Voice of the DBA

Tag: goals

  • Goal Progress for Nov 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. A long trip for the Data Community Summit and then gone the last few days of the month. Gone from home for 12 days, so more than Oct.

    The conference was stressful and busy. It ate up a lot of time, with a lot of home time consumed with prep and stress. I have to get things scheduled and ready when I travel, so 10 days in the Pacific NW mean I need 12 days of stuff ready. Same for my Dec trip. I’m in the EU for 2 weeks, so a lot of prep.

    However, I made some progress in a few areas. I read a bit more, getting through some books. I also finished my coaching certification and spent a bunch of time on my Power BI Reports.

    I’m going to abandon the Habitat goal for this year. My health hasn’t been outstanding, and while I can try to fit one in, I’m unlikely to do well since I have been struggling a bit with my ankle. I’ll aim for 2023.

    Grade: B

    Here are the goals:

    Work

    Personal

    I managed to get my Power BI report hooked to Google Sheets. I also copied it over for 2023.

    • Link Google Sheets to Power BI – 100%
      – figured it out

    • Create Report – 90%  – I have a report working for all my metrics.
      A few tweaks needed

    • Create Dashboard – 90%  – Needs tweaking, but it’s there.
    • Get people using it – 10% – Got one asst coach looking at it.
    • Coaching certification – 100% – some downtime this month helped

    Community

    • Support the Colorado groups by speaking twice and helping get one event set up
      – 66%
      • 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%
      • DBA Fundamentals group
      • Toronto SSUG
      • SQL Saturdays in Jacksonville, New Jersey, LA, Denver, Boston, Toronto,  Oregon
    • Support SQL Saturdays – Help get 10 events run in 2022
      – 100%
      • We have had 15 run this year and 3 more scheduled
    • 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.

  • 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.

  • Goal Progress for June 2022

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

    Ugh, June was no bueno for life goals.

    In May, I was away from home for 18 days. In June, I was home for 12 days.

    Most by choice, a mix of work and personal trips, but across 7 trips, it was a disruption to my schedule and I find it hard to cope and focus on anything extra during those times.

    I’m lowering the grade because most things haven’t changed. Essentially I read a little and got a few more SQL Saturdays scheduled.

    Grade: C

    Here are the goals:

    Work

    • 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%
    • Feedback book – 100% – HIGHLY Recommended
    • Good Strategy/Bad Strategy – 48%

    Personal

    I made a slight alteration here. I didn’t try to hook up to Google Sheets, but instead pasted in some data and started to try and get this moving.

    • Link Google Sheets to Power BI – 0%
    • Create Report – 40%  – I have a report working for some of my metrics.
    • Create Dashboard – 20%  – A basic dashboard up, but need to decide on what to show here.
    • Get people using it – 0%

    Community

    • Support the Colorado groups by speaking twice and helping get one event set up
      – 40%
      • CO Springs event set up
      • Meeting with Denver SQL about an event
    • Speak at 3 other user groups outside of Colorado – 66%
      • Spoke at DBA Fundamentals group
      • Spoke at Toronto SSUG
    • Support SQL Saturdays – Help get 10 events run in 2022
      • I think we’re there. With the events coming online, there are 6 scheduled in H2, 3 that have run, and 3 more that are awaiting some detail to confirm. It looks like we’ll finish the year with 12, 10 of them in person.
    • Volunteer 4 days with Habitat – 0 days
      • Not happy about this. Now with a surgery, this will be delayed for a few months.

  • Updates from Coping Tips

    I’ve written a lot of coping tips now. Over two years worth (Mon-Fri) since the pandemic began. It’s become an interesting thing to do on a regular basis, making me re-evaluate life and think about how I live and interact with others.

    A few times I’ve planned something, and then had to follow through. This is an update on a few items.

    An Exercise Goal

    I set an exercise goal on 18 Apr to ride. My plan was to try and do more biking as I prepared for ankle surgery and then recover with some biking. In that time, I traveled a lot. I didn’t often have access to a stationary bike, or have time to rent one/find one on the road. I also still wanted to make sure I was weight lifting and practicing yoga.

    I started a challenge, giving myself 2+ months to ride 463km.

    I finished at 117km, out of the challenge of 419.5km. I was thinking I might get 3-4 days a week, around my other exercise, but I didn’t. Too many travel days, too much yoga, and really I rode the bike 10-15km before lifting. I think there might have been 3-4 dedicated bike days, but not enough.

    A learning experience for me. I don’t love biking enough, and now rehab is more focused on hiking than biking.

    Kindness

    I wrote about helping my wife with her work.  Essentially a glorified videographer and gofer, which worked out well. Since then, she’s asked me a couple times to do this again, and when my daughter returned from university, she’s used her in this role.

    This effort from me has become something she values, and repeats with other people.

    Another Culture

    My tip on learning about another culture was related to a trip to Belgium. My wife joined me and then we toured around Brussels and Bruge, with a few days in Antwerp where I worked and she toured.

    We asked people on the trip about some of the interests I’d learned about. A chocolatier spent 30 minutes with us educating us on chocolate and food. Another person gave us (too) many recommendations on good places to go eat.

    We also asked people about the art, and stopped to take photos and read (or lookup online) about art that we saw in various places.

    Glad we had read a little, but more, my wife and I decided we really love Belgium and look forward to going back.

    Values

    I wrote about values. I continue to remember those, especially as the world and my community struggle. I’ve had friends go through tragedies, the last month in the US (for some of us) has been very trying and upsetting. I have other people concerned about how our community and the annual Summit are going.

    In all this, I am striving to be positive and push forward, not lash out and complain. I am trying to understand and be compassionate for those that feel differently or are struggling.

    I am trying to persevere and keep my world moving forward.