Voice of the DBA

Category: Blog

  • Daily Coping 1 Jun 2021

    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 a new album to listen to today.

    The last few weeks, I’ve been in the car a fair amount moving around, and had different radio programs and podcasts on. Recently I listened to Paul McCartney on Smartless. they chatted about his new album, McCartney III Imagined, a bit, and I decided to give it a try.

    I am a big fan of the Beatles, and I’ve learned a number of their songs on guitar. However, I haven’t followed Sir Paul much since the group disbanded. I somewhat liked the songs, but it’s quite a change from the Beatles, or even Wings. It was a welcome distraction from a more regular routine, something I’ve appreciated during the last year.

  • Daily Coping 31 May 2021

    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 take a moment and think about what about your life changed the most in the last year and the impact on your life.

    I think the biggest thing for me was traveling. Between work and personal life, I made a lot of trips to various places around the world every year. While that can be stressful with a busy life, it’s also exciting to see new places in the world, or return to familiar ones.

    Between not going places and being stuck in this office for over a year, without much variation, that both gave me more time with family, but it reduced my excitement, enjoyment, and embracing of work. I’ve struggled to enjoy work this past year, and there have been more days than I’d like where I’m not productive at all. Either I’m sitting here getting very little done, or I’ve walked away and been upset with myself for not working.

    Trying coping tips has helped, as has some perspective resets, where I realize just how wonderful my life is on a daily basis. I’ve come to terms with this, with hope for the future, but I’m also still adjusting to how I focus on helping Redgate and the community move forward in a new world.

  • The PASS Data Community Summit Call for Speakers

    The other day I saw something that I wasn’t sure I’ve ever see again. The call for speakers for the PASS Data Community Summit went out. After the dissolution of the PASS organization, I wasn’t sure this conference would ever appear again, but it is happening.

    Redgate is running this as a community summit, and we’ve engaged a number of people that helped put things together in the past to help again. It’s a free event this year, like many large conferences, and that means your sessions could be seen by hundreds or thousands of people.

    If you have ever spoken, or want to try, submit. There are less rules and restrictions. The program committee is headed by Grant, Kathi, and Marcella, all of whom have worked on the program in the past. They have lots of volunteers to evaluate the talks and put together a great schedule, but they are looking for alternative points of view or unique solutions.

    They’re also looking for back to basics, which is something many of us could talk about. Likely many of us do every day at work.

    I’ll submit something, and I hope you will as well.

  • Goal Progress for May 2021

    I set goals at the beginning of the year, and I’m tracking my progress in these updates during 2021.

    As I look at goal progress for 2021, I’m going to follow a similar pattern as last year. I’ll give myself a current grade and report on overall progress in of the areas where I set goals.

    Current Grade: C+

    Again, I’m falling behind and I’ve been a little busy in life, so not doing much outside of work. I read a little, and some SQL Saturday things, but not much coding. I did get some project work done, so it wasn’t horrible, but as I’m winding down volleyball season, that’s eaten up time.

    Reading

    The goal was 4 books (3 non-fiction, 1 tech). Here’s the current progress:

    • Non fiction – Project to Product – 47%
    • Career – TBD
    • Career – TBD
    • Technical – TBD

    Technical Skills

    I’m solving the Advent of Code three times.  I’m also studying for certification. In terms of work here, I did do some coding, but not enough. I’m behind here and #7 is daunting, which slowed me a bit. Same as last month, I tried #7, but got stuck and gave up.

    • Certification –  AZ-900 – 5%
    • Certification – DP-200 – 0%
    • Skills – T-SQL – 2020 Advent of Code – 5/25
    • Skills – Python – 2020 Advent of Code – 6/25
    • Skills – PowerShell – 2020 Advent of Code – 5/25
    • Skills – TBD

    Projects

    I had a few projects for myself. Most of May was SQL Saturday stuff. So far things appear to be working fine. I did work on my PowerBI report a bit and it looks good so far.

    • SQL Saturday Inc – 90%
    • Support events: I spoke at another event and a user group
    • Speak at the 3 local user groups, at least one live presentation – 0%
    • Help organize a Denver/Colorado event, live or virtual – 20% (more conversations)
    • Complete my Power BI Volleyball report – I know lots of kids will use this, so I need to get it done – 60%
    • SQL Memorial – 90% – I updated this, sadly, as someone passed. I need to move this to straight GitHub Pages and get the custom domain set.

    Overall, SQL Saturday is really set. Incorporated and starting to contact people. Updates here: blog.sqlsaturday.com