Hi, Tim here!  Last month, one of our corporate sponsors hosted their second SQL Cruise contest.  Idera Software asked the SQL Server Community to share their SQL Victory with the world.  Takes of lore poured in from around the world.  Tales of Dragons protecting caches of valuable Bufferinium,  foul code slain by fair maiden and stunning Valkerie alike, and a hammer… 

Editor – NO!

TF – A Hammer? 

Editor –NO!  

TF – A tale of a HAMMER!

Editor –That’s more like it.

TF – Thank you very much, glad you liked it.  Tho WordPress sorely lacks the ability to type in Epic Sans so I …

Editor –GET ON WITH IT!

TF – Sorry,

… that had the power to pound away bad code and replace it with what can only be described by those who see it as the finest spun code the world had ever known. 

Code of the Gods!

 This tale of such a hammer, re-enacted by a mortal duo of one was so elegantly filmed and staged that we had no choice but to crown the creator, Douglas Lane of the far northern Nordic land of Aurora, Colorado …

Editor –Aurora, Colorado?  Are you kidding me?  There is narry an umlaut nor glyph anywhere in the name of that villiage!  He may as well hail from Burbank, CA or <gasp> Columbus, OH!

TF – At any rate, Douglas of Aurora fared well in the SQL Victory challenge of Idera and will be joining us on board SQL Cruise Alaska.  One must wonder what a Viking provisions for such a journey.  Luckily for us Douglas of Aurora gave us a glimpse into this chore of the Gods.

Editor –Can you stop tossing around “of the Gods” like a period on the end of every sentence?  He’s a bleedin’ geek ‘ho won a contests on the Internet.

TF – It makes him sound more fierce!

Editor –Makes you sound like a looney s’wat it does!

TF – Fine.  Here’s Doug the DBA.  He packed stuff.  Better?

Editor –No Boy! You gotta SELL IT!

TF – You’re insufferable, you know that?

Editor –Sure do!  How do you think I made it into Management?

<  As everyone knows, any Viking worth his muster isn’t allowed to travel from his villiage without their autographed photo of Brian Blessed.  Brian, of fame as Prince Vultan in Flash Gordon.  Technically a Hawkman and not a Viking no one dares to say that to Brian’s face to this very day.  Any Viking warrior worth his weight in Ikea Lingonberry preserves would break your bones down into dust if you even insinuated he was nothing more than a hairy fairy with a hammer.

< How is one supposed to keep his deities straight when he might encounter one in the Norther Realms?  Why with his trusty +5 Classical Mythology Handbook of Coping!  It allows a journeying Norseman to tell his Fjörgyn from his Fjörgynn.  Granted you could just lift their kilts to tell ’em apart, but that’s crass and it’s also likely to get a +3 Boot of <REDACTED> Kicking up your <REDACTED>.  How does one expect to deal properly with Light Elves without being able to tell them from Dark Elves?  Heck, keep in mind there are a great number of trees in Alaska and Canada.  What happens if, after quaffing many a mead, said journeying Viking needs to <ahem> Jager the Meister and chooses Yggdrasill rather than just a standard Douglas Fir?  Hellfire rain down upon thee!

Plus there are a lot of pretty drawings.

< “Ah, trusty Mjolnir!  I find myself strangely attracted to you.” Says our warrior.  Just what I need to open cold bottles of $10 Miller Lite and pound on the wall of the neighboring stateroom when those inhabitants decide to get a little randy at 2am.  I knew rooming next to those SQL Cruisers was a bad idea!  It will also become quite handy when I go on that bear wrestling excursion booked in Ketchikan.  “Sure, any pasty cubicle dweller from Des Moines can take a photograph of a grizzly bear from the window of a fetid school bus.  I am the only one that can wrestle it to submission and brain it with my powerful +1 Hammer of Refactoring!”

“I must remember to place it in my checked luggage though.  After that incident in DTW back in 2008 I’ve learned my lesson!  Fighting werejackals on the frozen plains outside of of Trondheim is nothing compared to the TSA at Detroit Metro!”

< Lastly, one can’t head to the northern lands of Alaska and Canada without a parka!  Ever since this warrior has been on his picked herring and blodpalt diet he can’t seem to retain his body heat.  Plus it’s blue and it will match his <REDACTED> he developed from wearing a kilt year ’round in his youth.

Douglas of Aurora.  Congratulations on your SQL Victory!  We will see you next weekend when we depart from Seattle.  Land of Emeralds for the Great White North of Alaska and Canada!  Thank you Idera, company of SQL products and orange things for sending him on this quest!