I Was High All Weekend

Yep, that's right, I got high on Thursday and didn't come down until Sunday.  I was roughly 6,000 feet above sea level.  That's the approximate elevation of Colorado Springs, Colorado, where SQL Saturday #104 was held on January 7th.  Having never been to the Rockies before, and wanting to meet several people who would be attending the event, I packed up my wife and drove the 980 miles from Minneapolis to Colorado Springs.  Long drive, but so worth it.

One of the first things I learned is what people mean when they say "the air's thinner up here".  I'm no athlete, but when a simple walk through the Garden Of The Gods leaves me gasping for air, there's gotta be a reason!

After catching my breath, and working out the kinks from the long drive, it was time to get my learn on.  I was one of the first in the door on Saturday, and right away ran into Chris Shaw (blog | @SQLShaw), one of the organizers of the event.  Not long after, I was shaking hands with Grant Fritchey (blog | @GFritchey), one of the reasons I made the trip.  I don't remember who was next in a long line of introductions, but somewhere along the way I met Thomas LaRock (blog | @SQLRockstar), Tim Ford (blog | @SQLAgentMan), Joe Sack (blog | @joesack), Sarah "Mrs. StrateSQL" Strate (blog | @Dancemom), Karen Lopez (blog | @datachick), Christina Leo (blog | @christinaleo), T.Jay Belt (blog | @tjaybelt), Rebecca Mitchell (blog | @SQLPrincess) and several others who I can't recall right now.  These are people that I've been following on Twitter for a while, and it was a thrill to meet them in person.

The day started off feeling a little like chemistry class, as Tim Ford walked us through the Periodic Table of Dynamic Management Objects, including his impression of a talk show host.  Grant Fritchey eventually chased Tim off the stage so that he could teach us the difference between GOOD and BAD parameter sniffing.  Jim Murphy (blog | @sqlmurph) showed us how to setup the new AlwaysON feature coming in SQL Server 2012.  Jason Strate, laptop problems and all, took us deep into the plan cache, sometimes working one-handed, but not failing to show us some cool stuff.  He then teamed up with Thomas LaRock to force a room full of people to come to terms with their addiction to clicking on things, and that the path to adventure sometimes leaves you staring at a brick wall.  The day ended with Karen Lopez forcing a bunch of tired, hungry people to repeatedly get out of their chairs as she forced us to think about database design.

I wrapped up the weekend with a nice dinner and some great conversation with Grant Fritchey and Tim Ford and two bored 13-year-olds.  Sorry Grant, my wife saw right through the Scary DBA - after we left she said "Grant's funny, he seems like a really nice guy".

Great weekend, great people, great mini-vacation for us, beautiful scenery, and awesome weather.  We will be returning to Colorado Springs, and we'll be staying longer than two days.  I took a lot of pictures while we were there, but I could easily spend a week there just taking photos.