Q1 2011 Goals Update: Career Indecision Ahoy!

By Airborne Geek on April 5, 2011

I tossed around whether or not I wanted to make update posts like this one throughout the year. I can come up with arguments for both sides, and decided to not make a firm choice one way or the other: Basically, if something big has happened in the last quarter as it relates to the goals, then I’ll talk about it. If I’m bombing terribly, it will get saved for one big “look how much I suck” post at the end of the year. In this case, since things are a lot more muddy than I expected right now, I thought I would talk about it a little bit.

First, for a quick recap, here are the high-level things I’m after in 2011:

  • Pick a career direction
  • SQL-related travel
  • Do more experimentation/work with SQL at home
  • Read more
  • Keep the blog going at a decent rate
  • Ride the bicycle
  • Start flying again (this sort of depends on cash situation)

These were covered in my original Goals post, and the first one, career direction, was followed up with on T-SQL Tuesday #14. Lots of these build on each other, with almost everything being dependent on career direction, because of the way my personality works and related improvements that will (theoretically) bring.

On that note…

On picking a direction and sticking to it: Help, it’s dark and scary

Long story short, I still haven’t made a decision. This fails my goal of getting this done by the end of the first quarter. The BI option is starting to take shape, but it’s not turning out to be quite as cut-and-dried as I had thought it was going to be (of course).

There are a lot of moving parts here, with a lot to consider. I’m trying to work through this logically, but I’m not the best at things like this that don’t have clear answers. I’ve taken the steps of listing out pros and cons of each side, but honestly, neither option really stands out as better than the other one.

Going BI has the leg-up as being “what I’ve wanted to do since I was an Accidental DBA”, but even that is tempered: The only part of the MS BI stack we’ll be using long-term is Analysis Services. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always been really excited by SSAS and if I had to pick one totally new thing to learn in Data Land, SSAS and MDX would be it (I can count those two as one thing, right?). But that’s all we’re using. Its source Dimensional model will be on Oracle. Most of the source data will come from Oracle, as there’s not very much SQL Server.

I will learn a lot of platform-independent BI stuff, which would be great…Except, at the end of the day, I’m mostly a tool/platform guy, and this isn’t going to be a lot of my desired platform. I’m worried about causing problems for myself over the long-term.

I’m frustrated, which of course doesn’t help at all. I’ll talk more about this when it’s all done and over.

SQL Travel

Wellllll, there hasn’t been any. Should we have gone to SQL Saturday #70? Probably. Would it have been great to hang out with the cool kids at #67 the other weekend? Oh yeah. Is SQL Rally going to happen for us? Questionable.

But there is good news on this front: I think the dog sitter bit is worked out. This opens up the door a lot, and we’ve been eyeballing SQL Sat 77 in Pensacola and 75 in Columbus. I also just noticed that Birmingham’s date has been set & they’re going to be #81. That’s really close, too. Surely one of these three will fit on the schedule & in the budget.

That’s pretty much it. I know, not much progress, and a bit of outright failure. Spring is here, though, and that means a generally better mood; almost guarantees more progress.

Posted in , , Tagged 2 Comments

Meme Monday #1: Spooky Asparagus

By Airborne Geek on April 4, 2011

See Thomas’s post here for what on earth is going on.

After work, distracted by asparagus, forgot scheduled duties—coworkers left hanging 🙁

Spooky Asparagus

When you’re not paying attention and don’t see this until you’re about 3 feet away from it, it scares the crap out of you.

I’m pretty sure I only have one person to tag for this, so Tammy, get crackin’!

Late edit: Credit for the “Spooky Asparagus” phase goes to @SQLCheesecake, because he’s awesome like that.

Posted in , Tagged , 1 Comment

Repost: Voyager 2

By Airborne Geek on January 24, 2011

This post was originally written for my first blog, posted on 12/12/2007. It’s a goofy little post I wrote because the Voyager spacecraft are generally awesome and I’m a huge nerd. OK, that and there was a pretty major milestone passed. I’m reposting now because 25 years ago today, Voyager 2 made its 4.19 radii pass of Uranus (pffft). I know it’s pretty far from SQL Server, but, huge nerd and the Voyagers are awesome.

Images Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech

I sort of missed the boat on this when it happened, but back on August 20, Voyager 2 marked its 30th year in space. For 30 years, that little chunk (and its cohort, Voyager 1) has been hurtling through space, measuring plasma levels, temperatures, and taking pictures of crap, among other things.

The Voyager Spacecraft

Voyager

Thirty. Years.

To me, the Voyagers are some of the most memorable and recognizable pieces of equipment that NASA has ever thrown up in the air. I remember 2’s flyby of Neptune in 1989 (map of the planetary flybys is below), and it was one of the targets of my early obsessions with all things aerospace. Sure, the space shuttle was a little more visible, but there was always something special about Voyager.

And here it is, a spacecraft built to run for five years, still going strong after six times that. I guess they don’t make them like they used to, but then again, the Mars Rovers are still going after, what, almost four years now, and they were supposed to go for 30 days? I joke a lot about how we sent men to the moon with chalkboards and slide rules, but man, those Engineers can do anything with just about anything. I mean, NASA did put a square peg in a round hole, once…

Voyager Journey

Voyagers' path within the Solar System

Anyway, Voyager 2 has now reached the edge of the Solar Wind. That’s way out there. Even though I haven’t a clue what most of what you learn from that is about or how it is useful (that’s more of my sister’s area), it’s still pretty cool. I’ve never really thought about the dynamics of the SW on the interstellar gas; I suppose that could be due to how I just thought of the gas as just there, not necessarily an entity that would interact with things within it. This is why I’m in IT and not working at the JPL or something 😉

I can’t help but think about how I zip around far greater patches of space in my little Internet Spaceships in seconds and it’s taken these guys 30 years to get to where they’re at now. I know it’s just a stupid game, but I still believe that someday our technology will have us there, too. I don’t expect to be around to see it of course, but there will be some dreamer like me there to take advantage of it.

Posted in , Tagged , 1 Comment

Un-SQL Friday #2: Tech Giants

By Airborne Geek on January 23, 2011

A non-Friday, depressed-that-the-Bears-can’t-get-a-decent-franchise-quarterback-to-save-their-lives edition.

UnSQL

Un-SQL: When SQL People get less SQL-y, while still talking about SQL.

Un-SQL Friday: The T-SQL Tuesday foil blog party created by Jen McCown (blog | @MidnightDBA) where we all talk about something related to SQL Server instead of something about SQL Server. It’s a less-technical topic, which is better for me (because I’m terrible at this) and gives us all something a bit more relaxing to focus our brains on (in case we need that sort of thing).

This round’s topic is “Tech Giants.” Jen says: Who are the IT giants you talk to/read that make you feel like a technical poser? No fair saying “everyone”. Oh. I can’t say “everyone”? Really? Uhh, OK, that’s going to make this a bit more difficult than I had initially thought…

That “not everyone” bit does make this pretty difficult, because I don’t know who to pick individually. I really do feel like all of the SQL people that I talk to on Twitter are giants in the field compared to me. I appreciate: everything that the SQLskills crew does for the rest of us; Thomas LaRock (blog | @SQLRockstar) for putting up with us if we act a little like wide-eyed fanbois the first time we meet (ahem); Jorge Segarra (blog | @SQLChicken) for nagging me about applying to work for Pragmatic Works, because, I’m pretty sure that’s what I should be doing; and Steve Jones (blog | @way0utwest) for generally being awesome, even if he does hate planes 😀 . Oh, and Jen & Sean (site | @MidnightDBA) for always being willing to be at least somewhat “inappropriate” in what seems some days like a sea of over-the-top political correctness Professionalism (this isn’t to say that they’re R-rated all the time—they know when to be serious and when to come back with “That’s what she said”). Those are just some people; there are so many more that I’m leaving out. We’d be here for a while if I went on.

As nice as all of this is, both from a technical knowledge and networking perspectives, it is a two-edged sword. One day at lunch with our Senior DBA, I asked him where my worst shortcomings are & what I need to work on to continue to move ahead in my career current job. Me being me, this question partially took the form of “where/why do I suck?” His response was basically, “you don’t, but you spend too much time on Twitter.” The reference being that I spend too much time comparing myself to all of these great people who have awesome jobs (and could get whatever other job they wanted at the drop of a hat) and can answer really gnarly questions about SQL’s Storage Engine off the top of their heads (potentially because they wrote it!), and some days I let it get me down. He’s right… some days I do do that. Alright, more days than is really healthy do I do that. This is a little bit of a problem, and I’m trying to get over that.

Tammy and I were talking about this a few days ago, and she reminded me that one isn’t going to be at a comparable level to Brent or Tom overnight—it takes work to get there. These guys should be aspirations, not thought of as peers. Plus, like Jen mentioned in her invitation post, all of these guys have giants of their own, too, and that is, indeed, comforting. As long as we all have someone that we think we suck compared to, then I can tell myself that means I suck a little less than I think I do 😉

Posted in , , Tagged 4 Comments

T-SQL Tuesday #14: Resolutions

By Airborne Geek on January 11, 2011

T-SQL Tuesday 14

T-SQL Tuesday 14, hosted by Jen McCown

Resolutions… For a long time, I thought 1600 x 1200 to be the ideal, but with the proliferation of widescreen—oh…wait…not that kind of Resolution? Sorry. My bad.

It’s that time again: the monthly blog party known as T-SQL Tuesday. This month is #14, hosted by the deservedly newly-minted Microsoft MVP Jen McCown (blog | @MidnightDBA). The topic this time around is “Resolutions,” originally, “techie resolutions have you been pondering, and why.”

In my 2011 “Goals” post, I talked about one of the things I need to do this year: something about my career direction. I’ll take this opportunity to elaborate a little bit on what that means for me this year. The part about needing to pick one of two directions still applies, but the work that I need to do for each of those is pretty different.

If I stay a DBA…

If I stay a DBA, what I need to work on the most can be summed up fairly simply: Catch up.

Since I work with SQL 2000 almost exclusively these days, there are a lot of current bits of technology that I need to spend time working on and learning:

  • DMVs
  • Policy-Based Management
  • T-SQL advancements (Actually using Try/Catch, TVPs, etc)
  • PowerShell

That’s just a few things that I can pull off the top of my head; I know there are more that I should know and be able to use at this point. Not having the opportunity to use these features day-to-day doesn’t exactly help me learn and keep these skills sharp 😉

If I want to be one of the cool kid DBAs on Twitter, 2011 is a year in which I have to do a lot of work on these topics.

Less BI-Curious and more BI-…uhh…Pro?

The other choice I have is to do awesome Business Intelligence work. I’m still turned on by a lot of these technologies and the power that they can put into the hands of business users at all levels of an organization. A change in direction at my current job to a more BI-focused role has yet to fully materialize, and as for right now I’m still somewhat impatiently watching that carrot out there.

Whether I do it in my current position or choose to take something new, changing direction to full-time BI work comes with its own set of topics that will need lots of attention from me:

  • Improve dimensional modeling skills (I do some of this already)
  • Actually learn how to do work with SSAS
  • PowerPivot
  • Get better at talking to non-geeks!

There are lots more topics than those three here, too. However, BI in and of itself is a pretty wide field, so the specific topics that would need attention would be dictated by the flavor of BI work that I was doing and my involvement on such a team.

Actually making this stuff happen

Like all resolutions, this is, of course, the hard part. Making this happen isn’t going to be easy for me, either, but the rewards should be very well worth the effort required. Unfortunately, since knowing is half the battle, and I don’t have that taken care of yet, the near-term has the potential to be pretty rough.

At the absolute bare minimum, I resolve to do my best to take care of “knowing” in the first quarter of the year.

(Also, I’m sorry about that screen resolution thing at the beginning; couldn’t help myself)

Posted in , Tagged , , 5 Comments