SQLCruise sets sail next Monday, though for many cruisers activities begin on Saturday with South Florida’s SQL Saturday #40. I am on vacation this week with my family and I have been a little out of touch with Twitter and cruise-related emails. Imagine my surprise when I had almost 70 emails from my fellow cruisers when I checked my email on Tuesday.
Holy donuts, this is going to be a fun event.
I had 30-plus emails yesterday morning, but let me tell you, I don’t mind reading them. I have been excited for this event since I found out that I was one of the four contest winners chosen by SQLSentry. I have said it numerous times already, and will continue to say it…
Thank you SQLSentry!
As I’m reading the emails from the other cruisers, there’s some discussion about all the swag that’s coming our way. It’s a little overwhelming. As a contest winner, I feel fortunate to just be going on SQLCruise. On top of the cruise, I have already received a t-shirt, an Amazon gift card and a signed copy of Brent’s Internals and Troubleshooting book. Upcoming swag includes a Hawaiian shirt, a beach towel, a copy of Red Gate’s Defensive Database Programming, a gift card to purchase Tim’s book when it comes out, and who knows what else. And then there are the four netbooks that are being given away. Are you kidding me?
Thank you sponsors! (I will keep saying that as well)
Aside from the swag, what’s the coolest thing about SQLCruise? For me it’s a toss-up between getting to know my fellow cruisers and the classes. We are a varied group of individuals and I think I will learn as much from them outside the classroom as I will from Brent and Tim in it. And I predict I will spend a lot of time laughing. A lot.
I know that I will find value in each of the session on SQLCruise; every class will have information I can use to better help our customers. I love that the classes are deep dives, and for the tuning class we are being asked to bring some of our worst execution plans to examine. When do you ever get to bring real data to look at and discuss with other DBAs in a class? I’m actually going to bring a lot of data, and load up a few databases on my laptop, just in case the opportunity arises.
I have only two concerns about SQLCruise:
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Whether there will be time to do everything I want to do (which mostly means talking to everyone and trying out all the SQL stuff I think is coming my way).
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Whether I will learn everyone’s real name, or just call them by their Twitter handle all week.
Stay tuned, I’ll post back on how it all turns out!
