Voice of the DBA

Tag: life

  • Daily Coping 7 Apr 2020

    I’ve started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here.

    Today’s tip is to rediscover your favourite music that really lifts your spirits.

    I love music. It’s one reason I resisted the change from iOS to Android. The music experience is just better on iOS. If they had kept the headphone jack, I’d likely still use an iPhone today.

    I grew up listening to lots of music and playing some on guitar. I attended lots of concerts before I was 25. My first was Andy Gibb. My second was Kiss. I had varied interests.

    Over the years, I get into moods, and will listen to lots of one genre for a period before I change. My wife didn’t love the rap phase, dealt with a Pop phase well, and doesn’t quite love my retro 70s guitar phase now.

    When I’ve traveled often for work, I will usually pick an artist and download a few albums to play on the plane. No real plan, but I try to discover, or rediscover, music from someone. I’ve had trips where all I listened to was Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Bob Dylan, Journey, Common, Kanye, Prince, the Beatles, and others. I sometimes realize I never real heard something in the past and sometimes rediscover a new thing I like.

    Spotify is my preferred platform, and I decided to pick something I really liked in the past. For me, there was a year of high school where I really liked Duran Duran. I grabbed a few albums (old and new) and created a playlist. I put this on random and let it play. Alternately tapping my feet, singing along, and really enjoying old tunes, and discovering new ones.

    It was a welcome break from current life.

  • T-SQL Tuesday Live–7 Apr 2020

    Last week went a little crazy, and I learned something: don’t post a Zoom link on Twitter. My apologies to anyone that wanted to join and had things go sideways. It took me about five minutes to mute everyone and kick people off.

    We ended up having a great call with just 4 of us, and it was good to touch base and talk through some of the changes in the world.

    This week I’m going to continue with the call. We had very little technical discussion, and I’m going to skip a technical theme this week and stick with a general touch base, health check, and community connection focus. We’re going to try and keep things civil and interesting.

    To try and prevent any craziness, I’m going to put a password on the meeting. Those of you that are data professionals should be able to answer this question for the password: what is the name of the type of index that isn’t stored in a row store? Enter just the first part, lower case (Hint: ______store index).

    The meeting isn’t hotlinked on purpose, as it’s not a complete URL. Zoom security is a thing.

    Call Details:

  • Have You Made a Difference?

    On New Year’s Eve, I was reminiscing about the past decade. I started posting some pictures on Twitter from the past decade, which were really memories for me of what had happened in life. Later, I saw this tweet from the Pittsburgh Pirates, quoting the late Roberto Clemente, a renowned humanitarian. The quote is:

    “Any time you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and you don’t, then you are wasting your time on Earth.”

    The world is in a crisis. Whether you think we are over- or under-reacting, making good or bad choices, or anything else. The reality is that we are fighting a pandemic throughout most of the world, many of us are isolated at home with limited contact with others. Many people are struggling with health concerns, financial issues, job security, and other issues. It’s not just their own personal struggles, but the struggles of others can affect us. Loneliness is certainly a big issue for many, even those living with others and missing their routine.

    Have you made a difference during this time to others?

    It’s a simple question, but it’s one that weighs on my mind. I wish I were a medical professional and could volunteer. I wish I were trained as a first responder and could do something. I’d be happy to go move boxes or otherwise help people working long hours to help others. I’m somewhat upset and guilty because inaction and reducing the spread is more important than my feelings.

    I’ve tried to make a difference in a few ways, with the daily coping in the newsletter and my own blogging for the things I’m trying. I’ve hosted some video calls at T-SQL Tuesday live, just providing a space to touch base with friends and the rest of #sqlfamily. I’m proud my company is trying some things and reaching out the community, without an ulterior motive. Our CEO passionately asked that we do things for the community without regard to sales, customers, or any Redgate purpose other than giving back.

    This is a time to pull together and help others. Many are scared, many are worried, many are dismissive, but even more are struggling. What can you do to help someone else this week?

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

  • Daily Coping 6 Apr 2020

    I’ve started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here.

    Today’s Tip is to play a game that you enjoyed when you were younger.

    I have enjoyed lots of games, but my interests changed over time. Board games and card games as a kid, role playing and Dungeons and Dragons as a teenager, some computer role playing games later.

    Then when my middle son grew to 12 or so, we played Halo and Doom, going through the old DOS versions and getting through the more modern computer version. He even got me to buy a new video card for that one.

    These days I mostly play a few games with family, and those have been fun. We’ve acquired many over the years. Two that I enjoyed as a younger person were backgammon and Stratego. This past weekend, I challenged family members to a few games, mostly to just get my mind off other concerns and work.

    It was a nice break. I don’t know that I’ll look to do this every day, but I will look to play a few more games during the week to distract myself and break up our routine.