SQL Saturday #119, our third one in Chicago, was a total blast. This was only my second time on the organizing committee, but I’ve yet to hear anything negative about the event. From my perspective, everything went incredibly smoothly! SQL Saturdays are a learning experience for all involved – not just the attendees. …

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On April 2 of this year, the National Archives released the complete population schedule of the 1940 census. These records were highly anticipated not only for their genealogical value but also because of their detailed information about an incredibly interesting period of U.S. History. This census captured the point …

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As a follow-up to my previous post about the steps you may have to go through to attend training if your employer can't or won't offer assistance in the form of either money or time off, I have a story of my own to tell. I was unhappy at my previous place of work for several reasons, a few of which I've blogged about …

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This is the second time I've participated in the "Meme Monday" blog events that have been brought to us by Tom LaRock (blog | @SQLRockstar). The topic is on what "SQL Family" means to us. A few things popped into my head as soon as I read it, and I'm happy to share them: First and foremost SQLFamily …

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So I quit my job last week. As is the practice at most companies, I had to complete an exit interview. Since my former employer was rather geographically distributed and there were no human resources staff in my office, my exit interview was on paper instead of face-to-face. I liked this much better because I had more …

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After working with data day-in and day-out for a while, it doesn't seem unreasonable that thinking about the domain and appropriate datatype for storing a set of data would become second-nature. I know it's that way for me. Sadly, I can't say the same for one of the banks I do business with, which shall remain …

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I haven't had a real meat-and-potatoes technical post in a while and for that I apologize, however as you can see at the top of the page, this blog is "on SQL Server and kindred subjects". I'll have to write more about where the "kindred subjects" part came from later, but I'm clearly not limiting …

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With Thanksgiving coming up here in the US, I was planning on doing a post like this anyway, but then Jason Strate (blog | twitter) decided to ask everyone, so I'm happy to join in! Thanksgiving is my 2nd favorite holiday (yes, Christmas does take the cake for me). Though it's an American holiday, I like to think that …

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Every Sunday, Michelle and I sit down to brainstorm what we'll be eating for the week ahead. From there, we come up with a shopping list for our weekly grocery shopping that afternoon as well as a menu which goes on the refrigerator. This may seem like overkill, but we've found that not having a menu planned out in …

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When I started this blog I had zero intention of reviewing movies. I wanted to stick to technical topics with perhaps a few book reviews in-between. That goal hasn’t changed, but after seeing “The Social Network” this past weekend I decided an exception would be appropriate. In my opinion, the SQL Server community gets …

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