Well, I’ve been waiting to book hotel and rental car for SQLSaturday #52 – Colorado because I wasn’t sure if my father-in-law’s health issues were going to cause us to cancel the trip, but fortunately his health is looking up, so we booked our hotel last night and our rental car this morning.

This trip is a short getaway for my wife, Alice, and I and her birthday present.  Alice has connected on-line with Steve Jones’ wife, Tia, as Alice loves horse and Tia has them and trains them.  So while I’m at SQLSaturday soaking up knowledge and networking, Alice will be heading out to the ranch to hang with Tia.  We really appreciate Steve and Tia opening their home for the day.  Alice and I aren’t sure what we’ll be doing on Sunday (we’ll be attending church in the AM) and Monday (flight is in the evening), but I’m sure we’ll find something. 

I’m scheduled to give two sessions at SQLSaturday:

Why I Use Stored Procedures

With the proliferation of ORM tools like Entity Framework, nHibernate, and Linq to SQL, many projects have decided that stored procedures are not needed and slow down development. While these tools have their place and have improved greatly, stored procedures still have their place, and, in this speaker's opinion, are the best way to do data access. In this session I'll discuss my reasons for using stored procedures and hopefully stimulate some discussion of other access methods.

Session Level: Intermediate

Introduction to Triggers

This session will give a brief overview of the different types of triggers available in SQL Server (DDL & DML) and then go into more detail on how and when to use DML triggers. This session will cover misconceptions about how triggers work, when triggers shoul d and shouldn't be used (we will discuss options), common mistakes, and how to fix the most common mistakes. After attending this session a person will: 1. Identify different types of triggers and when to use them. 2. Be able to identify when a trigger is the right solution 3. Be able to write triggers that perform well

Session Level: Beginner

Finally, the organizers are doing some good work on this event by with a food drive:

Giving Back - Help local food banks and the Boulder fire victims!

In spirit of this community event and giving back to the community, we have decided to run a food drive to help out others in our area.  Attendees that bring in can goods or provide a financial donation, all of which will be going to local food banks and help out the Boulder fire victims, you will be entered into a special drawing.  This drawing, for a special prize, will be held during lunch at SQL Saturday #52 – Colorado.

This is a great idea especially as we close in on the holiday season.  We need to remember that most of us in the technology field are blessed with good salaries where out needs are met, and we often have more that we can give back.  Take the time to help out those less fortunate than us by bring something for the food drive.

Can’t wait to get there!