Built a Home Theater

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As I got older, I watched more online streaming, and I went to theaters less and less. I can’t remember the last time I went to a theater in-person. COVID certainly didn’t help. When I was shopping for houses in Vegas, I wanted space to build a home theater. I didn’t want anything fancy like stadium seating, red curtains, or signs. I just wanted a dark room with comfy seating, good audio, and a giant screen. The house I ended up with had five or six bedrooms, depending on how you read the floor plan – way, way more than…
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Using Stable Diffusion to Generate Presentation Art for Free

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This is a brand spankin’ new topic for me here at this blog. Whenever I start teaching something, there’s a struggle to figure out what I’m gonna share first. Should I cover how to install Stable Diffusion? Which toolkit I use? What hardware I use? How I pick a sampler? How to make bigger images in a certain aspect ratio? I can’t cover everything in one post, and even just laying out a table of contents is an impressive amount of work. So here’s the deal, dear reader: when inspiration strikes me, I’m going to share things about Stable Diffusion…
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Bought Another Blue 2013 Jag XKR-S.

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About two years ago, I got a 2013 Jaguar XKR-S hardtop, and I love it. It’s comfortable, fast, loud, useful, and pretty. It’s the definition of what a grand tourer should be: a combination of luxury and performance that make it easy to drive long distances at speed. I do way more road trips than track days, although that might change now that I’m in Vegas. But originally, when I first fell in love with the XKR-S, I wanted the convertible version. So I kept my eye out on the market – mostly out of curiosity – watching prices and…
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Doug DeMuro Reviewed My 944 Turbo.

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After I bought my 1988 Porsche 944 Turbo off Cars & Bids, I contacted Doug to see if he wanted to review it. The video just went live: Doug remarks a lot in there about the car’s amazing condition and originality, and that’s certainly one of the big things that sold me on it. He sums it up with, “This is an exceptional car. It drives well, it’s fun, it’s exciting, and the Turbo version is pretty fast, and I just think there’s a lot to love here.” I agree!
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Bought a Porsche Speedster Replica, Sabine.

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The 1950s Porsche 356 Speedster is iconic. From James Dean to Top Gun to Doc Hollywood to Justin Bieber’s Mistletoe, the beautiful German bathtub has stood for decades as shorthand for cool. Originally Porsche’s cheapest, simplest model intended for racing, today its pure form just screams cool. Porsche only made a few thousand examples. Now, the few that remain trade hands for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Sadly, most of them aren’t driven and appreciated – they’re locked up in pristine storage while they financially appreciate. (Matt Hummel is one of the rare exceptions who drives the heck out of his 356s.) Fortunately,…
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Bought a 1986 Ferrari 328 GTS.

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I’ve always wanted a 308 or 328, and I finally pulled the trigger on this 1986 Ferrari 328 GTS from BringATrailer. It screams 1980s with louvers everywhere and pop-up headlights. It’s my first car with a gated manual. Normally when I think Ferraris, I think bright red, aka resale red or retail red, typically with a black or tan interior. I love this one because it’s the exact opposite. I’d never seen a black over red 328 before, and I love the deep color of the leather. I won’t be taking this one on any cross-country road trips. It’s only…
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Bought a House in Las Vegas

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When I bought a place in Cabo late last year, I thought I’d transition to spending full time there. However, I quickly realized that I still really love cars, and Cabo isn’t a great place for sports cars. The roads are really, really rough, and you don’t really wanna advertise wealth there. So I wanted to keep a place in the US where I could still indulge in short performance drives and long road trips. Combine that with the fact that Cabo summers are pretty doggone hot, and I figured I’d get a place up north where I could enjoy…
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How the Company-Startup Thing Worked Out For Me, Year 10: Isolation and Adaptation

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Every year, I post a retrospective about what it’s been like to start up a company. If you want to catch up, check out past posts in the Brent Ozar Unlimited tag. This post covers year 10 of the company: May 2020 to April 2021. Boy, did that year suck or what? What a rollercoaster. COVID raged, we weren’t supposed to wear masks, then we were, then we got vaccines, then a lot of people did their own research, then the Delta variant hit. During Year 10, a lot of good things happened to me while a lot of bad…
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Selling My 911 on Cars & Bids, Bought a 944

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Lemme set the stage with tracks from Just Say Yes, the 1987 Sire Records sampler: Depeche Mode – Never Let Me Down Again (Split Mix)Echo & the Bunnymen – Lips Like SugarThe Smiths – Work is a Four-Letter WordReplacements – Can’t Hardly WaitThe Ramones – I Wanna Live You feel me? Okay, with that in mind: I got a 1988 Porsche 944 Turbo. This… is a 1988 Porsche 944 Turbo from Cars & Bids. Guards Red, pop-up headlights, phone dial wheels, Blaupunkt stereo. It just screams 1980s to me, like a great car to take to Radwood. It’s also kinda…
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Reminding Myself What Life Was Like During COVID19: Day 714

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It’s been a while since I’ve written one of these, and as I rehearse my sessions for next week’s SQLBits.com conference, I figured it was time to pause and catch up. It’s been almost two years since California issued a statewide shelter-in-place order on March 19th, 2020. It’s been about seven months since my last post in this series, and back then, the big concern was the Delta variant. Back then, the 7 day death average in the US was 362 people: These days, governments are starting to ease restrictions because the new variants aren’t as deadly, the populations have…
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Hi. I’m Brent.

That's me, Brent.

I live in Las Vegas, Nevada. 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 Jaguar XKR-S, Porsche 944 Turbo, Porsche 356 Speedster replica, and a Ferrari 328 GTS.

profile for Brent Ozar on Stack Exchange, a network of free, community-driven Q&A sites