Last week I attended the MySQL Conference & Expo in Santa Clara. I came away with attaining my Certified MySQL 5.0 Developer designation, a relief once the testing was over. I was MySQL Core certified years ago, and now I'm upgraded.

Overall, the sessions got me thinking outside of the little box I work in - the office - to explore all the great things people are doing that I don't get to see everyday. Some things I really enjoyed hearing about:

• Memcached
• Gearman
• The giving of the "MySQL Acquirer of the Year" award to Oracle, from the previous year's recipient Sun
• Drizzle
• RightScale presentation about automation of load balancing in Amazon EC2, to pay an "average" use rate, and not get out of bed to launch new servers
• Michael "Monty" Widenius' presentation of MariaDB, including opinionated barbs about the new Sun acquision and release announcement of MySQL 5.4 (very entertaining)

Aside from technology, I was in the right place at the right time later in the week in Berkeley to see a documentary film: Anvil! The Story of Anvil (trailer). I was blown away by how good it was, and the trailer does not do it justice. I, and the other thirty or forty viewers in the small theatre, was fortunate the director Sacha Gervasi answered questions after the "sneak preview". He conveyed some stories about his history with Anvil, about the filming, and Dustin Hoffman at the Los Angeles premiere, etc. The trailer portrays it like a real-life Spinal Tap (a good way to get people in the door), but it is funny and serious. I think anyone would enjoy it, so go and see it if you can (i.e. you do not need to be a big heavy metal music fan).

What was so inspiring was to see how Steve 'Lips' Kudlow and Robb Reiner had not given up after so many decades. I wish I was in the Bay area this weekend, because on Sunday (May 3rd), the showing at the Bridge Theatre in San Francisco will conclude with a live Anvil performance! The film is now opening on more screens now, you can check out the web site to find where to see it if you don't live in the select theatres.

It's not just me who's enjoying the Snowstorm installed on my blog. By popular demand, and to give credit where it is due, I will reveal the source.

A short story first: We had a few snowfalls recently. By chance while surfing the web I discovered a web site with snow! I cannot remember which site it was exactly. Immediately I knew I must also have snow. For those who aren't aware of many JavaScript particulars, a savvy user can almost always find and read the JavaScript on every web site. So the first step in Firefox was to right-click -> View Page Source. I found the code that provided the snow storm, and in the credits was the author's address http://www.schillmania.com

Thanks Scott Shiller, for making it possible for my blog and The Art of Consumption to be a snowy holiday funfest.

For those who may like to install a Snowstorm, you can find the project page at http://www.schillmania.com/projects/snowstorm/. It's relatively simple, but there's no one-click WordPress plug-in install. For JS newbs, if you really want it roll up your sleeves, download and follow the installation instructions. Once you have it running, you can play with the customization options.

A post to get this blog underway. If you notice any theme problems, please leave a comment. It will be refined over the coming days, as I also compose some real content.