Voice of the DBA

Category: Blog

  • Daily Coping 2 Feb 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 decide to lift people up rather than put them down.

    I live in the US, and our culture and atmosphere has been challenging across the last decade with the political climate. I also find that more and more often that people tend to present a worse version of themselves online. It’s also easy to try to make a joke in response to some post, and not realize that the way it is received is far different from how you intended the words.

    I see this often in Twitter, and I’m certainly guilt of registering a complaint, an opinion, or some comment without thinking.

    I saw this tip and then started to think about how I interact with people. A few of us have been trying to find a way to continue events through Data Saturdays, after the SQL Saturday franchise folded. There are lots of opinions and feelings about this, and as these are expressed, strong emotions can follow.

    I’ve been making an effort, publicly and privately, to be positive and try to help others accomplish what they want, regardless of how I feel. In an effort to lift people, I have been working on being positive, and asking questions if there is something I might not like or agree with. I’ll let someone educate me before we debate.

    It feels better to approach things online this way.

  • Daily Coping 1 Feb 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 plan something fun and invite others to join you.

    My nephew turned 18 recently. He lives on the East Coast, but in talking with my brother, we decided to give him a ski trip for the occasion. I donated our place in the mountains, and his dad is sending him out in a few weeks.

    In planning this, I thought it would be fun for a day if I went skiing with him and I invited my wife and the one son here in CO to go. They’re thinking about it, and I’m not sure they’ll go, but it’s a good event to plan and enjoy.

  • Self-Care–Using Vacation

    I spent most of my work as a bit of a workaholic. Not that I worked too many crazy hours or spent all my time at work, because I didn’t. I had some rough stretches, but I’ve mostly worked 45-50 hours a week for the majority of my career, in all positions.

    However, I struggled to take vacation. In fact, I rarely took more than a few days. Even now, after about 4 days I’m usually ready to go back to work. I am trying to do better, but it’s hard. Or maybe it’s a sign I have a great job and love what I do.

    In any case, I’m trying to be better in a different way. My family enjoys winter, and while travel is restricted in a variety of ways, we do have season passes for the Colorado mountains and a place up there. We usually rent it out, but there haven’t been any since last year. That might start changing, but for the time being, we’ve tried to take advantage of the space.

    We took a couple trips up there in December, and one a couple weeks ago. We’re back up this week for a few more days, and I’ve even lent it out to my nephew in a few weeks (though I may come up for a day). No long trips, but I’m trying to take them regularly and get away.

    See you later this week.

  • Goal Progress–Jan 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

    I think I’m making some progress, but perhaps not as much as I’d like. I started this post last week, but with Redgate buying the PASS assets, this week has been almost a loss for anything work or career related.

    Reading

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

    Technical Skills

    I’m solving the Advent of Code three times.  I’m also studying for certification.

    • Certification –  AZ-900 – 0%
    • Certification – DP-200 – 0%
    • Skills – T-SQL – 2020 Advent of Code – 4/25
    • Skills – Python – 2020 Advent of Code – 1/25
    • Skills – PowerShell – 2020 Advent of Code – 0/25
    • Skills – TBD

    Projects

    I had a few projects for myself. Most of January was supporting SQL Memorial as well as doing some SQL Saturday/Data Saturday stuff. So far things appear to be working fine.

    • Support events: submitted and approved some PRs.
    • Speak at the 3 local user groups, at least one live presentation
    • Help organize a Denver/Colorado event, live or virtual
    • Complete my Power BI Volleyball report – I know lots of kids will use this, so I need to get it done – 20%
    • SQL Memorial – 80% – This is mostly done, but working on some networking changes. I also need to move the repo out of my personal account, but this also entails pipeline changes, possibly security issues with hosting, etc.