Today, I was awarded (at least) one more time with the Microsoft MVP Award. This makes 12 years, and with this, my 11th renewal, I have yet to feel like it is something I can take for granted (you don’t want to be around me the last week of September!). It has been a great time so far, and I have no idea how many years I will be back (admittedly, renewal day is the day I am least concerned about getting renewed.) Today though, I wanted to take a few minutes and thank some of the people who have helped me get to where I am today. I will not be naming specific people, because, well, I said a few minutes not a few days.

You might think that my largest gratification is to Microsoft for giving me the award. While I am effusively appreciative to Microsoft, my various MVP leads throughout the years, the wonderful people who have run the SQL Server MVP program, and quite a few specific Microsoft employees…not to mention those folks who put on the MVP Summit; Microsoft is the least of the people I want to thank. Just because they are least is not meant to minimize my appreciation for what they have done for me, but I want to thank the people who have given me the opportunity to serve so I could earn a chance a the award.

The following list are people who I want to thank, and many of them are also MVPs (and many many others are nearly there, or will be there soon.)

• My Hip Surgeon – He went out of his way to fix me up last year, and spent 6 long hours doing emergency surgery after a day of doing his long scheduled surgeries. He spent extra time with me, and helped me through the process in a very different way the second time. I was able to get back out at events quickly and in a lot less pain than even the first time.
• SQL Saturday Organizers – I spoke at 6 events last year (and worked at another), which meant seven groups of dedicated folks put together an entire conference… without getting paid a nickel. All of the events went off perfectly, and there were like 1500+ people at all of these events put together. And there were TONS more than 6  events in total, heck I skipped two events when I was recovering. Without these events, it would be a lot harder for people to get speaking experience, and a lot harder for a lot of people to attend a conference.
• Our Nashville SQL Server User Group Leadership – This was my first (and maybe last) year as the primary chapter leader, but I was certainly not doing it alone. I shared the lead with Robert Verell (@SQLCowbell), with a lot of support from Jim Houchin (@JimHouchin) and Jersey Ross, and we all did a share, and have had a solid year. I say maybe last because the people mentioned and more may take over and swap out over time. 
• People on the Program Committee (and especially those who helped me with the Abstract Review process) – I violated my rule of naming names in the previous (and first) bullets, but not here. There were a lot of people who made the process work and work smooth. The plan for next year is to give more and more advice on your abstracts before you have to press: <submit>
• My editors – I have two sets of editors at Simple-Talk and Apress that have helped me to become a better and better writer (even if I don’t always get it purfect in blogs!) Without them, I would not be half as good as I have become, and they still teach me new writing concepts constantly.
• The SQL Community/Family/Friends – Yeah, this is the catch-all, if I didn’t mention you somehow previously, you fall in here. But I have a lot of people out there who have been a great help in getting me where I am today. When I don’t know something, I read your blogs, your tweets, and your forum posts, or sometimes ask you stuff over twitter or some forum. Without your materials, I couldn’t write mine (and it is my hope of hope that you sometimes use my material in my books and blogs the very same way.
• My employer – They give me time to get out and go to events, and supports me all the way. I know it doesn’t hurt that I get to share new stuff with my coworkers, but I suppose it wouldn’t be smart if they gave me time to go to Disney World instead of SQL events, now would it?
• SQLBlog.com – Adam Machanic (@adammachanic)and Peter Debetta (@debettap) I haven’t seen Peter in years, but I still appreciate that they have kept the blog running here so I and other bloggers can keep posting new material on a solid blogging platform.
• The reader of this and my other blogs – If no one paid attention to what I wrote, it would not be half as fun to write…

Even thanking the Microsoft as a corporation and the entire SQL community I don’t feel like I have thanked enough people. I feel very blessed to have worked with everyone listed in the past, and again in the future. This is a fabulous community of people supporting each other to do what is essentially their jobs. I don’t know too many people outside of technology who come home and keep doing their day job as a hobby, much less spend their own money on occasion to travel out and get or give training.  I am very much looking forward to the upcoming PASS and MVP summit a the end of this month, I still haven’t recovered from missing the events last year!

Will I get another MVP Award? I don’t know, and for today at least, I don’t care (if you are not reading this on 2015-10-01, I do care!). But if I don’t get it next year, I do know that there are 100s of people represented in my list who I figure deserve a shot as well. To you I say good luck, and I selfishly hope they add more awardees so we can both be in… Thank you!