Cleveland? What Was I Thinking?

I am not sure at what point in the speaker dinner at SQL Saturday #46 (Raleigh) that Allen White (blog | @SQLRunr) decided to put the moves on me but I do recall most of the conversation:

“Hey Tom, we want to do a SQL Saturday in Cleveland. Would you be willing to come speak?”

Now, I get requests like this all the time from people. My favorite was when Bill Graziano (blog | @billgraziano) sent me an email with subliminal messages of ‘bacon’ embedded throughout. Allen’s offer was not as tempting as cured pork bellies but I was curious.

“Maybe. When are you thinking of having it?”

“February.”

“Are you nuts? Who would want to go to Cleveland in February? Is it late in the month at least, after Valentine’s Day?”

“No, it’s the first weekend.”

“The weekend of the Super Bowl? Well, I guess I won’t have to worry about there being a bunch of Browns fans around. Wait, are you seriously going to do this?”

“Yes, we are doing the paperwork now, it will be official in the next week or so, and we would love to have you come speak.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“Do I get to see the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame?”

“Not likely, no.”

“Do I get to go bowling, or heckle Michigan fans, or drive by Drew Carey’s house?”

“Not likely, no.”

“Why would I want to go?”

“Why wouldn’t you want to go?”

“Good point, I guess. OK, count me in. But you had better be able to serve me a bowl of bacon for my trouble.”

And there you have it, proof that I am the world’s worst negotiator. I mean he wanted me to present and in the end all I could get out of him was a half-hearted promise to provide me with some pork products.

So I will be presenting this weekend at SQL Saturday #60 in Cleveland. Here are the gory details:

Waits and Queues and YOU!

Many database professional have little to no understanding about how to use wait events as part of an overall performance tuning process. And yet wait events are the secret sauce that many leading experts have been using for years. Attend this talk and you will gain an understanding of the SQLOS execution model, an understanding of how to use DMVs to find out what your queries are waiting for, and why using wait events could be the best thing to happen for your career as a DBA.

I recently gave the same talk at the North Texas user group. So, if you were there that night you don’t need to come see me again. Unless you want to. I won’t mind, really. But I am not promising any cookies this time.

[BTW, I found out today that this event is SOLD OUT. Not my talk, just the event. There are five other people speaking at the same time as me. Chances are most people will be in those sessions which means there will be plenty of good seats available for mine. Also, I have only given this talk once before, so I really have no idea what I am going to say the second time around. I’ll most likely just make things up as I go. You’re welcome.]