Where in the World is DBA Goth Girl- Week 24

I just returned from a week in Paris and it was fantastic!

No amount of terrorist attack could hinder my enthusiasm for the week of vacation and although Tim and I were unaware a man with a hammer at Notre Dame would garner so much attention from the news outlets, I realized quick enough that I was in a slew of online, video and print as the major American tourist who witnessed…well, a person lying wounded on the pavement with police over him, guns drawn.  I also became quickly alerted that there was a massive crowd coming towards me looking for shelter from any further gun shots in the cathedral, (which I was currently first in line!)  We were ushered inside immediately and I have to say, I can’t think of a more beautiful place to be held while a terror attack investigation was going on outside.

I’d tweeted just before entering the courtyard and then the line to enter the cathedral that we were going to visit Notre Dame and after being ushered in by security, some of my followers on Twitter alerted me that there was something going on, but they weren’t sure what.  I quickly responded that it was alright and that we were being protected inside the cathedral.  This ended up alerting the major media outlets and they started to contact me.  We had about 2 hours inside, so I did grant BBC and AP the time to tell them that the situation was very well contained and that we were safe.  I was hoping to keep it from being blown out of proportion, to be honest.

Needless to say, after the initial investigation was completed and we were released, Tim and I went to get a glass of red wine, (I commonly don’t drink wine) to calm the nerves and as I’ve stated in my interviews- the French police had everything incredibly under control and contained the situation in an efficient and orderly manner.  I applaud how effectively they’ve handled the escalated terrorism threats in France and I wish other countries were as prepared as they are.

The rest of the week we enjoyed Paris and even spent a day down on the Southern coast of France.  The last evening, just days after the terrorist event, you could see that no one was getting the French down, definitely not some silly terrorist!

So, back to work for me!  I have two webinars this week!

Tomorrow is an Oracle one from Pro Huddle, focused on DevOps for the DBA!

Wednesday is for the SQL Server VirtualPass folks and is on Virtualization, Opportunities When Migrating to the Cloud!