It’s time for T-SQL Tuesday again and this time Kendal Van Dyke is asking for Your Best SQL Server SWAG. This is my first T-SQL Tuesday, not from lack of interest or knowledge, but to be honest mostly because I can’t seem to remember when the second Tuesday of the month is. I’m glad I’m getting a chance to do this one though since I’ve always enjoyed getting SWAG. I end up giving most of the stuff I get to my kid’s so I’m going to post both my kid’s favorite and mine.

First my kid’s favorite.

I was at the SQL Summit in 2011 and Quest Software was giving out stuffed frogs. And not just any stuffed frogs, but ones meant to clean your monitor. I got lucky and managed to talk the vendor into not just one but three. Why three? Well you might think “He has 3 kids right?” Nope 2 kids and they were only getting one frog to split and I kept one of the others. So who got the third? My team’s admin the “Frog Lady”. Known as such because of the 200+ frogs all over her cube. In case you were wondering the kid’s were ok with this since the Frog Lady was also the person in the office with all of the candy. So why is the frog my kid’s favorite? My daughter was 2 and my son 7 and it’s a stuffed animal. Need I say more? Oh, and yes it does do a good job cleaning my monitor.

  
And now for my favorite.
This one isn’t a piece of swag I got at a SQL Server convention but it is one I got while working in SQL Server. Many (many many) years ago I worked for a company that did business to business calls and frequently mailed out swag for one thing or another. I managed to get a hold of a few bits and pieces over the years but there is only one

I’ve kept over the years. I happened to be working on the Novell account when they were giving out these awesome foam-board chess sets.

I had recently done a nice piece of performance tuning for them so when I expressed an interest I was handed one. I’ve carried this thing on the plane with me to Paris (2ce), the Grand Canyon and several other little trips. My son now plays chess (he is much better than I am) so I may have to pass it on, or maybe just share it with him.