Voice of the DBA

Tag: Humor

  • A Travel Milestone: Two Keystones

    I used to travel a lot. Last year I flew over 140,000 miles in the air, drive another 1000 or so on vacation, and visited numerous countries. It’s hectic and hard at times, but it is very enjoyable when my wife comes with me, which I plan on happening more and more.

    Not this year, but while I only have one plane flight this year, I’ve still gotten out and about a bit. In fact, I hit a travel milestone for myself recently. I was in two cities named Keystone inside of a week.

    Keystone, SD

    I’ve never been to Keystone, SD, but I’ve been close before. This is on the East side of Mount Rushmore, where I’ve been many times. We found a new campground there this year and drove up to Keystone one night for dinner. It was a great week where I was unwired and recharged with family.

    20200623_150149_HDR

    This was my daily view, watching my wife and daughter ride their horses.

    Keystone, CO

    Less than a week after we came back, I drove up to Keystone, CO. My wife and I own a condo near the ski resort there, and I went up to work for a few days while there was construction at my house. My wife joined me and we had a couple nice days over the weekend relaxing.

    This was my work environment.

    20200701_163854

    A Little Silly

    It’s a silly milestone, but when you like to travel, and you get to do it, you look for little things. This was interesting for me, unplanned, but a funny coincidence. I hadn’t known there was another Keystone within driving distance until late May. I hadn’t planned on going to our condo until a couple weeks before when we scheduled the construction work.

    It all worked out, and I was lucky to get two vacations in about two weeks in towns with the same name.

  • May the Force Be With You

    I’ve never done much more than give a passing smile when I see all the posts and notes about May 4th from geeks around the world. I was a huge Star Wars fan as a child, and the original is still probably the movie I’ve seen more times than any other. Life has moved on, and while I haven’t been a s big a fan as an adult, being shut in at home has me thinking about Star Wars today, and the good luck saying, “May the force be with you. Always.”

    I loved the original trilogy growing up, was disappointed, but slogged through the prequels with my oldest. I watched the Force Awakens in Cape Canaveral with my middle son in the theater after seeing SpaceX launch and successfully recover their first reusable rocket. We were both a little disappointed in that one, not from the effects and action, but more from the writing, which seemed to drag on.

    Since that time, I haven’t seen any of the other films in the theater. In fact, I’ve watched most of them on an airplane, traveling from one place to another. Since I’m not traveling now, I’m thinking to actually go re-watch some of these films on a larger screen, with better lighting. I’m hoping some immersion in a series of films will take my mind away from some of the stress and strangeness of the real world.

    I’m sure some of you are big fans to this day, some may not have seen all (or any) of the films. Today, as we start another work week, I’m taking a little break from the technical world I’ll spend most of the day in and looking at a fantastic, highly technologically advanced, geeky Star Wars universe. Do you have favorite films or technology? Any films or characters that stand out to you? I have to admit I was always a big fan of the land speeder, though the pod racing in The Phantom Menace was exiting to me.

    On this Star Wars day, with a world we might want to forget, share some Star Wars memories today.

    Steve Jones

     

  • The Car Game

    I started this on Facebook, privately with friends. I heard about it from one of them and liked it. I didn’t get many guesses, so I took a chance and posted on Twitter.

    Some good guesses, but I decided to drop it here as well. Leave a comment with your guess. Play along if you like and give me a trackback and I’ll take my guess.

    The Game

    The game is to list some cars you’ve owned in your life (or your family has) and add a fake one. List however many you want, include years if you’d like/

    Here’s my list. Use the number when guessing. I added more and included some years, where I knew them.

    1. 1988 Porsche 911
    2. 1991 Acura Integra
    3. 1977 Pontiac Bonneville
    4. 1980 Chevy Suburban
    5. 2004 Honda Odessey
    6. 1974 Porsche 914
    7. 1977 VW Scirocco
    8. 1990 Isuzu Trooper
    9. 1982 Saab 900
    10. 2007 Dodge Durango
    11. 2010 Chevy Silverado
    12. 2011 2500 Dodge Ram 3500
    13. 1991 Mercedes 240D
    14. 2007 Toyota Prius
    15. 2010 Toyota Prius
    16. Pontiac Station wagon
    17. Ford F250
    18. 1997 Isuzu Trooper
    19. 1984 Chrysler Town and Country
    20. Jeep Grand Cherokee
    21. 1980 Pontiac Bonneville
    22. Yukon XL
    23. 2001 Chevy Suburban
    24. 2004 Dodge Grand Caravan

  • Cursors Without Performance Penalties

    One of the very common ways that many developers learn to write code is through loops. Almost every language as some sort of FOR and WHILE looping structure. Many people build these in T-SQL, which often creates performance issues as the engine inefficiently deals with the RBAR (row by agonizing row) processing.

    That seems like it might change in the next version of SQL Server. There is an interesting research paper from the SQL Server team that explains how they are investigating a technique that will make decode the inner workings of any code that is inside a cursor and apply the work efficiently to any table operations. If this actually turns out to be true, then cursors in T-SQL might be like cursors in PL/SQL, where this is the preferred way to write code.

    Suddenly cursors will have no real performance penalty. If that’s the case, I suspect we’ll start to see lots of new refactored code in many organizations. Loops make sense and are easy to read. I don’t know that I’d change any existing code, but I’d consider changing new code. Do you feel the same way? I wonder how many of you would prefer writing loop based code as opposed to complex single statement SELECTs.

    I’m not sure when we’ll actually change our habits, and you probably agree if you clicked the link. Today is April 1, or April Fool’s Day, so this whole thing is completely fabricated. Hopefully you smiled and this helps you cope with the day a little better.

    Steve Jones

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