Blog Post

PASS Summit 2009 - Media

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There were tons of people taking pictures and video during the PASS Summit. I found a number of pictures on the Flickr Feed under the #sqlpass tag, and there are plenty more on Twitter as well.

A few of my pictures:

Kilt day at Sqlpass OK, I had to post this one because it was pretty funny. Grant Fritchey and I in kilts. I'm not sure how this got started, but sometime in August or September I started seeing my name and "kilt" on Twitter. Being a good sport, I grabbed one from Sportkilt.com and wore it on Wednesday.

It was fun, and I'm looking forward to doing it next year, perhaps as an annual tradition. I've enlisted a few other people, Andy Leonard, Tjay Belt, and Joe Webb among them and have already set a reminder in my calendar to ping them next July to get their own kilts.

Coincidentally, Wednesday is also the day of the Women in Technology luncheon. I thought kilts were a nice show of support for the women, and I think it's important that we do support them. The kilt isn't making fun of skirts, but rather making fun of myself a little. Not being afraid to be different, break a stereotype, something that I'd like my daughter to feel comfortable doing. Here’s an image of the panel from the WIT luncheon:
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The convention center is nice, and despite being spread out across multiple floors, it seems comfortable to me. I’ve come to really like it, and once you know your way around, it’s easy to get from one place to another. I actually appreciate it more than the large stadium that’s the Orlando Convention Center.

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There’s lot of signage, and you know what you’re in the PASS area, which was a large part of the convention center in 2009.

I do wish that the PASS booth and more seating was available near the sessions. There are lots of tables and chairs on the 6th floor, but I always find them a little uncomfortable to relax in. I’d prefer a few more sets of couches where people can sit and chat when they’re not attending a talk.

The keynotes were OK, though I’ll call out Dr. DeWitt’s presentation as fascinating. He’s one person that I’d love to sit in on a 3 or 4 hour lecture, not a 1 hour talk. I learned a lot about column databases from him in a short period of time.

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4073769214_52d6e4f3da[1]The keynote with Bob Muglia, and then Ted Kummert was most interesting for the server rack, which at one point sounded like a jet engine. We thought it might take off briefly. Here’s a bit of the Twitter feed from that time:

joewebb: When the fans for a192 CPU server all kick on at one time, it sounds like an Apache helicopter is buzzing by. #sqlpass

SQLBoyWonder: We're in the back of the room, and can hear the fans back here...can't imagine how it sounds up front! #sqlpass

sqlagentman: Sounds like the server rack also doubles as a tanning booth. #sqlpass

Phil_Factor: I think I am a bit too near the Ibm server. I don't want to suddenly become part of the cloud #sqlpass

SQLCraftsman: Seeing yellow lights on server rack. IBM tech must be having a meltdown too. #sqlpass

bretupdegraff: Watch for shraptnal! RT @sqlagentman: ...Galagher... (the server rack is about to blow like a melon all over the front row...) #sqlpass

Tim_Mitchell: So at what point does that server achieve liftoff from the stage? Sounds like a turbine engine #sqlpass

paschott: Anyone else find it funny that the server fans are getting more tweets than the speakers? #sqlpass

paschott: "I must have hit the help button" #sqlpass

DamonRipper: The roar of that beastly server onstage is almost drowning out the speaker! #sqlpass

SQLDBA: I know why the demo's blowing up - it's running on the servers in that rack that's about to explode! #sqlpass

jrowlandjones: #sqlpass the 192 core IBM hairdryer has switched onto a cool setting.

There was a photowalk one morning that I’m sorry I missed. Seattle has some great sights, and there were some great photos. I enjoyed this one from the fountain near the Space Needle, where I got some pictures and video of my son last year. There are some other shots from the Photowalk here.

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Who could forget the SQLServerCentral party, I’ll have to blog separately on all the photos from there:

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One of the great things about attending conferences is that you can meet some icons in your industry. Here are two from SQL Server. Longtime author Joe Celko and newer author Kathu Kellenburger, both trying to teach us more about T-SQL.

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and of course there was lots of fun at the Summit. Here are two of the PASS HQ staff having fun at the Microsoft Gameworks party:

Blythe and Craig rocjking DDR

There are a few from the SQL Karaoke nights as well in the feed, and if you search around, you might even see a little video from me as well.

If you attended the conference, relive it through some of the photos that are out there. And if you want to revisit some of the sessions, PASS has DVDs for sale, and many of the sessions( or maybe all of them) will be on demand from the PASS Summit site.

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