Voice of the DBA

Tag: life

  • The Importance of Our Work

    My wife has often uttered a particular saying during stressful times in her career. She spent 20 years working in computer telephony and speech, often in sales, and would remind her colleagues that they “weren’t saving babies” as they worked with customers.

    It was a reminder that most of our work isn’t, ultimately, that critical to the world. It matters for our businesses to success, for our careers to move forward, but most of the time we should keep some perspective on the value of the time we spend at work versus the rest of our lives.

    I ran across that saying recently in a post from Scott Hanselman, and like him, I’ll apologize if your work is actually affecting life. If so, I agree with Mr. Hanselman, make sure you have unit tests. Lots of them.

    However for most of us, we’re trying to improve commerce in some way. A few of us work for non-profits or the government and hopefully are trying to make the workings of that organization more efficient.  Some of us might be building systems using open data to improve society in some way. No matter what you do, remember that there is some life outside of technology.

    Remember to spend time with your family, with friends, even taking care of yourself. Not only is it healthy to get away from work, it can help refresh you and give you a new perspective on the work you do. Work is important, but keep your efforts in perspective.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.0MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn. feed

  • RIP, Mr. Nimoy

    I’ve got a lot of memories of Mr. Spock. Played by Leonard Nimoy in the iconic Star Trek series. I grew up watching him, and enjoying his character. While I liked Scotty, I think Spock might have been my favorite of the main characters.

    nimoy_old

    He died today at 83, which I should have expected at some point, but after seeing him in the latest Star Trek movies, I thought he might live for quite some time. It’s a huge reminder of my own mortality as I see more and more people I’ve known, or enjoyed, for most of my life.

    A sad day indeed, but I’ll have many, many fond memories of Mr. Nimoy in the years to come.

    leonard_nimoy_young

  • Lemonade and Life

    I’ve got a torn ACL. I found out yesterday at a visit with a surgeon that gave me the results of his exam and an MRI I had last week.

    Don’t feel too bad for me. I’ve had this for (I’m guessing) eleven years. In that time I’ve

    • run every day for over 4 years,
    • studied karate for 5 years and earned a black belt
    • snowboarded over 150 days
    • played 6 seasons of baseball at all positions outside of pitcher/catcher
    • played volleyball
    • practiced yoga and Pilates
    • picked up and carried my kids plenty of times
    • played weekly volleyball for over a year.

    I’ve done plenty more and felt fairly normal. The knee has been slightly unstable at times, but I’ve just limited, not eliminated, activity.

    I need to get this fixed. It’s becoming a problem, and it aches fairly constantly. It also limits my ability to engage in some activities that I think are important for my long term health. Not having an ACL also potentially means that I am hastening future issues as I age. It’s a fairly routine and simple surgery, and I should be walking on my own inside a week. The downside is that I can’t fly for 4 weeks afterwards because of potential blood clot issues.

    This means I need a 4 week hole in my schedule, which can be hard to find. I may cancel or miss some events, and I’ll apologize in advance now. I’ll give as much notice as possible, but something will have to give, and it will likely be in the Apr/May/June time frame.

    Let’s be clear. I’m not complaining here. My life is amazing and I couldn’t ask for things to be going better. This is, at worst, a minor hassle in my life. Surgery is dangerous, and there could be complications, and I’ll lose a few weeks of activity, but that’s a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things. I’ll get this fixed and move on.

    Life does throw issues at you. Many of you have had much worse situations than this minor injury. I’ve had worse things for sure, and I try to remember that the trials and troubles I face are a part of life. I can let them get me down, and sometimes they do, but I can also look past them and remember all the good in life I’ve had, and look forward to the good things I’ll find later.

     

  • Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

    No matter what you celebrate today, I hope you have a wonderful day.