I went to the UK SQL Server User Group in Cambridge on Wednesday. I’m not sure it’s the Cambridge group since they seem to move it around at times, but this time it was at the Red Gate offices, so I stuck around to see who showed up and how it went.  While there I met a fan, and a friend.

The fan was someone that I’d actually met before, at PASS, but I didn’t remember. I did once he reminded me, but I meet so many people that I didn’t feel bad. He’s a consultant in the UK, and it was good talking to him. We chatted about a few things, what he thought of PASS especially, and I got a nice complement on the podcast. It was good to hear his opinion on the PASS Summit, and something i need to incorporate into another post.

The friend was Simon Sabin, and it was great to see him. We always have a good chat about SQL, business, life, mixed in with a little ribbing of each other. I rarely see Simon, once or twice a year, but it’s always interesting when I do and I’m glad we got the chance to sit and talk a bit.

The meeting went OK, though I wasn’t in there much. A little different format with Simon opening with a little SQL tidbit (for another post) that I found interesting and generated some discussion. Then a demo from Red Gate, who is sponsoring this meeting before they broke out for pizza and beer.

Yep, beer.

That’s pretty cool. Not sure that would work in the US, though I’ve often gone and had a beer after meetings with some of the attendees. Alas, no beer tonight for me as it had been a long day and I wanted to do things like write this blog post on the train. A beer would have ended that.

After pizza Brad McGehee was giving a short presentation on MDW, but it was time for my train. Simon and I chatted a bit before I headed off.

A good night, and I’m glad that I stuck around. I also saw a very cool feature of Hyperbac’s product (now owned by Red Gate), that I need to share next week.

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