Voice of the DBA

Category: Blog

  • Daily Coping 2 Aug 2022

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral 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.

    Today’s tip is to what do you appreciate in life?

    My health.

    I’ve talked with a few people lately that are

    a) either worried about COVID and health (for good reasons),

    b) have gotten sick or had a family member get sick and had a rough time

    c) struggle to accomplish things they want to do

    I’m fairly healthy. Yes, I had ankle surgery a few months back and the ankle still hurts, but it’s getting stronger and healing. I’ve had COVID a few times and been fine. I had to take a week off, from last Tues to today after getting some hormone therapy.

    Those things make me appreciate how lucky I am to not have had any major health issues and that the treatment I’ve sought for minor ones has worked well.

  • Daily Coping 1 Aug 2022

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral 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.

    Today’s tip is to find 3 things you feel hopeful about and write them down.

    Three things that make me feel good about life:

    1. People are excited about live events. SQL Saturday New Jersey was a good sign.
    2. My kids are coping better in the world this summer, which makes me feel good about things. They all see the world differently and are in different places in life, but all happy.
    3. More opportunities for travel for my wife and I keep appearing, which makes me think the future will be better.

  • Charge Costs at Tesla Superchargers

    This is part of a series that covers my experience with a Tesla Model Y.

    I finally had a charge for a Tesla Supercharger. These re the public, high speed chargers that Tesla has put all over the world, which can add 200-500miles of range per hour to your car.

    I mostly charge at home, as you can see from my log:

    2022-07-21 10_08_58-Charges - Grafana — Mozilla Firefox

    However, last weekend my wife and I were in Keystone, CO and driving over to the Winter Park Jazz Festival each day. The drive takes about 20% charge each way through the mountains, so we charged each time we were in Silverthorne on the way to/from Keystone.

    I got 1000 free miles of Supercharging when I bought the car with a referral code from Glenn Berry. While I haven’t charged away from home much, we have a few times. This time we got part of one session for free, and then charges started. I don’t know why my logger doesn’t have the charges, but I see them in my Tesla Account.

    2022-07-21 10_12_39-Payment History _ Tesla

    US $0.43/kW, with my car having 75kW of capacity. The 50kW charge was from around 15%-80% ish. We plugged in the car and walked over to have dinner nearby. This was close to a fill up for just over $20. Not cheap, but not bad.

    The prices for “fuel” here seem to vary around the country, and possibly by time. I’ve seen reports in CA of lower and higher values ($0.29 – $0.58). I was expecting something more like $0.28-$0.30, but in the mountains, early evening, things were different. The average reported here is higher, so I can’t complain.

    I definitely plan on charging mostly at home, and using the public chargers when I don’t have a choice. I haven’t successfully charged at a non-Tesla charger yet (tried twice, once failed/broken, one too slow), but I’m sure I will one of these days.

  • Daily Coping 29 Jul 2022

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral 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.

    Today’s tip is to identify what helped you get through a tough time in your life.

    I’ve mostly had a good life, but there were definitely some tough times. However, what has helped me, or what I did to cope changed over time.

    Earlier as an adult, I had financial struggles at times. I used stubbornness and persistence to make my way through things. I took two or three jobs to make ends meet and overworked myself. I know I’ve had more than my share of 100+hour weeks.

    When I was struggling early in my first marriage, I went to counseling with my wife. I leaned on a therapist, first together, then on my own to help me come to terms with the need for a divorce.

    When COVID hit, I found myself in a strange place. A telecommuter of 20 years that wasn’t used to being at home for months at a time. I leaned on my wife and kids to distract myself from the sameness. I also focused on cooking more food for the family, which was good. Unfortunately, I also drank too much alcohol while cooking. Luckily, I’ve gotten better and less drinking and healthier food as the pandemic stretched on.

    Coping can change over time. What worked at one point in my life, might not work later, or might not be appropriate. I have tried to approach things this way, changing when needed: “strong opinions, loosely held.” When I need to change, I will.