My lovely wife Heather gave me a call and said… “Guess what I have in my hands?”  I had heard that Ken and Jorge received their author copies this week so I was very quick to guess it right

Can’t wait to get home today and check it out… I have all the pdf page proofs for all the chapters but it just isn’t the same LOL

By request I’ll be doing a blog in the next day or so about the whole book writing experience as it was probably one of the most challenging yet rewarding experiences in my career.

(Big thanks to wifey for taking a pic!!)

Enjoy!!

Not much.

But the one thing that we do have in common is we’re in our 30s and developed a perforated diverticulitis (which is rare for someone who is still considered “young” LOL).  I’ve never been one to hide things or keep things too private about myself.  I find blogging to be quite theraputic and if you’re looking for some Powershell or TSQL in this post I recommend not reading any further because this is going to be a non-geek post (as my sister has called my usual blog topics hehehe).

So a little background info…

Diverticulitis has 3 general states:

1. Perforation that is blocked or sealed off by the body
2. Perforation that forms an abscess
3. Perforation that does not seal off and leaks continuously into the abdomen

From the sounds of all the medical mumbojumbo I’ve heard over the last few days it sounds like my attack is the first one and lucky for me antibiotics seem to be doing the trick as I’m feeling much better.  If the antibiotics were not effective then the next option would of been to have surgery to remove the piece of colon that is causing the issue and then reconnecting the ends.  Next stop for me (a couple months down the road) is to have a camera in a very awkward place just to make sure that everything is A-OK.  Very rarely patients with diverticulitis will actually have another issue like colon cancer but they like to do a clean sweep just to make sure that if there is anything that needs attention that it gets it sooner rather then later.

Too much info yet? LOL well too bad… it’s my blog and I warned you that there will be no SQL Server chat in this post hahaha.

So this is something that may not bother me ever again, or it may come back and need to be treated with more antibiotics.  If it gets to the point where it’s coming back often then I can elect to have the surgery to remove the troublesome piece of colon.  From what I’ve read there is a < 15% chance that after removing the piece of colon with the issues that this may happen again.  I’m leaning towards having the surgery done if this happens again in the next few years because it sounds like the more attacks that you have the greater the chance of permanent damage being done.

I can make small changes to minimize the chances of another attack like adding more fibre into my diet but in general this is just one of those things that just happens.

So there ya go… that’s what has been going on in my world over the past week LOL

Many thanks to everyone for their kind words and well wishes.  It’s greatly appreciated and I promise that all (well most) future blog posts will be back to a SQL Server based topic LOL

Enjoy!!

Sorry Team USA… no “Miracle on Ice” this time. LOL

Hockey was not the only thing that interested me this Olympics though… it’s amazing how you can get into so many sports that you normally would not watch at all just because the participants are representing your country.  I saw curling, speed skating, moguls, ski jumping, downhill skiing, bobsledding, snowboarding and yes even figure skating LOL. 

I hated Canada’s “Own the Podium” campaign… it felt very “un-Canadian” to me and put a dark cloud (in my opinion) on the unprecedented success that Canada had at this years Winter Olympics.  It is obviously every countries wish to do well at the Olympics and whether the campaign was put in place to help raise money for our Olympic athletes or just raise general awareness for Canadians about the Olympics… if you took a poll of everyday average Canadians I think they would say it was in bad taste and didn’t represent Canada in a very favorable light.

That being said…. Thanks to all who represented our country and a special “shout out” to the Men’s and Women’s Hockey Teams!!!

Colin’s 2010 Themeword is……… FOCUS

No not that kind of focus….

More like this kind of focus:

In the past year I feel like I took on ALOT of new challenges:

• Started the Edmonton PASS Chapter ( EDMPASS.com )
• Served on the Abstract Selection Committee for the PASS Summit
• Started seriously blogging here at BenchmarkITConsulting.com
• Started another service offering business called SQL Wingmen ( SQLWingmen.com )
• Accepted an offer to co-author a book on Policy Based Management ( Apress.com )

all the while having a full time job and doing my best to balance work time with quality time with my family who give me nothing but support and smiles

2010 for me is going to be about focussing on everything new that I took on in 2009 and moving all of those initiatives forward.  Now that doesn’t really sound like SMART objectives so let me try and clarify.

EDMPASS

• I want to have all the EDMPASS meetings recorded via LiveMeeting and made available to everyone.
• I want an average of 40 physical attendees per meeting by this time next year
• I want to speak at 3 EDMPASS meetings before the next Summit

Abstract Selection Committee for the PASS Summit

• This one is a bit tricky as I’ve said before that if I wanted to speak at the Summit that I wouldn’t feel right being on the committee so I’ll leave this one as “undecided” for now

BenchmarkITConsulting.com

• My current unique visitors per month is anywhere from 6500 – 8000.  I’d like to maintain a constant 8000+ unique visitors a month
• I’ll continue to blog frequently (at least twice a week) and add more new content to help increase my traffic.

SQL Wingmen

• I want to increase my customer volume by at least 200% by this time next year

Policy Based Management Book

• I want to finish this book and learn everything I can from the process
• I will try to not make the editors go “comment crazy” with their nasty red font color

So there you have it… nothing really new because I think if I added anything new (from a professional point of view) to this already pretty full plate I think my lovely wife would shoot me, that and adding new things at this point would take away from the positive direction and momentum that these tasks currently have.

Happy New Year Everyone!!

Tag Time… I’m tagging the first 3 people who tweeted something….

• @SQLChicken – Jorge Segarra
• @AndyLeonard – Andy Leonard
• @SQLFool – Michelle Ufford

Enjoy!!

Meanwhile my “son learned to walk while I was away” (LOL Insert Cats In the Cradle song here)  I guess the biggest reason why I decided to bite off SO MUCH was that I was worried about what would happen if my contract didn’t get renewed or got cancelled, etc.  We made the decision that my wife wouldn’t go back to work and would concentrate on being a full-time mom so obviously if I didn’t have a “new contract” to go to that things would be difficult.

My wife (who has always been so supportive) kept reinforcing that I should stop worrying and just believe in myself.  Fast forward a couple years and I can honestly say that I am in a much more “balanced” state.  I’ve stopped worrying about my “next gig” so much as there always seem to be a couple choices/options available.  I still have my blog and run EDMPASS but I like to think that I don’t let the extra curricular activities take away too much time from my family.  I still do some side gigs from time to time but that’s more to help out people or friends that I’ve known for a while rather then as a need.

I’m not really sure about the direction or the “message” of this post other then just to recommend that you take a look at your Work / Life Balance and assess where you are at.  There are obviously periods of time when you’re going to have to make sacrifices for the benefit of your family but when you’re in those times do your best to assess your situation and set some goals and timelines as to when you can take your life back from your work and return it to you and your family.

My Family:

 4 years ago today!!

Our son Robbie and daughter Lana

Enjoy!!

~ Colin

I assume alot of this has to do with the fact that once you’ve reach a certain level of experience everyone should know the difference between a clustered and non-clustered index.  When interviewing for a “higher end” SQL Server DBA role I find that you get a few oober-techie type of questions but the interviewees are more looking for how the individual would handle different use cases.

I’ve recently been on the interviewer side of things and in reviewing my questions I did the same thing without really realizing it.  Back 5 or so years ago I remember usually having to go through 2 interviews… one a touchy feely personality type of interview and then the other a full on hour of tech questions that looked like they were taking straight off an MCITP exam or something.

Anyways… it was a great experience (as I’m one of those weird people who like interviews) and sounds like it would be a great project to be a part of.

Enjoy!!

(and yes I understand that this is a lame Monday morning post for me but I couldn’t even find any dress shoes this morning after the move so I promise I’ll make up for it later)

So here we go in no particular order:

My Top 5 SQL Server Indexing Best Practices – Tim Ford
PASS Summit Sessions Submitted  – Kendal Van Dyke
Wild Rose Detox Cleanse - Shaun Guthrie
Auditing in SQL Server 2008  – Technet
DBAs Behaving Badly (3/10) Change Control - Rod Colledge
Optimists, Pessimists, and Technology People -  Brent Ozar
Analyze This – Analyze Your Indexes – Part 4 -  Jason Strate
Walk for MS -  Jay Danger Graham
Watch a First Time Reader Use Your Blog  – Darren Rowse
How Did I Get Started? - SQLBatman

Enjoy!!

OK let’s get the big one out of the way early and that is money.  The money is better and this is because of a few things(Short Term Length, No benefits, No Holidays, No Training budget, etc)  basically you are paid to come in, be an expert, get the job done, and leave.  There are different situations that deviate from this basic mentality but generally this is the way of the contractor.  Come tax time (if you haven’t gone crazy with the money coming into your company) you should be very happy with the results you see.  My advice, don’t go cheap with your accountant just to save a few bucks… you get what you pay for.

So now that the whole money thing is out of the way let’s talk about “job security”.  This is a subject that I’ve gone back and forth on in my mind (and in discussion with others) alot.  I’ve come to the conclusion that the mentality of a fulltime employee thinking they have carte blanche job security is dangerous.  The latest “recession” has proven that even as a fulltime employee you can walk into work one day and be called in for that dreaded meeting where you’re told that they are downsizing the team to cut costs and that your services will no longer be required.  It happens… I don’t know how many Tweets I’ve seen from (seemingly highly skilled) people indicating that they had just been laid off and are looking for work.  Now with that being said it is “easier” to cut contractors than to lay off fulltime employees but it also easier to get short term budget (contract dollars) rather then getting a new FTE (full time employee) approved.

Let’s talk about free time now.  I defintely noticed that the amount of free time that I have to spend with family and friends has gone down a bit since becoming an independent contractor.  This is partially my fault as I tend to take on more work then I probably should but aside from “real work” there are things that you need to concentrate on more (and NOT get paid for) as a contractor then you would as a fulltime employee.  Things like self-training, the company’s accounting/books, deciding on the next gig, and building your brand are all things that are on your dime and you need to make sure that when you set your hourly rate that these things are factored in.  Most of my friends are fulltime employees and they tend to do most of these things as well, but there are definitely a group of people in the industry that believe that they shouldn’t (and don’t want to) spend any of their own time/money in improving themselves professionally.  I’m not saying this is wrong but if this is how you think then independent contracting might not be for you.

Something else that I immediately noticed with being a contractor is my desire to “build my brand”.  I started this blog, started writing articles, joined Twitter, (going to be) working on the DBA Abstract Selection team for PASS, and also started the Edmonton Chapter of PASS.  In doing all of this I hoped to get my name out there and become a strong voice for SQL Server in the IT community.  I’ve really enjoyed becoming a more active member of the SQL Community rather then just a voyeur and as a side benefit I think my involvement gives me an edge that would set me apart from other contractors of equal skill bidding on the same gig.  It’s amazing the number of experts out there in the community that just love to shoot the shit chat about SQL Server.  Contractor or not… get involved in the community!

Anyways… as with most of my articles this was just random thoughts and today it happened to be about something other then SQL Server.  I’m not trying to “sell” the idea of being an independent contractor I’m just discussing my personal experiences and I understand that those experiences might not be the same as others.  I’ve really enjoyed being an independent contractor (so far) and am glad that I’ve made the switch.  The hours and amount of work has definitely increased but the professional satisfaction is amazing and is something that I hadn’t experienced in my previous 11 years as a fulltime employee.

Next article will be about my abuse of (brackets) and “quotes” as I tend to (over)use both quite frequently LOL
Enjoy!!

Thanks to everyone and their birthday wishes… I’m spending (almost) the whole day with my family so I’ll be pretty disconnected but I’ll be back on tomorrow if I remember how to turn on this new fangle dangle thing they call a computer. If you talk to me don’t forget to speak loudly as I heard rumors that once you’re in your 30s you grow hair in places you didn’t have hair before like your ears hahaha

You young wipper snappers out there have a great day and remember to respect your elders (or at least don’t laugh at them until they are far enough away not to hear LOL)

First: The number of “DBA” jobs on Workopolis. This is what I generally use as my litmus test as to the market for the type of work I do. A year ago at this time if you saw a number between 120 and 130 available that would be considered normal. Today I had a peek and it’s currently sitting at 77. For me this is a pretty good indication of a couple things… 1) new full time employee positions are not being approved at the same rate as they were a year ago and 2) during this time of economic uncertainty people aren’t so quick to bounce to a new opportunity. I for one have seen specific examples of both and was on an interview panel for a position where the candidate eventually declined the offer due to not wanting to start a new job with a “probation period”.

Second: The number of available houses in the Edmonton and surrounding area. This number a year ago would be anywhere from 13,000-14,000 on a given day where as looking today (the site I look at) is sitting at just over 8,000. I read in a newspaper that the average cost of a home is 12% less this time of year vs. last year. 12% is huge especially when you take a $400,000 home and it’s now going for $352,000. People are pulling their homes off the market and the ones that are still on the market are continually dropping their prices. Some of these homes are for sale because the owner bought 2 or 3 houses in the boom looking to flip them and now their mortgages can’t be paid cause they were not able to resell.

Anyways these are just a couple of the many things I’ve noticed in the past few months. It will be very interesting to see how bad things get before a turnaround happens. Personally my wife and I are looking at buying a house in the next few months and will be watching housing prices very carefully to make sure we’re not buying until the market levels out and starts heading back the other direction.

To those who have been “saving for a rainy day” kudos to you and hopefully that day never comes and to those who haven’t I’d start trying to put whatever you can away now just in case that Friday afternoon suprise meeting gets called in your office.

Good luck everyone!!