Cruiser Profiles

We’re profiling the #SQLCruise members as they sign up.  Wanna find out what kind of person gets onto a cruise ship to learn about SQL Server?

Howdy, Yanni!  Welcome to the cruise!  You were the second person to book, and I’m excited to have you on board – especially given that your job involves something near and dear to our heart.  Can you tell the readers what you do?

Bacon Cheeseburger Cake in Paradise

I manage a team of SQL DBA at AllRecipes.com.

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen: I give you the DBA who houses the Bacon Recipes Page.  So what made you decide to sign up for the cruise?

It’s a cruise.  Key West and Cozumel.  Umbrella drink.  😉  Oh and its short list of attendee-long session-personal attention SQL session.  I don’t have to run from one ballroom to another.  I can actually sit and ask questions.   I think the idea is awesome!

What kinds of things are you looking to learn on board?

Performance Tuning.   I can’t never get enough of it.   I’m interested with more in-depth on it as well as DMV utilization.   Just when I think I know a lot of it, I found something new (Glenn Berry’s DMV a day post) and I want to ramp up my TSQL skills so new tips and tricks always nice.

You just started http://www.SQLScribbles.com after reading my blog-cheerleading post, hahaha.  Congratulations on starting a blog!  Are you going to try to blog from the ship?

Oh boy.  Now it’s official, cause you are putting the link out here.  Now I really have to blog regularly.   Yes, I’m trying to blog once a week and will try to stick on the schedule and maybe post what I learn and my experience during the session (with your permission, of course).

Of course!  I’m all about blogging.  If you had an unlimited amount of time and you could blog about 3 things you’ve learned as a DBA, what would you talk about?

Performance Tuning.    How to utilize DMV.   Index strategy.     DBA Networking.  Oh – that’s four.   But I cannot stress this enough on important it is to build your ‘buddy system’ (I’m using your term here) because throughout my career, if I hit a wall about something, I know I can always fire up a question to my fellow-DBA and there’s ALWAYS help out there.

By the way – my boss just approved the registration cost AND I don’t have to take PTO to attend which is super cool.   I can’t expense the ‘cruise’ itself (believe me – I tried), but hey – this is more than I expected so if you want to put it on the site to encourage DBA out there to just ask away.   You never know.

WOOHOO!  Congratulations, and we look forward to meeting you in person in Miami!

So that’s our Cruiser #2, Yanni Smith.  We’ll be posting interviews with each of the attendees, and we think you’ll love your fellow Cruisers.  We’ve got a couple of friendly folks from Twitter signed up, and so far, everyone’s decided to bring their significant others.  Turns out it’s much easier to convince your spouse to join you at a conference when it’s on a boat!