Why I’m Gradually Retiring from Teaching Live Online Classes

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I really love Mexico. I love the people, the vibe, the food, the tequila, the beaches, you name it. If I had to pick just one place that’s my happiest place in Mexico, it’d be Cabo San Lucas at the very southern tip of the Baja peninsula, where the Pacific Ocean meets the Sea of Cortés, aka the Gulf of California. Over the years after a lot of visits to Cabo, my favorite beach became the quiet, private Playa Solmar at the very southern tip of Cabo, next to the Arch. Mama sea turtles climb ashore, dig a hole, and…
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Musicar Upgrades for My Jaguar XKR-S

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When I got my Jaguar XKR-S, one of my favorite things about it was the engine roar. It’s delightful, guttural, magical. However, when I was just cruising and I rolled up the windows, the stock stereo sounded terrible. I knew just who to turn to: Musicar did a phenomenal job on my Porsche 911 Targa’s electronics, making it look stock while adding a ton of functionality. Their Stage 3 audio upgrade sounded completely effortless and detailed no matter the volume level. There is absolutely no distortion no matter how loud I crank it, and I can hear every single detail.…
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My Favorite One-Week Summer Itinerary for Iceland

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A friend of mine came over to Iceland for a week, so I planned a road trip. This road trip does require an off-road-capable vehicle, like a Dacia Duster or larger. Dusters are really common rentals, and you can get ’em with pop-up tents on the roof, but I wouldn’t recommend that, so my recommendations also include hotels. Day 1: Jet Lag Recovery Odds are, you’re going to be coming off an overnight flight or a complicated series of flights. Land in Keflavik, the only real international airport in Iceland, and crash at a downtown Reykjavik hotel for a day.…
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Sold the Land Rover Defender.

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Our adventure in Iceland is coming to an end, and we’re moving back to California at the end of this month. We can’t bring our Defender with us – the US makes it doggone near impossible to import a new-ish car from another country. We debated a lot about whether to build a vacation home in Iceland, and we even went so far as to buy a lot up in Siglufjörður. If we went through with building the house, we were going to keep the Defender in storage until the house was built, and then use it as our car.…
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Reminding Myself What Life Was Like During COVID19: Day 501

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It’s been a while since I’ve written one of these, and as I watched one cruise ship pull out of Húsavík, Iceland and another cruise ship pull in to take its place, I realized I should probably write one. I was laughing to myself because I envisioned the world having a discussion about this chart: New COVID19 cases in the US While in my head, the below ship was pulling into the harbor, piloted by Captain Obvious: “Gee, I just can’t imagine how this disease is spreading so quickly again” – Captain Obvious Chuckles aside, it feels like right now…
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Doug DeMuro Reviewed My Jaguar XKR-S

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Doug DeMuro is a YouTuber who reviews cars in a different way: he doesn’t focus on their 0-60 times or their gas mileage, but rather their quirks & features. He also doesn’t just review new cars: he reviews weird cars, old affordable cars, and yes, exotics. Doug happens to live in San Diego, so I left him access to my Jaguar XKR-S while I’m out of the country for a while. He just published his video review of it: I wondered how he was even going to make a whole video about it because I didn’t think it had that…
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Iceland Tourist Tips

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We’ve been living in Iceland for a few months now. I don’t wanna rehash the stuff you’ll find in typical tourist advice, but rather talk about stuff that I’d wanna hear if I was starting to plan a vacation to the land of fire and ice. Start your vacation planning with Mads Peter Iversen’s YouTube playlist. Mads Peter Iversen is a landscape photographer who extensively documents his work, and his videos give you better perspective for the size of the country and the kinds of attractions you’re interested in seeing. Sure, there are plenty of other attractions – whale watching…
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Epic Life Quest: Level 15 Completed.

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Life’s little moments of success can pass us by so easily. If we don’t track the things we’re proud of, we lose track of how far we’ve come. Steve Kamb’s Epic Quest of Awesome inspired me to build my own Epic Life Quest. I keep track of achievements, and after five significant tasks, I level up. Yesterday, we finished off another 5 tasks for Level 15, and this feels like The Iceland Level. We moved to Iceland in January 2021, and we treated it as half vacation, half work. I alternate my time in sprints between work and play: 2-3 weeks in a rental…
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Things I Love About Teleworking in Iceland

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We moved to Iceland in January to work remotely, and there’s a lot about it that feels like we’re living in the future. It’s an easy transition for Americans. Cars drive on the right side, English is spoken by enough folks in enough places, but the dominant language is still Icelandic, so it still feels like a foreign country. English is spoken, but rarely written – store signs are almost always in Icelandic, which presents a bit of a problem during the pandemic. I often find myself standing at a door, looking at a sign with a big wall of…
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Black Friday 2019 sales goal

How the Company-Startup Thing Worked Out For Me, Year 9

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It’s time for my annual update on the wild ride. If you want to catch up, check out past posts in the Brent Ozar Unlimited tag. This post covers year 9 of the company: May 2019 to April 2020. As a quick reminder, COVID-19 reared its ugly head late in year 9. I started year 9 with a new toy. In year 8, I made tough decisions and worked my ass off to secure the future of the company. I’d laid off the consulting employees, then worked a lot of weekends and late nights to build up a financial safety…
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Hi. I’m Brent.

That's me, Brent.

I live in San Diego, California and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. I'm on an epic life quest to have fun and make a difference.

I co-founded Brent Ozar Unlimited to help make your SQL Server go faster. I also maintain sp_Blitz® and the open source First Responder Kit repo.

My current car collection includes a Porsche 911 Targa and a Jaguar XKR-S.

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