Voice of the DBA

Tag: syndicated

Living a Dream

It was a little over a year ago that I stood on stage at the Rocky Mountain Tech Trifecta and gave a keynote speech in which I said these words:

“My wife works in the mobility/cellular phone industry right now, but she really wants to train horses for a living. In the short term, which might be the next few years, she’s a little "stuck" in her current job. However we spend time and money every year improving her skills, and I support her in doing the "professional development" she needs to do in order to be a horse trainer some day. I know she’ll get there at some point, and I am sure she’ll be ready for her next career with all the work and training she is doing now.”

As I write this today, my wife is finishing her last day of work in corporate America. She resigned a month ago, and today, May 4th, is her last day working for her company. She had a farewell dinner with her boss last night. She is packing up her equipment and shipping it back. She’s having final calls with co-workers and saying good-bye.

Her dream has been to work with horses for a living. She has been working part time for years boarding and training horses and people to work with them, and we’ve been working for years to try and adjust our life so she could work on her dream full time.

That starts tonight, as one job ends and she commits to building her business full time, and with a passion that amazes me. I have no doubt this will be a success for her, and for our family.

We know there will be an adjustment, and finances will get tighter, but we all think it’s a trade that is worth making. Life is short, very short, and you only get to live it once. We have lost a number of friends in the last year, all too young to leave this Earth, and it’s helped to make us realize that it’s important we don’t delay this change any longer than we need to, even if it’s uncomfortable.

Life is short, but we never know how short it will be for each of us. Any of us could leave this life at any time. Remember that each day, as you choose your path in life.

May 4, 2012
Patience

Update: This is confirmed by Snopes.

A NYC Taxi driver wrote:

I arrived at the address and honked the horn. After waiting a few minutes I honked again. Since this was going to be my last ride of my shift I thought about just driving away, but instead I put the car in park and walked up to the door and knocked.. ‘Just a minute’, answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor.

After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 90’s stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940’s movie.

By her side was a small nylon suitcase. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets.

There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard
box filled with photos and glassware.

‘Would you carry my bag out to the car?’ she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman.

She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb.

She kept thanking me for my kindness. ‘It’s nothing’, I told her.. ‘I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother to be treated.’

‘Oh, you’re such a good boy, she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address and then asked, ‘Could you drive
through downtown?’

‘It’s not the shortest way,’ I answered quickly..

‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘I’m in no hurry. I’m on my way to a hospice.

I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. ‘I don’t have any family left,’ she continued in a soft voice..’The doctor says I don’t have very long.’ I quietly reached over and shut off the meter.

‘What route would you like me to take?’ I asked.

For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator.

We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl.

Sometimes she’d ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.

As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, ‘I’m tired.Let’s go now’.
We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico.

Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move.
They must have been expecting her.

I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair.

‘How much do I owe you?’ She asked, reaching into her purse.

‘Nothing,’ I said

‘You have to make a living,’ she answered.

‘There are other passengers,’ I responded.

Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug.She held onto me tightly.

‘You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim morning light.. Behind me, a door shut.It was the sound of the closing of a life..

I didn’t pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly lost in thought. For the rest of that day,I could hardly talk.What if that woman had gotten an angry driver,or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away?

On a quick review, I don’t think that I have done anything more important in my life.

We’re conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments.

But great moments often catch us unaware-beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.

==========

I saw this on Facebook, no attribution. I’m not sure it’s a real story, meaning true, but it’s a great one. One that makes me think about life, and how short it can be.

May 3, 2012
Creating a Sequence in SQL Server 2012
Sequences are a new object in SQL Server 2012 that generate just what the name implies: a sequence of numbers.

To create a sequence, you use standard DDL with the CREATE SEQUENCE command. This command takes a type, a starting value, a min, max, and a few other parameters. You can read about the meanings of the parameters in Books Online, and learn how to use the parameters.

When I first head about sequences, I thought this was neat, but not terribly useful. The idea of a custom sequence seems more like an edge case. However the more I’ve looked at them, the more it starts to make some sense.

Let’s look at a real world example where we use a sequence since we often use these as a basis for some computer algorithm. Suppose I have a group of kids and I need to assign them to groups. In the real world, we line up the kids and we have them count off to some number. It’s often “1”, “2”, “1”, “2”, but it could be something else. In a youth group a few years ago, we counted off into 5 groups to divide the kids up.

In this case, suppose I have kids and I want to get them into these groups:

In order to get that in T-SQL, it can be cumbersome, especially if there isn’t a data point that cycles things, but rather a set counter. Here I can create a simple sequence:
```
create sequence RoundRobin
 Start with 1
 increment by 1
  minvalue 1
  maxvalue 3
 cycle
;
```
I have 10 rows in my table, being the list of kids:
```
create table Kids
( Kid varchar(10)
)
go
insert Kids
 values
  ('Emma')
, ('Tabitha')
, ('Kendall')
, ('Delaney')
, ('Kyle')
, ('Jessica')
, ('Josh')
, ('Kirsten')
, ('Amanda')
, ('Jimmy')
;
go
```
To integrate the sequence, I do this:
```
select
  'Group' = next value for dbo.RoundRobin
, Kid
 from Kids
;
```
That returns the results above.

It’s not necessarily a common solution, but there might be places where you want custom counters, perhaps counting by a certain value. Suppose you want to alternate counters among two different people in a table. An identity doesn’t allow this, but you could set up two sequences, say one for even numbers, and one for odd numbers, and let each person use the appropriate sequence for inserts.

Sequences are simple, but they can be useful in some cases. I’ll write a bit more about a few gotchas I’ve run into with sequences soon.
May 1, 2012
Less Energy through Better Design

When I attended SQL Saturday #131 at the Chandler Gilbert Community College, I was struck by a few design elements that I thought were great examples of how a little thought can improve the experience of a space, and use less energy.

The event was outside Phoenix, which is hot. I mean really hot. It was 93F or so on the April day that I was in attendance, and it was expected to go over 100 the next weekend. A few local people told me that they really need to have fans in their houses to assist with the AC, otherwise they tend to dramatically shorten the life span of their units with the desert heat.

As I walked up, I noticed a few things. Lots of wide overhands and buildings placed in each other to shade courtyards. Many rooms opened from an outside wall, so less hallways to cool inside buildings. I’m not sure if this is good or bad, since cooling those rooms whose doors might open frequently might be worse than trying to cool hallways. I also didn’t’ see many airlock structures, which is something we see more in cold climates.

The building above has a skin like structure outside of the main building, essentially shading the building itself. It reflects a lot of light, and at the same time, looks interesting. Not sure how the material costs compare with the energy costs, but I’ve seen this on a few buildings in the Middle East, so I’m guessing it’s a good trade-off.

The main student center, shown below, was like a glass garage. Each 10 or 12 foot wide section could roll up. I stood just outside one open door, and you can see another across on the left side of the picture. This was a pleasant building all day, even when it was over 90F. In the upper right, you can see a large ceiling fan. The blades on this had to be at least 10ft long, possibly longer. There were two in the space, but only one ran all day, even when there were close to 200 people eating lunch.

Here’s one of the courtyard structures.

Shaded, not completely so. Nice in the shade, definitely hot in the sun.

There also was an elevated walkway with a spiral art structure that would provide some, but not a lot of shade. I’m sure it makes things better, and it looks really nice. It was made of metal, with designs cut into it. Many of the railings and structures around the campus were metal, which holds up better in the sun. Most with artistic designs in them.

I’m sure many of you have seen hot air hand dryers in bathrooms before. This college had the newer Dyson dryers, which are supposed to be more efficient and cleaner for the air. However they had a few other things:

A few simple change (probably) to the toilets, but with this plaque, you have the choice to use less water for liquid waste. I hadn’t seen this before, but I’d hope that more buildings would implement something like this. It would be great for homes as well.

Many of the urinals in the Men’s bathroom were waterless. I’ve seen these before at various ski resorts. They get used a lot, but they don’t stink, and they’re a great idea everywhere, but especially in places like CO and AZ where the water supply is limited.

There were plaques describing structures all over. I think this is a great idea, because it helps people to understand there’s more to the design than architecture. These items were built to add useful space to the campus without adding to the energy bill.

There were all multi-language inspirational plaques and posts all over. This was one of the ones I passed, and I wish I’d walked around looking for more. I remember sayings like this on the grounds at Virginia, and they were always inspirational to me as I thought about all the people over time that had walked the path I was walking.

I’m a fan of alternative energy and sustainable practices. I don’t think we need to end our dependence of fossil fuels, but I do think we ought to try to better use our resources, especially when we can use design to do so.

I was impressed with what is being done at this college, and it shows some effort is being made to build a structure for the long term. Is it worth it? Are things working? I’d like to know both from an ROI standpoint and an energy standpoint what differences there are from other designs. I sent a note to the school, and we’ll see if they respond.

April 30, 2012