PASS Pictures

I had a wonderful time at the PASS Summit.  As I blogged about here  I chose a different approach to the summit to try and capture more of the people and carrying my camera all the time with me. 

I have hopefully captured enough photo’s that everyone can have a small bit of that fever we all get while at the summit.  I have been really happy with how many pictures have come out of the summit in general I’ve tried to add some links below of everyone’s pictures I’m aware of.  Some may be in Face book which might require you to be friends with the person other’s are in Flickr where pretty much everyone can see them.  I’ve put mine in both to make it easier for people to find.  I would suggest if you would just like to browse the pictures Flickr is a much better way to go given how slow and buggy Facebook is.  But if you would like to comment and tag your friends then Facebook is the better way to go.  :) 

Here’s the overall Stats

On Sunday I took about 700 Pictures while out on the Olympic peninsula this was a family Photo shoot I was doing for some good friends of mine.  I was also enjoying the beautiful scenery out on the Peninsula something I will hopefully be able to do again soon. 

Mon-Friday About 900 pictures total.  Just short of 1000K.  I’ll have to make sure to up that number next year.  Here is a link to all my pictures via Flickr and Facebook.  No not all 900+ made the cut. 

My Photowalk Pictures on Flickr

My PASS General Session set on Flickr

My PASS General Session on Facebook

The dedicated PASS Photowalk group on Flickr.

@SqLAgentMan (Tim Ford) Photowalk set on Flickr.

@NoDNS (Kris) pictures from the Photowalk on Flickr.

I have seen many more on Facebook but I don’t have public links to them.  If anyone would like to post in the comments I’ll be more than happy to add it to the list. 

Pat

New PASS Executive Committee

I wanted to wish a big Congratulations to the new Executive Committee for PASS for next year.  The New committee will be

Rushabh Mehta as President. 

Bill Graziano as Executive Vice President of Finance

Rick Heiges as Vice President of Marketing

I hope them all the best in making a great next year for the PASS Community. 

The official announcement can be found here. 

http://www.sqlpass.org/Community/PASSBlog/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/118.aspx

Different Approach to the PASS Summit this year

Volunteer Committee Last year at the Volunteer Outing. 

This will be my 5th PASS summit this year.  My second and final as a PASS Board of Director.  Each PASS has been different for me but most have all had one theme in common.  Meet and Network with many people while learning great things about SQL Server.  This year I still intend to Meet and Network with others and learn about SQL Server but I’m also going to document and focus on the people at PASS.  Everyone knows I’m a photo nut and tend to have my camera with me to much.  Well this year it will always be on me.  I’ve decided to forego my normal large laptop/camera bag for just a camera bag and net book.  Most of the time my camera will be around me shoulder/neck on my R-Strap ready to take pictures whenever I can.

I’m a visual person and have a hard time remembering names and faces.  Hopefully for me this will help me to recognize people for the next PASS Summit.  All my pictures will end up on my Flickr Photostream and will be available to those that I have taken pictures of.  If you would like a quick headshot or a picture with a friend at PASS feel free to seek me out and we’ll set something up. 

If you would like to have fun and see Seattle and take pictures as well we have a Photowalk planned on Monday at 8:00 a.m. Feel free to come join us. 

 

pat

Holy Bingo, I’m a Square!

That’s right this year at the PASS Summit you get to play Bingo!  Not just any Bingo but Twtiter Bingo.  Stuart A(@StuartA), Brent O(@brento) and Blythe M(@blytheMorrow) have put together rules and all the details of the contest. Stuart has blogged about it here.  Basically you need to find people on the Bingo card on Tuesday you need to get a straight line.  Monday two straight lines and then on Wednesday a blackout.  Each day once you have gotten the specific pattern you need to turn it into the Quest booth at the expo hall.  They will have a drawing for fabulous gifts and prizes.  :) 

Now I’m telling you all this because I’m a Bingo Square!  My handle on twitter is @SqlAsylum.  I will be one of the easiest squares to find because I'm typically wearing a red vest as a PASS Ambassador.  So most of the time you can see me near the PASS Booth or in the halls helping to direct others to where they are trying to go.  I’m also a PASS Board of director and would love to hear your thoughts on the PASS Elections, the conference or the Community in general.  Hopefully you will all have a chance to find me. I’ll even tell you the story or my code word if you would like.  It’s all about the PASS Conference and it’s history. 

Pat

Photowalking at the 2009 PASS Summit

It’s that time of year again for the PASS Summit.  Which means it’s time for a PASS Photowalk.  Tim Ford(@sqlagentman)  and myself wanted to get together last year and take some pictures around Seattle.  Many friends joined us and the PASS Photowalk was born.  We will be leading a Photowalk once again this year  Here are all the details. 

Where: Sheraton Lobby
When:  Monday Nov 2nd 8:00 a.m.
Who:  Anyone with a camera.  The only requirement to Photowalking  is a camera of some sort.  If it's a camera on your phone that's fine. The goal is to socialize and meet other PASS/SQL folks and to take pictures while doing it. 

Myself and Tim Ford will be leading the Photowalk.  We will start off at the Sheraton and hopefully do a quick group shot and then work our way down to Pikes Place Market and then to Sculpture Park near Pikes place.  From there will be anyone's guess.  We will most likely stop at Pikes Place for some breakfast of some sort.   Many of us will have things to attend later in the day on Monday so the walk most likely will not go past lunch time.   Hopefully everyone is attending Don Gabor’s session later in the day as well. 

We will use #sqlpassphotowalk as the hash tag for the event in case you want to follow where we are on twitter.  I’m sure a few other people on the walk will be using twitter.  If you know your going to be late email me at pat.wright@sqlpass.org and I’ll pass on my cell phone number so you can call me and find out where we are. 

I've created a Flickr group for us to post photo's from the Photowalk.  You can visit it here.  http://www.flickr.com/groups/passphotowalk/ please Tag your photos with SQLPASS. For ease of searching.  If you don’t have a flickr account it’s free to setup.  You can see my pictures from last years Photowalk as well to get an idea of the walk.  

Here are some suggestions to make this a good photowalk for you.

1. Be sociable.  This is about learning and networking.

2. Be prepared.  Last year we were lucky with excellent weather.  We will see if we are that lucky again.  Dress in layers and either carry an umbrella or be prepared to get wet.  If your brining a Digital SLR like myself it’s best to have something to cover it up with such as a bag to keep the water out. 

3. Walking.  While we may stop at a location to take pictures there will be much walking.  Wear shoes that are appropriate to do so. 

4. Have fun.  As with all things at PASS have a good time.

If there’s any questions comments feel free to add them here.  I’ve also posted this in the Hotels.sqlpass.org  forums .

Hope to see you all there! 

Pat

ELECTIONS!

Currently the PASS Board of Directors election is going on.  You can vote for who you think should be on the Board for the next 2 years. 

I really just want you to do 2 things.

1.  VOTE!

2. Research the candidates and vote for you who you feel is the best candidates to be on the Board of Directors. 

There was much lively debate over at Brent Ozar’s blog about Matt Morollo (@mattMorollo) one of the candidates running for the Board.  There is information about the candidates as well on the PASS Election website.  This information is being presented to you to help make a decision about who you want to vote for.

Having served my time on the Board I can tell you it’s not an easy position and these candidates will have many uphill battles in front of them.   We belong to a wonderful community and it’s our responsibility to vote for who we feel are the best candidates.  They will have a profound effect on the community as a Board of Director. 

Good Luck to all the candidates and thank you for being willing to volunteer for the Board. 

pat

Utah Code Camp (Wrap up)

Another Utah Code Camp has come and gone.  I figured I would write up a quick review of the event both for all my readers benefit and for my own to keep a reminder of items I need to work on. 

The morning started out rather hectic with the doors not getting open on time.  Good idea to remember to always call your location and contacts the night before and make sure the times are right. 

Thankfully STG brought in bagels and coffee/OJ so everyone had something to snack on while we were going through registration and getting the doors opened. 

The sessions kicked off with a keynote from Dr Alistair Cockburn which I believe did an excellent job.  Unfortunately I had many other minor details about the camp that needed my attention so I wasn’t able to make the session but so far from the surveys and others response he did a great job. 

We made it through the sessions in the morning well without to many hiccups.  Once again we fell a little short on pizza for the lunch hour.  The lesson learned here is that for IT folk you have to triple your pizza order not double it. 

We discussed Primary key topics, clustered indexes, Olap vs Oltp , and DB architecture in our database roundtable.  I think most came out with some good questions answered and lots of good discussion was had by all.  Next code camp we are going to plan for a full SQL track to get lots more information out to the people. 

I was able to make it to Aaron Skonnard’s Session on Windows Azure and Cloud Computing.  I had not seen Aaron speak before I’m happy to say I was not disappointed he did a wonderful job of speaking and confirmed many of my suspicions about the cloud and what we can expect from it(future blog post). 

Of course my favorite part of the day is being able to give away stuff.  :)  We gave away a lot of software this time.  Well over 10K in software. 

All in all it was once again a great event and I’m already looking forward to the next one.  Thank you to all my excellent sponsors that made the camp possible.  A HUGE thank you to my presenters and to Craig, Nathan and Justin for helping me so much with organizing the event. 

Hope to see everyone at the next Code Camp!