. Josh, Neeraj, & I had met pre-covid during work trips, but Andres & Dan had joined our team during the pandemic. Our good friend Bradley Schacht (Twitter | @BradleySchacht) from the Azure Synapse Product Group joined us!
We started out with a nice dinner on Thursday and the in person preparations began for our pre-con DBA 101: A Full Day of Fundamentals. We had a great group of gentlemen that joined us for the day. We covered a lot of basics about SQL Server and the Cloud, specifically Azure, but we made sure people understood how to translate that skill set.
We did a lot of group exercises, starting with building on premise, hybrid, and cloud architectures. Then applying SLA's, RTO, RPO requirements so we could discuss how to configure backups, high availability, and then disaster recovery.
We reviewed basic security within SQL Server which translates to Azure SQL, as well as some basic Identity topics covering AD & AAD. Great group of people and a great way to kick off Friday.
Friday night took us to the SQL Saturday Speaker dinner and then a group activity we had planned together watching the Guardians of the Galaxy 3. No spoilers. Great movie and a really nice send off to the trilogy.
After that we headed back to the hotel, hung out, had some nice conversations, and then went to sleep so we could start the big event, SQL Saturday.
All of us who have been in the community for a while have seen the ups and downs that happened during the pandemic. We all had a lot to deal with in that time, and there were some devastating losses for me personally. Maybe next year I will write about it, but there are some areas that are still to raw for me. I'm sure there are for a lot of people. I tried to remind myself during that time that in the middle of something you cannot see the end, nor can you see the recovery. I held fast to the idea that they would occur.
In the SQL Community I have made so many close deeply personal friendships, that calling people "friends" hardly does justice to what I feel. Of those people Karla & Rodney Landrum are up there at the top. The last time I saw them they came to Orlando to visit. Karla, Rodney, Sue, and myself went to Chef's in the Paris district of Epcot. We also had them over to the house. I cooked, Karla mixed the drinks (which I loved still to this day!) and we had a fantastic time. That was 2019. There is no way we could have known how long it would be until we saw each other again, what we would have encountered. It was all I could do not to breakdown crying as I hugged Karla.I didn't realize she would be there, and the joy I feel even know days removed is palpable. I'm so glad we are having in person events again. I'm so glad I get to see my friends, donate my time, and teach people. If you have a SQL Saturday happening near you, you've got to check them out, I cannot recommend getting involved enough.
Ok, over to the recap.
MONDAY 5-1-2023
On Monday Josh Luedeman published his first video, way to go JOSH!! Josh's video Setup Windows with Chocolatey for Data Developers walked us through using the Chocolatey packages to install and configure post-Windows installation tasks easily!
He installed Git, WSL 2, Ubuntu, Spotify, Discord, PowerShell, Azure Data Studio, SQL Server Management Studio, and Signal! If you find yourself setting up a new Windows computer, this is a fantastic shortcut to the installation process.
WEDNESDAY 5-3-2023
On Wedneday we released my latest video on creating a Dynamic Pipeline in Azure Synapse & Data Factory!! This is a process that I've walked many customers through over the years. The key is we are trying to minimize the number of Source & Sink data sets created to import data in this video.
Dynamic Pipelines are incredibly powerful and can be used in many different ways. This was just one of them, but based on the reaction from you Dear Reader, we will be showing a few additional ways this can be used!
What an amazing week we had last week, and it's only going to get better! This week we have Andres & Neeraj presenting Computer Vision with Azure ML Studio that will be live today at 1 PM EST.
I will have another video this Wednesday, and of course our Tales from the Field Azure Data Community Round table will be this Tuesday Live at 1 PM.
I'm sure we will figure out some adventure to have this weekend, alright Dear Reader. Time for me to head out, as always Thank You Dear Reader for stopping by.
Hello Dear Reader! Last week was a really busy week with an even busier weekend. We will get to the show recap's in a moment but first let's dive into the weekend.
Months ago my wife & youngest son worked together to get Taylor Swift tickets for this past weekend. I've enjoyed quite a few songs of Taylor's, but live music isn't really my thing. My wife loves it. She had a career working in radio and she was the planner & show runner for many many live music concerts. She "makes" me go with her.
To be honest I always have a great time, but it is not something I seek out for myself. So when Sue & William were excitingly explaining to me over dinner how they were able to secure 3 tickets my first thought was they were taking my sister Julie or my youngest daughter Serenity (both of whom would have fought me..... and probably won... to get these tickets). It was not Julie or Serenity. It was me.
Don't get me wrong, I was happy to suggest they offer up the ticket to someone else. Heck, I got us a really great hotel room at the Tampa Edition. It had a Michelin star chef. An amazing bar, a welcome cocktail with a lavender spritz and their gin brewed specifically for the hotel, not to mention a Rum bar, and to top it all off an in house spa.
My offer was that they could go to the show, I would go to the spa and get a massage, go to one of the restaurants and eat some food, go to the bar and get some drinks, then head to the pool where they had a pool side bar, take a nap, wake up, go grab some more drinks, and wait for them to get back so they could tell me all about it.
As you can tell from the pictures my offer was refused. We had a great time. There were songs we sang along to, that we danced to, and it was a spectacle. It cannot be said that Ms. Swift puts on one helluva show. She performed for 3 hours straight and sang 44 songs from 9 different albums and 2 surprisesongs.
On Saturday morning we woke up, had a really nice brunch at The Pearl and made our way back to Orlando so I could pick up my race packet for the Run Disney 10 Miler. I will be honest Dear Reader, I forgot I signed up for this race until the week before.
I have picked my running back up post injury, but had not been training on longer races. Normally my long Disney Races are half marathon's, 13.1 miles or 21 K, this was a 10 mile run or roughly 16K.
Those 3.1 Miles or extra 5 K's make a difference. Seriously. That is normally the part of that race where I hit a wall. Not literally. In running when you hit a wall is a condition of sudden fatigue and loss of energy which is caused by the depletion of glycogen stores in the liver and muscles. It makes that the most difficult portion of the race.
By not hitting that wall I was never truly fatigued during the race. I was able to keep my run-walk-run-walk method going and averaged 8 minutes per kilometer and finished in 2 hours and 11 minutes.
At home we my lovely wife was home busily preparing for my Mother-In-Law's 77th birthday!! I love my Mother-In-Law Judy. She is an incredible woman. My brother's-In-Law, my nieces, and one of my nephews made it over. However the star of the show was my baby grand-niece. No pictures, but she is the most beautiful and adorable little girl. She is six months old and in a very fun phase where she is not yet walking, but alert, attentive, and very opinionative. You knew what she liked and didn't like! The party was great and seeing family was the cherry on the cake.
Like I said, busy weekend. Now let's recap last week!!
This was a really fun video to make, and I'm hard at work on this weeks content which will be a fun video about Azure SQL and how it utilizes space.
TUESDAY 4-11-2023
Tuesday was a great show. We started off the Community Round Table with a side conversation about being a parent and giving the magic of wonder to our children. Josh Luedeman (Twitter | @JoshLuedeman) reminisced about Castle Greyskull with me from our childhood. Neeraj Jhaveri (Twitter | @Neeraj_Jhaveri) talked about when he gave his kids the gift of iPhones! Andres Padilla (Twitter | @nodestreamio) talked about an AMAZING Christmas where his father hung his the Star Wars ships he received from the ceiling like they were flying!
We also covered AMAZING Azure Data Community content from the creators. Here's the content in order of appearance:
As we wrap things up a quick programming note. We will be dropping an MS Tech Bits video TODAY on Cost Management by Neeraj & Andres! Make sure to check that out when it goes live.
Tomorrow we have our Community Round Table show Live at 1 PM EST. On Wednesday I will be with you for an MS Tech Bits on Azure SQL Database Shrinking Operations for Data & Log Files.
We hope you have a wonderful week and make some time to hang out with us Dear Reader, if you did anything fun this weekend I'd love to hear from you!
William, right, 11 years ago the morning of our college tour
Hello Dear Reader! When I got off the plane from SQLBits I wasn't feeling great. To be honest, I was a little concerned. I'm a diabetic asthmatic. Some people are generally unconcerned when they get a cold, some even feel that way about Covid. Not I.
For years when I get a cold they would linger, antibiotics would need to be perscribed, consumed, and then about a month later my voice would return to normal. I've been very fortunate that my immue system seems to have recieved a kick start in the last few years. No longer is the need for antibiotics absolute.
No longer is a cold a one month sentence of exercise purgatory. Really, I feel lucky. Despite feeling awful on Monday & Tuesday, by Friday morning I felt great and sounded like Barry White. So with me feeling better, my wife very happy with my deep sexy voice, we packed up the car and drove my youngest son William to a campus tour of the University of North Florida.
It was a really beautiful campus and the tour was fantastic. William is going to be very happy up there. I'm familar with UNF thanks to SQL Saturday Jacksonville. It has been held on their campus since my first trip to the event all the way back in 2011 and SQL Saturday #74.
Seeing the campus from the eyes of a perspective student was amazing. I'm used to the excitement of Friday morning pre-con's and the buzz in the air as you follow the SQL Saturday signs to the parking garage.
This time it was following the signs to the Campus Tour, taking in the campus, food venues, gym, and different class rooms. What an exciting time he is about to embark on! As if it wasn't enough, father time gave me a solid kick to the feels. The picture posted above of William and his younger sister finger painting was my Facebook memory. My phone alerted me that I had a memory, and I clicked on it. All I could think of was how time flies. There's no way, when I snapped that picture 11 years ago, that I imagined him getting ready for college.
Alright Dear Reader, let's get to the re-cap.
MS TECH BITS - WEDNESDAY 3-22-2023
My deep voice was in full effect as we took a jump into the Transaction Log. The Transaction Log is an essential part of SQL Server. That's an understatement. That's like saying your lungs are essential. The Transaction Log is fundemental. We look at what it stores, how it holds data, how Virtual Log Files work, and a little bit about recovery models.
The Community Round Table featured my sultry deep voice as well as Josh Luedeman (Twitter | @JoshLuedeman), Neeraj Jhaveri (Twitter | @Neeraj_Jhaveri), and Daniel Taylor (Twitter | @DBABulldog).
We did a quick recap of SQLBits talking about the wonderful event, and then we covered the content. No more delays, let's get to it. Content in order of appearence on the show:
We did some experiements earlier this month and loved the reception we recieved. We are working hard over here at Tales From The Field, TFTF, HQ to come up with some additional content for next month.
This week we have our Community Round Table on Tuesday & our MS Tech Bits on Wednesday. We hope you will join us for them, and if there's anything you would like to see sound off in the comments! We always love to hear from you Dear Reader.
Friday night took us to the SQL Saturday Speaker dinner and then a group activity we had planned together watching the Guardians of the Galaxy 3. No spoilers. Great movie and a really nice send off to the trilogy.
