Voice of the DBA

Category: Blog

  • Goal Progress for Oct 2022

    I set goals at the beginning of the year, and I’m tracking my progress in these updates during 2022.

    Another month of busy stuff. Prepping for the Data Community Summit and 3 travel trips. Gone from home for 11 days, though I was working on some of those.

    However, I re-focused a bit on things I need to do for grow myself. I did that with an eye on these goals, pushing myself a touch.

    I also bolded the places where I’ve done something.

    Grade: C-

    Here are the goals:

    Work

    I didn’t do much here with demos. Things have been changing a lot with work, and I’ve delayed some of this until tech settles slightly. Still on my list to do more here in Nov/Dec. I did read a bit and am finding Do Hard Things fascinating.

    • DP-900 – Passed
    • DP-300
      – Stated studying, practice tests around 80% correct, need to schedule
    • Demo with SQL Server – 20% – dev db set up, started on pipeline
    • Demo with PostgreSQL – 20% – Dev db set up
    • Demo with MySQL – 0%
    • Thanks for the Feedback – 100% – HIGHLY Recommended
    • Good Strategy/Bad Strategy – 100% – VERY interesting
    • Do Hard Things – 43% – HIGHLY RECOMMEND so far

    Personal

    I spent some time getting data into Google Sheets (sample data) and then hooking this to PBI Desktop. I haven’t tried to publish, but I managed to get this working-ish. Not sure if my auth will work in the cloud, but at least a few things are connected. I’m calling this 50% done.

    I am aiming to start getting this to some kids in Dec, once I can collect a few stats for this season.

    Added. Not tech, but I have been working on being a better volleyball coach. The book above is part of that, but I also signed up for some formal training. I started in Sept, but did get more coaching training done during my travels.

    • Link Google Sheets to Power BI – 50%
    • Create Report – 45%  – Minor updates to my report based on the Google Sheets data.
    • Create Dashboard – 30%  -Minor updates
    • Get people using it – 0%
    • Coaching Certification – 38%

    Community

    • Support the Colorado groups by speaking twice and helping get one event set up
      – 40%
      • CO Springs event set up and executed
      • Denver SQL Server SQL Saturday executed
    • Speak at 3 other community events (was user groups) outside of Colorado – 100%
      • Spoke at DBA Fundamentals group
      • Spoke at Toronto SSUG
      • Spoke at SQL Saturdays in Jacksonville, New Jersey, LA, Denver
        • Boston, Toronto in Oct
    • Support SQL Saturdays – Help get 10 events run in 2022
      – 100%

      • We have had 9 run this year and 9 more scheduled
      • In Oct, we had 5 events complete – Boston, Orlando, Memphis, Toronto, Richmond
    • Volunteer 4 days with Habitat – 0 days
      • Not happy about this still. I had hoped to go Sept 15, but they cancelled the build that day. Need to find another day, but it’s hard. They aren’t doing every Wed/Thur/fri, and travel is getting in the way.

  • The Way0utwest Joker #SeattleSummitMoments

    I work for Redgate, who has been a great sponsor of the Summit in the past and now is charged with stewarding the event into the future. This post looks back at 2016, when I got into the swag.

    If you have a memory, share it with #SeattleSummitMoments.

    I’ve been with Redgate for almost 16 years now. Actually, my contract with them started 16 years ago next week. During that time, I’ve helped out at the booth numerous times at many Summits and other conferences.

    In 2016, we were launching SQL Clone, and as a part of this promotion, they decided to give away playing cards as swag. They had cards made, changing the suits to tech things (databases, angle brackets, bells, gears). You can see a closeup of them below:

    20221025_130209

    While doing this, they decided to use me as the Joker, with a bit of a likeness of me. All i good fun, and Carly posed for a picture with me. I think this was her idea.

    IMG_9726

     

  • Daily Coping 4 Nov 2022

    Today’s coping tip is to plan a fun or exciting activity to look forward to.

    I almost shouldn’t do this much, since I’ve had a great year with plenty of vacation. My wife is joining me in Seattle, and we enjoy the city, so I’m planning a dinner at the Purple Cafe. We’ve been there before, and we enjoyed their location in Chicago last year.

    It will be a fun dinner.

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQL Server Central newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

  • The PASS Summit 2022 DevOps Devour Hour from Redgate

    At the Data Community Summit this year, Redgate is hosting a couple of lunchtime sessions, the Summit 2022 DevOps Devour Hour. A creative name, for sure.

    These are Thursday and Friday, over lunch. You can register, eat with us, and learn about a few products. I’ll do an intro each day and then engineers will help you work with our tools in a VM environment. Bring a laptop and we’ll get you connected.

    You can see more at this page, but register and come if you want to learn about Redgate tools on either (or both) days.

    The sessions are:

    Session 1: Thursday, Nov 17 – 12:30 to 2:15 PM

    • Topics – SQL Prompt, Flyway Enterprise, and SQL Monitor

    Session 2: Friday, Nov 18 – 12:30 to 2:15 PM

    • Topics – SQL Data Catalog and SQL Provision