Voice of the DBA

Tag: life

  • Daily Coping 4 Jan 2022

    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 set a career goal to focus on this year.

    I have to admit this one is hard. I’m in my 50s, near the end of my career. I honestly hope this is the last job that I have where I need to work. I hope I find things to keep my busy in retirement, which might be paid jobs, but I’m hoping this is my last full time, need a paycheck job.

    I do usually set some goals to help me keep working on myself, but seeing this as a “career goal” makes me think I ought to be more ambitious.

    I don’t worry or aim for too many technical skills, but I would like to get better at helping my employer do well. As a result, I’m going to set a goal this year to brush up on Oracle and learn about PostgreSQL. In doing this, I want some way to measure this, so here it is:

    • Set up a git repo with folders to SQL Server, Oracle, and PostgreSQL.
    • Create 3 pipelines that will CI changes for each platform.
    • Have a release pipeline to each platform, likely hitting a container somewhere for each platform.
    • Ensure that I can demo this and that I know enough Pl/SQL and pgsql that when I write T-SQL, I can duplicate it in the other languages.

    Not really a high bar, but something to work on this year.

  • Daily Coping 3 Jan 2022

    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 make a resolution that you can keep this month.

    Update: I wrote this before I went on holiday the last week of the year. However, I managed to tear a calf muscle and haven’t been able to do much. I’m going to need to delay this by a week and aim for Jan 10-Feb 10.

    I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions. I think often we pick things are too hard to sustain across a year. I typically set some goals, but don’t look to make major changes.

    However, focus is good, especially in this time of not really being in a familiar world. Many things are semi-normal for me, but plenty of things are not.

    I’m going to resolve to do two things. First, weekly calls back home to my Mom. I don’t do that enough.

    Second, I’m going to resolve to workout every day this month, barring injury. I like working out, and I find it keeps me feeling level headed. I’ve gotten close a few months, but I’m still often missing 7 or 8 days. I want to get back into the habit this month, knowing that I’ll miss some days, but hopefully less in 2022.

  • A Few #2021Wins

    It’s the end of the year. I’m on vacation, celebrating time with family now, but I wanted to write this post. I got a prompt from LinkedIn last week that said this:

    2021-12-22 14_21_39-Inbox - way0utwest@hotmail.com - Outlook

    I’m going to add this to an editorial and see what people might write next week, but for now, a few wins from me.

    Health – Given the state of the world and a pandemic, I think it’s a win that everyone in my family remained healthy in 2021.

    Travel – Despite the pandemic, I got to visit a new country, Belgium, and it was an amazing trip. Looking forward to going back.

    SQL Saturday – I convinced Andy Warren to run a SQL Saturday in Orlando, and it was the only in-person SQL Saturday in 2021. Easy to be disappointed there weren’t more, but happy there was one.

    Volleyball – A successful season, where we persevered and found ways to keep kids occupied. My team finished ahead of where we expected, winning 8 tournaments, getting into the top 30 in 3 national tournaments, and having extremely happy kids that wanted us to coach them again.

    Guitar – I felt like I improved a lot of skills here, really all through the pandemic, but as I’ve learned a few things, it was neat to hear my wife or kids recognize a song and sing along, even though I hadn’t told them what it was.

    Happy New Year!

  • Daily Coping 31 Dec 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 call a relative who is far away to say hello and have a chat.

    Too easy for me, as I usually try to call my Mom every week or two.

    However, I did something different. I had sent a couple texts to my brother, and asked him for a call. He actually called me before I could do so, and we ended up chatting for a bit. I rarely see him or talk with him. He’s busier tham I am, and often hard to get ahold of, but it’s nice to catch up and talk a bit.

    Looking forward to when I can get back to the East Coast and see him.