I’m flying through the air as I type these words. I’m returning back to Chicago after a week of fun in South Florida, and it’ll be a while before I’m back down to Earth. I’ve got a million things going through my head, but not much time to get them all out before I fly off to Seattle to meet up with Paul and Kim for the first time since joining SQLskills.

SQLCruise went way better than Tim or I could have hoped. I’ll leave SQLSaturday South Florida for other bloggers to recap, but I want to mention it here because so many of the cruisers participated. Tim and I delivered the keynote speech, and we focused on how getting involved with the community helps your career. That theme continued throughout the entire cruise – we provided a lot of technical training at SQLSaturday and on board the Carnival Imagination, but we emphasized that the most important things to take away weren’t up on the slides, but rather out in the crowd. We pointed out over and over that these events help you build relationships with people you can really count on when you need SQL help.

SQLCruisers on South Beach

On Sunday morning, we led the cruisers through South Beach. We started with breakfast at Front Porch Cafe on Ocean Drive, then walked onto the beach and got our feet wet. Some of us also got epic suntan lines within an hour of being outdoors.

Sunday afternoon, we met up again at Gareth Swanepoel’s house for SQLBBQ. Gareth, aka @GarethSwan, showed incredible hospitality – he was one of the SQLSaturday organizers, and then he turned around and hosted a 3-grill pool party the very next day! The cruisers got to know each other better while swimming, playing Rock Band, and enjoying drinks & great food. By the end of the weekend, the cruisers knew each other better than any conference attendees normally would. This helped make the rest of the event much easier – throughout the cruise, I watched with pride as cruisers asked each other for advice on SQL Server, software development, career development, and more. None of this would have been possible if we didn’t already know each other through Twitter, email conversations, and the SQLBBQ. These things built an awesome foundation for the rest of the week.

Cruisers started boarding the ship Monday by 10AM, and the fun commenced immediately. We gathered on the aft starboard deck above the Serenity adult pool for drinks and chatting, then took off for a photo scavenger hunt sponsored by SQL Sentry. Cruisers ran around the ship with a SQL Sentry USB lava lamp, a laptop for power, and a list of photo targets. We had so much fun, non-SQLcruisers on the ship asked how they could get the scavenger hunt list and take part! We also set a precedent that we’d repeat over the entire cruise. Whenever someone was bored, they headed to that same patio deck and usually found another SQL soul looking for trouble.

Still Life with SQL Sentry Lava Lamp and Water Slide

Rebecca Mitchell, aka @SQLPrincess, won the first official SQLCruise net book sponsored by SQL Sentry. It was a close competition, but her team’s photo of an overly creepy person put them over the top. Rebecca was the first of two double winners – she had already been one of four winners of SQL Sentry’s free cruise giveaway! SQL Sentry ended up giving her not just a cruise, but a net book too!  Check out the pictures from each team:

• Team Rebecca’s SQL Sentry Scavenger Hunt Photos
• Team All-Men’s photos
• Team All-Ladies’ photos
• Team Diane’s photos

On Tuesday morning, we set foot in Key West and split up to see different sights around the island. Some cruisers rented scooters, some vegged out by the water, and some ran around chasing Key West’s wild chicken population. That afternoon, we regrouped on board for a Women in Technology session in the Shangri-La Lounge. We talked about community issues in a comfortable, casual environment that encouraged open discussion. We tried to figure out why SQLCruise had such a balanced ratio of women to men – nearly 50/50 – when so many other community events seem to be more male-dominated. After almost two hours of good conversations, we kicked off the next sponsored giveaway.

The Quest Through Your Laptop Bag game challenged cruisers to produce a variety of not-so-typical items out of their bag. Karen Lopez, aka @DataChick, won the second netbook – this one sponsored by Quest Software. We joked that it was only appropriate that women finished 1-2-3 in the event for the Women in Technology session, but we had no idea at the time that the trend was much bigger.

Snorkeling in Cozumel

Wednesday morning, Tim presented on DMV Deep Dives. The rocking and rolling of the ship made for some funny distractions, and presenting in a cruise ship lounge was funny in and of itself. While Tim talked, I analyzed the submissions for the Hairy Execution Plan Contest sponsored by Red Gate Software – our version of the classic cruise ship Hairy Chest Contest. I saw some really terrifying query plans, but in the end, the clear winner was Yanni Smith, aka @YanniSmith. Yanni’s high-cost, high-complexity query won her a net book from Red Gate, making her the third female winner in a row. It was turning into a rout!

We arrived in Cozumel that afternoon, and cruisers head out for shore excursions. Snorkeling was the most popular choice, followed by zip line adventures. My heart starts racing just thinking about the rope bridge, rappelling, and barracuda, and my mouth is watering as I remember the tostada crusted grouper and strong drinks.

Training At Sea

Thursday, the cruisers buckled themselves in for a whirlwind day of training. We covered tuning T-SQL, managing terabyte databases, and things we wish we would have known when we started, but we also went off-agenda for a few surprises.

Sheldon, an IT officer on the ship, spent half an hour revealing what his life is like on board. Cruisers asked him about the ship’s database platforms (yes, they use SQL Server), the on-call rotations, virtualization use on board, and even whether he gets free WiFi (no). We were intrigued to hear about how servers are protected from hardware problems far from port and how servers get refreshed.

During the week, many cruisers asked me how to communicate problems to managers. They asked how I present architectural issues, hardware challenges, and development mistakes to non-technical folks, so I talked through one of my client reports. I explained how to do these same kinds of presentations to internal departments even if you’re not a consultant, because I believe it’s important to give consultant-quality documentation even if you’re a full time employee.

Because of the high number of very experienced SQL Server professionals on board the cruise, I prepared a surprise presentation – MCM Trivia. I covered a handful of things I found extremely cool as I was going through the program. I discussed how NUMA affects MAXDOP, why order isn’t guaranteed in a select statement without the ORDER BY clause, and more. I think this turned out to be the most interesting session for many of the attendees!

We finished up the giveaways with a Wet T-SQL Contest by the hot tubs. Tim and I asked trivia questions from the week’s presentations. Cruisers raced to get their arm up and their answer right, and at the end, the women made a clean sweep! Erin Stellato won a free SQLCruise netbook courtesy of MSSQLTips.com.

I’m leaving out all kinds of details – discussions about how Twitter can make you a more valuable employee, how GUIDs can soak up oil spills, how to get 29 people on a staircase for a class photo, and how to do the Humpty Dance at karaoke. SQLCruise brought people much closer together in a fun environment where they could contribute, share, and learn without fear of being judged.

For me, the highlight of SQLCruise came during the Women In Technology session when one of the cruisers said, “This event was disarming because everyone wants everyone else to succeed, and everyone is respected for what they bring.”

SQLCruise 2010 Class Photo

Want to check out more photos from the cruise?

• Tim Ford’s SQLCruise photos
• Crys Manson’s SQLCruise photos
• Noel & Tamara McKinney’s SQLCruise photos
• Brent Ozar’s SQLCruise photos
• Jorge Segarra’s SQLCruise photos
• Karen Lopez’s SQLCruise photos
• Mike Reigler’s SQLCruise photos
• Stephen & Rebecca Mitchell’s SQLCruise photos
• All Flickr photos tagged with SQLCruise

I’m excited that the event went so well, and I can’t wait for the next one. Tim and I are already planning two more next year. If you’d like to be a part of our next SQLCruise, sign up for the mailing list.

Wanna know where we are?  Check out the Live Ships Map.  You can zoom out to see where the Carnival Imagination is at any time.  Thanks Shawn Melton (Blog – @MeltonDBA) for this tip!

Before we leave and whenever we’re near land, you can also catch the chatter on Twitter – even without an account – by visiting the #SQLCruise search page.

In preparation for SQLCruise 2010, I’ve put together a recommended reading list.  Reading the blogs, articles, and scripts in this list will help you get the most out of your time on board.

Gather Queries From Your Procedure Cache – this script from SQLServerPedia will fetch queries and their execution plans out of your SQL Server’s memory.  This can be useful to identify queries that are causing performance problems.  To find the worst queries, use “SELECT TOP 20″ instead of all records, and add an ORDER BY statement with one of these:

• ORDER BY total_elapsed_time DESC will find the longest-running queries in total (not the average runtime per query)
• ORDER BY by total_worker_time DESC will find the highest CPU users
• ORDER BY execution_count will find the ones running most frequently

Try clicking on the execution plans to view them.  You can export them to XML by right-clicking anywhere in the white space of the execution plan, and click Save As.  You can save these as .sqlplan files, and bring them with you on the cruise.  In the “Tuning T-SQL Step by Step” session, we’ll walk through execution plans, how to read them, and how to make queries go faster based on what you see in the plan.

Download ClearTrace – this free utility from Bill Graziano helps make sense of trace files.  It’s like a slice-and-dice reporting engine for your Profiler results.  If you’re bringing a laptop on board, try running a trace on your challenging servers at the office.  Take the trace files, put them on your laptop, and during “Tuning T-SQL Step by Step” session, we’ll show you how to use it effectively to find the easiest-to-tune queries.

Alton Brown’s Margarita Recipe and AllRecipe’s Simple Summer Smoothie Recipe – Alton Brown hates unitaskers: things that only serve one purpose in the kitchen. His margarita recipe calls for agave nectar, something that might sound at first like a unitasker, but it serves as an excellent replacement for the honey in smoothie recipes. Agave nectar: it’s not just for margaritas anymore.

8 Steps to Better Transaction Log Throughput – Kimberly Tripp explains how to configure your log files to make your database run faster.  In our “Trouble with a Capital T: Terabyte Databases” session, we’ll talk about why this is important to master long before your database hits terabyte scale, and why it usually pops up whenever you take over a big database for the first time.  If you need help sizing your logs, check out Paul Randal’s article on transaction log sizes.

CruiseCritic – this active site boasts all kinds of tips and reviews for ships, ports, and excursions.  Take the posts with a grain of salt – some folks can’t even be happy on a cruise ship – but you can find some gems of information in here.

Rock Stars, Normal People, and You – also known as the fall and rise of Brent’s career, this story helps set the background of why Brent’s such a passionate believer in building your own brand and promoting it.  This sets the stage for our opening session, “Why We’re Here.”

How to Start a Technical Blog – in the session “What I Wish I Would Have Known When I Started,” we’ll talk about what we’ve learned along the way, building our blogs and our businesses.  When we’ve got you fired up about writing regularly, this post will help you get the infrastructure in place.

How to Make Cuban Coffee – on Sunday before the ship departs, cruisers are welcome to join me as I tour through my old neighborhood, South Beach.  We’ll do breakfast at the Van Dyk Cafe, then pick up some Cuban coffee from David’s Cafe before a morning of shopping, strolling, and sightseeing.  Before you partake, you might want to know what you’re drinking – it’s good stuff, but you certainly don’t want too much of it:

Just three working Fridays left – you’re not working on 7/31 right before SQLSaturday, are you?