When our plane landed in San Diego Thursday night, we had an opportunity to go out with one of our friends and his wife. But we had a couple of long days and planned to get up early to go to the local YMCA the next day. Sometimes, figuring out if you are passing up a rare opportunity or maintaining balance is hard. Luckily, the same opportunity presented itself on Saturday night.
Friday, for lunch, we went to the Taco Stand, a local Taco place in La Jolla. I spent my early years in San Diego, but I don’t have memories of La Jolla. We also stayed near Miramar Marine Core Base (Fightertown USA from the movie Top Gun), and for a couple of minutes, we thought we would be in a movie plot where planes constantly fly over all night and keep us up. Luckily, it quieted down shortly after we arrived – even Maverick must sleep.
Speaker Dinner
The speaker dinner was another chance to catch up with friends and meet the organizers, whom I have only talked with over email.
Arriving Early
I dropped my wife off early Saturday morning to volunteer, and she started helping with the welcome signs. Usually, I get coffee (I am beginning to see a pattern) after I drop her off, so she is there early in case there is a line at the coffee place. I got us coffee from Better Buzz, a San Diego place. One of the many benefits of her volunteering is that I am there early, too.
I usually try to check out the room I am presenting in and ensure everything works. It is also a chance to do any minor rearranging of chairs etc. This time, I decided that since I had to adjust my projector a little, I would check out all the other room’s projectors. I carried my laptop from room to room and ensured everything looked good. I realize the organizers have already checked out things like this, but double-checking does not hurt. I also learned from other speakers to assemble a kit with different converters for different video outputs you may encounter. It also has my presenter remote (plus a spare), batteries, and a mouse. I have loaned out my converters on more than one occasion.
Keynote
Armando Lacerda gave an excellent Keynote. To me, the keynote made you excited to be at the conference. Sometimes, it is easy to forget that you have people who have given up their Saturday to attend a conference to advance their skills and knowledge and meet new people. Armando’s inspiring talk made you feel part of something great.
Sessions I attended
I attended a couple of sessions outside the focus of business intelligence.
Watch Brent Tune a Query in SQL Server 2022 by Brent Ozar brought me back to the first conference I attended, where Brent was one of the speakers. I wanted to hear his presentation since his sessions are always entertaining and, for me, a return to learning how to tune SQL Server correctly.
Power BI Development Framework Post Fabric Launch by Chaudhary Ahmad Ali was more in my comfort zone. I have a lot of notes from this session, but the big takeaway is that following best practices is essential once the row volume increases.
Armando Lacerda’s presentation Azure SQL Server flavors, which one is right for my scenario? provided a great overview of the different Azure SQL Server options. I feel like I can learn a good deal about speaking from watching him present.
TempDB Contention: How to Identify and Resolve it by Haripriya Naidu was a great session. It presented an issue that can occur and various ways to fix it. Haripriya is a new speaker and was part of the New Stars of Data. I was mainly attending to lend support and give feedback. The only problem was I didn’t see anything that could be improved. I look forward to seeing her present at the PASS Summit. Someday, they should fill a giant room with all the speakers who got started through the New Star of Data. I wish I had realized how great a program that was and started there.
My session Power up your Fabric Development with DAX Studio and Tabular Editor went well. It felt even more fitting because it touched on performance tuning, and a couple of the sessions I attended were on performance tuning but with SQL Server.
Post Conference Event
No group was going to dinner or hanging out, so we went with Armando and his wife to a dueling piano bar called The Shout! House. It was so much fun. I know everyone loves Karaoke at PASS Summit, but I wish there were a dueling piano bar in Seattle that we could all attend. When I went to the Gartner Data and Analytics conference in Orlando, they had a vendor event at Jelly Rolls. It had a similar setup to the two pianos. The Shout! House takes it to another level, with horn players and the musicians jumping on other instruments—also, lots of comedy.
Sunday Fun Day!
We checked out and headed to Belmont Park to ride the rollercoaster several times. We found some T-shirts at a shop on the beach. We had lunch with my brother and his wife, who live outside San Diego. It was a great seafood place with a nice view of the harbor and the boats.
We packed a lot into our short time, especially considering that most of Friday was spent working.
The DAX Shepherd 
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