Well, what a week it’s been. I started my winning blog post for the SQLskills blogging competition by stating that the blog itself was now starting to pay real dividends. And it seems to continue - in a big way - with a free seat at the Dallas Internals event with the renowned  SQLskills team. It was Thusrday afternoon here when the results were announced as New Zealand is nearly 24 hours ahead of Pacific Time in the US.

I'd like to congradulate the other winner, Sankar Reddy (blog | Twitter), as well as the four runners up, Samson Loo (blog | Twitter), Jason Brimhall (blog | Twitter), Kendra Little (blog | Twitter)  and Eric Humphrey (blog | Twitter) who all won a half price seat to the Dallas Internals event. I am really looking forward to meeting up with these guys - I hope they can all make it.

A big thank you to everybody involved with the contest - including those guys who missed out. I've now got a heap more entries in my blog feeds list to keep me occupied. At one point I thought that I’d be the only international entry, but I was glad to see quite a few there in the end.

This is going to be quite a journey, in more ways than one. I’ve just spent a few days deciding how exactly I’m going to get to Dallas.

I’ve considered 

• Flying via Australia - as It’s cheaper (but takes far longer).
• Simply flying from Auckland to LA - then onto Dallas
• Getting a round the world ticket and taking a month off work.

The last option sounds great - I'd get to spend some time in the UK. I come from a place called Bromborough there, which is near Liverpool - although I've spent the last 10 years in New Zealand. My wife's a Kiwi but she has spent some time in Edinburgh, Scotland.

One of the things we'd like to do is take our 20 month old son, Callum Glen, on a tour through scotland - visiting such places as Helensburgh.

Incidentally, did you know that John Logie Baird - the inventor of television - came from there, as well as the drummer from Simple Minds 🙂

I’ve decieded on the simple route from Auckland to LA and then onto Dallas - although I may attempt to call in at SQL saturday in Pheonix on the way through - if this proves possible.

I’ll be away for 10 days in total. I’ll miss my wife Suzanne and son Callum. I’ll miss watching his favorite videos of the Scottish trials bike ace Danny MacAskill

Our two favorite clips are Inspired bycyles and Way back home - check them out if you have time.

have fun.

Martin.