Stack Overflow Meetup Last month, Stack Overflow had a meetup in Chicago. While I had great conversations and great meals at Portillo’s and Nando’s, my best memory from this trip was finally getting to...
Spring Break No school for the kiddos next week, so we’re headed to the beach. I have a couple of side projects that will keep me busy while I’m not thinking about work: a...
Most of March went by very slowly until the 16th, when we got on a plane to Toronto to rekindle our annual Can/Am Cup! We weren’t able to cross the border in 2021 or...
Welp, I turned 49. And that’s enough about that. Moving on, it’s been more than 5 years, and I still choke up a little when I think about Gord. The Hip is always rotated...
I realize I’ve neglected this blog and I’m going to try to be better about it this year. I’ll start with the bad; I was quite disappointed to read Amazon’s announcement that they are...
Last week, I blogged about my Leadership Award for writing 200 tips at MSSQLTips.com. I’m pretty proud of that award, as it represents a lot of work over a dozen years, and I know...
Today we brought home a freshly-minted cavapoo puppy we named Bob. Bob Cajun, to be more precise. Not a traditional dog name, for sure. What’s in a name? A lot. Our friends Matt and...
I recently blogged about what we’ve been doing with more time at home due to the pandemic. One of the things on my list was remodeling our master closet. When we walked through before...
We make eggs a lot, and we like a little spice, so here’s my recipe. Leave out the hot things if you don’t like spice. I like a large non-stick pan, and a silicon...
Flying into Bergen reminded me of flying into Seattle, except all those hills and islands were bare and green instead of peppered with houses over every square inch. There is no practical way to...
This week I was in Oslo for SQLSaturday #667 – I gave a pre-con on Friday, then two regular sessions and a vendor spotlight on Saturday. I posted my regular session slide decks and...
I’m involved with many e-mail distribution lists, and use incoming rules to direct those messages – based on To/CC – to a specific folder. Every few days, one of the lists I’m involved in...
At the beginning of September, I lost a dear friend and fellow nerd, Andy Sutorius. He passed away in his sleep from a heart condition that he kept very private. Our friendship goes back...
Luke & I – September 2001 About a week before that fateful day 15 years ago, I landed at MSP to meet with my good friend Luke Magnus. We were in a group of...
The album that drew me in I jumped with joy when a package arrived today. But I didn’t jump very high, because my heart is heavy.
After the emotional roller coaster of visiting Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II (Birkenau), Grant and I were both very glad to be on to brighter and happier places. We stopped in Kraków but our...
The main Auschwitz I camp (I blogged about earlier) gets all the attention. It has most of the iconic imagery everyone associates with the Holocaust, most notably the “Arbeit Macht Frei” gate (“Work Sets...
I feel all kinds of different emotions for all kinds of different people – sorrow, envy, pity, joy. But nothing is as breathtaking as stepping inside a concentration camp, and the inevitable and involuntary...
This week I’ve been in Poland – for the first half of the week I spoke at SQLDay in Wrocław, and now I’m doing some tooling around the country. This was some fantastic isolated...
So these jerks over at “New Ventures Corp” scooped up my domain (aaronbertrand.com), are squatting on it, and won’t entertain offers < $500 USD. So, they can keep it. I thought that all of...
Way behind on posting photos, sorry. Mixture in here of pictures from our curling trip this weekend and the month or so leading up to it. UPDATE 2015-03-25 : Added some pictures from Casey:
This weekend we had our first full-family road trip since Nora was born. The occasion? Our annual curling pilgrimage. What a blast! While I finished second for at least the 5th year in a...
Just wanted to share this quick video of Madeline singing along to “Let it Go” at Disney on Ice in Providence last week. [wpvideo iRIfpD3E]
Nora was born at 4:12 PM, September 15th, 2014, weighing in at 9 lbs, 6 oz.
We’ve been taking advantage of the great weather. A few shots from the yard last weekend: And yesterday we did bacon and French toast on the grill; smashing success! A recital – sort of...
Last weekend, we headed up to Canada for the 7th annual Can Am Cup. The trip didn’t start off great – Nicole got a ticket in New York State, not far from her debacle...
Sorry it took such a long time to get to these, but here are our pictures from Rome / Vatican City, Pompeii, Positano / Capri, Capo Rizzuto, Alberobello, and Venice. This is a small...
(Yes, the typo in the title was intentional.) I had a fantastic time at SQL Saturday #256 this weekend in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Great event, hilarious after-party, and some of the best hospitality you’ll ever...
Finally catching up on a whirlwind month. First, I wanted to be sure we posted a 9 month picture of Madeline, from June 28th, which we missed in our last couple of updates:
Summer moves quickly. We had Henry’s birthday, July 4th, a trip to Canada… lots of pictures to show but I’ll save the stories for real time.
This past weekend was Madeline and Henry’s last swim class of the season. They both have made so much progress and love the water…which is both a blessing and a curse. It’s great that...
This weekend I spoke at SQL Saturday #229 in Dublin, and Sunday I went with Magda and her son Mattie to Giant’s Causeway and the 13th Century Dunluce Castle.
I spent last week in Alaska with a bunch of friends on SQL Cruise. We left Seattle and headed to Ketchikan, Juneau, Skagway, and Victoria, BC. This was the same itinerary as the trip...
A week ago today, I was watching the Boston Bruins on the brink of yet another crushing series loss that had started so well. Even winning a Cup in the meantime, there is still...
Today was Madeline’s first swim class. Henry had started last week and tested the waters for us (see what I did there?). The kids are so close in age that it’s easy to compare...
Sorry, this particular post is not about Madeline, though I miss her very much! I am currently in Manchester, UK, heading home tomorrow. I’m on a work trip but got to see a variety...
So if you enlarge this one, check out the time on the cable box, funny right?
So it took a couple weeks before Briggs had any worthwhile trees in stock, but yesterday Pepe and Madeline were finally able to plant their Christmas tree in our yard – a nice blue...
Today Pepe came over to plant a tree with Madeline. She was a good supervisor.
We got up at the usual time and had our coffee: Then we went over to Mem and Pepe’s for Easter festivities. Watched some kid videos, blew bubbles in the yard, even watched some...
Today we went to Diamond Hill State Park with Michelle and Henry for their annual Easter egg hunt. Unfortunately when we looked up the information last week, the first result showed March 31st, but...
It’s been a while since our last update. We had a great trip to Canada after Christmas, but then January and February were filled with lots of changes – Nicole went back to work,...
On our last day in North Bay, we left Madeline with Nana (my mom), had poutine, then went out on the lake. When we went back to Nana’s we looked at some old pictures....
Our last stop on this trip was my hometown, North Bay, Ontario. We got to see a ton of people here: My mom, Casey, Dan, Julie, Hayden, Connor, Todd, Julie, Max, Myriame, Scott, Julie,...
On the 31st we drove from Ottawa to Midhurst, Ontario, via Toronto. We spent New Year’s and the next day with Kirk and Petra (and their three girls) and James and Laurie (and Talbot...
On the 30th we drove from Quebec City to Ottawa, and had a visit with our friends Matt, Sam and Jakson (oh and their cats, Brian and William).
We took a quick walk around Old Quebec this morning, here are the pics. Sorry for the fisheye lens but it came in real handy for a few of the shots of our hotel....
A few more shots of Madeline during the rare hours when we’re not in the car: