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- Great precons with Reza Rad<\/a> and Brent Ozar<\/a>. I didn\u2019t attend a precon but I heard good things (and also know how good both are!)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Fantastic sessions from not only the aforementioned Reza and Brent, but my coworker Kellyn Gorman<\/a>, Kevin Kline<\/a>, Kevin Feasel<\/a>, and many other speakers with names that do not necessarily start with K<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- The SQL Clinic<\/a> was back and a great way to keep the speaker room useful for more than hiding (though I don’t hate that sometimes!)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Yummy food (*) great food including the return of the ice cream break<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- An after party at Buffalo Wild Wings that I wish more people could attend (if they feel up to it of course, it is a long day!)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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I did mention loads of great speakers right? Kellyn gave a talk on DevOps, and I basically enjoyed the day taking in mostly sessions from people I knew (I walked in late to almost every session I attended because I wanted to be at the booth too!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was the second time that Simple Talk<\/a> and Redgate<\/a> have really tried to co-brand a location, and it went really well. We gave away loads of cool, fun, and useful bits of swag including tumblers, bouncy balls, socks, pens, and notepads. Of course I completely forgot to get a picture of the swag, but I did get this great picture of my Redgate teammates between the many people who swarmed the booth all day (other than when we stopped to get pictures!):<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/IMG_8794-1-scaled.jpeg\")
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The whole day was gloriously busy from start to nearly finish. Even as we were putting together the display and banners people were coming to the booth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\/ima<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Taking the Scenic Route<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
When I planned this trip, I had two things I planned to do. I did neither of them exactly as I expected. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
First to the Beach<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
When I arrived (by car) to Jacksonville, the weather was great so I stopped at the beach and took a few \u201cjust in case\u201d pictures. My main plan was to get a sunrise picture on Saturday or Sunday, but Saturday we ended up needing to show up about an hour after sunrise and that was too close (especially when we all needed Starbucks.) Sunday morning it was cloudy\/rainy, so that didn\u2019t happen. But I was happy with the crop of pics I got anyhow, linked here in my Instagram post<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n
- Fantastic sessions from not only the aforementioned Reza and Brent, but my coworker Kellyn Gorman<\/a>, Kevin Kline<\/a>, Kevin Feasel<\/a>, and many other speakers with names that do not necessarily start with K<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n