Voice of the DBA

Tag: syndicated

  • My Stats from 2022

    I wrote last week about my travel, 23 trips in 2022. However, I’ve been gathering some other stats about my life and what I do, so I wanted to share a few of them here.

    Music

    I mostly listen to music on Spotify these days. One thing I loved are the Spotify wrapped updates at the end of the year. For 2022, I had these stats:

    Writing and Speaking

    It’s my job. A few stats:

    • Editorials written – 151
    • Coping Tips – 257
    • Speaking sessions delivered: 34 talks
    • Events: 19 events
    • Blog views – 74,000+
    • Visitors: 55k+

    Workouts

    Taking care of my health is important to me. I’ve always exercised regularly, and at one point I ran every day of the year for a few years. I’ve relaxed a bit, and settled into more of a routine. I miss a few days and I don’t stress about it, but I make my best effort to work by body a bit most days.

    Stats from 2022. I might have missed some, but these are the gross totals. This adds up to more than 365 since I do two things some days. A lot of weight days have cycline or walking or something as a warm-up

    • Yoga: 89
    • Cycling (indoor and outdoor): 84
    • Weights 63
    • Walking 22
    • Elliptical: 22
    • Swimming: 14
    • Cardio classes: 2
    • Rowing: 2

    Total workout days: 232

    The total days is low for me, 232, which is 63% of the year. My aim is 75% of the days, but I had ankle surgery this year, which threw me off for a month, and I spent way too much time on the road with travel and missed working out some of those days.

    Driving

    I don’t know exactly how much I drove, but the Tesla give me some stats and I’ve been tracking a few. For the Tesla,  show about 17k miles this year, which is mostly me. For all the times my wife might drive (or the kids), likely I put miles on the X5 or Suburban (or a few in the Ram 3500), so this is not a bad set of mileage for me.

    I also got to drive in two countries and a few states. Rough stats:

    • Miles driven 17,000
    • Countries: 2 (US and Portugal)
    • States: 5 (Colorado, New York, California, Florida, Nevada)
    • Top driving locations from the Tesla: Lifetime Fitness (135), Safeway (98), and a local gas station (89). Yes, I have a diet soda addiction.

    Reading

    I spend a lot of time reading books. They are an escape for me from life, and a way to improve myself. In 2022, I finished

    • 101 books
    • 35000+ pages
    • Avg. screen time on Kindle app for Dec: 10 hours/week

  • Daily Coping 26 Dec 2022

    Today’s coping tip is to see how many people you can smile at today.

    Easy one for me. I find this makes me happier and my day better when I smile at people.

    Wave, too. Even in big cities as I travel the world, a smile, a wave, and often I get the same in return.

    Try it.

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQL Server Central 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.

  • A Big Year for Travel

    I do tend to travel a good amount as my kids have gotten older. The pandemic slowed things for a year, but only then. Someone remarked on this year being a lot of trips, and it has been. Not the most ever, but the most fun ever.

    I decided to look at the travel numbers for the last few years, and see how this compares. Here are my trip numbers, for both business and personal, as best as I can tell.

    • 2013- 18
    • 2014 -17
    • 2015 – 17
    • 2016 – 16
    • 2017 – 15
    • 2018 – 20
    • 2019 – 23
    • 2020 – 1 (Las Vegas for my wife’s birthday, as the pandemic was starting)
    • 2021 – 11
    • 2022 – 23

    Looking at this, 2022 ties the biggest year, but it didn’t feel as bad as 2013-2105.I don’t have exact numbers, but I know I was closer to 30 trips those years and felt more burned out.

    I think because we have some fantastic vacations (Bruge, Hawaii, Venice, Lisbon) plus 3 volleyball trips and 3 trips to see my daughter in college.

    Hopefully 2023 will turn out to be just as big and exciting with more places that we’ll visit and enjoy.

  • Daily Coping 23 Dec 2022

    Today’s coping tip is to be generous. Feed someone with food, love, or kindness today

    It’s often a family day today, as work ends and we prepare for Christmas. However, this year we invited over our volleyball team for a team building activity. We’re baking Christmas cookies and having some fun.

    I’m helping out, and I set out some snacks and appetizers while the cookies get assembled along with some small gifts for the kids.

    I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQL Server Central 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.