Voice of the DBA

Category: Blog

Skipping SQL Bits 2024

SQL Bits has been my favorite data platform event for years. Both it and the PASS Data Community Summit hold special places in my heard and I enjoy going, but the community, casual feel of SQL Bits is just a bit more fun for me.

I’m sad to be skipping SQL Bits 2024, but the timing doesn’t work for me. I saw Brent was also skipping (for different reasons), and decided to state my own reasons, since I have often attended. This was also Brent’s most commented on post in 2023, so I’m hoping to start the year off right on this blog

Managing Workload

In 2023, I had 32 trips. By mid Oct, I was a bit worn out and struggling. I just wanted trips to be over with and get back home. Between my last pre-Summit event in early Nov and the PASS Data Community Summit, I was home for 12 days in a row. I hadn’t done that since May 2023.

As a result, I’m trying to be more careful with travel workload in 2024. My boss and I meet every week or two and we review the schedule for the next couple months to manage things.

I also coach volleyball in Q1 and I try not to miss events or practices so I try to limit my travel.

Scheduling

While I local SQL Bits, I’ve missed a number over the years because of scheduling conflicts. Their March events have conflicted with other events in my life, often outside of work. I preferred when they had an Aug/Sept event as well.

This March, I am committed in March from the 9-11th, and then have to be in Atlanta on the 13th-14th. I have the next week at home, and I could potentially go to the UK on the 18th, but I have to be back on the 24th to coach an event in Denver. That means leaving Sat from the UK at the latest, and leaving SQL Bits on Friday. I’ve done that before, but I have to miss some practices in Denver that week and it’s not worth it just to indulge myself in another event.

I also have to be back in the UK in April and travel the in between week in the US, so I’m thinking that this is a time when I could make the schedule work, but it would impact my managing my workload.

Skipping a Year

I’ve been blessed and honored to speak at many events. While I would like to go back and enjoy SQL Bits, I also want to make room for others and let them enjoy the experience. Missing a year is OK, and I’ll look forward to 2025 (and cross my fingers that the date doesn’t have workload or scheduling impact).

If you’re anywhere near London or can get there in March, attend the event yourself. It’s fantastic and a lot of fun.

January 4, 2024
Changing the Origin in Git–#SQLNewBlogger
I needed to show a customer how to migrate from Azure DevOps to GitHub recently, and to smooth this process, we needed to repoint the origin remote.

Another post for me that is simple and hopefully serves as an example for people trying to get blogging as #SQLNewBloggers. You can see all posts on Git as well.

Changing the Remote

When you want to see remotes, you run this code:
```
git remote –v
```
As you can see, I have my origin pointed to Azure DevOps..

Now, I can delete and add back the origin remote if I want, but there is an easier way. I’ll use the set-url parameter with this code:
```
git remote set-url origin https://github.com/way0utwest/DatabaseDevOpsMS.git
```
This points the origin to my new remote in GitHub. Once I run this, I’ll set the branch and push, as the GitHub repo is empty. This pushes everything to GitHub and voila, I’ve got code there.

You can see this online

SQL New Blogger

I had to write this up in more detail for a customer as documentation. You might do this at work for someone, but I grabbed this focused, small piece of this and created my own blog, reusing a few screenshots.

Note: Don’t reuse screenshots of company assets. Recreate this in your own space.

This took me only about 5 minutes to write up after the other work was done. You could easily do that.
January 3, 2024
Career Plan for 2024
It’s a holiday today, but I’m dropping this as I spent last week working on it. I wrote about having a career plan on Friday, with a few notes in there on how I was viewing my career in 2024. This post will cover a little more of my thoughts on the future (for me) and my plan.

Note: I’m mid-50s, and my career is closer to being over than beginning, so take this with a grain of salt if you’re in your 40s or younger.

Thoughts on My Career in 2024

I tried goals for a number of years, but those are hard for me to work on through a year for a few reasons. One is that my view in Dec/Jan is not always one that continues through the year, at least not with my job. Second, I start to get focused on the goals and it creates stress and pressure that I don’t need. Rather that improving in an area, I’m driven by the goal.

I don’t like that.

I also find my career is evolving more rapidly in the 2020s in the past, with each year moving me in new directions that are tangentially related, but hard for me to build goals in since both me and my employer are learning new ways to use my talents throughout the year.

I’m closer to the end of my career, with roughly 10 years—ish left. I’m also doing more work with customers as an architect and advisor rather than a marketer. I find my time is spent more with sales than marketing or engineering, and I both need new skills there, but I also have to focus my time in different areas.

Lastly, a portion of my job is still journalism, running SQL Server Central, so I need to remain aware and learning about the state of the data professional in the world.

With that in mind, I’m setting plans in motion to help me in those areas, without goals. Just a direction. I think that’s a new approach for me, where I look to find time to grow in a direction, but without the pressure of a goal. If I have to skip some sessions or alter the direction, I can do that easier by altering the direction rather than trying to abandon one goal and find a new one.

Think of this as finding a new route while on a road trip rather than being driven by the time of arrival.

The 2024 Plan

Where do I want to be in a year? Here are the things that come to mind:
- Produce a specific content on Redgate technical issues or architecture recommendations that I upload to our Seismic site.
- Learn how to use all the Flyway commands well from the CLI so I can make good recommendations for flow and using them
- Learn to use static code analysis tools and create custom rules in a pipeline
- Be comfortable enough with AI to use it every week
That might be too much, but the first 3 are really related to my job, so I’ll be getting career growth out of them and I can spend some of my time at work focusing in this direction. These are areas I’m interested in and having a direction to produce these learnings as documents shared within the company will force me to learn them a bit better.

The last one about AI is not because I think AI is great, but because I’m still unsure of how or where to use it. I have some coursework on AI from Microsoft that I’m going to go through and try to better understand what’s happening, what’s involved with training, and how I can prompt better. I think this will be a good tool at some point, if not for writing code, perhaps for other things.

That’s my plan, now, what’s yours?
January 1, 2024
My Stats from 2023
I’m a data guy, so I decided to drop some numbers in a post. I did this last year, so this one includes a few comparison points.

Music

From Spotify Wrapped with the 2022 numbers in parens:
- 36952 minutes (30135, up 23%)
- 1668 artists
  (1440, up 16%)
- 75 genres
  (68 in 2022, up about 10%)
- 3809 songs
  (2946, up 29%)
- Top Songs: Something in the Orange, 3×5, Sun to Me, Look At Us Now, Joy of My Life
- Top Artists: John Mayer, Zach Bryan, Chris Stapleton, U2, The Beatles
- Top day, 491 minutes on Sept 2, I was working in Cambridge before the DevOps Tour
Music is something I like, and I listen often. Travel had me upping the listening this year. I also listened to a lot more country, and learned some songs on the guitar.

Writing and Speaking

It’s my job. A few stats, 2022 in parens:
- Editorials written – 141 (151)
- Coping Tips – 61 (257)
- Speaking sessions delivered: 30 (34)
- Events: 24 (19)
- Blog views – 61,000 (74,000+
  )
- Blog Posts: 393
- Visitors: 44,000 (55,000+)
Workouts

Taking care of my health is important to me. I’ve always exercised regularly, and at one point I ran every day of the year for a few years. I’ve relaxed a bit, and settled into more of a routine. I miss a few days and I don’t stress about it, but I make my best effort to work by body a bit most days.

Stats from 2022. I might have missed some, but these are the gross totals. This adds up to more than 365 since I do two things some days. A lot of weight days have cycling or walking or something as a warm-up
- Yoga: 79 (92)
- Cycling 71 (indoor and outdoor): (84
  )
- Weights 52 (63)
- Walking 21 (20)
- Elliptical: 14 (22)
- Swimming: 7 (7
  )
- Cardio classes: 1 (2)
- Rowing: 27 (2)
Total workout days: 272

The total days is still low for me. My aim is 75% of the days, but I spent way too much time on the road with travel and missed working out some of those days.

Driving

I don’t know exactly how much I drove, but the Tesla give me some stats and I’ve been tracking a few. For the Tesla, show about 17k miles this year, which is mostly me. For all the times my wife might drive (or the kids), likely I put miles on the X5 or Suburban (or a few in the Ram 3500), so this is not a bad set of mileage for me.

I also got to drive in two countries and a few states. Rough stats:
- Miles driven 17,000
- Countries: 2 (US and Portugal)
- States: 5 (Colorado, New York, California, Florida, Nevada)
- Top driving locations from the Tesla: Lifetime Fitness (135), Safeway (98), and a local gas station (89). Yes, I have a diet soda addiction.
Reading

I spend a lot of time reading books. They are an escape for me from life, and a way to improve myself. In 2022, I finished
- 104 books
- 35000+ pages
- Avg. screen time on Kindle app for Dec: 10 hours/week
December 29, 2023