Happy holidays!

A little humor for your holiday! Merry Christmas, everyone!

Memories of Pan Am 103

Today represents a somber anniversary. I’m reblogging an article I wrote back in August in which I talk about what I was doing exactly thirty years ago today.

Welcome to Ray Kim's 'blog

(Photo source: Wikipedia)

There are moments in your life when you remember exactly what you were doing as though it happened yesterday, even if it happened many years ago.  I previously wrote about what I was doing on 9/11.  Likewise, I remember other events, such as the Challenger disaster (I was a freshman at Syracuse having lunch in my dorm dining hall).  In this article, I want to write about another such fateful day.

Yesterday, with only a day to go before Syracuse opens its football season at Western Michigan, I went poking around a couple of websites for more information about the upcoming game.  I went to the Daily Orange‘s website, and in doing so, I stumbled upon this article, which I was not expecting to see.  As soon as I saw it, memories from nearly thirty years ago suddenly came back to me.

View original post 685 more words

The toxic work environment

I recently had someone tell me about an incident that reminded me about hostile work environments. All I will say is that the person in question is a family member. (I am purposely being vague; she works in a small office, and any additional description or detail could identify her or her employer. All I …

Microsoft: a great place to work

"That is nice work if you can get it, and you can get it, if you try..."-- George and Ira Gershwin This is the last (for now, unless I come up with anything else -- which is entirely possible) article that came out of my experience last weekend with SQL Saturday #814. After last Saturday's conference, …

Collaboration, cooperation, and competition

This is another article based on stuff that I picked up from SQL Saturday #814.  This time, I'll talk about Matt Cushing's presentation about networking. Whenever I'm speaking at a SQL Saturday, I always make it a point to attend sessions that are similar to mine.  At #814, I met Matt Cushing, who was doing …

Dashboard design = UX/UI

This is another article that was borne from my experience at SQL Saturday #814. When I went to my room to get ready for my first presentation of the day, I walked in on the tail end of Kevin Feasel's presentation about dashboard visualization techniques.  I caught about the last ten minutes of his session. …

“So what, exactly, are you doing in IT?”

"Aside from mediocre marks in his freshman literature courses -- even MIT wanted people to be literate, but evidently Peter Zimmer didn't care for poetry -- the kid was straight A." (bold type added for emphasis)-- Excerpt from The Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy As I mentioned before, a lot of things came out …

SQL Saturday #814 — the debrief

I had a great time speaking at SQL Saturday in Washington, DC this past weekend!  Chris Bell and his team put on a great event, and it's one to which I will definitely submit again! I wanted to write this up quickly for a couple of reasons.  One is to acknowledge the SQL Saturday #814 …

Email changes and security

When was the last time you changed your phone number?  Let's say you lived in a house for, say, fifteen years.  In that house, you had a landline phone (yes, young 'uns, once upon a time, homes had their own phone numbers).  For whatever reason, you had to sell the house, move away to another …

SQL Saturday #814, Washington, DC — this Saturday

This is a reminder that this coming Saturday, December 8, I will be speaking at SQL Saturday #814!  I will be giving the following two presentations. Whacha just say? Talking technology to non-technical people -- This is my original presentation -- as in the very first SQL Saturday presentation that I ever did!  I'll talk …