I know what I did this summer!!!

admin October 28, 2026 0 Comments
After working with a very talented devops engineer, I was encouraged to become familiar with IaC (Infrastructure as Code) and I chose Terraform and Ansible as my targets. Terraform for deploying of resources in Azure, and Ansible for SQL Server configuration and management of most of the workflows. In addition, I also set up a GitHub repo in order to refresh my mind on how it's all done. Yes, I...

PNW Day of Data 2026 – Data Bus

admin October 14, 2026 0 Comments
Do you like Data? Do you like Data People? Do you like Data Events? What if there was a solution that allowed you to talk Data, see Data People, and travel to Data Events!  On the 8th of November, after a stellar day at the PNW Day of Data , you have the unique opportunity to Ride the Data Bus from the Portland/Vancouver (WA!) area up to Seattle with 50 of your soon to be closest Data Buddies....

PNW Day of Data 2026 – Precons posted and the Data Bus!

admin October 09, 2026 0 Comments
Just to make my life more difficult, I switched campaign software from Ticketleap to Zeffy due to the flexibility of Zeffy and also their dedication to making sure 100% of funds goes to the non-profit! Thank you Zeffy! For all of you that have already signed up, don't worry, you're still registered and I will make sure nothing is lost. I apologize for the change, but getting the precons to work...

Going to the European Fabcon in Barcelona!

admin September 24, 2026 0 Comments
I'm looking forward to having the opportunity to work in the Community Zone at the #FabConEurope in Barcelona, Spain in just a few days. I'll be presenting on "Moving the Boulder - how to get momentum going for your community group" on Tuesday at 1430 HRS CEST in the Community Theater along with being on post in some of the booths/stations in the Community Zone. While it's technically work, I...

PNW Day of Data 2026 – Schedule(s) live!

admin September 22, 2026 1 Comment
It took a minute as my Southern friends like to say, but both the main and precon schedules have been finalized for the PNW Day of Data 2026. I'm excited to advertise that we have three precons for our event on Nov 6th (Friday) at the same location, our friends at WSUV (Washington State University - Vancouver). From Jerry Nixon at Microsoft - SQL AI App in a Day - Build AI‑Powered Applications...

Oh what a wonderful community we have

admin September 08, 2026 0 Comments
Whether we call it the SQL Family or the Data Family, I can't think of a better group of people. I have been having fun working with the Day of Data Utah folks and they were kind enough to ask me my opinion. First of all, I'm happy to help, Second of all, it's exciting to see groups being created, and Third of all, it's good for the community. The news about IT companies is a little scary right...

Speaking at Day of Data SLC 2026!!

admin August 15, 2026 0 Comments
I'm looking forward to visiting SLC in September, both to help out at the Day of Data, but also to speak on my "Pets versus Cows" topic. It's been very educational for me to work with a top notch automation engineer and learn a lot of things in Terraform and general dev ops that I was missing. I'm not a Terraform person, but at least I'm Terraform-friendly. I'm also excited about a fun end to...

PNW Day of Data 2026

admin July 19, 2026 0 Comments
*speaker photo from SQL Saturday 2025* The indefatigable Steve Jones made a decision to go from the SQL Saturday brand to Day of Data. You may think it was presumptive for the Oregon group that all lives in Vancouver to claim the name for themselves, but there was a method to my madness. As we increase interest for Day of Datas in our region, the name is setup for a dash.... PNW Day of Data -...

Day of Data Baton Rouge 2026 – back home

admin July 19, 2026 0 Comments
When I was fortunate enough to be chosen to speak at #DayofDataBR, and I saw that tickets to New Orleans were quite a bit cheaper, I took the opportunity to fly there first. Louis Armstrong has always been an idol of mine, as I was growing up as a wannabe jazz piano player. I would listen to him along with some of the other influences from that era to understand the style. I'm glad I was able to...

Azure Storage – Day of Data Baton Rouge – 18 Jul 2026

admin July 10, 2026 0 Comments
You did everything right. You moved SQL Server to Azure, you paid for premium storage, you sized the VM generously. And it's still... slow. Your users are grumbling, your dashboards look fine on paper, and you're starting to wonder if the cloud was oversold. Here's the uncomfortable truth I've been sharing on stages this year: in Azure, you're paying for a service, and Microsoft is only going to...