My First Timer Experience at PASS

With the 50 days to One DMV a Day series, I have completed my first PASS Summit journey today. Well the series still continues. I had been bragging about a PASS experience blog post since last week. I had been saving all the excitement till I end the Summit before I share anything. So here is a brief journey of my last week.

It all started with the Emirates Business Class experience. The Mercedes Benz pickup, the Business lounge, the actual in-flight business class experience. And to add to all of this a blog that I posted while I was in the flight. That’s just the beginning to the whole week. And yes, we should be afraid of polar ice caps melting.

Polar Icecaps

I landed in Seattle for the first time. The place where the company which created the wonderful Database product called SQL Server, has its strong roots. It was Sunday afternoon and the flight landed a couple of hours late than scheduled time. Again a limo pickup to drop off at the hotel, I loved it. And you know what I loved more? The view from my room. Off course, I never enjoyed it in the next five days.

Room

Day 1 – Monday, 3rd Nov:

I meet one of the SQL Rock stars, Brent Ozar. I attended his class “How to make your Apps Faster” in the Big Picture Theatre. It was completely different experience listening to the whole BrentOzar Unlimited group live. BrentJeremiah, Kendra and Doug were best at what they do. You will be even more amazed to believe that when you hear them live.

PassExp Brent Ozar

Day 2 – Tuesday, 4th Nov:

I couldn’t not go to the second day of the Brent’s class. I have chosen to get the knowledge out from the guys who does it the best way. Tim Chapman, Senior PFE and Denzil Riberio, Principal PFE from Microsoft. Complete 8 hours of their session reminded me of my ramp-up sessions I had when I joined Microsoft.

PASS Pass

After the pre-con session it was time for the first timers’ orientation. A round robin introduction to few more first timers was fun. And now comes the Welcome reception. To know what I did, just see the below pics. Paul Randal, Kimberley Tripp, Kelen Delaney, Sean and Jen McCown, Tim Radney are few whom I captured. If only my battery did not die.

Day 1

Day 3, 4 and 5 – Wednesday, Thursday and Friday – 5th, 6th and 7th Nov:

Yes, I cannot say what I did different on all the three days. The first day I walk in and guess who I meet in the hallway? Bob Ward and Ajay Jagannath. Bob recognizes me and I can’t say how overwhelmed I was. It all started well and It was more like a single day with few power naps. I don’t know when I slept and when I was in a session. In between it was all about learning the tools and innovation in databases. Meeting people, networking, sharing solutions and ideas. Few more glimpses from what I have been doing.

Summit days

One famous thought which few of my friends used to discuss. What if we are all single threaded programs with lot of context switching of emotions running in a zillion core processor system? Awesome thought right? I was doing a lot of context switching since the last 3 three days and it’s time for me to go into sleep mode for the weekend.

Regards,
Manu

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7 thoughts on “My First Timer Experience at PASS

  1. Aww, thanks sir! Glad you liked the session, and glad you could take advantage of our free user group leader benefit. You asked some great questions too. Safe travels!

    • It was my pleasure sir. And thanks for the extra pass. My friend Minesh was thankful he attended your session.

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