SQL University – Advanced Troubleshooting Week

Welcome back to another week of SQL University. This week we will cover advanced troubleshooting. When I first started as a DBA “advanced troubleshooting” was something that you performed while someone else was on the other end of a phone line yelling at you for their own mistakes. Yeah, it really was that much fun. [...]

The 24 HOP Strikes Back

This Wednesday, May 19th, PASS will be hosting their second 24 Hours of PASS event. The first event last September was quite successful. So successful, in fact, that when PASS decided to do it again my first thought was about how difficult it is for sequels to be as successful as the original. For example, [...]

Book Review: The Education of an Accidental CEO

This past weekend while doing some Spring cleaning I came across this book on my bookshelf. I read it last year and found it to be a great read but for one reason or another I never got around to writing up a review. I forget how I came across the book to begin with, [...]

24 Hours of PASS: Celebrating SQL Server 2008 R2

I am happy to write this semi-official announcement regarding the upcoming 24 Hours of PASS event to be held on May 19th and 20th. This is the second event of this type that PASS has put together and the first one that I have had the privilege to help pull together. I know that I [...]

Three Things

OK. Here it goes again.

This Web 2.0 chainposting is brought to you courtesy of Mr. Paul Tripp and his post “What three events brought you here?“ He tagged me and several others (luckily he also tagged Kevin Kline, otherwise Paul would never hear the end of it). Paul’s question was a tough one for me to answer [...]

Updated PASS List of People I Want To Meet

UPDATED: I have not had a lot of time to blog from the Summit. Hopefully I can find some time today to assemble some coherent thoughts.
UPDATED: I will cross off the names of the people I have had the chance to meet already.
Here is an updated list of people heading (hopefully) to PASS that I [...]

Training Benefits

Everyone needs training. It does not matter what your level of experience. Everyone has room for improvement. The improvement could be something dramatic, such as going from being a novice to someone highly skilled. Or it could be that someone who is highly skilled wants to hone those skills even further in order to stay [...]

PASS Call For Nominations

Earlier this week Andy Warren blogged about how the call for nominations to the PASS Board of Directors will be opened in the next couple of weeks. Andy also mentioned a handful of people he felt would be good candidates and hopes will submit an application when the time comes. Fast forward to today’s PASS [...]

Thinking Differently

Many, many years ago there lived a little boy who showed a great aptitude for numbers. He loved numbers very much and was able to learn how to add and multiply even before he was old enough to go to school.
When he was old enough to enter school he found himself presented with a question [...]

The Silent DBA

Today I saw a great post by master blogger Buck Woody that talks about putting DBA’s into two categories: those you see and those you don’t. I have often subscribed to the theory that the best DBA’s are the ones you never see. The idea is that if you do need to see them, then [...]