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PASSMN December 2014 Meeting

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Next Tuesday (12/16) is the December meeting for the Minnesota chapter of the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASSMN). We are doing something different this month. Instead of doing a single presentation by one person we are going to have several local SQL people debate some SQL-related topics. the catch is none of us will know what the topics are ahead of time. We are calling it, SQL Improv: Who’s Line is it anyway? Or at least I am calling it that. Come watch me think on my feet along with Jason Strate, Mark Vaillancourt, Paul Timmerman,  Dave Valentine, Ben Thul, and Jim Dorame. It is sure to be fun and if we do it right you might even learn something along the way.

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Winds in the East (T-SQL Tuesday #61)

This month’s host for T-SQL Tuesday is Wayne Sheffield (blog|twitter). Since it is the season of giving he has asked the #sqlfamily to write about how we plan to give back to the SQL community in the coming year.

Because my term on the PASSMN board is ending I may actually end up giving a little less of my time to the SQL Community next year, but there is at least one new development I am excited to share.

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PASSMN November 2014 Meeting

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Today (11/18) is the November meeting for the Minnesota chapter of the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASSMN). Our presenter this month is Microsoft SQL Server MVP Paul Timmerman (T). Paul is presenting on how SQL Server Database Snapshots will make our lives easier. I learned a ton when he presented on Read Committed Snapshot Isolation level last year so I expect to gain some knowledge tonight (evidently Paul only presents sessions with the word snapshot in them).

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Lets Hear it for the Board (T-SQL Tuesday #59)

This month’s host for T-SQL Tuesday is the Real SQL Guy, Tracy McKibben (blog|twitter). In honor of Ada Lovelace Day Tracy has asked us to write about our heroes. I think Ada Lovelace is a great example of a hero and an inspiration as the first computer programmer, but I’ve decided to make my focus a little more local.

A little over two years ago I was starting to get more involved in PASSMN. The people on the PASSMN Board inspired me with their commitment and willingness to donate their time and knowledge to the Minnesota SQL Server community. At the time I didn’t know the board members as people. I viewed them with a certain amount of awe and nervously volunteered to speak and to help with events like SQL Saturday. It was easy to see them as heroes and they inspired me to push myself.

Maybe it is all of the activity these days around planning the current SQL Saturday, but I realized that I am now working side by side with some of these amazing people. My heroes are my fellow board PASSMN board members. They all do work that no one ever knows about and put in hours of volunteer time to help create the great SQL Server community we have here in Minnesota. I can’t begin to list all of the work these people do, but I want everyone to know how great they are. In no particular order here are the PASSMN Board heroes:

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PASSMN September 2014 Meeting

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Next Tuesday (9/16) is the September meeting for the Minnesota chapter of the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASSMN). Our main presenter this month is the Paula Merns. Paula will be expanding on her checklist presentation from last December and showing us how she uses checklists as a database professional. In addition to the main topic we will have a short presentation on using XML functions to create correlated lists by Riley Major.

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PASSMN August 2014 Meeting

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Next Tuesday (8/19) is the August meeting for the Minnesota chapter of the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASSMN). Our presenter this month is the Ross McNeely (twitter | blog). Ross will be presenting a Spatial Data Deep Dive going over Spatial Data types, the Bing Spatial Data Services, and Spatial Analysis. It is a topic I haven’t taken much time to dig into, but it seems like almost every company I have worked at has some sort of geospatial data.

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PASSedMN July 2014 Meeting

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Tuesday of this week (7/15) was the July meeting for the Minnesota chapter of the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASSMN). Our presenter this month was Mike Matthews (no twitter|no blog – someone should talk to him about this). Mike presented on SQL Server I/O. I didn’t get a blog post put out before the meeting to remind people, but I am hoping to have twelve posts for PASSMN for the year. I’ll just have to reflect on how the meeting went instead of announcing what it will be about.

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PASSMN June 2014 Meeting

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Tomorrow (6/17) is the June meeting for the Minnesota chapter of the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASSMN). For June we are doing a lightning talk format that will include short talks from Paul Timmerman (blog|twitter), Rizwan Hassan (twitter), myself, and a short presentation from our sponsor this month, Kroll Ontrack, with an update on their SQL backup product. It is the first time I have presented at the user group since March of 2012 and I am looking forward to it.

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