January 8th, 2012 will be the first SQL Saturday for 2012. 104 SQL Saturdays is an amazing number for our community. I will be presenting on Dimensional Modeling based on the Kimball books. Database design and the planning for them has been a necessary start for successful projects.

I selected Colorado Springs because I have not been skiing in 3 years. My girlfriend and I will be skiing on Friday before the event. There is a planned skiing trip for Sunday with the event, but we have to get back work on Monday. She will be visiting a friend while I am attending/speaking at this great event.

There are 3 Pre Cons on tap for Friday, which is well worth the $100 for a day of training from MVPs and SQL Server experts. I would be at one if not for skiing.

1. "Scaling SQL Server" (Glenn Berry)
2. "Data Warehouse Dimensional Design and Architecture Planning" (Erik Veerman)
3. "What's In Your Utility Belt?" (Chris Shaw and TJay Belt)

The Saturday schedule is pack full of great sessions. I will probably will go over my presentation first thing in the morning in the Speaker room, then I am up at the second BI session of the day at 9:30AM. Next, I will stay in the BI room and watch Doug Lane with some report service info.

The other tracks have sessions from MVPs Tim Ford, Grant Fritchey and Jason Strate, all great and knowledgable speakers. There is also Thomas LaRock, Karen Lopez and William Pearson. It is amazing to be around these people in the SQL community willing to speak at these Free Saturdays. Joe Sack will be there from SQLSkills and Colorado local Carlos Bossy and Austin man Jim Murphy have some SQL Server 2012 sessions.

I will probably hang out in the BI track, wondering over to DBA sessions and enjoying the lunch. It sounds like there will a great Friday night speaker/sponsor event that is great for networking and thanking the sponsor.

If you live around Colorado Springs, come hang out with some SQL Server geeks getting some SQL learning on!!!

God Bless, Thomas