Search results matching tags 'Speaking', 'Opinion', and 'Humor'

Goals and Theme Word for 2010

KKline — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 02:35:00 GMT

NOT A WHINER

I've been really intrigued by a meme making the rounds of the blogsphere concerning goals for the coming year and picking a theme word, rather than the usual New Year's resolution.

Et tu, BrentO?

As with all memes, they start with a blogger picking the topic of discussion (in this case, Tara Hunt at HPC) and was picked up by my friend, Tom LaRock ( blog | twitter) in his blog post, Why I Don't Like Kevin Kline and Never Tag Him in Memes.

As in all memes, one blogger starts it off and then others are tagged, spreading the chain outward. So Tom tagged several other good friends of mine, all of whom also chose to ignore me including: Brent Ozar (blog | twitter), Jeremiah Peschka (blog | twitter), Tim Ford (blog | twitter), and Jason Massie (blog | twitter) in their respective blog posts. So here's the chain of the mem a couple levels deep:

Brent's goals and theme word blog post entitled "I'm Proud to Drink Zima With My Pinky Sticking Out". Brent didn't pass on the meme. Et tu, BrentO?
Jeremiah's goals and theme word blog post entitled "Those Raspberries on My Blog Page Are Hugely Symbolic..."
- Jeremiah tagged Matt Nowack, Rick Kierner, and Jeff Blankenburg whom I don't know.
- Jorge Segarra (blog | twitter), whom I -DO- know, responded in his blog post called "There's Going to be Some Bank Robbing in My Future". Jorge in turn tagged: Ron Dameron (Blog | Twitter), Jonathan Gardner (Blog | Twitter), Tim & Lori Edwards (Blog | His Twitter – Her Twitter) whom I just had the pleasure of meeting at the last PASS Summit and, in a sacrilegious move sure to enrage the High Church for inviting a non-SQL person, his own wife, Jessica Segarra (Blog | Twitter). Actually, I really want Jorge to bring Jessica to a PASS or SQLSaturday event - WITH MANY OF HER INCREDIBLY YUMMY RECIPES READY FOR US TO EAT.
  - Since I know only Lori Edwards out of this group of taggees, you can read her (and Tim's) blog entry here. The Edwards, however, tagged no one else.
Tim's goals and theme word blog post entitled "I Rocked Her World With Nothing More than a 79′ Chevette and a Rush Mix Tape". Tim, in turn, tagged a few more friends.
- Andy Leonard (blog | twitter), close friend and fellow Nashvillian Joe Webb (blog | twitter). Neither of these picked up the meme.
- Possibly the coolest Canadian not sporting hair, Colin Stasiuk (blog | twitter) wrote his goals bloggery, "Comment Crazy and the Nasty Red Fonts of Doom", and in turn tagged Andy Leonard (introduced earlier), Jorge Segarra (introduced earlier), and a new (but quite significant) blogger, Michelle Ufford (blog | twitter). Sadly, Michelle hasn't blogged since last November. But there's still time Michelle!
Jason didn't pick up the meme and, honestly, I can't tease him since I don't know him that well. However, I do hear he can wax poetic about bacon much the same way my Dutch friends get misty-eyed about certain strains of cheese.

Where's the love, I ask?

Oh, and just to whine a bit more - you can read some other good entries in this meme by Kendal Van Dyke here and Tim Mitchell here.

THEME WORD, I HAZ IT.

Not Nefarious. Multifarious!

I love it that so many of my friends are focusing not only on their technology skills and professional stature, but also on their family life and spiritual life. I've long believed that specialization was for insects, but we - as human beings - are multifaceted and have manifold skills and traits that need to be cultivated. There's no reason an educated and urbane 21st century American can't be physically fit, in tune with their family and significant other, able to write a cheesy line of verse, sing a few bars of a popular song, take a decent picture, repair a broken toaster, and do some on-line banking. As others have said before me, our parents and grandparents had one career and one employer. That's not our lot in life.

So my theme word for 2010 is MULTIFARIOUS.

Pretty weird, eh?

When I first encountered the word multifarious, I thought of the word nefarious. Nefarious means "bad or evil", so I thought multifarious meant "lotsa bad or evil". In fact, they're antonyms. Multifarious, in its Latin roots, means "many" plus "goodies" while nefarious means "negative or not" plus "goodies".

So if you can think of another word that means "having many different parts, elements, or forms; numerous and varied; greatly diverse or manifold", then I want to use that one. In the meantime, my theme word is multifarious because 2010 is my year of focusing on many elements, some long-neglected, in my life.

GOALS, HAZ DEM TOO.

Like many of the other folks I teased earlier, I have a variety of goals - some related to work (and therefore technology) and some not.

Every child needs a little 1-on-1. Even Little Critter by Mercer Mayer

Personal Goals: In 2010, I'm working on some entirely non-technology goals because I frankly feel a little too much dehumanized by technology. I want to put some humanity back into my life. So here are a few quick hit goals:
- Fresh berries are very expensive, but berry bushes are not. The strawberries are already in and blackberries are a goal this spring. There's something very primal about digging in the dirt that reconnects us with the earth and our agrarian roots.
- I used to be a very accomplished Spanish guitarist - about 20 years ago. Twenty years of abstention puts the ol' guitar skills at zero. I'm going to pick up the guitar and get at least three of those back.
- I intend to master at least a half-dozen knots. Knots? Yes, knots - the kind you make with laces, rope, or twine. Hey, I've got seven kids in the house and you never know when a half-hitch sheep-shank will come in handy to lash several of them to a chair, the stair rail, or in a moment of dire need, a toilet.
- I intend to spend at least one weekend of one-on-one time with each of my kids and step-kids. I don't really believe in the concept of quality time, since as many learning moments come when dad bangs his thumb with a hammer as from any other so-called special time. But in this unusually large family with distractions nearly every waking moment, I still want to set asidea little time under the label "Just Dad and Me".
- Zero consumer debt except for the mortgage. (Dave Ramsey is my hero!)
- Somehow - some way - I want to get a worm-eye-view photo of any man wearing a kilt at the PASS 2010 Summit. Strictly for blackmail purposes. (Grant and Steve, you're on notice!)
Diversification Goals: Here are a few goals for 2010 that relate to my livelihood, but are not part of my day job.
- At least one major new book for this year. I frequently gripe about the ROI of book writing these days. However, there are still a few powerful topics to address. So, with that in mind, I have one technology book ready to pitch and, believe it or not, one non-technology book.
- Improve my personal productivity - somehow, someway. Maybe more caffeine?
- Revamp my personal website. It's visually rather dull at the moment.
- I developed a lot of new personal skills in 2009, like wiring and electronics. I'm continuing that because I'm also very close to filing my very first provisional patent (non-IT, believe it or not). I'll blog about that whole process in much greater details when the time is right. But this is my biggest diversification goal for 2010.
- Retool my presentation style to be story-driven, rather than bulletpoint-driven. I felt like I've given some useful and informative presentations over the years. But I can do better and I know it. I've always been drawn to the old Southern tradition of story-telling and I'd like to bring that to life in my presentations. That goal starts immediately since I have presentations almost every week and, while it might get easier with time, it'll never go away as a goal.

So that's a wrap for me. I don't have any specific goals about number of presentations, blogposts, or podcasts (though I want to do as much as I can). Sure, I want to continue to actively present, blog, write, tweet, digg, scribble, podcast, and otherwise excrete goodness into both print and the Internet.

ANYTHING ELSE?

Why, yes, there is one other thing. It's a meme, right? So that means I need to tag a few others. First, I want to beseech those already tagged to go ahead and share with us - Joe, Andy, Jason, and Michelle. Please give us your wisdom!

Next, I'm going to tag a few friends in hopes of nudging them into another blog post, cause all of these folks are t'awesome but don't blog enough:

Andy Kelly (blog | twitter)
Jonathan Kehayias (blog | twitter)
Adam Machanic (blog | twitter)
Simon Sabin (blog | twitter)

Ok, team, bring the thunder.

Thanks,

-Kevin

-Twitter @kekline

-More content at http://KevinEKline.com

Sequels for SQL: Dec 17, 2009

KKline — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:46:00 GMT

In the Sequels for SQL series, I point you to sites where you can go beyond the nose-to-the-grindstone resources that we see every day as SQL Server professionals. (My favorite resource for pan-SQL Server pointers is Steve Jone's Database Weekly email newsletter.) These are the story that comes after and outside (the sequels) of our daily working lives (the other SQL). Let's broaden our horizons together. If you hit on an interesting but overlooked topic, I'd like to hear from you.

SQL Server: We live it. We love it.

When Jimmy May talks, I listen. Not just because he's a personal friend, but also because he knows what's what, if you'll pardon the expression. So when Jimmy says "I believe xPerf will fundamentally change the way I do my job", then I want to know what the heck this free xPerf management tool is and how I can best leverage it. Check out Jimmy's blog entry on xPerf here.

Devices & Gadgets: Usually making our lives better, sometimes not so much.

Ever wonder what's inside one of those tiny USB hard drives? No? Not even a little bit?!? When I started in IT, hard drives where as big as washing machines and cost $60,000 running at speeds in the 100's of RPMs. My how times have changed. Here's a fun hack of a USB hard drive - http://www.dansworkshop.com/electricity-and-electronics/usb-hard-drive-hack.htm.

Futurewatch: Important issues just over the horizon.

There are a lot of standard elements of society being rebranded as the "2.0" version of itself. The 2.0 moniker was first put forward by visionary Tim O'Reilly (blog | twitter), of the eponymous media company. Whenever you see the 2.0 moniker added to the end of something, most famously Web 2.0, then you know that it will include the characteristics of collaboration, interoperability, and user-centered designs. So, whereas the first go at the web in the mid- to late-1990's was about enabling information retrieval such as transforming printed catalogs into on-line catalogs, Web 2.0 enables all of its participants to comment on, review, rate, and otherwise participating with each other in the use of such a catalog. In the last FutureWatch blurb, I pointed out work on Grid 2.0, centered on efforts to update the USA's electricity grid. I'm going to do a much more detailed post in the near future about emerging 2.0 efforts, but one to point out now is Gov 2.0. Under this broad set of initiatives, governments from the lowest to highest levels of responsibility are opening up their public databases for consumption by the public. An example of Gov 2.0 in action comes with the President's SAVE Award, in which the public is invited to vote on their pick for the best money saving tip put forward by federal government workers. Read all about this year's SAVE Award here.

Humor: I haz da funny.

Weird products in Japan have their own name - chindogu. Most of these are crackpot inventions that everyone knows will never see the light of day, such as these these featured here. However, some of these products DO get marketed and, more amazingly, purchased. Check out the product reviews of this totally bizarro chindogu here at Overstock.com.

Professional Development: Because there are two words in "database professional".

There are mountains of great websites with tips on how to be a better speaker. Some day, I'll write a long blog post about my favorite sites for learning how to improve your oration. But if you're in a hurry, and who isn't these days, then this blog post at TechRepublic succinctly sums up the advice you'll find from many other web sites, articles, and blogs.

Society: Important issues to discuss with your friends and family.

One of the most remarkable things about the USA, as a rather biased citizen, is our ability to suck up our pride, admit a mistake, and try to prevent it from happening again. One way that the USA tries to prevent future occurrences is to convene a commission of some kind. I found this analysis by David Leinweber, a Haas Fellow in Finance and Founding Director of the Center for Innovative Financial Technology at UC Berkeley, of the commission studying banking market reform in the USA to be quite intriguing and, frankly, upsetting.

WorldView: If James Bond knows that the world is not enough, then so should I.

I'm always on the lookout for issues related to safe and clean water. If you think people can be grumpy when oil is in short supply, imagine what it's like when there's not enough drinking water for everyone. See how India is dealing with enormous water issues in this revealing article from the Economist. And I'd be interested to hear what our Indian blogger friends thoughts are on this topic, folks like Rushabh Mehta, Jacob Sebastian, and Pinal Dave. (Water issues have remained one of my passions ever since my years working for NASA developing the water recycling systems for the International Space Station, in which we made water of the H20 that passes through the human body re-drinkable. And it tastes good. Incidentally, all of the technology we developed for this project, as with all non-classified government projects, became public domain. ECLSS technology is now used in hundreds of commercial products ranging from household detergents to commercial solvents to filtration systems.)

Thanks!

-Kevin

Twitter @KEKline