In June 2011, 22 SQL Server pros gathered in Seattle and set sail for Alaska. This is their story:
http://youtu.be/F36XNydJ-yA
Looks like fun, eh? Wanna join us in 2012? Sign up for our email list to be notified when we announce the SQLCruise 2012 schedule.
You need motivation.
You’re staring at the same monitor all day long, just hoping things will get better. Give yourself a light at the end of the tunnel with photos we took on SQLCruise Alaska. Click on each photo to get the high-resolution version. Enjoy!
Back Deck in Seattle
Balcony View
Tim Ford Presenting
Norwegian Pearl
Doug Lane the Viking Comes to Dinner
Glacier Bay, Alaska
Download the zip file of all 27 wallpapers (13MB), and to make sure you don’t miss out next year, sign up for our newsletter.
We started our cruise on land in Seattle, Washington at the beautiful old KR Trigger building. We set up a Saturday buffet with bahn mi sandwiches, pupusas, and good old tacos, and we stocked the bar with our favorite beers and wines. The cruisers and their plus-ones got to know each other in a relaxed environment before we set foot on the boat.
Doug and Michelle Lane at SQLBBQ
About half of the cruisers and speakers showed up for this early tradition, and half were still making their way to Seattle. For this cruise, our farthest traveler came from Austria (Klaus Aschenbrenner), and we had a few from the UK. Everyone was jet lagged this first day, though, so rather than doing karaoke after the SQLBBQ, we all went home to our hotels and crashed.
Sunday morning, a few of us gathered at Lowell’s in the Pike Place market for a hearty breakfast before boarding the Norwegian Pearl for a week of Alaskan sightseeing and SQL Server training. We had a funny moment when Red Gate’s Grant Fritchey said, “I’m really excited about meeting the StackOverflow guy.” I pointed to my right and said, “Actually, you’re eating with him right now – this is Kyle Brandt.”
Grant and Michelle Fritchey at Lowell's (and Kyle Brandt at the right)
My favorite thing about SQLCruise is the discussion between cruisers – seeing them get to know each other better and learn from each other. Even just at SQLBBQ, one of the guests said, “I’ve learned more in the last four hours than I’ve learned in the last four months at work. I’ve been trying to decide how to architect my new server, and I learned the right answer right here!” If you just sit and listen in a class without asking questions, you’re only hoping that your particular problem will get addressed. At SQLCruise, we make sure everybody gets to ask the questions they’re struggling with every day, and we break up into small groups to get everybody the right answers.
The discussions moved from restaurants to the bar as we boarded the Norwegian Pearl.
Norwegian Pearl - Great Outdoors Bar
We talked about our technical challenges, our home cities, and the excursions we’d planned for Juneau, Skagway, Ketchikan, and Victoria. After dinner, the party moved into the Star Bar, where we gathered for the first official onboard activity.
The Red Gate Photo Scavenger Hunt required cruisers to break up into groups, then run around the boat as fast as possible looking for a series of items. The whole team had to be photographed with the item, which meant the cruisers couldn’t even take the picture – they had to recruit strangers to work the camera. Photography scenes included getting on the disco floor, finding a man with a funny hat, finding a sign with a version of SQL Server, and re-enacting a scene from the Titanic.
The winning team was eligible for a series of prizes including an iPad, a 1TB external hard drive, and more, but we had to have a tiebreaker to determine the winner. After our most exhausting finale yet, Grant Fritchey awarded the Red Gate iPad to Christina Leo.
Red Gate Scavenger Hunt Winners
We retired back to our cabins (well, some of us partied first!) to get some sleep before the first full day of training.
This Sunday, a couple dozen database geeks and their loved ones will board the Norwegian Pearl for a week of SQL Server training, professional development, networking, fun, and relaxation. It’s a truly unique event where we get to learn AND teach – everyone involved in the cruise shares things they’ve learned in their daily life. The presenters learn just as much as they share, and that’s what makes SQLCruise my favorite week of the year. I just can’t wait until it starts.
SQL Sentry has been with us right from the start as a top-tier sponsor. I know the guys at SQL Sentry, and they share our passion for having fun while you learn and get your work done. For our very first cruise, they gave away not one, but FOUR cruises to community members! Who could forget Jorge’s hilarious Old Spice video, Erin’s daily job video, or Matt’s heart-string-tugging video? What a great time.
This year, SQL Sentry is helping us count down to SQL Cruise. Here’s our schedule:
And we’re going to be giving away something fun here in the blog every day. Today, we’re giving away three prizes, each a SQL Server book:
Ooo, free learnin!
We’re giving away a copy of Securing SQL Server by Denny Cherry, Performance Tuning with DMVs by Louis Davidson and Tim Ford, and SQL Server 2008 Internals and Troubleshooting – but not just ANY copy of that last book, the Chinese translation! Yes, you can wow your friends with your knowledge of Mandarin. (I’ll autograph it in plain English though.)
To win, enter a comment on this post answering this question: “When looking at a SQL Server execution plan, how do I determine which operations are using the most CPU?”
Not sure what the answer is? We’ll actually give it to you on our free performance tuning webcast today.
Fine print – the contest is open to US residents only. (International shipping is painful.) Comments must be received before 6:00AM Eastern Thursday morning. Winners will be drawn Thursday morning and announced here on SQLcruise.com. If you prefer one of the three books, include the book name in your answer, and I’ll give priority to whoever gets drawn first. Good luck!
A while back, I hit a point in my life where I wanted to start taking my family on vacations. I’d experienced enough success that I wanted to share my good fortune with the people I loved. As part of that, I started taking each member of my family on a cruise.
Erika napping on the balcony as Alaska passes by
Dad’s chosen destination really surprised me – Alaska. I’d heard wonderful stories from my friends who took Alaskan cruises, but it never really called to me. My idea of vacation is being somewhere warm, drinking something cold. The cruise wasn’t about me, though, so I eagerly booked an Alaskan cruise for me, Erika, Dad, and Caryl (my wonderful stepmom.) The Alaskan cruising season is fairly short – summers only – but we had to sail in September 2010 due to our schedules. Being right at the tail end of the season, lots of things could have gone wrong: bad weather, no wildlife, no waterfalls, etc. As it turned out, we struck gold.
We sailed out of Seattle on a bright but chilly day. The ship’s crew kept us warm by plying us with boozy hot chocolate, and the next day as we sailed North, they made sure we stayed happy as we watched the scenery unfold.
In Ketchikan we boarded a float plane for an incredible ride over the forests, mountains, and water. I felt a spiritual connection with an island called New Eddystone Rock – the moment I saw it, I was completely mesmerized, and I’m sure I had something to do with that island in a previous life. My amateurish photos can’t convey its beauty, sitting alone in the middle of fast-moving water, but in the high-resolution version of this photo you can see seals basking on the shore’s edge. Amazing. After we flew back to the ship, my first mission was to hit the web to learn more about that island. Even just watching grainy videos of the island gives me the willies, and now I’ve got something new for my bucket list: setting foot on that rock.
Tracy Arm Fjord
As the ship sailed on through Tracy Arm Fjord, passengers lined the decks, braving the frigid air to snap photos of glaciers, mountains, icebergs, and each other. We heard the bangs as the ship nudged icebergs aside, and we oohed and aahed as small icebergs calved. The ship’s naturalist explained it all over the loudspeakers, aiming our gaze at wildlife far up on the cliffs.
In Juneau, we boarded a whale watching trip with Orca Enterprises, who absolutely positively guarantees every trip will see whales. No refunds were necessary that day – we watched humpback whales and orcas surface satisfyingly close to the boat.
We continued our wildlife sightseeing on the short bus in Haines to drive up and down the scenic Chilkoot River. At first, I thought we’d finally gotten shafted by a crappy excursion – there was no way we were going to see bears by simply driving up and down a road next to a river. I mean, there were humans all over the place – why would a bear just show up out of nowhere?
Then we saw her.
Mama Bear and her cub
All the tourists ran straight for the short bus, but after the shock wore off, we mustered up enough courage to head back out. For the rest of the long afternoon, we shot picture after picture after picture of bears. We got within thirty feet, perhaps closer, of animals large enough to upend my Honda Fit. We paid no mind to the Bear Zone. By the end of the day, we couldn’t believe our amazing fortune – bears, whales, eagles, we’d seen it all in just a few days. You can check out the highlights from my Alaska photo album, or watch the 10-minute video reel below. Click on the HD link on the video for better photos:
We had a wonderful time on our first Alaskan cruise. To my surprise, Dad (who hates crowds) said he’d even like to do it again, but during a different time of the season so he could see how the wildlife, waterfalls, and scenery were different. I feel like the luckiest guy in the world because I was able to share that experience with my family, and now, I even get to go again. In just two weeks, I get to repeat the trip, but this time share the experience with my friends.
SQLCruise Alaska, here I come!
