Dylan had to get his in-grown toenail treated. It does not look like a pleasant experience! He had a treatment called a "wedge" to take out the portion of the toenail that was perpetually in-grown and infected. On a positive note, he did phenomenally well in the Mid-State Choir Competition. He made Mid-State and ranked as 6th alternate for All-State. Way to go Dylan! Cheers, -Kev … [Read more...]
Frozen Custard!
September 28, 2007 by Leave a Comment
It's frozen custard time in Middle TN again! The kids and I really mourned the loss of our local frozen custard place, Amy's Frozen Custard. So I was really delighted when Rachel told me that there was a flozen custard place near her in Hendersonville called Ritters.So naturally, I had to take the kids down to see if it was any good. Evidently, Ritters is a chain. But the custard was really good. Somehow, it seemed that Amy's custard was better. But I had no complaints. The kids friends, Kelly Jo and JoJo, also joined us for a round. I wondered if they'd ever make it to the custard joint … [Read more...]
A couple pics of the PASS event
September 20, 2007 by 2 Comments
This is my last year as the president of PASS. I've been on the board of directors since the inception of PASS in 1999. During that time, I served for 2 years as VP of Marketing, 2 years as EVP of Finance, and 4 years now as the President. I've seen PASS grow from a very small association in start-up mode to a stable and growing international association with tens of thousands of members worldwide. It's been one of the most satisfying activities of my career, yet I'm happy to reach the zenith of my service with PASS.This year Quest once again took the place of SQL Server vendor to beat. Our … [Read more...]
Another interview…
September 10, 2007 by Leave a Comment
You can tell it's conference season because I get a lot of interviews around the time that the annual PASS conference is on the horizon. You can see my latest interview (text only, thankfully) at http://www.sqlmag.com/Article/ArticleID/97021/97021.html.Enjoy!-Kev … [Read more...]
A lengthy interview…
September 7, 2007 by Leave a Comment
I was interviewed by Mark Brunelli, the news editor for Tech Target, which appeared on the website SearchSQLServer.com. Check it out for discussion on SQL Server and Oracle interoperability at http://searchoracle.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid41_gci1270206,00.html.Boring, I know, but kind'a cool.-Kev … [Read more...]
Cologne
August 26, 2007 by Leave a Comment
Cologne was one of my favorite cities in Germany. Cologne has a reputation in Germany as being the place where people live it up to the fullest, laugh the loudest and longest, and generally have a greater joy for life. It's somewhat the San Francisco of Germany because it also has the country's largest and most active gay community, plus a free and legal sex trade.Cologne also has its own beer and style of drinking beer (called "kolsch") that is unique and very different from the Bavaria style that most Americans are used to. Most Americans think of Germany beer coming in the big, lidded … [Read more...]
Munich and Hamburg
August 25, 2007 by Leave a Comment
After a more leisurely time in Frankfurt and Berlin, I had a lot of rushing about to make it to Munich and then Hamburg on time. There wasn't much time for site seeing, unfortunately. But the people were as friendly and helpful as ever.In Munich, I joined my Quest colleagues Fabian Fulle and Dirk Muller. Then we headed out to BMW for a sales call. After that, we went to a suburb to the Microsoft offices to speak to the Bavarian SQL Server user group. We also had the pleasure of being misdirected 4 or 5 times by the navigation system in our rented BMW. (I'll never use that one, I'll tell you … [Read more...]
Berlin
August 22, 2007 by 1 Comment
The Brandenburg Gate is perhaps one of the best known architectural monuments in all of German. It's a beautiful 19th century stone structure that was built to commemorate Prussian victories over their enemies and was originally named, ironically, the Peace Gate. It was incorporated into the infamous Berlin Wall during the years of the Cold War, but is now a stand-alone structure again.Berlin was a surprisingly easy town to navigate on foot. A brief walk from the Brandenburg Gate took us to the Reichstag, Germany's new Parliament building, moved from Bonn after the Reunification of East and … [Read more...]
Tired!
August 21, 2007 by Leave a Comment
I'd been going from 6 am to midnight (and even much later) all week long at PASS. So when a meeting with a colleague on the PASS board of directors was delayed by about 10 minutes. I totally crashed. So when my friend, Rick Heiges, arrived, I was completely, totally, and deeply asleep. I can't wait to get some rest! -Kev … [Read more...]
A Day in Frankfurt
August 20, 2007 by Leave a Comment
I wish I could say that this has been an easy trip. It started off badly last Friday with my flight from Nashville to Newark circling for about 1.5 hrs before diverting to Norfolk, Virginia to get more fuel. We were only supposed to land for 20 minutes, but ended up staying almost 2 hours. Once back in the air, we circled some more and finally landed about 3 hours late. For some reason, I wasn't terribly worried about missing my flight especially since the flight attendant mentioned that everything else out of Newark was running equally late. (Pictured on the right are the Deutch Bank … [Read more...]
