Voice of the DBA

Tag: syndicated

  • Daily Coping 13 Sep 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 focus on the basics, eat well, exercise, get rest.

    Easy coping tips for me, for the most part, and something I do often. I make exercise a priority, and often am happy to go to bed early to get rest. I try to eat well, though I sometimes indulge myself too often as food comforts me.

    However, with just 3 of us at home, and my wife being a little more careful with eating, I have been tailoring my cooking to be healthier. Shrimp Kabobs a couple nights ago, after a salad for lunch and a couple protein bars to get me through the day. A little yoga on a break from work, and no late nights.

    Taking care of my physical self helps the rest of my cope on many, many days.

  • Goal Progress for August 2021

    I set goals at the beginning of the year, and I’m tracking my progress in these updates during 2021.

    I’m late in putting this out, but here goes.

    Current Grade: C-

    I left the grade the same, as I’ve made some progress, but not much. Time is running out, I’m getting busy, and I realize I didn’t do a good job really thinking of the workload this year. I’ll review this next month.

    Reading

    The goal was 4 books (3 non-fiction, 1 tech).  I finished one in early July, and found a few more to add to the list. I haven’t been sure what to read, but I found a few career books. Now I need to find a tech book for the second half of the year.

    Here’s the current progress:

    No book review, so that’s a failure.

    I am enjoying the GE book, as I thought I would work there at one point. It’s interesting, mostly from a business and finance perspective, but I like thinking about this from a business point of view.

    Technical Skills

    You can read about these goals in my yearly post (linked above), but for now, no change.

    That’s not great.

    Projects

    No real project work here in August. I did speak to a couple user groups, and I guess I helped them move forward with a hybrid meeting.  I’m calling the UG one half done, as one group is dead for now.

    • SQL Saturday Inc – 90%. We own the trademark!
    • Support events: Minor calls here.
    • Speak at the 3 local user groups, at least one live presentation – 50%
    • Help organize a Denver/Colorado event, live or virtual – 50% (more conversations)
    • Complete my Power BI Volleyball report – I know lots of kids will use this, so I need to get it done – 70%
    • SQL Memorial – 90% – I updated this, sadly, as someone passed. I need to move this to straight GitHub Pages and get the custom domain set.

  • Daily Coping 10 Sep 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 plan a fun or relaxing activity and make time for it.

    This was something I did this week, and it was a nice break. Typically I work hard on the weekends, tackling lots of chores. This past weekend I had to dissemble a winch to get it working again, cut grass, measure some things, clean manure out of sheds, and more. I was way more tired going into Sunday night than I was on Friday night as work ended.

    Monday was a holiday, though my wife had things scheduled, as did a kid and his partner. However, they could all get Tuesday off. Since I tend to work semi-disconnected often, I traded Tuesday for Monday, worked during Labor Day, and then had plans Tuesday.

    Our plans were a hike up the Manitou Springs Incline, which I’ve done before. I didn’t expect to get up this time, at least not anywhere near as quickly as the others. My plan was to enjoy the drive down, start up with them, and likely about halfway duck into the down trail and meet them at the bottom. These old knees don’t like stairs as much anymore.

    Things worked out well, I enjoyed time with them, got some alone time when they kept going, and then we had a nice fun meal afterwards, which doesn’t happen often enough.

    Glad we made the time for this.

  • Daily Coping 9 Sep 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 forgive yourself when things go wrong. Everyone makes mistakes.

    This week has been a number of tips related to emotional growth, and this is one of them. It’s especially close to my heart right now.

    Recently I got annoyed with my wife and snapped at her a bit. I played the childish “you do this, too” when she complained. We were mad for day or two, and then made up, but really, I was wrong. I let myself get upset over nothing, and then continued to let things grow, when I didn’t contain my emotions.

    Perhaps worse, once we’d decided to talk again, I was beating myself up a bit for a couple days, which isn’t something I should do. That continues to make the issue about myself, and it isn’t helpful for me growing and learning how to better be in a relationship.

    I thought about things a bit, I read a bit, and I’m working to let my mistakes go here, and at the same time try to avoid repeating them again.