This year I set quite a few goals for myself both personally and professionally, and I blogged about them on my blog post Goals for 2009. Looking back at them, I did really good accomplishing my primary goals for the year, dedicating a block of time to my family each day and graduating from the US Army Drill Sergeant Academy to further my military career. I accomplished both of these goals, and my relationship with my family is stronger than I ever thought was possible, something that I am immensely proud of.
However, some of my other goals for the year were a bit more ambitious than I originally thought.
1. Remain consistent in technical blog posts averaging 3 a week for the year.
- I failed here, but only by 1 blog post a week. This year I wrote 113 blog posts, not counting this one, for an average of 2.17 posts a week. I’d say I was pretty consistent, but not near 3 posts a week.
2. Finish coding on the Extended Events Manager App to make it a one stop shop for creating, altering and consuming Extended Events in SQL Server 2008.
- I’d call this a success. The state of this is well beyond what I would have ever imagined it would be a year ago.
3. Continue to answer posts on the MSDN and SqlServerCentral Forums.
- I count this one as a success. While my number of posts has decreased, I became more focused in what I was posting to, primarily Database Engine related threads, and not so much the TSQL related posts.
4. Present at least one session at a major event, (ie TechEd, SQLConnections, PASS Summit, etc.)
- I count this one as a success as well, but only because I presented at PASS. I need to work on becoming a better speaker in the future.
5. Submit an article for publication at least once a quarter to an online site or magazine publication.
- I fell short here, missing the entire 3rd quarter of this year. However, I have learned lately that some of my more complex blog posts could be turned into articles with a bit more work. It really is a bit of a tradeoff between blogging for immediate publication and contributing to another source for delayed publication.
6. Continue to present sessions at SQL Saturday and local Code Camp Events.
- I count this one as a success since I presented at SQL Saturday Orlando, as well as a couple of user group meetings.
7. Complete my MCITP SQL Server 2008 Administrator Certification.
- This is another success, as I now hold the 2008 DBA and Dev certifications.
8. Take the Oracle Certified Associate Database Administrator Certification test.
- This was an utter failure on my part. I never even scheduled the exam, so no excuses for this one. At this point I should have been working on my OCP or further, but my focus this year has been so much on SQL that I didn’t put the effort into this. Was than an excuse? Forgive me, I already said no excuses.
All in all, this year was a major success, and I look forward to planning my goals for 2010.