Voice of the DBA

Tag: syndicated

  • Goal Progress for June 2022

    I set goals at the beginning of the year, and I’m tracking my progress in these updates during 2022.

    Ugh, June was no bueno for life goals.

    In May, I was away from home for 18 days. In June, I was home for 12 days.

    Most by choice, a mix of work and personal trips, but across 7 trips, it was a disruption to my schedule and I find it hard to cope and focus on anything extra during those times.

    I’m lowering the grade because most things haven’t changed. Essentially I read a little and got a few more SQL Saturdays scheduled.

    Grade: C

    Here are the goals:

    Work

    • DP-900 – Passed
    • DP-300
      – Stated studying, practice tests around 80% correct, need to schedule
    • Demo with SQL Server – 20% – dev db set up, started on pipeline
    • Demo with PostgreSQL – 20% – Dev db set up
    • Demo with MySQL – 0%
    • Feedback book – 100% – HIGHLY Recommended
    • Good Strategy/Bad Strategy – 48%

    Personal

    I made a slight alteration here. I didn’t try to hook up to Google Sheets, but instead pasted in some data and started to try and get this moving.

    • Link Google Sheets to Power BI – 0%
    • Create Report – 40%  – I have a report working for some of my metrics.
    • Create Dashboard – 20%  – A basic dashboard up, but need to decide on what to show here.
    • Get people using it – 0%

    Community

    • Support the Colorado groups by speaking twice and helping get one event set up
      – 40%
      • CO Springs event set up
      • Meeting with Denver SQL about an event
    • Speak at 3 other user groups outside of Colorado – 66%
      • Spoke at DBA Fundamentals group
      • Spoke at Toronto SSUG
    • Support SQL Saturdays – Help get 10 events run in 2022
      • I think we’re there. With the events coming online, there are 6 scheduled in H2, 3 that have run, and 3 more that are awaiting some detail to confirm. It looks like we’ll finish the year with 12, 10 of them in person.
    • Volunteer 4 days with Habitat – 0 days
      • Not happy about this. Now with a surgery, this will be delayed for a few months.

  • Daily Coping 1 Jul 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 be kind to you. Do something that brings you joy.

    Following on yesterday’s tip, I’m going to do something for me. In fact, I’m going to sit around on the porch (assuming it isn’t raining), have a drink, and strum my guitar in the evening. Just create some music and watch the world.

  • Updates from Coping Tips

    I’ve written a lot of coping tips now. Over two years worth (Mon-Fri) since the pandemic began. It’s become an interesting thing to do on a regular basis, making me re-evaluate life and think about how I live and interact with others.

    A few times I’ve planned something, and then had to follow through. This is an update on a few items.

    An Exercise Goal

    I set an exercise goal on 18 Apr to ride. My plan was to try and do more biking as I prepared for ankle surgery and then recover with some biking. In that time, I traveled a lot. I didn’t often have access to a stationary bike, or have time to rent one/find one on the road. I also still wanted to make sure I was weight lifting and practicing yoga.

    I started a challenge, giving myself 2+ months to ride 463km.

    I finished at 117km, out of the challenge of 419.5km. I was thinking I might get 3-4 days a week, around my other exercise, but I didn’t. Too many travel days, too much yoga, and really I rode the bike 10-15km before lifting. I think there might have been 3-4 dedicated bike days, but not enough.

    A learning experience for me. I don’t love biking enough, and now rehab is more focused on hiking than biking.

    Kindness

    I wrote about helping my wife with her work.  Essentially a glorified videographer and gofer, which worked out well. Since then, she’s asked me a couple times to do this again, and when my daughter returned from university, she’s used her in this role.

    This effort from me has become something she values, and repeats with other people.

    Another Culture

    My tip on learning about another culture was related to a trip to Belgium. My wife joined me and then we toured around Brussels and Bruge, with a few days in Antwerp where I worked and she toured.

    We asked people on the trip about some of the interests I’d learned about. A chocolatier spent 30 minutes with us educating us on chocolate and food. Another person gave us (too) many recommendations on good places to go eat.

    We also asked people about the art, and stopped to take photos and read (or lookup online) about art that we saw in various places.

    Glad we had read a little, but more, my wife and I decided we really love Belgium and look forward to going back.

    Values

    I wrote about values. I continue to remember those, especially as the world and my community struggle. I’ve had friends go through tragedies, the last month in the US (for some of us) has been very trying and upsetting. I have other people concerned about how our community and the annual Summit are going.

    In all this, I am striving to be positive and push forward, not lash out and complain. I am trying to understand and be compassionate for those that feel differently or are struggling.

    I am trying to persevere and keep my world moving forward.

  • Daily Coping 30 Jun 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 time to do something playful, for the fun of it.

    I spend a lot of time getting things done. For work, around the ranch, cooking for the family, hitting the gym, etc. Often I’m too type A and too driven to be playful that often. I do have fun, especially at events and with friends.

    I’m going to have some fun this weekend. I’m going to plan a night out at the movies, with my wife and kids, just having some fun and not being at all productive. Something we used to do in the past and have gotten out of the habit of wasting a few hours and having some fun with my family.