A week ago, Friday was my 13 year-old Cattle Dog/Jack Russell mix, DaVinci’s time to go to doggo heaven.  He was a great flurry of tri-color energy, wrapped up in a small package.

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I’m getting ready for SQL Saturday Oregon this weekend, (taking the train up from Eugene to Portland…) but its about time I talked about the exhilarating and exhausting event we call PASS Summit.

This year I was lucky enough to be chosen as a speaker and a blogger.  Bloggers at the conference get the opportunity to sit in special zones during keynotes and we write about the event.  We also get special access to Microsoft PMs, (although I may be the only one who works for Microsoft attending vs. running them… :)) I look forward to all of the blogger perks and recommend it to anyone who has a passion for writing about our community and tech.

I’m still not sure where October went….well, actually I do-  it was a flurry of travel, writing, (but not blogging!) and working with customers on a ton of new projects for the next quarter.  With the end of October, comes the preparation for PASS Summit.  Last year, I had to pass on the SQL Train, but this year?

SQL Train is the annual pilgrimage from SQL Saturday Oregon, in Portland, to PASS Summit in Seattle via Amtrak train.  Chris Hyde is the poor, tortured soul responsible for organizing this, but I hear that if you say you’ll volunteer, it’s like Hotel California-  you can check in, but you can never check out!

Hard to believe its been one year, but it was June, 2018 when I joined the unstoppable company known as Microsoft.

All-in Analytics

I joined, with the expectation that I would leave much of what I had specialized in behind me- Oracle, along with other non-Microsoft database platforms, Linux, optimization and DevOps. I was excited to start my journey in business intelligence. Power BI was already starting to take over the world. I’d noticed the patterns, having only arrived on the BI scene in 2015, it was encompassing a larger percentage of speaker sessions and focus of content on the web. Users were incredibly interested in doing more with their data, not just having someplace to relationally work with it and as it grew, deal with the challenge of big data.

It was an exciting change, no doubt.

There are busy times for everyone and if you speak at conferences, the busy times are March,May and November. I am recovering from the early spring rush, and now it’s time to prepare for the late spring one.

I’ve been fortunate enough to be accepted to speak at the following regional SQL Saturdays and look forward to speaking and meeting new folks, along with catching up with conference friends:

Its been a busy holiday for me. Tim and I spent the days traveling since the weekend after Christmas until January 2nd moving the RV from California to Texas. I’m not the biggest fan of the Southwest- I just like green and water too much… »

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When I arrived at Microsoft, I knew I would hopefully get to use my Linux skills for more than teaching SQL Server DBAs about Linux and was pleasantly surprised as I began working in Azure to find that, of course, it’s ALL LINUX.

After almost six months at the company and coming into the Christmas week, I’m thankful for all the technology I’m working with and what many assume that Microsoft won’t be about-  the command line.

Azure All the Time

As much as I feel GUIs are necessary, I’m happiest at the command line and recommend to all those I mentor to take the time to know how to perform any task from both the GUI as well as the CLI.  Since I practice what I preach, here I am six months in and have spent considerable time with all the features that you’ll find on the following page-

I have a t-shirt that says, “Underestimate me, that’ll be fun” on the front of it.  This statement pretty much sums up my life and I continue to both impress and annoy people, which means I’m living up to it.

The session evaluations came out for PASS Summit and I was surprised by some of the reviews I received.  The opportunity to under estimate you is kind of expected.  I’m pretty comfortable with my skills as a presenter, but it is still new to me to not be as well known in the speaking community as I was in the Oracle side.  There is an additional thrill, as there is less expectation on who I am and I’m graded just like everyone else going into a presentation.

My blog was hacked last week, deliberately and maliciously.  I was hacked because my lacking knowledge in the area of website management and saved by my control issues as a Database Administrator.  It was a valuable lesson to learn in regards to being a woman in technology and new technical skills.

Time Flies when you’re having fun or when you’re crazy busy-  I’m unsure which is more true.

I just completed my first review as an employee at Microsoft and good news!  They’re going to keep me. »

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