You may not know that this past Saturday ( October 20, 2012) was SQLSaturday 153 in Salt Lake City.  If you knew about it, awesome.  If you attended – even better.  You probably don’t know that I was there presenting this year.  I was a huge slacker in getting the word out about presenting at SQLSat153.

I am hoping that this recap will help atone for that grievous mistake.

Pat Wright (twitter)and company did a great job putting the event together and it appeared to run without problem.  I did what I could to help where possible.  I showed up early to try and help with setup and also to make sure demos and equipment would work.

Notice that I was there to make sure my there wouldn’t be equipment issues.  I had the first presentation of the day and I wanted it to run smoothly.  I’ll also throw out there that it was a first time presenting that topic for myself.  Well, I hope the feedback is as good as the turnout.

I had a packed house!  I had a couple of other presenters find me afterward because they had heard my session was packed.  A little razzing about stealing their attendees was to be had and it was welcomed.

The session that was packed (and the empty chair was a momentary absence so he could answer his phone) was on Extended Events in SQL 2012.  This was a fun session and the topic is really good.  Unfortunately we did not make it to the bonus material.  I think the bonus demos would have been very good to discuss.  I hope we can get to that material next time.

Despite not reaching the bonus material, I have included the material in the zip file that I uploaded to the event website.

I did present two sessions Saturday and was part of the open forum panel that consisted of Cindy Gross (twitter), Randy Knight (twitter), Ben Miller (twitter) and myself.    Now you may know that Cindy is an MCM.  You might also know that Randy and Ben have both passed the MCM Knowledge exam (Ben is taking the Lab as I type).  That made the panel full of SQL Knowledge (we joked that it was equal to two full MCMs giving Ben, Randy and myself 1/3 each for having passed the Knowledge Exam).  This Q&A session went over quite well too.

If you didn’t make it out, I hope it was a really good reason.  I also hope that you can make it next time because the sessions were outstanding and the opportunity to learn is top notch.