I had the great privilege of presenting at the Day of Data in Richmond, VA. It was a great event that the organizers put together. I had not been to Richmond, Virginia, before, so I was eager to see the area and explore. I was able to reconnect with some great photographers I met years ago at the PASS Summit. We went out for a wonderful photo walk on Sunday, and you’ll see some of the photos at the bottom of this post.

Paris was a very quick trip for me. Quick plane flight in from Finland, Attended sessions the next day, and flew out relatively early Friday morning. Since this was my last stop on a 23-day trip away from home, I was eager to get home. As with my last post, I have a wrap-up video to discuss this blog. You’ll find some of my networking conversation items in the video.

Helsinki city library, Truly amazing building I'm posting a quick update about Nordic PG Day and some of the talks. I plan to continue my video posts. Below is a link to a more “talking" version of this blog post.    In the future, I hope to do most of these summaries as video summaries, but for now, I’ll still have this one written.

Flying Over Greenland I just completed a full 23 days on the road. That means I was not back at my house for 23 days. I passed through 4 countries, too many airports to fully count, and a metric ton of Rideshare rides. This is my first big trip in my new role as Advocate for Red Gate Software. While most of my readers may not be road warriors like I am, I have learned lessons that should help DBA roles who read this blog.

See which events we're attending, arrange sponsorship for your event or user group, and find out about the Ambassadors Program

Sometimes you have to take the Risk and stand on the Edge. This month's invitation is from James Serra. He had a great idea for a topic, talking about the risks we have taken in our careers. I really like this month's topic. I’m a firm believer that you learn from your failures. Taking chances is how you end up with some of those failures.

I’m working on making some changes to my blog so these come up a lot easier, until I get that work done this post will give a list of the next month’s events that I’ll be attending. I really hope I can see some of you at these events! Please reach out to me if you would like to discuss any problems you are having or would like to discuss future events!

My new company, Redgate Software, has a Mental Health Week every year and also has a day dedicated to Mental Health. The goal of the day is to take a day off work, reset, and focus on something related to your mental health.   I’ve never really had this at former companies, so I thought I would discuss it a little here on the Blog and get thoughts from others.

This post will not be technical, nor will it be related to any conference. While that may seem like it’s not important, I think what I’ll talk about today is probably more important to a career than most of the technical things you will learn. About a year ago (May 2024), my son decided he needed a better way to get to work.

Summary of the PG Conference in India 2025