I had the pleasure of flying in to the rather quiet and small of capital, Canberra, on a sunny and warm spring day. (Don't forget that the seasons are reversed south of the equator. That means spring is in October and fall starts in April.) Upon arriving, I got to see a one person protest that Australia hadn't yet signed the Kyoto Accord for global warming as well as the buildings of state. The following morning (today), I spoke to a a crowd of about 50 about SQL Server performance tuning, benchmarking, and best practices. I really enjoyed the folks there and met many interesting people. My … [Read more...]
Off to Australia
October 5, 2007 by Leave a Comment
Tomorrow, I leave for almost two weeks of business in Australia, the land Down Under. I be delivering a series of seminars about SQL Server in most of the major cities around the country.After about 20 hours of travel, I arrive in Melbourne and then make subsequent stops in Brisbane, Canberra, Sydney, Wagga Wagga, and then back to Melbourne. After these stops, I visit Singapore for two days and then return home via Tokyo, Japan. Whew! I'm tired just thinking about it. If you're looking for a sense of scale, the country is very nearly as large as the lower 48 states of the USA. Cheers, -Kev … [Read more...]
Kinder Adventures
October 1, 2007 by Leave a Comment
All of the kids have enjoyed having their fall break these past couple weeks. I had to work and, not being able to entertain them, had to deal with constant complaints of "I'm bored!" Anna Lynn had the funny experience of going in for an adjustment to her braces, and one of her teeth popped out. The tooth-fairy had to give her a little extra since the tooth had extra "bling" attached to it for her braces.The girls were also really excited to get a chance to see Conner's chinchilla, Marty. It reminds me of a pikachu, a very nervous pikachu. Naturally, the girls love it and want one of their … [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...]
Aunt Mary
August 18, 2007 by Leave a Comment
I got the terrible news that my Aunt Mary Dalton passed away early this morning. Aunt Mary hadn't been very healthy for nearly as long as I could remember. She suffered from diabetes, severe arthritis, and a bad heart condition. Nevertheless, this was a very unexpected and sad shock.Aunt Mary was my dad's youngest sister. She was a vibrant and loving woman. My dad often said that she was the most normal of his generation because she'd married Uncle Scotty so young (he was 17 and she was 14) and got out of their mother's house young enough not to be incurably scarred by her emotional … [Read more...]
I’m on Internet Video!
July 31, 2007 by 2 Comments
This is rather funny and embarrassing to me, but Quest has made a bunch of videos of me for marketing purposes. Here's the first example: http://www.quest.com/landing/?ID=1043Take a look and let me know what you think.Best regards,-Kevin … [Read more...]
Happy 6th Birthday, Katie Jo
July 27, 2007 by Leave a Comment
Katie Jo came into this world a bit differently than the other three kids. I'd always been rather grossed out by the whole childbirth ordeal - placentas and amniotic fluid are just not my thing. So I was always scared to death of the whole process. I can even recall with the Lamaz class I took with the kids mom that they asked all the dads and partners what they feared. My response? "All the gross stuff."However, somewhere down the line I matured to the point that when our Ob/Gyn asked if I wanted to participate in the delivery I said yes. So with Katie, I actually delivered this child!Of … [Read more...]
Check out what’s up with Darren
June 25, 2007 by Leave a Comment
In case you haven't noticed the new blogroll item, check out the blog of my friend and amazing power lifter, Darren Mallette.Darren is really cool not only because he's a top notch professional who knows his work inside and out. He's also really cool because he's a competing power lifter and "strong man" who beats guys who outweigh him by 150 lbs. That's amazing and illustrates the power of a superior intellect over a purely brawn-based strategy to winning strong man competitions. Rock on, Darren! … [Read more...]
I Dreampt of Odysseus’ Return…
June 8, 2007 by Leave a Comment
A favorite passage from Robert Fitzgerald's translation of the Odyssey....Now from his breast into his eyes the acheof longing mounted, and he wept at last,his dear wife, clear and faithful, in his arms,longed for as the sunwarmed earth is longed for by a swimmerspent in rough water where his ship went downunder Poseidon's blows, gale winds and tons of sea.Few men can keep alive through a big surfto crawl, clotted with brine, on kindly beachesin joy, in joy, knowing the abyss behind:and so she too rejoiced, her gaze upon her husband,her white arms round him pressed as though forever.... … [Read more...]
