Tag: syndicated

I’ve 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.

Today’s tip is to recall three things you’ve done that you are really proud of.

The Snowboarding Investment

I started snowboarding before I had kids. I got pretty good, and I’ve enjoyed going fast, avoiding breaks, and making the most of the time I have on the slopes. As my kids grew up, we started all of them on skis, and in ski school. Expensive, but it allowed them to learn from someone that wasn’t a parent and it allowed my and my wife to continue to enjoy ourselves. As they learned, we enjoyed them learning to keep up with us.

For my younger two, they wanted to start snowboarding relatively quickly after learning to keep up with us adults on skis. Rather than do more ski school, I took the time to work each each of them. My son was older, 11 or 12, when he wanted to switch, but taking days to teach him meant I was really on the beginner slopes with him, not having a fun day.

It took the 4-5 days at the end of one season and 2-3 at the beginning of the next to get him to the point where we could progress to a continuous run down Keystone or Copper mountain.

My daughter started younger, which was harder. She was barely on skis when she say her brother snowboarding and wanted to try.

This was many more days, often family days where I would spend half the day walking alongside her, or holding her balanced and helping her learn how to move down the slopes.

I had to put aside fun times to invest in them. It’s paid dividends over the years, and I’ve had great times with them on the slopes. I’m really proud of spending the time to teach them and then watching them grow and learn to love sliding down the mountain.

Ranch Improvements

We moved to a horse ranch about 15 years ago, and my wife started full time teaching about 10 years ago. As she’s tried to experiment with her skills as a horse whisperer, she’s asked me to help build things to help her better care for horses.

She gave me the challenge of building slow feeders years ago, and I spent some trying different designs and building her feeders that work well for her purposes. Here is one of the early designs. Hint, plywood doesn’t work well over time.

 

Some have now been in service over a decade, and I’ve built quite a few more. We have 13 in use and 2 spares now. Recently, she also got the idea that she wanted a horse back scratcher, so I figured out how to do this.

SQLServerCentral

It wasn’t my idea. Credit goes to Brian Knight for the idea and helping bring the founders together. Over the years, a lot of the site has grown and evolved because of me. I was the founder that was able to work for the company full time, I started the editorials, and I’ve been the face of the site for many years.

I remember crossing 1 million posts, 1 million subscribers, publishing books and a magazine, hosting parties at the PASS Summit, and getting the chance to meet many of you in person over the years have been highlights.

Hearing many of you tell me that the site has helped you in your career, has solved a problem, or inspired you in some way are immensely gratifying to me. I can’t tell you how much I’ve appreciated the kind words and comments from many people over the years.

I’m grateful to Redgate for allowing me to continue to steward the site as the Editor in Chief, and this has been one of the things I’m most proud of in my career.

I’ve 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.

Today’s tip is to do something special today and revisit it in your memory tonight.

I’m going to pick something that I did a few weeks ago, but it was special to me. That night it was something I revisited, and even today, I’ve rethought about it a few times.

In graduate school, I rowed crew. For a year I was in an 8 man boat before I left to start my career and switching to a 4 man boat with some other older professionals. For three years, I rowed 3-4 times a week, mostly on the water. In the winter, I used a Concept 2 ergometer in the gym, and eventually bought one for home.

Rowing was the hardest sport I’ve ever been involved in. It’s hard, and tiny changes across every stroke add up to big changes across thousands of meters. I was in the best shape of my life when rowing every week. Over time, I used the machine less and less and it became a basement decoration.

During the last year, I’ve regularly gone to the gym for yoga, swimming, and weight lifting. I have used a stationary bike at home when I’m pressed for time. I used it during the initial weeks of the pandemic, but I wasn’t getting quite enough work in. I saw a few friends on Instagram and Facebook had been rowing regularly and even started a rowing challenge. 10k a day average for May. Do 9k one day, need to do 11k the next.

I’d never rowed 10k on land in one sitting, topping out at 5k most of the time in my sessions. I started rowing again a couple times a week, trying to force myself to work harder. I did some 3ks, then some 5ks, and even tried some countdowns from 30:00 minutes (usually getting in about 6700m).

One day I decided to take some advice from a friend and not aim for my old 2:00/500m pace from college. I’d been struggling with 2:03-2:05 paces mentally, and someone suggested I try pulling a 2:20/500m instead. I tried it, but after a few minutes, I was struggling to go that slow. Instead, I found a 2:08 pace was fine, and I switched after a couple minutes to a 2:10/500m goal. That’s easy to mentally compute on my 25 year old pace tracker.

As I went along, I got to 5k at a bit over 20 minutes and I decided to push further. I kept the pace, only slowing slightly as I got to 7k, then 8k, then 9k. I finished with a bit over 10k.

A personal best, a lifetime best, and something that felt very daunting to me. I haven’t gone 10k again, but the 5k rows have been easier. I’ll do another 10k again soon, with more confidence than I had the first time.

I’ve 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.

Today’s tip is to share an inspiring quote with others to give them a boost.

I love quotes. One of the things I’ve been doing across the last year is not to just wish someone a Happy Birthday online, but find a quote that I think applies to them and gift it to them.

There are some quotes I used often. Amazon once sent me a bookmark (when those mattered) with the quote “A room without books is like a body without a soul.” I love reading, and that one stays with me. Not very inspiring, but memorable. These days my books live in my mobile.

Hope for the best, plan for the worst, from a Lee Child series, is one I always think about, but really that’s not inspiring either.

When I think about inspiring someone, especially my kids or the kids I coach, I think about what has helped me in life. I’m certainly a grinder, someone that plods along and works hard. I’ve never been afraid of hard work, sometimes working too much. I’m not the smartest, or the quickest, but I do get things done.

One quote that stands out to me is this: 千里之行，始於足下

which is probably more familiar to you as: a journey of a thousand Chinese miles starts beneath one’s feet.

I try to move forward. I have learned to relax and stop working, especially outside of work hours. I’ve learned to flex my schedule, taking care of things when needed, but also meeting the milestones and deadlines for my commitments at work. I’ve also learned to work across time, not being discouraged by a lack of progress today or daunted by a large undertaking.

At least at work. I’ve gotten good there. In the rest of my life, I’m still learning, which is why this quote is something that inspires me. Hopefully this inspires you as well.