The month of June and into July have been very good to me. Along with my great volunteers at PSSUS, Microsoft, and all of our wonderful sponsors we had a great SQL Saturday event on June 6-7. Allan Hirt, Stacia Misner and myself had great precons, and almost 60 hours of training was provided to our attendees.
A few days after that happened, I got an email that I’d been awaiting for a long time—Microsoft was awarding me as a SQL Server MVP. I can’t begin to describe how humbled and honored I was to receive this award. I don’t do all the things I do in the community because of recognition (I do it because I love my friends in the community and its fun), but it is really nice to get recognition for the work I’ve done. There are entirely too many people to thank, for their assistance and guidance with my career progression as a presenter and writer, but I thank you all for helping to get me where I am.
So that happened, and then I got to Germany for a bit of a vacation. For those of you who don’t know, I’m a pretty big fan of auto racing. Germany is home to one of the largest, fastest racetracks in the world, the Nürburgring Nordschleife. We were lucky enough to be there the week of the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring. We didn’t stay for the race, but went to a qualifying day. It is incredibly impressive to see people driving fast cars around the plunging, twisting circuit that Formula 1 abandoned in 1976 for safety reasons. The skill and bravery of the drivers was quite impressive. Also, the engineering skills of some of the race fans was quite good—there were many elaborate camping setups, a beer pulley, and the below trash can converted into a grill/keg holder/stereo/prep table.
The week after I returned from Germany, sessions were announced for the PASS Summit. I was awarded two sessions, including a three hour talk on Hybrid Disaster Recovery. I’m looking forward to seeing folks in Seattle in November—my birthday is during summit week, so let’s have a beverage!
Right after that, I got news that I would be speaking at both SQL Server Days in Belgium and Live 360! in Orlando this fall. So it will be a busy quarter.