I’ve never been to Nashville, but I’ll be there soon.
A while back, I submitted a few abstracts to a couple SQLSaturday presentations around the country. I just picked places I’ve never visited which seem unique, and where I’d like to make a quick vacation of it and spend a few days exploring town before having fun at a SQLSaturday and meeting new people.
Pick Me! Pick Me!
Shock: not a good look for a DBA.
I checked back on the Nashville submitted sessions after a while and saw that there was a great roster of sessions submitted. This was sort of happy/sad news– it looked like it was shaping up to a great SQLSaturday, but it was looking really competitive.
But look! They picked me to present one of the sessions!
What I’ll be Talking About
I’ll be talking about how DBAs can take advantage of the SQL 2008 performance data collector to easily gather data from DMVs and create custom data collection sets. This is a great tool that lets you take what you learn at a conference and leverage it against many or all of your production servers. This gives you a repository of data to identify trends, show performance improvements, and report on the impact you’re making.
Nashville
So Nashville is kind of awesome. And I was wrong, it’s not all that different from Seattle. I know, because they ALSO want their coffee to taste like it’s from Portland.
Plus, they have a fake Parthenon, complete with marbles. (For some reason I really like replica buildings in incongruous locations.)
Nashvile is also ROLLING in art. There’s the Frist, the Vanderbilt Fine Arts Gallery, and the Van Vechten Art gallery — that last one was constructed as a gymnasium in 1888 and now holds Rivera, O’Keefe, and Cezannes. Plus lots of little galleries in town, and architecture tours. (I was an art nerd in a prior life.)
Apparently they have a little bit of live music in Nashville, too.
Not to mention bookstores, food, parks, and a chance for my southern accent to sneak back in. And a whole lotta SQL Server thrown in there on the weekend.
Like a pig in mud, I tell you.
Where and When
SQLSaturday #51 will be on August 21st at 120 White Bridge Rd. Nashville, TN 37209.
Things start up at 8:30 am, check out the whole schedule.
And it’s FREE.
Hope to see you theres, make sure to say hi if you can make it. I’ve been told I look just like myself in person. 
We’ve got MORE than a little live music! The Parthenon is actually really cool. Look forward to meeting you at the conference!