Kalen Delaney : personal

Did You Know? My book is at the printers!

Kalen Delaney — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 20:43:00 GMT

I know it's been a while since my last post, and there is a specific reason for that, which I am going to tell you about. On February 5th, I emailed to my editor the LAST chapter of my new book, after the author reviews and all comments from the editors were answered. I was technically done, except for a bit of work on the Intro, etc. Less than an hour after I sent off that last chapter, I got a call from the Washington State Highway Patrol that my husband had been found at the side of the road; he was semi-conscious after having a major stroke. I have spent most of the last two weeks by his side at Harborview Hospital in Seattle. Although there is WiFi in the rooms and I was able to check email and keep family and close friends informed, there was little inclination or energy for blogging.

Today, after all the final polishing by Microsoft Press, the pages were sent to the printer. The expected 'in print' date is March 11. It will be a week or so after that until the bookstores get it. I don't know how soon Amazon will be able to start shipping the pre-orders.

I'm not going to post my husband's whole story here, but suffice it to say my life will be changing. I will need to cut back on traveling, but I do need to continue working. I may not be offering nearly as many public classes, so if you've ever wanted to take a class from me, I suggest you think about doing it sooner rather than later, because there might not be a later. I will start delivering the 2008 version of my SQL Server Internals course next month. (Probably 90-95% of the course is still relevant to SQL Server 2005.)

Take care .... and in the words of one of my favorite singers/songwriters, James Taylor,

Shower the people you love with love....

~Kalen

Did You Know? It's Official...I'm a Geek!

Kalen Delaney — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 17:08:00 GMT

I almost didn't respond to the request for an interview with Richard Morris of Simple Talk. There were a few strange things in the request that made me think it might be spam or phishing. But I asked some trusted colleagues, and found out it was for real, and you can read the result here:

http://www.simple-talk.com/content/article.aspx?article=563

Thanks, Richard!

~Kalen

Did You Know? My Son is Entertaining Bill Gates

Kalen Delaney — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 01:19:00 GMT

I can't help it; I'm a mother. I am so excited about what my son is doing that I just have to share it. My #2 son is a budding actor and vocalist, and to earn money this summer he is working as a clown for a large organization that provides clowns, rides, games, balloon artists and magicians to local events. I found out several months ago that he was going to be working at the Microsoft Picnic this summer, and I started wondering how I might go about getting in to see him in action. But today, as he was walking out the door in full clown makeup and regalia, I found out he was working at a private picnic for the Gates Foundation! At this very moment, he could be making balloon butterflies, or unicorns, or puppies, or bears, or swords, for Bill and Melinda's kids! So far, he hasn't allowed us to take a picture of him in his makeup, but maybe he'll relax about it and I can get one posted.

And what is his poor mother doing while he is out entertaining the hoi polloi? I'm working on my next book. I spent much of yesterday researching the internal storage format of the new date and time data types, and today I started writing about them. It's actually pretty exciting and I'll blog a bit about it in the next day or two. Even though I'm not at the party, I still love what I do.

Have fun!

~Kalen