SQL Server Journey with SQL Authority

Today was the third day of MVP Summit 2009 and it was wonderful. I had my dream come true as I was able to meet Kalen Delaney – a legendary author of SQL Server and truly living SQL God. If I had not met her today, my trip to USA would have not been complete. I am awaiting for famous book Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Internals (Pro – Developer) to release and I will be the first one to purchase for sure. I really wish if I can get early copy of the book as I just can not wait for the same.

Pinal Dave, Kalen Delaney

I have found out that Ross Mistry, famous SQL Author reads my blog everyday. He read in my blog where I have asked him to give me review copy of the book with his signature (here) and yes he has done it. I am going to read the book and write my review. As per Ross he has taken all my previous criticism constructively and fixed all of them in this edition.

Pinal Dave, Ross Mistry

Business Intelligence is something always fascinates me and I am very eager to learn it. I will not miss any chance if given to me to learn this very important skill. Today was my day when I was able to meet two legendary SQL BI Gurus. Jessica M Moss is one of the very few women in technology who is expert in BI and I was fortunately able to discuss my skills with her. I realize after talking with her that I have lot to learn from her.

Jessica Moss, Pinal Dave

Rushabh Mehta is expert BI – SQL Quality Learning mentor and very known personality in the world of SQL Server. To meet person like him is one of the most unforgettable experience. I had in depth discussion about Pass Chapters in India and Worldwide. I realize that there are so many activities PASS do with Rushabh as Executive Vice President. I can say one thing about both of SQL BI Guru that I am fortunate to know them.

Rushabh Mehta, Pinal Dave

I am also thankful to our MVP Lead Abhishek Kant, who is continuously encouraging all f the MVPs to take parts in different activities and help them come forward with their independent talent. On second day of MVP Summit 2009, Jacob Sebastian won one of the award for most comments on MSDN and Pinal Dave (myself) had received one of the award for most contributing MVP for last year. Attached photographs here shows Jacob and Pinal with their gift in hand standing along with Abhishek Kant.

Pinal Dave, Abhishek Kant, Jacob Sebastian

MVPs with MVP Lead

Last but not list, we had one very interesting party in evening. This was the night when MVP rocked. Yes, literally they all rocked. MVPs sang nearly 30 different rock songs and whole environment was full of music. We all visited Music Museum and Space Museum, due to NDA and Copyright issue, I will not write or blog about our visit to this museums. One thing I can say that if you are in Seattle, you must visit the museums besides Space Needle.

I have nearly 100+ photos of our Rock star party but many of them I will be not able to share on blog due to it will violate the privacy of MVP. Different MVPs from worldwide came out of their professional Mr. Nice guys shell and rocked whole environment with their dance and songs. I am posting following photo just for reference that how much fun we had today. There are nearly 40 photos our song and 1 video, however I am just sharing one photo which is most decent.

MVP Rockstar Party

Under the nick name of DJ SQL aka Michael Coles lead our rock band. Allen White, Pinal Dave, Rick Heiges and our favorite Steve Jones (blog) were cheerSQL for Michael. The song was awesome but the most interesting was our cheering dance. I funny and hilarious video for the same but it is for private viewing only and will not be shared. If you find copy of the video online please notify me and I will act on it immediately.

DJ SQL

Believe me today was very one of the most eventful day as we had some great tech session in morning, which followed up by meeting with some smartest BI people on planet Earth. The party was rocking with Museum visit, networking and our cheer dance.

Tomorrow is last day of my four day long MVP Summit and I am very sad that is about to end soon. I will have some good information to share with all of you tomorrow.

Following is my travel itinerary so far:

Feb 27, 2009 – Departing Ahmedabad to Mumbai
Feb 28, 2009 – Departing Mumbai to Seattle Sheraton Hotel
March 1, 2009 – Day 1 at MVP Summit
March 2, 2009 – Day 2 at MVP Summit
March 3, 2009 – Day 3 at MVP Summit
March 4, 2009 – Day 4 at MVP Summit
March 5, 2009 – Departing Seattle to Toronto
March 6, 2009 – Tech User Group Meeting, Markham, Canada
March 7, 2009 – Departing Toronto to Mumbai
March 8, 2009 – Missing Day due to Day Line Crossing
March 9, 2009 – Arriving to Ahmedabad

Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

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Day 2 of MVP Summit 2009 was filled with Back to Back Technical session. However, due to NDA I will be not able to share the details about the session. I even verified that I can not even post the title of the session which I have attended. I can only talk general details about the event.

In one line – “It is one GREAT event!” Interested readers can read about MVP event schedule here : Agenda of Microsoft MVP Summit 2009. It was the best day for me as I was chosen to have honor by fellow MVP for one of the most helpful MVP for last year. (Read Last Paragraph)

While we are attending this excellent tech sessions all of us did not miss a bit when we can have fun. In morning I meet four cool persons, about whom I can not resist blogging. I have met many experts yesterday as well and will many more tomorrow. I plan to write about all of them as I go. Today as I could not write much about sessions I have written about SQL Server Heroes, I meet.

Steve Jones – He is founder of http://www.sqlservercentral.com and one of the most friendly MVP you ever meet. I am totally impressed with his down to earth personality but superman like SQL skills. A true leader and above all a person worth meeting. I really wish I can be as successful like him one day.

Ross Mistry, Steve Jones, Pinal Dave

Ross Mistry – He never stops surprising me. He loves to write easy but interesting SQL Server books and I love to read them. I have written review about the same SQLAuthority News – Book Review – SQL Server 2005 Management and Administration. Ross told me that he has copy of his new book with him and he will share that with me tomorrow. He even promised that he will autograph it for me too. Let us see if I get the book or surprise (by not getting the book!).

Glenn Berry – He is lead author and SQL Expert at http://glennberrysqlperformance.spaces.live.com/ . He works at leading feed aggregation organization NewsGator. Glenn is totally people’s person and enjoy discussing complex problem with fellow developers. He is the one who introduced me to many SQL Gods here. One thing, I am going to learn from him is how to manage a truly gigantic database with zero second downtime. He is one expert who can tell you how you can make most of your limited resources. I assume, people like Glenn will always have safe job because he is most needed when recession hits company. We can hire one Glenn and save 7 other developers money.

Pinal Dave, Mohammad, Glenn Berry

Michael Coles – I always thought this guys is very older person from his writing, but in fact he is vibrant young man. His writing is very mature and very good. He is expert in XML, the technology I am not such big fan of. He is one author who has made XML and SQL a piece of cake. His attitude about XML is very simple, he does not force users to use XML but merely suggests why you need XML, where you need XML and how you can use XML. A approach which I am myself big follower of. I have previously reviewed his book SQLAuthority News – Book Review – Pro T-SQL 2005 Programmer’s Guide. I have requested Michael to send me latest book and he will send me once I go back to India. Besides SQLXMLer he is one jolly person.

Michael Coles, Rodney Landrum, Pinal Dave, Jacob Sebastian

I have met many many experts during these two days and there are many to meet yet in next day. I will be writing about all of them as I have time. I am also going to meet Satya tomorrow to learn more about learning about public speaking skills, as he is regular speaker at TechNet. I hope to post about the same tomorrow. Arnie Rowland is another interesting person who today advised me how to participate in MSDN forum. Arnie, I thank you for your encouragement.

Menu

At the end of the day, we had wonderful dinner at Maggianos. All the MVP were given a paper where they have to provide five names of other fellow MVP who have influenced the tech world in last one year. I was really happy when nearly 100 MVPs voted me as one of the five MVP. I humbly accepted my gift for the same and I would like to thank you all of my fellow MVP for suggesting my name. I promise all of you that I will not let any of you down and always be communities person.

Dinner Table

Pinal Dave, Allen White

Pinal Dave

Spot Me!

Following is my travel itinerary so far:

Feb 27, 2009 – Departing Ahmedabad to Mumbai
Feb 28, 2009 – Departing Mumbai to Seattle Sheraton Hotel
March 1, 2009 – Day 1 at MVP Summit
March 2, 2009 – Day 2 at MVP Summit
March 3, 2009 – Day 3 at MVP Summit
March 4, 2009 – Day 4 at MVP Summit
March 5, 2009 – Departing Seattle to Toronto
March 6, 2009 – Tech User Group Meeting, Markham, Canada
March 7, 2009 – Departing Toronto to Mumbai
March 8, 2009 – Missing Day due to Day Line Crossing
March 9, 2009 – Arriving to Ahmedabad

Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)

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My regular blog readers must be aware of my tour SQLAuthority News – Author Visit – MVP Global Summit 2009 – Seattle and Redmond. Today was day 1 of MVP Summit and we had started it with big gala event.

In morning few of Indian MVP visited Seattle Space Needle and had too much fun there. The Space Needle is a tower in Seattle, Washington, but similar to the one in tokyo, Japan, and is a major landmark of the Pacific Northwest region of the United States and a symbol of Seattle. Located at the Seattle Center, it was built for the 1962 World’s Fair, during which time nearly 20,000 people a day used the elevators, with over 2.3 million visitors in all for the World Fair. The Space Needle is 605 feet (184 m) high and 138 feet (42 m) wide at its widest point and weighs 9,550 tons.

Our main gala event started with Summit Welcome.
Toby Richards, General Manager of Microsoft’s Community Support Services group will welcome MVPs to the event.

This session was followed up by another excellent Keynote Session.
Rich Kaplan, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft’s Customer & Partner Advocacy group gave excellent Keynote.

Brad Mcgee, Pinal Dave

Vijay, Simon, Steve Jones, Pinal Dave

Arnie Rowland, Pinal Dave

Andy Warren, Greg Linwood, Pinal Dave

Itzik Ben-Gan, Pinal Dave, Michele Cole

Satya, Glenn Berry, Ross Mistry, Pinal Dave

Indian MVPs, Glenn Berry

Louis Davidson, Pinal Dave

Paul Nielsen, Pinal Dave

Robert Cain, Pinal Dave

Pinal Dave, Geoff Hiten, Sean McCown, Mr. Danny

Joe Webb, Pinal Dave

India MVP, howard Lo

Howard Lo, Pinal Dave, Abhishek Kant

If you have taken my photo and you want me to share that on this blog, please send that to me and I will post them appropriately.

Following is my travel itinerary so far:

Feb 27, 2009 – Departing Ahmedabad to Mumbai
Feb 28, 2009 – Departing Mumbai to Seattle Sheraton Hotel
March 1, 2009 – Day 1 at MVP Summit
March 2, 2009 – Day 2 at MVP Summit
March 3, 2009 – Day 3 at MVP Summit
March 4, 2009 – Day 4 at MVP Summit
March 5, 2009 – Departing Seattle to Toronto
March 6, 2009 – Tech User Group Meeting, Markham, Canada
March 7, 2009 – Departing Toronto to Mumbai
March 8, 2009 – Missing Day due to Day Line Crossing
March 9, 2009 – Arriving to Ahmedabad

Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

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I will be blogging actively about my tour SQLAuthority News – Author Visit – MVP Global Summit 2009 – Seattle and Redmond.

Today I will be leaving for Mumbai. I will be at Mumbai International Airport between 10 PM to 2 AM. If you are traveling and in Mumbai during this four hours, let us meet and talk about Microsoft and SQL Server. I already have received couple of email from SQL Enthusiastics who will be coming to Airport to meet me, so look for 3-4 people sitting gather looking at Dell XPS and having fun.

While I am traveling to MVP Summit, I will be also visiting Toronto for Tech Team meeting. Tech geeks in Toronto can contact me for further location.

Following is my travel itinerary so far:

Feb 27, 2009 – Departing Ahmedabad to Mumbai
Feb 28, 2009 – Departing Mumbai to Seattle Sheraton Hotel
March 1, 2009 – Day 1 at MVP Summit
March 2, 2009 – Day 2 at MVP Summit
March 3, 2009 – Day 3 at MVP Summit
March 4, 2009 – Day 4 at MVP Summit
March 5, 2009 – Departing Seattle to Toronto
March 6, 2009 – Tech User Group Meeting, Markham, Canada
March 7, 2009 – Departing Toronto to Mumbai
March 8, 2009 – Missing Day due to Day Line Crossing
March 9, 2009 – Arriving to Ahmedabad

Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)

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