A few weekends ago, I participated in my first Tech Fest, speaking at the Houston Tech Fest 2010 event held at the University of Houston.  I delivered a presentation entitled “Introduction to SSIS”, which was aimed at software developers with little to no exposure to SSIS.  We had a good turnout at the event – the last number I heard was 650 total in attendance – and I had about 30 people in my session.  We had lots of questions and excellent discussions, so much so that I didn’t get to finish all of the demos I had planned.

For those who were in attendance and would like to download the slide deck and demos, you can find them here.

This event was a bit of a road trip for me.  Having flown to numerous events this year, I decided to hit the road and drive to Houston instead.  The drive wasn’t bad, about 4.5 hours door to door, and my friend Trevor Barkhouse travelled with me, whose company made the long drive less of a burden.  We met up with Patrick LeBlanc and other folk from the Baton Rouge area and found a little spot for some SQL karaoke on Friday night.  We had tentatively made plans to all meet up again on Saturday night, but with an agenda that called for us leaving town by 5am on Sunday (to allow me to get back in town in time for Rangers-Rays ALDS Game 4), we decided to wrap it up early.

I haven’t submitted yet, but I’m hopeful to get to come back to Houston in January for their SQL Saturday event.