Community – Becoming a Master

Going to the European Fabcon in Barcelona!

admin September 24, 2026 0 Comments

I'm looking forward to having the opportunity to work in the Community Zone at the #FabConEurope in Barcelona, Spain in just a few days. I'll be presenting on "Moving the Boulder - how to get momentum going for your community group" on Tuesday at 1430 HRS CEST in the Community Theater along with being on post in some of the booths/stations in the Community Zone. While it's technically work, I...

PNW Day of Data 2026 – Schedule(s) live!

admin September 22, 2026 0 Comments

It took a minute as my Southern friends like to say, but both the main and precon schedules have been finalized for the PNW Day of Data 2026. I'm excited to advertise that we have three precons for our event on Nov 6th (Friday) at the same location, our friends at WSUV (Washington State University - Vancouver). From Jerry Nixon at Microsoft - SQL AI App in a Day - Build AI‑Powered Applications...

Oh what a wonderful community we have

admin September 08, 2026 0 Comments

Whether we call it the SQL Family or the Data Family, I can't think of a better group of people. I have been having fun working with the Day of Data Utah folks and they were kind enough to ask me my opinion. First of all, I'm happy to help, Second of all, it's exciting to see groups being created, and Third of all, it's good for the community. The news about IT companies is a little scary right...

Speaking at Day of Data SLC 2026!!

admin August 15, 2026 0 Comments

I'm looking forward to visiting SLC in September, both to help out at the Day of Data, but also to speak on my "Pets versus Cows" topic. It's been very educational for me to work with a top notch automation engineer and learn a lot of things in Terraform and general dev ops that I was missing. I'm not a Terraform person, but at least I'm Terraform-friendly. I'm also excited about a fun end to...

PNW Day of Data 2026

admin July 19, 2026 0 Comments

*speaker photo from SQL Saturday 2025* The indefatigable Steve Jones made a decision to go from the SQL Saturday brand to Day of Data. You may think it was presumptive for the Oregon group that all lives in Vancouver to claim the name for themselves, but there was a method to my madness. As we increase interest for Day of Datas in our region, the name is setup for a dash.... PNW Day of Data -...

Day of Data Baton Rouge 2026 – back home

admin July 19, 2026 0 Comments

When I was fortunate enough to be chosen to speak at #DayofDataBR, and I saw that tickets to New Orleans were quite a bit cheaper, I took the opportunity to fly there first. Louis Armstrong has always been an idol of mine, as I was growing up as a wannabe jazz piano player. I would listen to him along with some of the other influences from that era to understand the style. I'm glad I was able to...

Azure Storage – Day of Data Baton Rouge – 18 Jul 2026

admin July 10, 2026 0 Comments

You did everything right. You moved SQL Server to Azure, you paid for premium storage, you sized the VM generously. And it's still... slow. Your users are grumbling, your dashboards look fine on paper, and you're starting to wonder if the cloud was oversold. Here's the uncomfortable truth I've been sharing on stages this year: in Azure, you're paying for a service, and Microsoft is only going to...

Moving Forward

admin February 10, 2025 0 Comments

As I have told many people, I was REALLY busy between the last week of October and through Christmas. All good stuff, all busy. January was just the normal busy, but I used the time to make lists. Lists are good. You get immediate organization, you can check off items, and you can track your progress. Yes, this is the typical whiny post from someone who makes a blog and then ignores it for...

Planning for your own in-person data conference – Pt 2 – Location

Michael Wall December 10, 2023 0 Comments

Oregon Data Community/Oregon SQL has had their conference at many sites in both Portland and Vancouver. My first SQL Saturday was back in 2011 at the appropriately named Climb Center in Portland. There was an elevator, but it was small and slow, so it was faster to carry things up and down the four flights of stairs. This brings forth a number of good points in location selection Ease of Access...

Planning for your own in-person Data Conference – Pt 1

Michael Wall November 30, 2023 0 Comments

SQL Saturday Oregon and SW Washington 2023 is in the books and I hope everyone had a good time. As always, it was fantastic to see many people from the #SQLFamily. As always, I was running around like a chicken with my head cutoff due to many issues including coffee.... I expect that. It's hard to manage any size of group, and there will always be issues, especially when people are involved. We...