Today was SQLSaturday #146, put on by Mike Walsh, Jack Corbett, and a host of other volunteers and organizers.
Scott and I missed the speaker dinner last night, but we headed up from Rhode Island at 6:00 AM and made a good day of it. We had lots of great conversations with both existing friends and potential customers.

After lunch I participated in a panel discussion with Joey D'Antoni and Andrew Kelly, led my Mike. We basically talked about various things DBAs are responsible for – and ultimately take the blame when they don't work. My favorite part of the discussion was around backups, and how you shouldn't have a backup plan, but a recovery plan. Meaning – essentially – don't bother taking backups unless you've tested that they can be restored successfully.

I had the last session of the day against some tough competition. About 35 people attended, but I don't like the last time slot because there are almost always conversations that extend past the end time. In a lot of cases it's ok to cut into someone's lunch or networking time if they want to stay longer, but you absolutely cannot cut into raffle time. Anyway, the feedback was fantastic – it's amazing how much feedback you can solicit when you offer up a raffle prize like a free license to SQL Sentry Plan Explorer PRO. 🙂 Also have to love a write-in vote for speaker expertise (and no I don't think this was a bribe):

You can download the slide deck and samples from my session here.

Kudos to Mike et. al. for a great event!