I look forward to seeing everyone there!

The conference started out with the typical day 0 – Tutorials Day. I only attended the MongoDB talk mostly to learn a bit about it. Kristina was a wonderful speaker who really knew her stuff. And as a MySQL geek, I have to admit that it was interesting seeing seeing my world (RDBMS world) from a different perspective. I even managed not to say a single thing throughout the entire talk though there were a couple of times the others I was with had fun laughing at me holding back.

The first actual day of the conference started out with Josh Holmes keynote on The Lost Art of Simplicity. It was a fabulous talk that forced me to find myself on the wrong side more then once.

From there I went to Eli White’s talk on Anti-Spam and Anti-Gaming. The talk again was extremely interesting and some of his ideas would never of occurred to me. Good thing we have Eli to teach me.

On to Joel Perras’s talk on Graphs, Edges, and Nodes. Again a fabulous talk, that I have to admit – lost me a bit. But it is something I definitely want to learn more about.

From there to Large Scale Systems with David Strauss. This was one of the best talks I will be in at the conference. Learned lots – most of which I did not know enough to ask about… but I do now.

After that I kinda got into practicing for my own presentations and missed a lot in the actual sessions, but still enjoyed the hallway track. I must admit that it has been quite a while since I attended that many sessions at a conference, and all of them top notch talks.

As for my own talks, I thought they went well and seem to be well received. You can find the slides for my talks on my Presentations page.

So to wrap up I had a fabulous time at the conference, learning lots and hopefully teaching others stuff they did not know. I can’t wait for next years.

So off I go – totally clueless and completely unprepared since I figure – hey I’m just an attendee. And yes – I go from bad to worse.

So off to UNF I go. AFAIK SQL Saturday is going to be held in the College of Computing & Engineering – hey my old alma mater – cool! Never mind that it has been 8 years since I was on campus, I know my way around right?! Wrong

I got completely lost since almost all the old parking lots are gone and the ones that are still there are designated parking only… and did I mention that the event is in building 50? Yeah – well, that building wasn’t around when I attended UNF so I then proceeded to get confused because it was a different building then the one I attended. All told I spent about 15-20 minutes being lost and befuddled. Should have given me a clue what an idiot I was being.

I eventually find my way there, check in and grab a free donut and coffee (Dunkin’ donuts – Mmm). The place is just starting to get busy so I kinda meander around watching. I have to admit that in new situations I like to people watch.

First thing I noticed was that this crowd while similar to a crowd I would see at an open source conference – was also distinctly different. The crowd seemed to be older (more my own age rather then younger then me) with a *lot* more women attending then I expected (easily twice to maybe 3 times as many women around then I would see at an OS conference) and very few people had a laptop with them. It kinda threw me there – in a rather good way.

I hang out a bit outside and chat a bit with various people. Once they find out I work for MySQL/Oracle, I of course get the requisite “Dark Side” joke and I try to refrain from commenting that “we have cookies”.

I eventually make my way to my first session – SQL University 101: Starting the SQL Journey I have to say it – it was a great session. It provided a nice intro into the SQL Server world that was both intro and technical enough to keep me occupied for the whole class… I even won a poster for knowing what SQL stood for.

Next I attended the T-SQL 102: Aliases and Table Joins talk figuring it would cover anything interesting on how SQL Server handles JOINs (indexing techniques, what kind of index it uses, optimization techniques, etc.). Well it turns out it was more like a basic intro to writing SQL JOINs so not that interesting for me. What I did find humorous when I first noticed it was that the instructor used Venn Diagrams to explain JOINs… which is something I have posted on in the past.

Now at the time of my Venn diagram post, AFAIK I was the only one who thought of them that way. (Turns out I am not – the instructor stated they first came across the idea back in 2000.) I (being the arrogant POS that I am) wondered if the instructor had somehow come across that information and was using it in their presentation. (Have I mentioned I am a complete idiot most days.) I tried to speak with the instructor for a brief while on the subject and ended up making a total and complete fool of myself with them (someone write a big “L” on my forehead).

So I officially would like to 1) apologize to the instructor for giggling in their class. I am an idiot. 2) apologize for just being an arrogant sh*t. I really do try and keep that under control. I am sorry and I have no excuse.

After that I took a walk around campus for a while. As I said it has been 8 years since I was on campus and so much had changed. I actually was lost until I finally got my bearings finding old landmarks. It was nice being back.

So during lunch I sat in on a couple of mini-sessions. One on becoming a DBA and the other on networking at technical events. Both were very good covering areas that to me are similar in the open source world. One thing I did find interesting is that neither of the instructors discussed participation in open source projects – even if it is on CodePlex – Microsoft’s open source portal.

I am unsure if it is simply not a known conduit for the SQL Server community, or if the culture of the community does not push it the way that, obviously, the open source community would. That would be an interesting discussion to have one day.

The final session I attended was the Introduction to Data Warehousing talk. Again it was a very good talk that covered general concepts as well as SQL Server specific tools. I particularly enjoyed the discussion on design of a data warehouse and the general patterns of them – star and snowflake. The examples given and discussed were easy to understand and follow even though the terminology I am most familiar with was slightly different.

Relatively soon after the end of that session I left to go home and be with the family (it was the day before Mother’s Day after all).

I had a fabulous time at SQL Saturday and if I had a complaint about anything it would have to be the network (of course). Because I have Skype on my machine I was quarantined/locked out of the network a number of times so my connection was intermittent at best.

Now that I have had a chance to see the SQL Server community I have to admit I plan to try and get to a Jacksonville SQL Server User Group meeting some time in the near future if I can. It is always nice to learn new stuff about databases… Don’t get me wrong – I love my RDBMS and plan to stay here a long time but being “the n00b” and adding more tools to my toolbox is not a bad place to be.

The conference this year will be held from May 18-21 at the Sheraton Gateway Suites O’Hare (same as the past couple of years). If you have already been to the conference, you already know about playing Tek frogger – and if you don’t or this is your first conference – be sure to find me at the conference so we can discuss it as we sit and have a drink at “Shirtless Slim’s”.

For those that are interested I will be giving 2 talks on MySQL this year. One will be an introduction to MySQL replication and the other will go over the new features found in MySQL 5.5. Both are new talks for me, so I am rather excited about speaking on the subjects and would love feedback.

I hope to see you there!

1) Acquisition went through so get to do all the wonderful stuff associated with it… various paperwork , reading *lots* of company materials on policies and changes, benefit choices, townhall meetings, etc…. not to mention normal work.
2) Various PHPC stuff. I have to admit I have been not been as diligent with this as I normally would but the others have been nice in pointing out necessary stuff and yelling at me when needed. Thank goodness.
3) PHPWomen stuff. Again been dropping the ball on this but Elizabeth Naramore has things well in hand so I am not worried about it. She kicks me when I need it.
4) Kid’s college stuff. Kid is applied to the college of her choice for a Nursing degree, ACT/SAT scheduled, FAFSA and FFAA completed, a couple of scholarships have been applied to, still need to push her to apply to more. Who’d a thunk it would be so difficult to get a kid set up for school.
5)Hubby and his motorcycle. Yeah after much discussion, checking out of the local dealership and checking of the budget – he got a motorcycle. His retirement present to himself and for a mid-life crisis – there are worse things. See it on his facebook page if you are interested.
6) Discussion on a graduation present for the kid. Current plan under discussion – her and a friend doing a 5 day stay at Disney with park hopper passes. 3 previous plans rejected thus far for various reasons
7) Planning the logistics for the party for Kid’s graduation. Currently have about a dozen family members coming in from around the state and California.
The great Khan dog is showing his age and limping around from arthritis. After the vet visit he is now on 3 pills (vitamins, anti-inflammatory, and pain reliever) and is to be strictly restricted in his movements. So no going out with our younger dog, no running, no jumping.
9) Oh and I have to start the garden this month so next month I can start planting in it supposedly. Gardening is new for me so we are learning and faking it to start. With how much I spend on produce, I am hoping it is cheaper in the long haul. Hoping to start prepping the area for it this weekend so wish me luck.
10) The solar panels. Don’t *even* get me started on that!
11) Preparing for Hubby’s military retirement. Not really a lot to do but budgeting, saving, paying off bills, planning for the class on retirement and just all around getting ready to lose almost half of the current household income.

All this – and still have to do all the normal stuff of life – cook dinner, clean and dust the house, work on home improvement projects, check on the kid and her school work and after school activities… you know – life.

Well this past weekend we attended a local colleges seminar on admissions and financial aid that really opened her eyes to all the things she needs to be doing. Since then we have filled out her FAFSA, the states version for financial aid, started looking at scholarships/grants to apply for, and scheduled her ACT and SAT tests.

She still has quite a bit more to do to have everything done in time, but at least she has started.

If you are considering submitting to the conference, I highly suggest you get a move on it. You have a little less then a week to do it (Call closes 11:59pm 01/27/2010 PST. ). You can submit a talk for the MySQL User Conference here. For information on registration for the conferences go here.

For 2009 I was supposed to try and meet a couple of personal and professional goals. Some of the goals I like to think I have met include:

1) relearning how to balance my work and family. When I started working at MySQL I felt so completely inadequate in my new role that I completely submersed myself in it to try and get myself to someplace that while not comfortable, at least didn’t leave me feeling stupid all the time. I found that place after about a year, but by then I was so consumed with work that I had little time for anything else. 2009 was the year I wanted to take back my personal time.

Now that I have again found that balance, for 2010 I want to get back to my roots and turn my hand back to so PHP coding again. I am massively rusty, but I do miss it so it should be fun.

2) speaking at conferences. I am always telling people to submit talks to conferences but never seemed to have the time to do it myself. Yes I was being a hypocrite.

For 2009 I swore I would submit talks to any conferences I thought I might actually be able to get the time off of work to attend and as luck would have it – they liked me… They really liked me. Crazy people – must be stoned or something.

In 2009 I was accepted to speak at 5 conferences (6 if you include the Microsoft summit) and after being ill before the first one – had a fantastic time. I will definitely be continuing this for 2010.

I have been honored to already be accepted to speak at this years spring conferences – TekX and Confoo. Unfortunately though I have had to withdraw from the Confoo conference due to work requirements, but I will be attending TekX in May. And if I am brave enough, I am also going to try and submit to the MySQL User Conference.

3) install solar panels on the house to reduce our carbon footprint and our electricity bill. Took us a while but it is finally done. The solar panels are in and the solar water heater is working. We are currently waiting for the local electric company to come and install a 2 way metering system.

4) Help my daughter. While not on the original 2009 TODO list, it immediately went to the #1 slot when her father passed this fall. This will be an ongoing thing that may never have an end. But she is worth it.

5) hold semi-regular meetings for the PHPWomen board. Trying to coordinate 7+ people around the globe for meetings is a pain – but we managed to do it a number of times this year to discuss ideas, catch up on projects and touch base with everyone. Not bad.

Ok – time for the listing of things I did not do this year that I wanted to. This list could easily be couple of pages long but we will shoot for a condensed version.

1) get back into writing. I love to write and for some reason, just haven’t had cause to write in a while. Need to contact some people to see if they need any new articles… Wonder if E3 would let me do something for PHPArch maybe…
2) didn’t learn enough for work – still need to get more into performance tuning, benchmarking, cluster and server administration. Always so much to learn, and never enough time (remember trying to balance work/life).
3) PHPWomen – oh let me count the ways… I really wanted to have the paperwork filed for 501c3 this year, never quite made it. Wanted to also have a birthday party for PHPWomen during Zend Con but due to unforeseen circumstances that didn’t happen… also forgot to try and have a “Go Pink” drive for breast cancer.
4) help get the PHPCommunity organized with the provisional board. laying the foundation for hopefully better to come.

This listing can keep going on and on – but now seems like a good time to stop. Here is to hoping 2010 is a great year!

If you find any bad links/posts please let me know so I can fix them. And tell me what you think of this new theme.

I think I have finally managed to get my blog up and running again (only been about a year) since I keep being told by people that “it doesn’t work” and well … because I really need to get back to blogging. I hate always talking to myself and that seem to be all I have been able to do lately. Much more fun to babble in your ear.

Anyway – lots of stuff going on and will get to that later, but for now – Happy New Year everyone.

Hmm – Guess I can check off “Fix Blog” from my 2009 TODO list (hey be nice I am only a day or so late).

Edit: seems a number of my links are broken right now. I will be fixing them over time.