Month: May 2019

I’m speaking at SQL Saturday Virginia Beach — June 8

Saturday, June 8 is coming soon (a week from this Saturday). How will you be spending it?

For me, I will be speaking at SQL Saturday #839, Virginia Beach that day. I will be doing my presentation entitled: “Disaster Documents: The role of documentation in disaster recovery.” In my presentation, I tell the story of my company and my workgroup — which had an office in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. I had written several documents for our organization, and they ended up being critical to our recovery.

Come on out and check out my presentation. I can always use a good audience. Hope to see you there!

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Memorial Day Murph — crossing the finish line

Yesterday, I did the annual Memorial Day Murph workout. I’ve written about it before. For those of you unfamiliar with CrossFit, the Murph workout consists of a one mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 air squats, and another mile run. Needless to say, it is a LOT of work!

For those of us who aren’t professional athletes, many of us scale it down. Some people reduce the length of the runs. Many others reduce the number of reps. I set a goal of running (well, okay, “running”) the entire one mile lengths for each run. I broke down the reps into ten rounds of 5 ring-rows (since I can’t do pull-ups), 10 push-ups, and 15 air squats. I had every intention of doing the full twenty rounds, but when I reached round 6 and realized how much time had elapsed, I came to the realization that “twenty rounds isn’t happening!”

As you can see in the photo above, I had a nice cheering crew waiting for me as I crossed the finish line! I finished the workout in 1:04:31.

I started doing CrossFit to get into shape. I still continue doing CrossFit because of the great friends I’ve made and all their support. Find something that works for you, and you’ll keep wanting to go back for more!

Speaking at my hometown SQL Saturday — Albany, NY, July 20

I got the official word this morning that I’ve been picked to speak at my hometown SQL Saturday in Albany, NY on July 20!

I don’t yet know which presentation I’m doing. Hopefully, I’ll find out by the end of the week. (Update: It appears that I will be doing my presentation about ‘blogging. This is a brand-new presentation — so new, in fact, that I haven’t even finished my PowerPoint slides yet!)

Click the above link to register for the event. Hope to see you in my home turf in July!

Burning Out

Reblogging another good article. Steve Jones reminds us that it’s important to maintain a work-life balance.

Voice of the DBA

We tend to work a lot of hours as data professionals, developers, even IT management. It seems that we often are in the office at night, on weekends, and anytime there is a crisis. Even when we don’t have down systems, it seems the pressure to continue to build new features, functions, and ensure systems are operating well leads many of us to work longer hours than the expected 40 hour week. In fact, there are no shortage of companies that expect IT employees to work more than 40 hours every week.

This isn’t limited to IT. Doctors, lawyers, and plenty of other professions put in extra hours at work. Even teachers often do work at home. I’ve seen this first hand this past year with my oldest son teaching 5th grade. He spends a fair amount of time doing work at the kitchen counter, not unlike what I used…

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Three years a ‘blogger — what a long, strange trip it’s been

As of this Friday, I will have been writing my ‘blog for three years. Happy anniversary to me, I suppose!

I originally started my ‘blog to supplement my SQL Saturday presentations, but since then, it’s taken on a life of its own. I’ve written about a number of topics, mostly about professional development. I’ve dabbled a bit in some technical topics such as SQL Server and BI. I’ve even written about networking and the job hunt. As a professional technical communicator, I write a lot about technical writing and communication. Every now and then, I’ll write about something that has nothing to do with professional topics, but might be of interest to professionals, anyway. I write about whatever’s on my mind. In a way, I think of my ‘blog as my own online diary, except that instead of writing a personal journal where the only people who’d see it are myself and anyone who comes across it after I’m dead, I’m writing it for the entire online world to see.

I think a ‘blog can be a good experience for anyone looking to advance his or her career. Indeed, I have a presentation in the works about exactly this topic. As of this article, it’s still a work in progress. I haven’t done much more than create a PowerPoint template and put a few thoughts into it, but I have already submitted it for SQL Saturdays in Albany and Providence. We’ll see if it gets any bites, and hopefully, I’ll be presenting it at a SQL Saturday near you!

(Note: if you’re a ‘blogger, and would like to contribute something about your experience to the presentation, please feel free to mention something in the comments. Maybe I’ll use it in my presentation! Don’t worry, I’ll make sure I give you credit!)

I have some more thoughts about ‘blogging, including things I’ve learned and tips for people who are looking to get started with ‘blogging, but I’ll save those thoughts for another time. (These are all things that I intend to cover in my presentation.) For now, I’ll just say that it’s been a fun three years, and I hope to keep going for many more!

My first road race — the debrief

Well, I survived my first road race! Wondering how I did? Here’s my official results! Hey, I didn’t get lost, and I didn’t finish last!

And as I write this, my hamstrings are still saying some nasty things to me!

I was hoping to maintain at least a slow jog throughout the race, but that went out the window as soon as I hit the first big hill. The course ended up being more difficult than I expected. (I’ve driven through that area dozens of times. It doesn’t seem too bad in a car! It’s a lot different when you’re on foot!) I tried to jog where I could, but mostly, I walked. I did try at least to maintain a brisk walk, although that didn’t always happen, either. One piece of advice that my CrossFit coach gave me beforehand was, “just keep moving. Don’t stop.”

I did have to stop a couple of times to retie my shoes, but aside from that, I pretty much heeded that advice. I didn’t stop!

One of my favorite moments happened in the middle of the park. A kid had a hand-drawn sign with a Super Mario Mushroom Power-Up and a caption that said “Hit sign to power up!” I don’t know how many people used that to push themselves, but for me, it worked! I touched the sign and broke into a jog — albeit briefly.

A little past the halfway point, one of my friends from the office came up alongside me, and we pretty much did a steady walk together for the remainder of the course, all the way to the finish line.

There were a couple of down moments yesterday. After the race, I parked in a pay lot, didn’t pay, and got towed. (I did manage to get my car back.) Also, they ran out of T-shirts in my size. I was disappointed about not getting a shirt! But nevertheless, it was a good time! It was a beautiful day out — temps were cool and comfortable, and it was sunny. And in addition to my co-workers, I saw several friends at the event. I met my co-workers at a bar after the race (it was while I was here when my car was towed). We ate and drank, and I spoke to a number of people from my office whom I usually don’t talk to!

All in all, it was a good time. I have to admit that I had fun yesterday! Has it changed how I feel about running? Well… not yet. Will I do this event again? Well… more than likely!

Talk to me again next year!

The evolution of statistics

During my lunch break, I was perusing the ESPN website and stumbled across this article. It contemplates whether or not a .300 hitter (in baseball, for those of you who are sports-challenged) is meaningful anymore. As a baseball fan, the article caught my attention. I didn’t read through the entire article (it ended up being a much longer read than I expected — too long for me to read while on a lunch break at work), but from what little I did glean from it, a couple of things struck me.

First, they talk about Mickey Mantle‘s batting average and how important hitting .300 was to him. That struck me a little funny, because (as far as I know — as I said, I didn’t get through the entire article) there was no mention of the fact that he actually finished with a batting average under .300. His career batting average was .298.

The second thing that struck me was (Yankees’ first baseman) Luke Voit saying how he felt that “feel like batting average isn’t a thing now.” Indeed, baseball is a much different game than it was, say ten, twenty, or thirty years ago. Analytics are a big part of statistics these days. A lot of stats that are prevalent now — WAR (wins above replacement), exit velocity, OPS (on-base plus slugging), etc. — didn’t even exist when I was a kid growing up, closely following my Yankees. Back when I was eating and sleeping baseball, hitting was about the triple-crown statistics — batting average, home runs, and runs batted in (RBIs). But now, we have “slash lines,” on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and so on. Even as big of a baseball fan as I am, I haven’t a clue about many of these “new age” stats. I still have no idea what WAR represents, I’m not completely sure as to what the numbers in a slash-line are, and I don’t know what constitutes a respectable OPS.

That got me thinking about how statistics have changed over the years, and whether or not that applies to statistics outside of baseball (or sports, for that matter). Maybe people who study data analytics for a living might know this better than I do, but what business statistics have a different meaning now than they did ten, twenty years ago? Are there any numbers from way back when that I should now take with a grain of salt?

I’m sure there are many examples of this outside of sports, but I struggled to come up with any. Off the top of my head, I remember how a company where I once worked made a big deal out of perfect attendance — to the point that they gave out perfect attendance awards at the end of the year. However, that had to contend with situations such as coming to work when you were sick, and so on. Do you really want someone who’s sick coming into work? These days, workplaces do not want sick people in the office, and with the advent of work-at-home provisions, perfect attendance isn’t so meaningful, anymore. (By the way, my understanding is that company no longer recognizes or rewards “perfect” attendance.)

So I suppose the takeaway is, how well do statistics age? Can they be compared with the same statistics now? What needs to be considered when analyzing statistics from years ago? It’s true that numbers often tell a story, but in order to get the full picture, you also need to understand the full context.

Testing something? What’s the test plan?

Imagine if you will that you’ve been asked to test a product. The product could be anything — software, a car, a kitchen appliance, a piece of sports equipment, whatever. For the purposes of this article, we’ll say you’re working at some company, and you’ve been asked to test a piece of software.

You’re told to go into an application, and you’re given this instruction.

“Okay, test it and see if it works.”

That’s it.

How would you feel? Vague? Confused? Frustrated? Abandoned? All of the above? Something else?

Well, I, myself, have been put into this situation more times than I care to admit. It’s one of the most frustrating job situations I’ve ever been thrust into.

What, exactly, constitutes “see if it works”? I could simply start the application, see if it starts, and say, “okay, it works.” I suspect that that’s not what the people who make the request are looking for. Yet time and again, I get a request from a developer or a designer to test something, and that’s the only instruction I’m given.

And it’s frustrating like you wouldn’t believe.

What’s even more frustrating is when (not if) the application comes back with some kind of problem, and the people who asked you to test come back with, “you said you tested this! Why is this broken?”

Want to know why there’s so much friction between developers and QA personnel? This is a likely reason. This is something that definitely falls under my list of documentation pet peeves.

The fact is, if you develop a product, and you need to test it for functionality, you need to specify what it is you’re looking to test. You need to define — and spell out — what constitutes a “working product” from one that’s “defective.” Just because a car starts doesn’t mean it’s working. You still need to put it in gear, drive it, steer it, and make sure that it can stop.

If you are creating a product, you need to describe what parameters are required for it to pass testing. If you’re asking someone in quality control to test your product, provide the tester with guidelines as to what should be checked to ensure the product is functional. Better, provide him or her with a checklist to determine whether or not your product can be released. If you discover additional items that need to be tested, then update the checklist.

(If you want to know more about checklists, I highly recommend The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. It’s actually a surprisingly excellent read.)

So any time you release a product for testing, tell the testers what it is that constitutes a “good” product. Don’t just send it off with vague instructions to “make sure it works” and expect it to be tested. More often that not, that will result in a failed product — and defeat the entire purpose of why you’re looking to test it in the first place.

CASSUG hosting the Modern Migration Tour, June 19

The Modern Migration Tour is coming to Albany!

End of support for SQL Server 2008 is almost here (ends in July!), which means it’s time to take flight on your migration strategy.

But, do you have a plan in place? What approach should you take to ensure a smooth transition?

To guide you through these questions, PASS, Microsoft, and Intel® have teamed up for a series of expert-led events, giving you all the tools you need to get to the final destination—a modern data platform.

For information about this event and to register, click here to view the EventBrite announcement. You must register on the EventBrite link to RSVP.

See you there on June 19!