As you endure another crappy Monday, whenever things get too dreary, close your eyes and pretend you’re one of the cool kids going on SQLCruise Miami the weekend after next.  On March 5th, we’ll be gathering together in South Florida for the second pre-cruise #SQLBBQ at the home of @GarethSwan and @JenKSwan.  Along with the Swanepoels, the attendees will include:

Bill Sanscrainte – SQL Server professional from Vernon Hills, Illinois.

The red neck in the foreground - that would be Brent.

Brent Ozar (Blog – @BrentO) – Recovering baconoholic, frequent flier, storage & virtualization nerd, and lover of all things database-y.

Crystal Manson (Blog – @CrysManson) – SQL Server DBA from Washington whose hobbies include photography, exercising, reading, and all things geeky and nerdy.  This will be her second SQLCruise!

Gareth Swanepoel (Blog – @GarethSwan) – database administrator and systems administrator at SouthernWine.com in South Florida and host of the #SQLBBQ.

Gary Hines – SQL Server DBA (and one of Brent’s clients!) in Chicago, Illinois.

Joe Murray – SQL Server professional from Phoenix, AZ.

Kevin Kline (Blog – @KEKline) – former president of PASS, superauthor, and recipient of the 2009 PASS Lifetime Achievement Award.  He’s on board thanks to Quest Software, one of our sponsors, and tomorrow we’ll be talking about even more good stuff Quest is bringing on board.

Mike Decuir (Blog – @MDecuir) – database administrator at AllRecipes.com in downtown Seattle. And yes, the famous Google Chrome potato gun speed test video uses AllRecipes.com’s site, hosted with SQL Server, although like all good programmers they cache their data as much as possible rather than querying the database every time.

@DataChick's SQLcruiseWear

Mitch Bottel – who won airfare, a cruise for two, and SQLCruise training for one courtesy of Idera’s SQLCruise contest. Watch Mitch’s contest song video on YouTube.

Richard Zuech – SQL Server professional from Bay Harbor Islands, Florida.

Tim Ford (Blog – @SQLAgentMan) – Published author, MVP, user group leader, music critic, photographer, and yes, SQL Server DBA.

A heck of a group, eh?  It’s going to be a blast.  Just close your eyes and pretend you’re going to be along with us at #SQLBBQ. We hand out swag bags to each attendee with their SQLCruise Hawaiian shirt, a t-shirt, cruise survival gear, and the SQLCruise nametag complete with Twitter name & picture.  You’ll get to know everyone before getting on board the boat, and you’ll have relaxed, comfortable conversations around the Swanepool.  (That’s the pool in the Swanepoel’s backyard.)

If you just can’t get past your case of the Mondays, why not check out SQLCruise Alaska?  On May 29th, we’re setting sail out of Seattle for a week of SQL Server training with Brent, Tim, and a special guest instructor, Buck Woody.  Check out Alaska cruise pictures from Brent and from Tim.  There’s still a couple of spots left…