Every year at PASS, I do the same thing. I hmm and haw over which sessions I want to go to, and I end up making some tough choices at game time.  This year I believe I'll be pretty busy, so my typical pie-in-the-sky view of how much I'll be able to attend just isn't going to pan out.  Instead, I have selected 5 sessions that I really want to try to attend; it may be a lofty goal, but I'm going to do what I can to make it happen.  This post is as much of a reminder for myself as it is meant to be interesting to you; probably even more so.

(As a side note, I believe you'll need to be signed in to the PASS web site in order to click any of the below links.)

Tuesday, November 9th

DBA-492S : Tracking Waits with Extended Events : Andrew Kelly
4:30 – 6:00

This was a tough choice; there are a LOT of good sessions in this time slot!  In the end, my curiosity about Extended Events won out over interesting sessions from SQLCAT, Adam Machanic, Kevin Kline and Ben Nevarez.

Wednesday, November 10th

DBA-588C : CSS Update Queries – Under the Hood : Conor Cunningham
10:15 – 11:45

DBA-599C : Inside SQL Server Latches : Bob Ward
4:30 – 6:00

These both look to be excellent sessions, and I don't think my brain will have room for much else on this particular Wednesday.

Thursday, November 11th

DBA-449M : Expert Query Performance Troubleshooting : Boris Baryshnikov, Conor Cunningham
1:00 – 2:15

DBA-346M : What's new in T-SQL in the Next Release of SQL Server : Tobias Ternstrom
2:30 – 3:45

Again, I just don't see how I can go wrong at either of these sessions.  I always feel I have performance troubleshooting skills to learn, and of course I am interested in what new T-SQL functionality will be coming our way in Denali.