Well this is my first blog posting and I have plenty to blog about. Last week was amazing! It all started on….
Tuesday: My day started at Microsoft in St. Louis. I got there nerdy early, as usual. Microsoft is located on the 11th floor so I rode the elevator up and the doors opened up and there stood two guys and a bunch of bagels! It was Jose and Austin from PragmaticWorks. They were waiting for Brian Knight to open up the doors to the office so they could setup for the day. Today was the first day of an SSAS Workshop and I was eager to get started. People started filing in right away. It was good to hook up with lots of folks from our SQL Server User Group in St. Louis, Julie Bloomquist, Pete Williams, John Dempsey, Rosa Johnson and Phil Milner. And then a semi-familiar face came through the door, it was Bill Fellows from KC! This was shaping up to be quite a social event as well as a technical one. Brian Knight started right on que at 8:30am. He has incredible energy, like you can tell when he is in the house! Class started out fast and furious and Brian took us from 0 to 60 in no time at all. Before we knew it we were brousing our first cube. By the end of the day everyone’s head was spinning with thoughts of what they could implement back at the ranch.
Wednesday: Back to Microsoft and I was early again (a little habit I’ve got). Brian stopped by and chatted with me for a while and asked if I would help him with his first demo of the day. Well, of couse, I was excited! He likes to make things fun so he made up this website called Swank Dating Site. I work for Swank Motion Pictures and everyone is always asking if it’s legit! We had a lot of fun with it and the class was in a roar most of the morning. I learned a ton and refined most of my BI skillset, which reined from SQL Server 2005. After class was over myself and John Dempsey invited Brian and his crew out for dinner and a drink at the local pub. It was great spending time with these guys, they were so full of energy and so much fun!
Thursday: And we’re back at Microsoft for another round with Brian and company! This time it was an executive BI roundtable event. And the event was being moderated by Jin Cho, Microsoft’s Business Intelligence Technology Solutions Professional. He was great, giving us good information about how to solve business problems with BI. Brian also kick in a demo on some of the front-end tools that are part of the Microsoft BI stack. Lots of great conversation surrounded this event.
Friday: Back at Swank for the morning and then off at noon to pick up my SQL Saturday buddies! John Dempsey, Sanil Mhatre and Danielle Beniot. We were off to Chicago for the next couple of days! We made great time getting up to Chicago and pulled into town about 5:30pm. Danielle scouted out a great place for sushi, called Orchid, I thought it was a great name for a primary key! After dinner it was back to the hotel for a few drinks. Wendy Pastrick tweeted that she and others were at the pool so off we went to meet up with them. It turned out to be kind of an unscheduled pre-party for #sqlsat67. I had a great time seeing a few people I had met before, Wendy, Michelle Ufford and Tom LaRock. And I got to meet Christina Leo and Jes Borland for the first time. Well time slipped away from me and before I knew it, it was time to hit the hay.
Saturday: Up early and heading over to DeVry University for a great day with friends! We were all very excited to be sitting in on some excellent sessions given by excellent presenter’s. The day went by so fast I could hardly believe it. Before I knew it was lunch time and I was up to speak at the WIT Lunch panel. I love being involved with the virtual chapter of Women In Technology group. The topic for the day was “Energizing the Next Generation”. Jes did a great job of moderating and Wendy, Hope Foley and Miyaka Tabe were all so good! And then, as fast as the morning had went so did the afternoon and there we stood as everyone cheered to close out the second, very successful SQL Saturday Chicago! I was so proud to be a part of it!
Sunday: I think I had a SQL Server hangover after all of that!
