Rick Heiges

The first day of the general conference is now complete.  It started off well with the keynote featuring Bill Baker.  He wanted to show us the "Golden" CD of SQL Server 2005.  When he tried to get it out of the case, it broke in half - very funny!  Kent Tegels mentioned the T-Shirt toss in his post.  He neglected to mention his "wise guy" comment during this.  As Bill was going through the list of "verbs" on the back of the shirts, Kent blurted out that one of them should be "SHIP".  Everyone loved it!

I actually got to attend parts of sessions today!  I attended Erin Welker's "BI for the Relational Guy" and Larry Chesnut's "Consolidate, Elevate, Dominate, but don't Procrastinate with 64-bit" sessions.  These two people are my colleagues and did a great job.  I also presented "Hop on Board the SQL Server Express".  Roger Wolter, the PM for Express, attended the session and really was instrumental in answering some of the questions that were brought up by the attendees with the latest information.  This is one aspect that I truly love about PASS - often the PM or Dev who worked on that particular piece of SQL Server is in attendance and can provide not only the answer, but also "why" it is the answer.

I spoke to several people who went to the Hands-On labs and the PSS Service Center.  If you are attending, check'em out because I heard reelay good things about them. 

Well, another full day of meetings for me while attendees enjoyed pre-conferences until the evening....

After the speaker orientation, the welcome reception took place where the SIG Bowl game took place.  The SIG Bowl is a fun event put on by the Special Interest Groups of PASS to create a little fun at the start of the Conference.  It was similar to Jeopardy where teams buzzed in on questions to get points with one final question where each team wagers a portionof their points.  A lot of work went into it and it was a fun event to watch.

The SQL Server Central (SSC) folks had a reception for anyone who registered for PASS through their site after the general reception.  They had some Black Jack, Craps, and Texas Hold'em tables set up where you could have a little fun.  They also had prize give aways too during the game.  It was a great time!

The general conference starts Wednesday with a keynote and then the sessions!!!  Looks like a lot of good sessions this year.

I was able to get in touch with several friends yesterday.  My colleague, Erin Welker, was there particpating in the Project REAL presentation.  I wish that I could have stayed for it, but I had other meetings scheduled.  I heard from several attendees that the pre-cons were great.  Today, there are several more pre-cons going on with the Welcome Reception tonight.  It should be a blast!

It has been too long since I last blogged.  I've been on the road and connectivity is often not the most abundant or best around.  I was fortunate enough to welcome many new PASS members at the SQL Server Road Shows this year including the final four cities where I was able to share the entire day with the DBA track folks discussing SQL Server 2005.  Even after the announcement by MSFT that Database Mirroring would not be an official part of the release in November, the attendees still wanted to learn as much as possible about this feature.

I got to Dallas on Sunday and met up with some good friends.  This week will bring me in contact with even more friends as the Summit progresses.  This will be the biggest summit yet!  I may be biased, but the best user-to-user education can be found here.  Today it starts with the first round of pre-conference seminars. Tomorrow will have another round of pre-conference seminars plus the welcome reception in the evening.  I hope that you will say "hello" to me at the summit if you are in attendance - especially if you were at one of the SQL Server Road Shows.

I will attempt to blog everyday this week during the summit.  It will be hard because of my busy schedule here at the summit - so don't be surprised if I miss a day.  There are also many other SQL Junkies in attendance at this summit.  I will also rely on them to blog about their experiences at PASS this year.