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PASS Summit 2012, Join Me!
With only a week before SQL Rally in Dallas, there has been quite a bit of excitement and commentary in the twitterverse and blogosphere. However, I cannot attend due to other commitments. With all the excitement in the air, I cannot contain my excitement for the PASS Summit in November. I have never been able to attend the Summit in the past and I am not 100% sure that I will be able to attend this year, but the planets are lining up and there is a glimmer of hope for my first Summit conference. Sitting by last year and watching all of the action from the sidelines just about drove me nuts. Here it is six months away and I have already scoped out the hotels in the area, looked around via Google’s man on the street, and my wife is even thinking about tagging along (I think just so she can see those flying fish at the market, no wait that is just me).
I have been to Seattle once before in my youth for the National Mu Alpha Theta math competition. It was there that my skills in advanced math were not as worldly as I thought, even though I placed (no I can’t remember but I think third place) in the state of Florida. But, many schools from Florida and Alabama dominated the competition awards, interesting as I am sure most of the world does not think of Alabama and Florida as math powerhouses but in the late 80s when those respective states were battling neck and neck for last place in education those two states were advanced math geniuses, but I digress.
I know I won’t be able to take another tour of the King Dome and I wonder what else has changed since grunge and coffee took over that beautiful and friendly city some 25 years ago. I wonder if I should ask someone at the hotel if I could walk to Mt. Ranier and have them laugh at me just for old times sake. I am also excited about riding the monorail on the awesome two block journey. Do they still have the theme park at the needle? Maybe I can cross another item off my bucket list: touring Forks and seeing all of the Twilight scenery in person (really just kidding on that one LOL).
Don’t get me wrong, I want to see SQLChicken do his gorilla impression and participate in SQLKaraoke. I want to soak up all that is SQLAwesomeness and bask in the MCM and MVP glory that is PASS Summit 2012. Won’t you join me?
Shaping this Blog
Into my fourth month of daily blogging and I find myself, scouring the blog stats and comments looking for trends. Should this matter? One friend told me just write the blog and do not care whether anyone reads it. Well actually I think he said do not worry if no one reads it. After moving past the 100 mark on the blog count, I wonder how many of the more seasoned bloggers worry about their comments or statistics?
Sometimes I find myself trying to duplicate successfully viewed blog posts and that can be a difficult thing to do. After carefully studying all of the trends in my blog, I realized that the days that I had more views were not necessarily better blog posts, but they were tagged with the #SQLPASS hashtag, meaning simply that more people were exposed to the message. However, with etiquette in mind, I cannot simply add that hash tag to every blog post if it does not apply to SQL PASS. Maybe all this is much ado about nothing. Maybe I should just write the post and move on.
All of this boils down to my desire to be a better blogger, to share more information, and ultimately become an MVP. It’s a long road, but well worth the journey. Thanks for taking the road with me. Enjoy!
Motivation…What Motivates You?
What motivates you? Do you get excited about going to work everyday? If not, then why?
Are there certain things about your job that make it less than desirable? Do you enjoy the work you do, just not the people you work with?
What motivates you?
Everyone always says that making more money does not always make employees happier, although I have found that most of the people who say that generally make considerably more than you. It is similar to wealthy people who say that money does not buy happiness. Are you kidding me? Money can buy you a jet ski and who is not happy on a jet ski? Of course that is an exaggeration, but making more money is not about being happy, it is about being able to provide for you family, save for retirement and provide some leisure activity.
Everyone will agree that it is hard to be happy when you cannot provide for your basic needs. I also understand that your needs adjust when you make more money, but increases in salary tells the employee that his productivity is valuable to the employer. There must also be an appreciation for your services.
None of that should motivate you, of course save the appreciation. Your happiness should be of your own doing. No matter what your situation, being happy is a choice. I choose to be happy, what do you choose? Enjoy!
Two Months Strong!
Wow March is here already. It seems like only two months ago I was laying out an aggressive Personal Development Plan. To date, the thing that I am most proud about is the daily blogging. it has become second nature at this point. Over the years, I have created a few blogs and always felt like I ran out of things to say, I really didn’t place a priority on the medium, until now.
What do you think about the blog? Please let me know, thanks. Enjoy and have a wonderful weekend!
What Do You Wanna Be When You Grow Up?
When my teenagers were younger, I would often ask them this question and then I would ask their friends. The answers were amazing. I continued to ask them as they got older and the answers generally got better, more detailed. They were full of hope and promise. They were invincible.
I’ve asked this questions to my colleagues. Their answers aren’t generally as exciting and usually lacking in the hope department. When did we stop dreaming? When did we lose that dream we had as a five-year old?
Don’t ever stop dreaming. Make a list of goals. Create a personal development plan. Capture that magic you had as a five-year old! Enjoy!
Make the Time!
Learning SQL Server can be a full-time job. I hear from people in the IT community all the time that say they would love to learn SQL Server or some other cool technology….wait a minute, there is no other cool technology so strike that last comment. The response I give to them is simple: MAKE THE TIME!
If you want to remain gainfully employed it is necessary to take a proactive approach to continuing education. You cannot avoid doing this on your own, unless your employer sends you to several training classes every year. I love going to training classes! There I said it, I love training! On a routine basis, I beg my employer to send me to training and not just because I enjoy travel and hotel living. I love training classes! MAKE THE TIME!
In order to become a better DBA or programmer, you are going to need to spend time outside of work learning about SQL Server either through SQL Saturday, Code Camps, blogging or tweeting! MAKE THE TIME!
Enjoy!
Goals Updated
We are almost a month into the new year and so far I am on track to complete my stated goals for the year. However, I know one item that will not be completed due to a constraint by VMWare to end testing on the VCP certification this month. Normally you have one year from the date of attendance in the VMWare course to sit for the test before you have to take the class again. That date for me was in March and given my current projects I will not be able to be prepared to sit for that exam by the end of the month. This is not a big deal because VMWare is not my primary career focus, it was just something I thought I could add to my resume.
It appears that I am going to be able to take Paul Randal and Kimberly Tripp’s Immersion training at the end of February, which is an incredible opportunity. Hopefully I will get to meet some other people in the #SQLFamily there.
The one goal that I am proudest of thus far is this blog. I thought it would be difficult to find something to write about everyday, however I have been able to keep writing everyday. It is getting easier every day. I am also trying to do one technical article each week. I will post updates as we go on this journey together. Enjoy!
Personal Development Plan Part Dos….
Having posted yesterday about my Personal Development Plan, I read a blog post from Neil Hambly regarding his 2012 goals. Now, I realize that my goals were somewhat vague and easy to worm out of. Here are the goals that I had mentioned yesterday:
- I want to dedicate time everyday to this blog and giving back to the SQL community that has helped me so much over the years.
- I want to continue to dedicate time to the SQL community in social media.
- I want to attend at least ten events this year consisting of SQL Saturdays, training, code camps, and possible SQL Rally and/or SQL PASS.
Let’s revise those goals to the following:
- I will post daily to this blog in order to give back to the SQL community that has helped me so much over the years.
- I will spend time daily helping people on twitter, SQL blogs, and various SQL-related websites such as SQL Server Central.
- I am setting a goal of 300 followers on Twitter which would double my existing followers for 2011.
- I will attend at least ten of the twelve Tampa Bay SQL Server User Group meetings.
- I will atend three to five other SQL User group meetings, such as the Tampa BI group or Orlando’s MagicPASS.
- I will attend every Tampa VMWare User Group meetings which occur quarterly.
- I will attend other events that interface with SQL Server or VMWare such as the Orlando IT Pro Camp scheduled for January 21, 2012.
- I will attend one Microsoft SQL training course this year, but I cannot say at this time what that course will be as that will depend upon my employer ;-). I would like to attend Course 2778a (Writing Queries Using Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Transact-SQL) and Course 6234 (Implementing and Maintaining Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services.
- I will attend every SQL Saturday offered in the Orlando, Tampa, and Jacksonville areas. I would also like to attend some others, if possible, within driving distance. I am already registered for SQL Saturday #110 in Tampa on March 10, 2012.
- I will volunteer to help with at least one SQL Saturday this year.
- I would like to attend SQL Rally in Dallas this year and I would definitely like to attend the SQL PASS Summit, but with one child in college this year and two more entering over the next two years, I may have to pass on this one for a couple of years until they are situated and my bank account returns to normal.
- I will continue to take at least one to two classes a semester online in order to complete my degree in Business Administration. All those Engineering and Computer Science classes I took 20 years ago are not relevant today and I would like to possibly return to consulting in five or ten years and that degree would be more beneficial in that long term goal.
- I will continue SQLAndy’s recommendation to meet at least three people at every SQL event. This is a great recommendation for networking. It is hard sometimes to break out of our introverted ways.
- I will attain my VMWare Certified Professional 4 certificate this year for VMWare.
- I would like to speak somewhere this year, my local SSUG, VMUG, or even a training session at work. I need to get over my fear of public speaking. 2012 is the year to step it up and take it to another level.
I think this is an adequate list on my second day of contemplation, but I will review this over the next week or so to decide if it is exhaustive. Stay tuned and enjoy!
SQL Swampland 