So now I think I have a plan for 2015.  Are you ready?

I am planning on speaking for at least five out-of-state SQL Saturdays, helping coordinate our event here in Atlanta again, attending PASS Summit again in Seattle,  volunteering with the PASS organization again, and submitting to speak again.  As a speaker I will continue to grow, and I am doing my first pre-conference session in Nashville on January 15th with my good friend Mike Lawell (t|b).  In addition, I have been named an Ambassador for IA for 2015 and will continue to be vocal about our #WorkSomePlaceAwesome campaign, help with recruitment, and giving back to the community.

While we are on the subject, this company that I work for has a motto that ‘we work with people who do not suck.’ This mentality leads to an amazing and fun work place.  It is by far the best job that I have ever had and that is saying a lot since I once had a dream job around the turn of the millennium.  Anyway, since being named MVP by Microsoft, we now have three working at IA and I am going to try and help encourage a few others to be more active in the community and possibly grow some more MVPs.  In addition, there are a few other speakers in my Atlanta MDF user group that I believe can or should be MVPs as well.  The theme for this year professionally I believe will be to help others grow as I grow.

So let’s get to the fun resolutions while we are here.

I will double my live concert output from last year and see at least 25 this year alone (have tickets for four upcoming shows currently).  I am a season ticket holder for the Braves this year and that will double the amount of games that I went to last year.  I will also aim to do at least five other sporting events next year (Falcons, Hawks, Gwinnett Braves, the GT-UGA football game, and possibly the Gwinnett Gladiators hockey team).  Let’s also throw in a few Broadway shows and plays (I have tickets to Wicked already for February) as well as some cultural events as Atlanta has epic festivals and events such as Dragon Con.  Finally I also plan to try to finish my Atlanta bucket list (which has 50 items that every person should see or do in Atlanta…I did nine of them in 2014).

Oh I almost forgot that I am moving in a couple of weeks to the Old Fourth Ward area of downtown Atlanta which is a culturally rich area and will start a new chapter of my Atlanta journey.  I am moving into a renovated nearly hundred year old Sears & Roebuck warehouse, now called Ponce City Market which will be the epicenter of awesomeness in 2015 and has already been recognized in several publications.  If you are passing through Atlanta in 2015, come see me after the winter and the mixed use development should be completed and in full swing.  Then we can play putt putt on the roof or have a drink in an old train box car on the roof viewing the gorgeous Atlanta skyline as well as visiting some of the stellar restaurants located inside the building.

I hope you have an epic 2015!  Happy New Year!

I have taken my previously new, “So you have a performance issue.  What now?” and transformed it into a two-part session with Mike Lawell (t)  covering the full gamut of performance tuning for the beginning DBA or accidental DBA.  This is a great series that will dive into how to get started in performance tuning.  In other words, how do you find the query that is bad from all of the other queries running in your system and where do you go from there?  I hope to see you there!

Have you registered to attend yet?  If not please do so immediately and get a free #SQLHug from me!

T-SQL Tuesday #57

Jeffrey Verheul (b|t) is hosting this month’s T-SQL Tuesday blog party.  (Hey Jeff, what’s up?)  If you are not familiar with T-SQL Tuesday, well it was started by Adam Machanic (b|t) five years ago and invites a different blogger to host a topic and various bloggers choose to participate when the subject so moves them. This month’s topic is regarding SQL Family and Community.  I have blogged numerous times about SQL Family and if you never experienced the awesomeness that is SQL Family in person, find me and I will give you a #SQLHug and show you just how awesome of a phenomenon this truly is.

Personally, I have been gainfully employed in the IT field for almost twenty years and have been hacking (yes that is the correct term not the one bastardized by the media and laymen) since the Christmas of 1982 when I got a Timex Sinclair 1000.  During this lifetime, I have never experienced the phenomenon that is SQL Family, ever.  Let the weight of that statement sink in for a moment.  In other words, having met all sorts of IT professionals over the years at many conferences, user groups and meetings, no one community has struck me dumbfounded and with wonderment like that of the SQL Community.  It is unparalleled in my opinion.

(Ed please get to the point and stop skipping the light fandango)

In The Beginning

Several years ago, I was severely burnt out.  I had started back to college to possibly change careers. (yeah it was that bad)  I hated what I did for a living.  I cannot stress how much I hated what I was doing for a living.  At that point, my good friend and fellow DBA Brent Kraus (t) invited me to a user group meeting with the Tampa SQL User Group.  “Free pizza,” he said and we could meet a couple of guys and get a better job.  I said how do you know and he said “hey Jorge Segarra (b|t) sat in that same chair and got out of dodge and now he is a SQL rock star now making it rain with groupies to boot.”  The story may not have gone exactly that way, but hey it’s called dramatic license for a reason.  If the day Buddy Holly died was the day that the music died, then this was the day that the music was reborn like a phoenix rising out of the ashes that was my career. (This story is getting good…even I want to pay attention now and trust me I was bored with it up until this section)

The meeting was horrible, there was a speaker on a speaker phone.  I do not remember who it was or what he spoke about but it was pretty bad mainly because of bad phone connection and a language barrier.  I met a few people and I remember thinking “this blows!”  Then Pam Shaw (b|t) gave me a free book for a being a first time attendee.  Remember, I had a bad attitude about my career so this reflection had nothing to do with Pam or her user group.  I remember on the drive home thinking hey free pizza and a free book (and don’t forget the SQL tchotchkes), maybe I will go back next month.

SQL Saturday

Enter Brent again…as he said hey they do this crazy, free training thing and you get to meet a lot of SQL people and we are sure to find a better job there.  So we ride over one Saturday morning to Orlando.  I liken this to the moment I heard my first Beatles record.  I was hooked, an addiction was formed.  I met so many people and I could name drop all day but there is one key figure that I met that day….Karla Landrum (b|t).  She was welcoming and passionate about the community.  Karla is definitely the mother of this SQL family.  Actually she is more of a foster-mother, she takes in the strays feeds them some good food, acclimates them to the environment and then challenges them to succeed.  Like any good Mom, she doesn’t take no for an answer.  Within a year from that moment she had talked (coerced, dragged me kicking and screaming, or tricked?  You pick!) me into speaking for the first time.  I had a supreme fear of public speaking.  How did she talk me into this?  I wanted to run like Forrest, but I didn’t even drove through a flash flood that day to not let her down.

During that year, I became active in the user group, became a SQL community promoter on twitter, and attended a few SQL Saturdays.  Suddenly I didn’t hate my career as much, oh do not get me wrong the job I had sucked but I was not ready to jump ship on my career just yet.  What happened to Brent?  Oh yeah, he got a better SQL DBA job.  Mission accomplished.

Speaking

That first time was horrible, I scripted the whole thing and barely looked up from my trembling body.  They gave me an award for the funniest presentation.  These people are nuts, I do not think they saw the same presentation that I did.  Afterward, several people told me how awesome it was and that they were happy to see me presenting.  Wait?!?! What?!?!?  It was horrible.  These people are my brothers and sisters in the SQL Family.  They were loving and encouraging when I needed it.  I am sure that they knew it was horrible but they had been there too.  I am not going to call them out but I do try to pay it forward with every new speaker that I meet or see or even here about.  I want to be that same awesome brother that tells you about dating and girls and how to…wait I digress, sorry.

It was at this point that I wanted to speak again, and again.  All the world’s a stage and I wanted to get better, to be as good as they were, to teach and give back.  I was learning SQL Server like never before because I was teaching it to others.  I was now in love with my career again.  Not the obligatory kiss your grandmother love, but the super smart, nerdy librarian looking girl who likes you because you aced Calculus passion making out in the reference section next to the map rack.  Yeah you know what I am talking about.

SQL PASS

All everyone talked about once you get inside the SQL Family is the SQL PASS Summit in Seattle.  Like any good addict, I had to try this drug.  Have you ever had that moment when you said to yourself “wow these nerds are my people, they get me!”  That first year was my moment.  Like any good Amway presentation, I wanted what they were selling.  I met so many people…authors, bloggers, crazy people (yeah I bet two or three names came to your mind when I said that and yes that is who I was talking about), DBAs, developers, and rock stars of the SQL community.  They all had one thing in common:  SQL Family.  At no point did I ever feel not welcome or like an outsider even with my First Timer badge on.  If there was a funny story that they all knew someone was more than willing to bring me up to speed on how that one guy did that one thing that one time and it was epic.  Yeah you know who you are and what you did that one time.  Dude!

At that first Summit, I met several DBAs from Atlanta.  I kept running into them everywhere I went around Seattle.  They invited me to sit with them at the Chapter Lunch.  I was home.  These people were my people.  One problem though…I lived in Tampa. (This is a foreshadowing moment, keep that in mind here)

Atlanta

In 2013, I decided that in order to take my career to the next level, I needed to move to Atlanta where the DBA jobs were flowing like wine and after 42 years in Florida a change of scenery would be good.  Most people think leaving Florida was a Paradise Lost, but being a tourist is the greatest part of Florida at this point in my life as I grew up on the sunshine, beaches, and Disney.  Been there, done that, and got the t-shirt.  However, I felt at home with the Atlanta group and they had become really, really good friends over the last couple of years.  You see I was 42 years old with hundreds of friends or as I like to call them wonderful acquaintances.  You know the kind, the ones that will go to a birthday party for a mutual friend and be happy to see you and hand you a beer from the cooler.  But if you need someone to help you move, all of these friends that you have seem to be busy.  My life was full of these friends.  I had a couple of really good friends, do not get me wrong especially if you are one of them are you thinking to yourself what the hell dude!

However, with the SQL Family, those friendships always seem to be so much stronger.  This was the impetus for me moving to Atlanta.  Those friends there seemed to be the kind of friends that would help you move (and they did come 2014).  Did you remember the foreshadowing moment?  Good, you were paying attention.  After moving to Atlanta, I began traveling across the country spreading my wings speaking in Nashville, Las Vegas, Louisville and I will hit Birmingham, Orlando (where it all began) and possibly Charleston before the year is done.  All of that is on my own dime.  Why?  SQL Family.  I love visiting different family members and spending time with them and sharing my love of SQL Server and SQLKaraoke with them.  I look forward to breaking bread and sharing a pint with them sharing stories and dancing like a mad man.  The social aspect of SQL Family is unparalleled as well.

I am now a Data Services Consultant, working for a dear friend from the SQL Family.  She brought me on board here where there are about a hundred brilliant consultants including several other SQL Family members.  I love my career, and I love my SQL Family and now I love my job.  Thanks, Julie (b|t).

So after reading this and if you have met me in person, have you figured out which family member I am?  I am that crazy uncle that everyone has who sings everywhere and is so much fun to be around (at least in my opinion lol).

Mi familia está loca! (For Jorge)

P.S. Did you get the title reference and all the tie-ins?  Tripping the light fantastic means to dance about with the music and being in the SQL Family makes me want to sing and dance every day.  Milton (tie-in) and Shakespeare (tie-in) spoke of such phenomenon and Paul McCartney of the Beatles (tie-in) had an album entitled Tripping the Live Fantastic.  Tarantino (our greatest living director) used the line as I did in “Inglorious Basterds” for the final tie-in.  Those were chosen because of my love of those things and my ability to wax poetic about my passions.  Long Live the SQL Family!  Oh, I almost forgot the “skipping the light fandango” tie-in (glad I proofread this before submitting it) but that’s a line from “A Whiter Shade of Pale” by Procul Harum.  So now you have my passion for poetry, movies, music and SQL Server, all that in one blog post for the low, low price of $19.95…but wait, there’s more….stay tuned next time.

I have taken my previously new, “So you have a performance issue.  What now?” and transformed it into a two-part session with Mike Lawell (t)  covering the full gamut of performance tuning for the beginning DBA or accidental DBA.  This is a great series that will dive into how to get started in performance tuning.  In other words, how do you find the query that is bad from all of the other queries running in your system and where do you go from there?  I hope to see you there!

Have you registered to attend yet?  If not please do so immediately and get a free #SQLHug from me!

SQL Saturday Birmingham

I will be presenting my newest presentation, “So you have a performance issue.  What now?”  This is a great beginning session that goes into how you get started in performance tuning.  In other words, how do you find the query that is bad from all of the other queries running in your system?  I hope to see you there!

Have you registered to attend yet?  If not please do so immediately and get a free #SQLHug from me!

Louisville, Kentucky

Do not forget that there are some excellent pre-cons that start on Friday, January 17th by Denny Cherry, who is presenting “SQL Server Performance Tuning and Optimization” and David Klee is presenting “Virtualization for  SQL Server DBAs.”  Please check those out as soon as you can while space is still available.

If you haven’t registered yet, please do so now!  See you there!

Now onto the bigger elephant in the room, why on earth would you have all of these fields set to the maximum storage amount of two gigabytes (1GB for NVARCHAR taking up 2GB of space).  Are you really storing that much data in six fields of EACH record?  Keep in mind that SQL Server stores records in 8K pages.  When you exceed that the data goes to an overflow page with a pointer so that SQL knows where to find the rest of the data.  I understand that it will not take up that much space if you are not actually storing that much data, but there is a potential here for these table to be problematic.  Granted this might be a good design for one field if it stores a large amount of text or notes, but six fields in the same record?  I looked at the length of the records currently entered for these six fields and I found nothing larger than 100 characters.  Overkill?  What do you think?

Enjoy!

The theme for this year’s luncheon was “BEYOND STEREOTYPES: Equality, Gender, Neutrality, and Valuing Diversity.”  The distinguished panel consisted of Rob Farley, Erin Stellato, Cindy Gross, Kevin Kline and Gail Shaw.  The luncheon was moderated by my dear friend Mickey Stuewe.  The bloggers present included Jes Borland, Mark Stacey, Karen Lopez, Grant Fritchey, Jen McCown, Jen Stirrup and Laerte Junior.  As you can see it was very humbling to be chosen amongst that lineup.

It has become a tradition at the #PASSWIT luncheon for men and women to wear #SQLKilts to support the Women in Technology.  Next year, I should be able to wear a kilt, however this year I wore pink in honor of breast cancer awareness month.  This luncheon was very moving for me this year and I found myself caught up in the conversations instead of taking notes.  However, I did manage to grab some very good quotes outlined below:

Gail Shaw was asked if she had to make an effort to fit in within the technology community to which she replied: “No I don’t because I can’t literally be bothered.”

Cindy Gross later said “Every single person is prejudiced about something…”

Kevin Kline said that stereotypes are the index pages because our brains cannot know intimate details for more than maybe 150 people, for the rest we rely on stereotypes.

Rob Farley said for us to “Stand up and be the person who champions what is right.”

Erin Stellato when asked by a question from the floor about how to make it in the industry with all of the stereotypes working against you said “How am I not going to make it?  Push through the stress and win!”

Rob Farley

Cindy Gross

Mickey Stuewe

Rob Farley and Erin Stellato

Filed under: SQL PASS Tagged: SQL Pass, Summit 2013, WIT ]]>

Rob Volk (b|t) and I had this idea to do a humorous session where we play Laurel and Hardy depicting the interactions between junior and senior DBAs.  It should be a good time for all.  Our session is Wednesday at 3pm, come by and say hi.  Enjoy!

If you haven’t registered yet, please do so now!  See you there!

1.  Go to Idaho and declare it to be “My own private Idaho” to everyone I encounter, no exceptions.
2. Spend at least one night in every single state in the Union.
3. Visit the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Grand Central Station, watch the ball drop in Times Square, grab the bull’s balls on Wall Street, dance on the Big keyboard at FAO Schwartz.  Sing New York, New York at a karaoke bar, laugh at people falling while they ice skate in Rockefeller plaza.  Take a cab and tell him he’s going the wrong way, and jog through Central Park.
4. Have a beer and a dog at every Major League Baseball stadium.
5. Watch when the Braves win the World Series from the stands.
6. Watch when the Gators win the National Championship from the stands.
7. Take a selfie on the top of a mountain that I hiked.
8. Visit every port of call in the Caribbean.
9. Have a place that when I walk in they yell “Ed” because it’s a place where everybody knows your name!
10. Take a Mediterranean cruise.
11. Sing “We Are the Boys of Florida” and the Alma Mater from the top of my lungs at every SEC stadium.
12. Take an Alaskan cruise.
13. Dress up like Gene Simmons from Kiss in full regalia  and go grocery shopping.
14. Attend the European SQL Bits conference.
15. Attend a SQL Saturday on four different continents.
16. Pack our bags and drive with no destination in mind stopping in random places.
17. Take a vacation along route 66.
18. Parasail into some blue water source.
19. Zipline down a mountain.
20. Visit Oklahoma and sing “Surry with the Fringe on Top” to everyone you encounter, no exceptions.
21. Take a selfie in front of Mt Rushmore, the Grand Canyon, Buckingham Palace, Eiffel Tower, Musee du Louvre,  Arc de Triomphe,  the Great Pyramid of Giza, Stone Henge, the Colisseum, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
22. Ride the Cable Cars in San Francisco and sing the Rice A Roni song.  Visit the Golden Gate Bridge and tell everyone not to jump.
23. Sing along with the Opera in Sydney.
24. Go to Carnivale in Rio de Janeiro.
25. Go cage diving in South Africa with a great white.
26. Visit the Alamo and run across the field yelling “I remembered the Alamo!”
27. See the northern lights.
28. Learn to scuba dive.
29. Tour Europe from a train.
30. Eat chocolate in Switzerland.
31. Ride in a sleeper car on Amtrak across the country and occasionally sing the Gambler in the dining car.
32. Spend days getting lost in Italian and French art museums.
33. Ride in a gondola in Venice.
34. Find all the David statues in Florence and take a picture with his junk.
35. Walk in Caesar’s footsteps and constantly shout out “Et tu Brute!”
36. Take a European vacation and drive around the circle yelling “Parliament House, Big Ben”
37. Visit a beach on five different continents.
38. Take a polar plunge.
39. Get over my fear of ice skating.
40. Bungee jump and yell “she pushed me, please stop this ride”
41. Ride in a hot air balloon.
42. Make a difference in someone’s life.
43. Experience a sunset and sunrise on four different oceans.
44. Visit the volcanoes in Hawaii and calling it Hav-a-ee the whole time.
45. Visit at least five Castles.
46. Go to the real comic con in California.
47. Having dinner with SQL Server friends in their neck of the woods.
48. Steal someone’s bacon.
49. Write a new bucket list because you cannot die if you still have items on your list.

I am thinking the next time that I go back to campus, I will do my best to encourage this young lady with some personal stories of strong, courageous women in technology that I know.  Until then I told my daughter to encourage her and to let her know that I am rooting for her and to not give up because our STEM professions need her, our society needs her, and we need her.

So let’s do a rundown real quick of the last month.  I spoke at the very first SQL Saturday in beautiful Cocoa Beach, Florida and had an amazing time catching up with old friends and meeting new ones.  I completed my dizzying full-time college schedule with resounding success in my first semester back to the glorious University of Florida in pursuit of a Business Administration degree. Last but not least, Rob Volk (b | t) and I were selected to present our Lightning Talk for the PASS Summit in Charlotte, North Carolina.  That is an extremely humbling and terribly exciting feeling.  Our session, titled “DBAs in Toyland: Here’s Another Fine Mess You’ve Gotten Me Into!” is going to be a lot of fun to present as Rob and I are thoroughly enjoying the process of putting it together.  Enjoy!

1. Backup (or copy) the project folder (c:\Users\<<Username>>\Documents\SSMAProjects\<<Project Name>>).  Close SSMA and then delete the target-metabase.mb file in the project folder.   Now open SSMA and now you can connect to a new SQL Server and/or database.  You would want to copy the folder if you want to retain the settings for a different environment such as staging, acceptance, production, etc.  If you rename the folder for a different environment, make sure to rename the *.o2ssproj file to match the folder name.  This is the file that opens inside of SSMA.
2. The second option is to create a new project using SSMA and then copying in the object-containers.mappings, project-container.mappings, and finally preferences.prefs.  These are the project settings that you have painstakingly setup in your original project.

I hope this helps.  Enjoy!

Peter Gibbons: The thing is, Bob, it’s not that I’m lazy, it’s that I just don’t care.

Bob Porter: Don’t… don’t care?

Peter Gibbons: It’s a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don’t see another dime, so where’s the motivation? And here’s something else, Bob: I have eight different bosses right now.

Bob Slydell: I beg your pardon?

Peter Gibbons: Eight bosses.

Bob Slydell: Eight?

Peter Gibbons: Eight, Bob. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That’s my only real motivation is not to be hassled, that and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.

I see this all the time. When I started at my current position and I worked hard on projects, everyone said: “Why bother, it’s not going to get you anywhere.” After working here for two years, I am starting to understand that logic sadly enough.  However, It goes against how I was raised.

In addition, money is the ultimate motivator, but not the only motivation.  For me it is growth, I am not out to break the bank.  But, I do want to be acknowledged with regular raises.  I personally need something to work for, a goal whether it be financial or a clear path for potential growth.  Currently I have reached a glass ceiling, there is nowhere to go and without raises, I must rely on personal motivation.  Yet, everyone around me is performing less and less due to the lack of motivation.  It is difficult not to become Peter Gibbons.  Maybe it is time to move on?  However, I must fight to remain motivated.

I have a spreadsheet that hopefully I do not forget to update when I add a new database to a server so I know who to notify in case there are issues.  When I took over this position there was very little information for most of the databases in my charge.  I thought to myself ‘shouldn’t you know what each database is for and why it is on your server?  How did it get there?  Is anyone still using it?’  As database administrators I believe we should know our data.

I am interested to hear how others handle this and if you even care?  Please send me your input.  Enjoy!

You can register here, come on you know you want to hit the beach for the weekend.  There is also a group rate code for the Hilton (SQLP), where the event is being held, that expires tomorrow (June 28th).  You can reserve your room here.  However, I will be staying just down the road at the Courtyard where my wife and I stayed on our wedding night before our honeymoon cruise to the Bahamas.  I look forward to seeing you there.  Enjoy!

The Chocolate Beach courtesy of Space Coast SQL User Group

DBCC SQLPERF

You can also use this utility to clear the sys.dm_os_wait_stats and sys.dm_os_latch_stats statistics, in such a manner:

DBCC SQLPERF(“sys.dm_os_wait_stats”,CLEAR);

Most would say that is how it should be, but the Oracle DBAs told me that the users would complain daily.  They were happy to rid themselves of those users and now I know why.

Hopefully I did not jinx myself but it looks like the domination plan is working!

Enjoy!