Dave + SQL Server = Ingenious SQL….

So my adventure begins in May of 2012…

Rick Krueger ( b | t ) and I were talking about SQL Server and decided that it was about time that we became active members in the SQL Family. Our first attempt at bringing the SQL Family together was not as big of hit as we had hoped, but we found that we both had a passion and the drive to do more. This is when we decided that speaking at SQL Saturday #149 Minnesota was our next goal.

One day, in June, Rick says to me, “Dave, I think we should submit two abstracts to Iowa and Kansas City.” After thinking about it for about 3-4 seconds, I quickly agreed. I felt that this would be the perfect opportunity for us to meet some new SQL Server friends, and get speaking time. Plus if we were able to speak at Kansas City and Iowa events, we would surely get into the Minnesota event. So Rick and I submitted two abstracts to both SQL Saturday #159 Kansas City and SQL Saturday #161 East Iowa.

Now the thought for submitting two abstracts was to better our odds of getting a single spot. We didn’t anticipate both Kansas City and Iowa accepting both abstracts. After the rush of getting our abstracts selected wore off, we quickly realized our work was cut out for us. We had summer coming up, which in Minnesota is the nicest 2 months of the year, kids graduations, weddings, teaching, and family life to maintain. And now on top of all that, we had to prepare two full sessions.

I will say that it was a lot more work that I had ever imagined, but it was all worthwhile. We spent a lot of late nights working on slide decks, demos, and speaking scripts. We enlisted some great friends at the office to listen and give great feedback: Eric ( b | t ), Brandon ( b | t ), Bob ( t ), Rich and Scott thanks again! We made changes to our session as late as the drive from Minnesota down to Kansas City. But one of the last changes we made took our session from a 10 and cranked it up to 11.

The Friday before SQL Saturday #159, Rick, my wife, and I left for Kansas City. We made it to Kansas City just about 2:00 PM and attempted to meet up with the SQL Saturday #159 speakers on a BBQ crawl. This should have worked in theory; however I had some navigational difficulties, which prevented us from making the entire BBQ Crawl. However all was not lost, we made it to the final stop at the Woodyard BBQ joint. We met Jason Kassay ( b | t ), Chris Shaw ( b | t ), Andre DuBois ( t ), and Bill Fellows ( b | t ). Great group of guys, I am looking forward to hanging out with them again at future SQL events.

Later Friday night we went to the Screenland Theater for a speakers dinner. If you have never been to the Screenland theater, I would recommend it, lots of nostalgia and interesting architecture. It was at the dinner party where I was able to meet Meagan Longoria( t ), Chris Price ( t ), David Klee ( b | t ), Andy Galbraith ( b | t ), Steve Wake ( b | t ), and John Morehouse ( b | t ).
All these people were super nice and we had great conversations.

SQL Saturday #159 Kansas City was spectacular. The event organizers did an outstanding job! The Rooms were great, there were plenty of helpful people, the lunch was delicious, and the smoothie break was a nice touch. Over all it was a top notch event, kudos to the entire team!

And… Rick and I  successfully gave our first two sessions!!!

It wasn’t until the next day driving back to Minnesota that I realized what Rick and I were able to accomplish. If were to do it over, I would like to say I would do things different, but that’s just not my style.

I would like to thank both my wife Kristin, and Rick’s wife for putting up with us during this crazy adventure.

Next stop SQL Saturday #161 East Iowa…