Month: May 2021

Upcoming speaking engagements (as of 5/27/2021) #SQLSaturday #DataSaturday #PASSSummit

It seems like it’s been quite some time since I posted about my upcoming speaking engagements, but I do have one coming up!

Confirmed

  • On Saturday, June 12, I will be speaking at SQL Saturday Los Angeles. I am scheduled to speak at 4:00 pm Eastern (1:00 pm LA local/Pacific). This is a virtual event, so I will be presenting from my home office in upstate New York; I will not be flying out to California for this conference!

    I will do my presentation titled: “Networking 101: Building professional relationships.” I will talk about business/professional networking: what it is, how to do it, ways to break the ice, and where to find networking opportunities. This is an interactive session (although I’ll admit that the “interactive” part works better when I do this session in-person rather than virtually), so you might even get a chance to practice networking during this presentation!

    Anyone is welcome to attend; however, you do need to register. Follow the instructions on the SQL Saturday LA site to register for the event!

Applied, but not confirmed

I’ve applied to speak at a couple of other events, but I don’t know whether or not I’ll be speaking at either of them. Stay tuned.

  • November 8-12: PASS Data Community Summit. This online event is the successor to PASS Summit! I also submitted three presentations (so far) to this event. We’ll see whether or not I’m chosen!

    And if you’re interested in speaking at this event, the call for speakers is now open! If you’re interested in speaking at this event, you are encouraged to apply!

As always, I’ll mention any speaking engagements that I have coming up. Hopefully, as we emerge from the pandemic, I’ll be speaking at some in-person events, rather than doing so over Zoom. Hope to see you at an event sometime soon!

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I’ve landed!

After 388 days, 557 submitted resumes, and countless rejections, I’m happy to report that I have landed!

I have accepted a position for Insight Global. I will be working remotely as a technical writer for their client, PlutoTV! I start my new gig in a few weeks, depending on how long it will take for them to configure and send me my new work laptop!

I have made no secret about how stressful this job search has been, and I even talk about it in my job hunt presentation. Indeed, an entire calendar year is a long time to be without gainful employment, and it is the longest that I have ever gone without regular work. But I persevered and survived it, and I’m very much looking forward to this new opportunity!

Thanks to all of you who have followed my exploits and supported me!

#PASS is dead. Long live PASS!

Many data professionals, myself included, were saddened back in January when PASS ceased operations. As I’ve mentioned before, PASS provided me with many professional opportunities that I didn’t think were possible. It enhanced my career and provided me with countless networking opportunities. I made many friends during my association with PASS that otherwise wouldn’t have been possible. Believe me, #SQLFamily is a real thing!

Redgate picked up the ball that had been carried by PASS. They have been hard at work resurrecting the community that PASS had built.

I was happy to see that the PASS brand has been rebooted in a couple of ways: PASS Data Community Summit and the resurrection of SQL Saturday.

I wrote earlier that I’d been chosen to speak at Data Saturday LA. However, I did not see the link on the DataSaturdays site. It turns out that the link is listed under SQL Saturday.

The new SQL Saturday site includes links to all the previous SQL Saturday events that were hosted by PASS. I was happy to see that all the previous events appear to be listed. With that, I plan to update my old presentation links to point to the newly-listed (old-listed?) events. (I see a lot of work ahead of me!)

One question I have is what will happen between SQL Saturday and Data Saturday? Will they remain two different entities, or will they merge? I am not privy to that level of administration, so I have no idea.

The new SQL Saturday and PASS Data Community Summit links still need work, but I’m happy that Redgate has been putting in the work to restructure the brand and the community. Great work, Redgate! Bravo! I am very much looking forward to seeing how Redgate proceeds with the updated community.

Edit/correction: as it turns out, there is actually a board, of which Steve Jones is a part, that actually does the work on the new SQL Saturday initiative. While Redgate sponsors it (their branding is all over it), it’s the board that actually does the work. Nice job, board!

The right frame of mind is important for your overall health

I’ve been holding off on writing about this, but what happened to me is an important story to tell, and a cautionary tale for others who might be going through the same thing.

The photo you see above is me lying in a hospital bed about a month ago. And I want to tell you how I got there.

I have made no secret about how much the experiences of the past year have stressed me out. When I keep a regular schedule (and when I’m working), I have a routine that I maintain. And as long as I stick to the routine, I tend to do pretty well. If my routine gets upset, that’s when I get into trouble.

Well, the stress that I’ve endured upset my routine. My sleep schedule had been irregular. And I’ve been doing a terrible job of taking care of myself. The pandemic closure, in the early months, shut down gyms, which meant that I stopped going to CrossFit (which had been part of my routine). To make up for it, I started doing a Couch to 5K program. I had been doing pretty well with that program, until about halfway through, I was beset with injuries which also upset my (now new) routine. (The injuries were bad enough that I ended up going to PT to address them.) My extracurricular schedule, also part of my routine, had been disrupted because of the pandemic. I was stressed and overwhelmed. Things that I used to enjoy now suddenly seemed like a chore. To sum it all up, I had stopped taking care of myself.

About a month ago, I started having problems eating. Twice within two weeks, I got sick after eating. After the second time, my wife insisted that I go to the ER. Upon being examined, I was told, “we’re admitting you.”

For the sake of my personal privacy, I won’t say what it was that I had, except that it was not COVID. I will say that I remained in the hospital for a week. I barely ate anything during that week. My only diet was bags of IV solution that they sent through my system.

That was not a pleasant experience. I would not recommend that to anyone.

I have been home from the hospital for almost three weeks. I am slowly (emphasis on slowly) getting back to normal. Even as of this article, although I feel much better than I did, I still have not recovered 100%. My energy level is not what it was, and I get tired easily. And it all came about because I had become overwhelmed and had stopped taking care of myself.

The moral of this story is that your emotional and psychological well-being is just as important as your physical one; in fact, it can directly affect it. Your morale is important; in fact, it’s one of the things that I address in my job hunt presentation.

So take it from me. Take care of your mental well-being, and make sure you’re in the right frame of mind. Do what you need to do to roll with the punches. If you need to occasionally let off steam, do so. Get help if you need to. Get yourself to where you need to be, mentally and psychologically. Once you do that, you’ll be able to take care of yourself. Don’t end up like I did last month, and spend a week in a hospital bed.

#DataSaturday LA — I’m speaking! 6/12/21

I am speaking once again! It’s been a while!

I learned today that I will be speaking at Data Saturday (the successor to SQL Saturday) LA on June 12! This event is online, so I won’t be flying out to the West Coast that weekend.

I will be doing my networking presentation. If you’ve wondered about what professional networking is about, or if you’re not comfortable with networking, check out my session!

I am scheduled to speak at 1:00 pm PDT (that’s 4:00 pm EST for those of us, including me, who are out on the East Coast) on June 12.

To RSVP for this event, use the EventBrite link by the Los Angeles Data Platform group at https://sqlsatla2021.eventbrite.com/.

Hope to see you there!

May CASSUG Monthly Meeting #Networking @CASSUG_Albany

Our May meeting will again be online. NOTE: you MUST RSVP to this Meetup at https://www.meetup.com/Capital-Area-SQL…/events/277981480/ to view the Zoom URL!

Our May guest speaker is Anthony E. Nocentino!

Topic: Kubernetes!

Our online meeting schedule is as follows:
6:00: General chat, discussion, and announcements
6:30: Presentation

We usually wrap up between 7:30 PM and 8:00 PM.

Please RSVP to this Meetup, then use the online event URL to join (note: you MUST RSVP for the URL to be visible). We will send out a meeting password as we get closer to the event.

Thanks to our sponsor, Datto, for making this event possible!