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Bob Dole: Great American
He lived through the Depression, then took a bullet for his country, then served it for 50 years. Now, at 88, he tells us what lies ahead
It occurs to me, sitting in a stately law office with Bob Dole, that Bob Dole is the exact opposite of so many of the politicians we talk about these days—especially the animatronic, polished Mitt Romney, who tries so achingly hard to be real, to be authentic, to be someone like, well, Bob Dole.
Dole materialized last winter and entered the national conversation as one of the first Republicans anyone takes seriously to endorse Mitt Romney._ (Wait, Bob Dole is still alive?) _In a letter to The Des Moines Register, he offered an explicit and unanticipated reality check, becoming the lone conservative to actually say something, politely, about the invasion of the GOP weirdos into the campaign.
Bob Dole.
"I'm still here!" he says to me.
Bob Dole?
Aw, Bob Dole.
I ask him the question everyone seems to be asking of the GOP faithful in 2012: "Would you say your endorsement of Romney was...tepid?"
"Not tepid at all," Bob Dole says, his face tight and serious.
There's a spritely young flack sitting behind me and another one in a chair to my left, and so it is me and Bob Dole doing a show together, which apparently is what makes Bob Dole comfortable. "Romney came to my office," Dole says, "we had a good meeting, and I'm not a Gingrich fan, so..." He famously loathed Gingrich: "He's just difficult to work with. It's either Newt's way or the highway. He's got a lot of ideas. Some of them are good; not many. So it looked to me like it would be either Romney or Newt for the nomination, but just on its own, I thought he—well, I'll say this: Romney looks like a president."
It's always discomfiting to listen to people try to conjure any serious oomph when taking about Romney, and this moment is no exception. I make the point that Mitt Romney's background is different from Bob Dole's. "You're self-made," I say. "You embody the American Dream."
"I've never known a lot of rich people," he says. "It's not my bag."
His bag, even at 88, is to dress in a suit each day and show up at the law firm on F Street in Washington, D.C., grand and formal where dressy people are busy and hushed. He seems propped behind his big walnut desk, his soft body slumped like an infant's in a high chair, his chin lowered over the knot of his polka-dot tie, trousers hiked high. He's wearing a crisp white shirt, and his thin hair is combed into obedient stripes. A fresh cotton ball taped over paper-thin skin on the back of his hand suggests hospital matters not quite resolved.
I ask him how he sizes up President Obama.
"He's a nice person. I have a good relationship with the White House, I just think he's totally out of step. We're moving farther to the left, and it may not be as bad as some people say, but we've got to cut spending. One of these days, we'll probably have to raise tas. I just think his philosophy is too far to the left."
He blinks softly, not moving much else at all. His mind is clear. Sharp. But his body. It's as if his big blocky head were not attached to the dwindling rest of him. I ask about some of the central concerns of the campaign—income inequality, negative ads, health care, gay marriage—and while he appears engaged by the questions, he lacks the zeal to offer more than the "one man, one woman," "reduce spending" party lines. His fuller thoughts lie elsewhere. He is an old man with old-man stuff going on in his head: back-in-the-day, and good golly, all those great guys and gals stomping through his time here on earth, so many more to hurry up and meet.
"Bill Clinton called me one day recently," he offers. "I said, 'What do you want?' He said, 'I want to see how you're doing. How's your health?' He's done that a couple times. If I did anything, I made a lot of friends. And they were Republicans, of course, and Democrats." Clinton would help Dole deal with Gingrich. "I'm not going to talk to him, you talk to him," Dole, as Senate majority leader, would say to Clinton. "No, you talk to him."
"President Obama came to visit me in the hospital. He said, 'I wish you were still in the Senate; I need your help.' I'm not certain I can help on everything. Maybe some things."
Bob Dole doesn't kid himself. He knows what he's good at (getting laughs, getting things done). He championed causes today's conservatives run full campaigns against—civil rights, food stamps, benefits for the disabled. And Bob Dole knows what he's bad at (winning really big elections). He lost the vice presidency to Mondale in 1976 and then the presidency to Clinton in 1996. He even wears failure with a candor that seems lacking in Washington these days.
"I don't know how many people run for vice president and president and lose both," Bob Dole says, turning to his aides. "I think there's one other?"
"You're testing my history on that one, sir. It would have been..."
Dole: "Anybody?"
"Lost both vice president and president? Um..."
Dole: "Somebody said there was someone—other than me?"
"You have to go back pretty far, I just, I don't think—"
Nobody can come up with one.
Said a fake Bob Dole with a big yellow head on The Simpsons: "Maybe Bob Dole should run. Bob Dole thinks Bob Dole should." Said a fake snoozing Bob Dole in a short red tie on Family Guy: "Bob Dole is a friend of the tobacco industry. Bob Dole likes your style. Bob Dole. Bob Dole. Bob Dole. Bob Dole."
You can't think "Dole" without thinking "Bob Dole," and cartoons and third-person good times. He was one of _those _politicians, the kind you jabbed but were happy enough to have around. His politics were plenty conservative—and yet by today's standards seem almost quaint. Bob Dole. He's like the neighbors' Labrador retriever your dad used to curse for all that barking, all that darn digging in your mom's tulip bed, and now look, you live next door to a godforsaken pack of teeth-baring rabid Pomeranians, and, good golly, Bob Dole!
When we met, he had his signature blue Flair pen in his right hand and an extra one anchored in his shirt pocket. He has always had the pen there, to keep his fingers from curling into a fist; as a side benefit, it reminds people not to reach out to shake his right hand, because he can't.
"Always have time for the daughter of a World War II serviceman," he said to me when we first met. It wasn't how I'd ever thought of defining myself, and I didn't remember mentioning any of that stuff to his people, so it caught me off guard.
"Oh, the war," I said, awkwardly. "Oh, my dad sure was proud of that...war."
"Navy?" Bob Dole said, and I nodded. "And he's still...?"
"He died last year."
"I see."
It was a lot to cover in the first fourteen seconds of meeting anyone; Bob Dole goes right for the patriotism jugular. His service in World War II is almost certainly how he defines himself, even though he spent much of his public life hiding the wounds: right shoulder, arm, hand. He was never one to use the story to further his image, hardly even talked about the whole mess until recently in a memoir.
He was an athlete. He was a poor kid from rural Kansas—Depression, Dust Bowl, his parents moving the family to the basement to rent out the upstairs for money. He was a good kid, honors, played football, a basketball hero, gorgeous young man the girls adored, delivering the morning paper, working the soda fountain at Dawson's Drugstore. A local banker lent him $300 to go to college to become a doctor, and so he started, got a girl, but then America called just as manhood did, so he went into the army. Within twenty months, he was in a foxhole, ducking, spitting out dirt. "Move out!" came the command, and he snapped to, got on his feet, waved the platoon obediently out of the trench and forward into the wall of smoke in the middle of nowhere, Italy, in the Apennine mountains. Nazis were pouring artillery rounds from the pillbox bunkers on the hill above, the U.S. bombers blasting that hill to bits, napalm bombs, the mountains soon in flames. Guys tripping into wires, traps, land mines, explosions, then machine-gun fire, guys down everywhere, just lying there dead, everywhere, and then his buddy Sims, his radio guy, bam, Sims was down, _Sims! _So he crawled in the dirt, having no idea Sims was already dead, slithered in the dirt to Sims and grabbed his shirt and pulled, pulled, and then bam! He felt it in his back, fire in his back, and he lay in the dirt gurgling words, his body seizing up to his eyeballs, only his eyeballs could move, but maybe his mouth, he could feel the dirt in his mouth, yes, his mouth. Another soldier weeping, pissing his pants, a skinny kid shouting, "God help me!" crawling under the artillery, dragging guys, dead guys, barely alive guys, dragging Lieutenant Dole, who was way too big, way too heavy, so the skinny kid rolled Lieutenant Dole like a sack of sand, over, over, blood pouring out, down into a ravine. In and out of consciousness for six more hours on the bloody battlefield, Bob Dole's mind went home, to Russell, Kansas, running up Maple Street. I always run. I'm running track in school. Hey, Dad, I think we have a good chance of going to state in football this year. I see Spitzy, our little white dog. Spitzy, what are you doing out in this kind of weather?
I ask if he ever thought about what the country would have been like if he'd been president.
"I've thought about it, not a lot, but I thought my relationship with Congress—the Democrats and Republicans—would help me get some things done. Not everything, but at least they'd be willing to try."
Bipartisan leadership, he tells me, was not exceedingly complicated. "We'd meet on an issue. If we could work it out, we'd work it out. If it wasn't possible, we'd have a vote."
"We had our problems," he says. "It wasn't softball. But it never, I recall, became personal. It never was pointing a finger at somebody and saying something that should have been unsaid. We kept our word.
"I really thought, with my background growing up, and my service, and all that, I thought it would be enough for the presidency," he says. "But... It sure was enough when I ran for Congress." He reminisces about those good old campaign days, serving Dole pineapple juice to get his name out there, and a singing quartet. "It wasn't so much about money then.
"The president says he's going to raise a billion dollars. A billion dollars. I assume Romney will spend some of his personal fortune plus corporate donations to his super PAC. I mean, it's out of control now."
I think perhaps we'll linger here, get worked up about how big money, really big money, has corrupted presidential politics, and perhaps join in a moment of sorrow about how America is going to hell in a handbasket.
But no. That is not Bob Dole's bag. "Be a doer, not a stewer," that's his motto. He's a soda jerk from Russell, Kansas, where you served milkshakes, cheered the people up.
"Have you been out to the memorial?" he asks me.
I tell him yes, I have, and his face opens like a sudden begonia bloom, a movie-star smile, gleaming charm and invitation.
The World War II Memorial, at the eastern end of the Reflecting Pool on the Mall, was opened a long time after the end of the war. A long darn time, in 2004. Granite pillars, arches, 4,048 gold stars, each representing one hundred American war dead. It was a big deal to Dole, who led the charge to make it happen.
"Now they bring in guys from all over the country to see it," he says. The Honor Flight Network shuttles any vet who wants to visit the memorials for free, about 80,000 so far. Dole likes to greet them.
"I received a letter from a veteran who said, 'You know, I was down—' let's see, how did he say it—'I was down and depressed and felt I'd never done anything, and then I came on one of the flights, and it made me feel good, kind of restored my dignity. I did contribute something.' You don't have to be shot at to serve your nation. He said his daughters were going to be proud of this new man. Just that one little trip saved this poor soul."
I congratulate Bob Dole on the memorial, making the point that it seems hard for people to get anything done in Washington these days.
He's leaning off to his right, sagging in the direction of his missing shoulder. He used to wear a shoulder pad. I don't think he has it on. Senator Elizabeth Dole, his wife, told me he used hidden Velcro under the flap of his already-buttoned shirts so that he could easily slip it on each morning. _Isn't that clever? _It speeds things up. She said it takes him hours to get dressed each morning. Hours. _Help? He would never accept help. Oh my, never. _
Bob Dole is not a bitter man. That part is jarring. His life was hard. His life was all heavy lifting and dropping, lifting and dropping. The regret hadn't jelled into anger.
There's a plaque on the windowsill. YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE, it says, and I ask him about it.
He doesn't point, doesn't even crane his neck; all his motions are in his eyes. "It's a song," he says. "I played it I don't know how many, a hundred times. Drove my mother crazy. It fits. If you listen to the words, it fits."
Bob Dole is not a romantic, at least not an immediate one. Bob Dole is not one to waste a lot of time on metaphor. When he heard Sinatra croon, You'll never walk alone, he heard, well, walk. Alone. He was a 22-year-old mangled soldier, sitting in a wheelchair that his arms could not even push, and he would listen to that song, think, and concentrate.
If I kept struggling to make my legs move, he would write, later, _to put one foot in front of the other... All of heaven would help me; my upbringing would help, my grandparents, schoolteachers, athletic team coaches, university professors, my boot camp sergeants... _
Dole spent three years in hospitals before emerging with a body that basically worked, minus a kidney, minus a shoulder, minus a functioning right arm. His left arm worked, but just two fingers on that hand worked, and thus empowered, unable to so much as write lecture notes, he trained his brain to memorize, and in time he earned a B.A. and a law degree, both magna cum laude. _Don't complain. Push forward. Don't dwell on it. _"Be a doer, not a stewer!" Years and years later, when he ran for the Republican nomination for president against George H. W. Bush in 1988, it bothered him to see those photos of Bush tromping all athletically through New Hampshire, shoveling snow, pushing stranded cars to show himself a man of honest sweat and brawn. That part did bother him. And again in 1996 when he got the nomination, ran in the general, Clinton golfing, Clinton at the C&O Canal clearing deadwood, heave-ho'ing big logs. Bob Dole couldn't do any of that. Hell, he did not have the dexterity to pick up a Big Mac. He would never publicly appear...manly. He would never publicly expose his shrunken biceps. He would never himself look at his missing shoulder in the mirror, draping a towel over it when naked.
"Have you been out to Walter Reed?" he asks.
He keeps steering our conversation here. To vets. Young vets, old vets, this war, that war—they mix together, and keeping track stops mattering. He talks about an injured helicopter pilot, a Purple Heart, a matchmaking scheme to set up that fine man with a pretty therapist at Walter Reed. He talks about programs, programs for vets. When I met with Elizabeth Dole, she made sure I knew about his programs, programs for vets. She had programs, too. Between the two of them, it is programs, programs, programs. I imagine them sharing a lifetime of meals together, brainstorming programs. Commitment to a life of service—does anyone in this age of cynicism and billion-dollar campaigns really mean it?
I thank Bob Dole for his time. He's sagging like noodles now, drooping so far over that I want to reach over and give him a helpful shove. Then again, I feel I should stand and salute.
NEVER NEVER NEVER GIVE UP reads a plaque behind Dole.
I ask Bob Dole if he has a message for America.
"Message for America," he says. He makes his lips tight, rubs them together, and his thick eyes wander around for some time.
"Things are going to get better," he says. "Be optimistic."
Jeanne Marie Laskas is a GQ correspondent.


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Lil Wayne Sales Prediction For 1st Week "I Say 100K"
XXL hits the streets to find out the buzz on Weezy's first week sales…
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subset: commoncrawl


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BLOOD WILL FREEZE: A cautionary tale to cause further anxiety among those worried about the arrival of 2010.
It is July, 4012.
A summer exactly two thousand years after a comet crashed into the Earth, ironically in the year the Mayan calendar ends…2012. Out of the ensuing chaos, there are two types of survivors, humans—not so many of them but enough—and the Undead—ejected from their coffins deep within the Earth to a world frozen and gray. A world where the sun never shines and vampires may walk during daylight hours.
It doesn't take long for the Undead to inherit the Earth. They now reign, fighting among themselves for the continents, dividing them to the strongest. Now, only two remain, Alixandra, empress of North and South America and a little more inhumane in her treatment of her mortal slaves, and Celadon, lord of Europe and Asia, deadly, unscrupulous, and a sociopath par excellence, murdering his way to the top of the nosferatic food-chain. Once lovers, these two are now bitter enemies, engaged in a struggle for ownership of the planet and its few surviving humans, their rapidly-dwindling food source. Alix takes her people to Mt. St. Helens, building a tower inside the volcano's buried cone; there the heat will keep her little herd of mortals alive, With the aid of Michael, her virginal, mortal steward, only one of six children born in the last twenty-five years, Alix awaits Celadon's attack. Alix trusts Michael; she also lusts after him, but the young man has the ability to ignore her enticements. He alone is free from mental slavery, because Michael is a Freeley, one of the rare human mutations born immune to the vampire's enticements.
From the seed of Michael's free will, rebellion has taken root. Yes, Michael is readying his people for the coming attack, assuring his Undead mistress of victory but it will be a victory neither Alix nor Celadon nor even Michael himself expects.
Blood will Freeze appeared in the February, 2009, issue of Sounds of the Night Magazine. It is available at http://www.genremall.com/zinesr.htm#soundsofthenight.
CONTEST: Answer the question and win Two Vampire Tales. Send your answers to: email@example.com.
QUESTION: Dracula is written in a first-person, journal style. How many narrators does the novel have and who are there?
Friday, March 19, 2010
BLOOD WILL FREEZE by Tony-Paul de Vissage
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Jim Murray's '63 Galaxie
Someone offered to buy Jim Murray's '63 Galaxie 500 recently. The prospective buyer was so interested he left a note on the windshield, an earnest plea scratched on a business card and tucked under the wiper blade. A friend who was with Jim at the time jokingly asked how much would it take, hypothetically, to sell the car: $30,000? $40,000? At $60K Jim said he'd sell. He felt troubled, though, and after thinking about it for an hour, Jim suddenly blurted to his friend that no, he wouldn't sell it for $60,000. He couldn't imagine selling it at all.
He wished he could convey how much happiness this car has brought him. We knew that he wouldn't be able to, no matter how many stories he told about it, but listening to his voice it was obvious just how much this Galaxie meant to him. "It's more than the cost of the parts, or the time I've spent fixing it. It's the people I've met, the experiences I've had because of it, and the joy I get from driving it," he says. And that is something we can all relate to.
Jim likens his car to an ambassador. "It brings me into contact with people I never would have otherwise met." He has literally dozens of stories he could tell about total strangers coming up to him and describing very personal experiences they had involving a car similar to his-childhood memories, loves lost and found, happiness, and heartbreak. These exchanges are what have elevated Jim's experience with this car to something more than just a guy and the car he loves to drive.
That experience began in 1999 when Jim bought the car from a local dealer for $800. It actually wasn't much of a car; it was more like a shop experiment gone bad. The trunk floor was gone, with a five-gallon fuel cell crudely fit in its place. The front wheelhouses were missing, and the frame had large burn holes as if a cutting torch had suddenly developed a mind of its own and gone on a rampage. On top of that, one side of the car had been bashed in. To his credit Jim saw gold where others would have seen iron pyrite. Upon taking delivery of his new purchase (on the hook of a tow truck) he told his incredulous wife, "It's already wrecked; there's nothing I can do to make it worse!" Actually, the car did have one good thing going for it-one of its prior owners had dropped in a 460. It didn't run, of course, but the work to fit the 385-series engine in place of the original 289 had already been done. Jim promptly replaced that tired block with an SVO 460 crate engine (this was back before Ford changed the name of its in-house high-performance division from Special Vehicle Operations to Special Vehicle Team). He then got to work repairing the frame and rebuilding the car.
It's been almost eight years, and Jim says the car is only half done by his estimation. Judging by the pictures, his definition of half done differs from that of the rest of us. Frankly, the car looks great. Jim wanted it to have a different look, so he mixed some circle-track cues into his buildup rather than whacking it completely with the Pro Street stick. We totally dug the side-exit exhaust. He does drag race the car, though. His best quarter-mile time is 12.30 at 115 mph. Not too shabby for a car that weighs 4,030 pounds.
Not too shabby for a car that gets driven on the streets as often as possible, either. Jim figures he puts between 8,000 and 10,000 miles on it per year. He commutes to work in it, he goes to cruises and car shows, he enters it in parades, and he takes it on road trips. It draws a crowd everywhere he goes. Which brings us back to his point about the car being an ambassador: "People can relate to the Galaxie," he says. "They were common back in the '60s, but you don't see very many today. People seem to get excited when they see one again." Jim has met and befriended so many more people than he normally would have had he not chosen to build this car. He feels very strongly that his life has been greatly enriched because of it. How can you put a price on that?
Tech Notes
What: '63 1/4 Ford Galaxie 500
Owner: Jim Murray
Where: Oroville, California, where it can reach 115 degrees in the summer
Engine: The 460 that was resting on the motor mounts when Jim bought the engine had no crank bearings. He replaced it with a Ford Motorsports SVO 460 crate engine. It came with all the good factory stuff-10.5:1 pistons, 244/254 duration, 0.588/0.614-inch Ford Motorsports cam, and aluminum Cobra Jet heads. He figures all this is good for about 560 hp and 535 lb-ft at the flexplate. To deal with Oroville's superhot summers, Jim backed all this up with a Moroso electric water pump and dual 12-inch Flex-a-lite electric fans.
Induction: An Edelbrock Victor Jr. intake bridges the lifter valley. Jim scoffs at fuel economy with his Holley 850 double-pumper.
Exhaust: Crites 131/44-inch primary tube headers got the nod. They spill into a 3-inch system custom-bent by King Mufflers in Oroville. Magnaflow mufflers make the sound bearable.
Ignition: Jim mated a Ford electronic distributor with an MSD 6ALN ignition box and a Blaster II coil, Motorsports wires, and Champion plugs.
Transmission: A C6 slush box is bolted to the engine. Jim augmented its internals with a TCI 3,500-rpm-stall torque converter, a B&M shift kit, and a TCI trans cooler with its own electric fan. He installed a Gear Vendors Under/Overdrive unit just before the Anti-Tour in April.
Rearend: The Galaxie still sports its original 9-inch rearend. It houses an Auburn Gear Pro Series limited-slip differential with 4.30:1 gears and 31-spline Strange street/strip axles.
Suspension: Jim is the co-owner of an anodizing and powdercoating company, so it's a given that his suspension bits got the spray-and-bake treatment. He retained the stock springs front and rear, added KYB shocks to all four corners, and stiffened the leaf springs with a pair of Traction-Master traction bars.
Brakes: Jim shelved his stock front drums in anticipation of Anti-Tour as well, installing 11-inch discs from Stainless Steel Brakes. He's still got the stock rear drums but says their days are numbered, too.
Wheels/Tires: You can't go wrong with Cragar S/S wheels. Jim mounted a pair of Mickey Thompson 315/60-15 ET Street radials out back.
Interior: Jim rewired the dash and added an Auto Meter tachometer and the ubiquitous three-gauge pod down below. The seats are out of a '64 Fairlane and were reupholstered by Coy's Upholstery in Palermo, California. Future plans involve adding a much louder stereo-the Clarion unit that's in there now just can't compete with the exhaust note.
Performance: Though his best time so far is 12.30 at 115 mph, Jim figures he can drop into the 12.10s as soon as he gets the hang of shifting with his new Gear Vendors gear splitter.
What's Next: Since the car is only half done, Jim still has a lot of work to do. He plans on upgrading to a Survival Motorsports 545-inch FE package, redoing his instrument panel, and improving the front suspension components. He still has to fix the trunk floor, too.


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When was the last time you looked at a SQL Server new feature list and said, "Ohhh, WOW!"? Was it around March of last year? No? Then you might have missed something really, really cool.
Let me introduce you to my friend, SQL Server 2012′s FileTable.
A Brief History of Files
Before SQL Server 2008, if you wanted to store file information ("unstructured data") in your database, you had two options: you could either store your file in the database as an IMAGE (or VARBINARY) column, which was good for management, but pretty damn bad for performance. Or, you could store the file in the file system, and store a link in a database…great for performance, lousy for managing your files and keeping them in sync with the database.
Microsoft addressed this in SQL Server 2008 with FILESTREAM, which lets you store files in the NT file system, and keep them transactionally consistent with the database. What's more, you can search those files' contents using Full-text search. Good stuff, that.
FileTable Defined
Now in SQL Server 2012, Microsoft has built FileTable on the FILESTREAM foundation. FileTables are a special kind of table that stores files in the database – where they can be managed, accessed, backed up, and searched (via Full-text or the new and similarly awesome semantic search). AND! AND! AND! Those files can be accessed from Windows as if they were stored on the NT file system. SQL Server exposes a "virtual file share", which you can open up just like any UNC and look at, add, remove, and modify files all the day long.
You can access FileTable files just like any other file stored on the server: programatically, or via a directory window!
That's really spectacularly cool, but you've got to see it in action.
Get Set Up for FileTable
Before you can use FileTable on an instance, get your prerequisites in order! Note: Standard warnings about testing this in a test environment apply. If you run out and do this on production without trying it out elsewhere first, it's your own durn fault, kids.
Enable and configure Filestream:
- Open SQL Server Configuration Manager.
- Bring up Properties for your instance.
- Select Enable Filestream for T-SQL Access AND for File I/O Access
- And run this statement in SSMS:
EXEC sp_configure filestream_access_level, 2
- Restart the SQL Server service.
Easy-easy. Now, for our example, we'll create a database with Filestream:
CREATE DATABASE FileTableDemo ON PRIMARY ( NAME = N'FileTableDemo', FILENAME = N'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL11.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\DATA\FileTableDemo.mdf'), FILEGROUP FilestreamFG CONTAINS FILESTREAM ( NAME = FilestreamData, FILENAME = 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL11.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\DATA\FileTableDemoFS' ) LOG ON ( NAME = N'FileTableDemoLog', FILENAME = N'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL11.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\DATA\FileTableDemoLog.ldf') WITH FILESTREAM ( NON_TRANSACTED_ACCESS = FULL, DIRECTORY_NAME = N'FileTable' ); GO
As of this moment, your virtual directory is available, at \\{servername}\MSSQLSERVER\FileTable\. BUT you can't do anything with it yet! You need an actual FileTable, to put your files into.
FileTable in Action
Now let's create a FileTable:
CREATE TABLE JensAwesomeFiles AS FileTable WITH ( FileTable_Directory = 'JenAwesomeFiles', FileTable_Collate_Filename = database_default );
Very simple, very easy. You don't list any column names or attributes, because a FileTable has a fixed structure that SQL Server already knows. You can now SELECT * FROM JensAwesomeFiles (though it is currently empty), and access it at \\{servername}\MSSQLSERVER\FileTable\JenAwesomeFiles\.
Now, drop a file in that directory. Go ahead, any old file. Create a new text file and save it there, or copy a JPG in. Then when you select from JensAwesomeFiles in SSMS, it shows up:
Go ahead, copy a bunch of files in and select. It's fun! Know what's more fun? Changing file names, extensions, or attributes with T-SQL commands. For example:
UPDATE JensAwesomeFiles SET is_readonly = 1 WHERE file_type = 'docx'; -- Set the readonly attribute! UPDATE JensAwesomeFiles SET NAME = 'NEW NAME_' + name WHERE creation_time > GETDATE()-1; -- Change file names, based on creation date! DELETE JensAwesomeFiles WHERE is_readonly = 0; -- Delete files RIGHT OUTTA THERE!
After each change, go take a look at the virtual directory, just to Ooh and Ahh over the changes.
What's it For?
Of course, like anything in computers, this feature is for whatever you can think of. I've used it to streamline and improve document handling and searching in companies with legacy applications – where we couldn't alter the actual file-in-file-out process, but we could point the app to a new directory….and so all our files were dropped straight into SQL Server. Aww, yeah…
Oh, and you PowerShell freaks out there: Tell me you couldn't have TONS of fun by combining POSH with FileTable. Go on, I dare ya.
Drop me a line, kids, with your "oh WOW"s, your questions, your corrections, and how you've used (or will use) FileTable.
Happy days,
Jen McCown


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I've given the pattern in details of the yarn, needles etc that I used - but you'll see the pattern is dizzyingly straight forward, so can be easily adapted to suit whatever yarn your heart desires!
6 easy steps to instant and delightful snuggliness!
Required goodies
Yarn: Twilleys Freedom 100% wool (5-6wpi), 1.5 balls
Needles: 10mm
bits'n'bobs: Yarn needle, 2 x Paddington bear style toggle buttons
Gauge: No specific gauge required - however mine was 8 sts&12rows /10cm
- Cast On 20 Stitches
- Work in 2x2 ribbing 'til measures approximately 65cm
- Cast off
- Using same yarn, perhaps reinforced with some strong thread, sew the buttons on to the Cast On end of the pidge, approximately 6 cms apart.
- Weave in all ends
- Find somewhere cool and windy, button on your new Pidge Podge and enjoy the delightful snuggliness!
The cast off edge will not be as flexible as the cast on edge, which gives the desired flared end to be the top layer of the pidge, and gives an elegant, somewhat dashing line to the finished, buttoned pidge angle.


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How 'Bout Them (Roasted) Tomatoes? - Easy
So I had this pint of grape tomatoes on my kitchen counter, which I purchased to go with the salads I was serving this past week. Several days (and salads) later, I still had that pint of grape tomatoes on my kitchen counter. Just kept forgetting to toss a few on every salad heading out to the dining table. Tomatoes keep only so long, and these were in danger of becoming compost food, which begets tiny tomato seedlings in the garden the following year. Those seeds never seem to become inert from the heat generated by the pile. Which is inconvenient when those seedlings pop up exactly where I don't want, like amongst the marigolds. By the way, did you know that in colonial times, tomatoes were considered poisonous and were grown as ornamentals? But I digress ...
Anyway, Nina from Kosher in the Kitch must have read my mind (or else peeked into my kitchen window). Just as I was wondering what to do with the tomatoes, she went and posted a recipe for roasted grape tomatoes! Woo-hoo!
My adaptation of her recipe omitted the garlic just in case I wanted to toss a few in a recipe where garlic would just not work (yes, there is such a thing ... can't think of one at the moment, but it must exist somewhere). I also used kosher salt, doubling the quantity, instead of the table variety.
It is amazing how such few steps can create a gourmet treat! Much more flavor than a naked tomato, but not quite as intense as sun-dried. So even if you are the type who thinks iceberg lettuce is exotic, you'll still love them.
So ... what can you do with roasted tomatoes, anyway? Here are a couple of ideas (one vegan and one meat):
|Flavors are more intense than they appear.
Good ol' reliable bruschetta. Instead of diced fresh tomatoes as I normally do, here I subbed with the roasted stuff, coarsely chopped. Also left out the garlic and red onion. Because of the intense tomato flavor I didn't miss 'em, although youngerSon said he prefers the original.
You can also toss a few onto your favorite baked or sauteed chicken dish. I wasn't in the mood to do a lot of patchke-ing tonight, so I went simple: baked skinless, boneless breasts with potatoes and onions. No real recipe here, just 2 onions, 2 potatoes, 1 package chicken breasts, white wine, salt, pepper and olive oil. Bake 350F, tossing some roasted tomatoes over the chicken 30 minutes into the cooking.
Now it's your turn. How will you use roasted tomatoes?
Roasted Grape Tomatoes - Easy
Slightly adaped from Kosher in the Kitch
1 pint grape or cherry tomatoes (rinsed, green tops if any removed)
1 Tbl. olive oil
1 tsp. fresh rosemary, minced
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. coarsely grown black pepper
Preheat oven to 400F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Cut each tomato in half, lengthwise, then place on prepared baking sheet. Drizzle with the olive oil. Sprinkle evenly with rosemary, salt and pepper.
Using clean hands or a couple of spoons, lightly toss so all tomato halved are coated (I used my hands ... olive oil is a great moisturizer).
Arrange them (the tomatoes, not your hands) cut side up on the baking sheet, then roast in preheated oven for 25-35 minutes, or until lightly browned.
Cool, then if not using right away place in a tightly covered container and refrigerate up 5 days.