This weekend I have been in England for SQL Bits 8. Today I am in London preparing for a client visit, but I had a fun-filled few days by the sea in Brighton.

I presented four different times at this conference: two vendor sessions on execution plan analysis (showing off Plan Explorer 1.2, which we released during the show), and two sessions on engine and tools features in SQL Server "Denali" (you can download the deck and samples here). My only complaint about any of this was that the spotlights on speakers were way too bright – in the Empress room particularly, it really felt like there were two suns pointed directly at my eyes. I understand that since these sessions were being recorded there needed to be decent lighting, but I think they overdid it a bit.

At the booth, I had many great conversations with existing and future customers, highlighting many of the features we've introduced since first releasing 6.0. Also took some great feedback on a few things we could do to make some folks' lives easier. Met some folks I'd only known virtually before – Dave Ballantyne (twitter), Rachel Hawley (blog | twitter), Ola Hallengren (blog), Jonathan Allen (blog | twitter) and his wife, Annette (twitter), who incidentally has great taste in Mongolian BBQ restaurants. That isn't the whole list, there was also Neil Hambly, Matt Whitfield, Klaus Aschenbrenner, and reconnecting with a slew of folks I'd met before but don't see often – Christian Bolton, Mladen Prajdić, Lubor Kollar, Brad McGehee, Kevin Kline, Mark Souza, and many others.  Some folks I was disappointed to not meet up with – to name just a few, Jen Stirrup (blog | twitter), Peter Larsson and John Samson (blog | twitter). I could have made this list a blog post on its own, but I'll leave it at that.

Outside of work and community duties, we had an opportunity to look around a bit. I posted several pictures from walks around Brighton and all the touristy things in London:

Brighton 1   |   Brighton 2   |   London 1   |   London 2

I want to send out a heart-felt thanks to the SQL Bits crew – I am sure I am missing some, but Simon Sabin, James Rowland-Jones, Martin Bell, Allan Mitchell, Darren Green, Tim Kent, Chris Webb, Bob Duffy and Chris Testa-O'Neill all deserve huge kudos for pulling off such an enjoyable and successful conference. See you at the next one chaps!