Once a year, I like to read back through my blog and recap some of the highlights from the past twelve months. It helps me recognize the things I’ve achieved, the things I goofed up, and the ways that I’ve changed over time.
January: Our Second Cruise
Erika and I sailed on a ten-day Princess cruise through the southern Caribbean. I love the cruising experience, and it’s one of my vacation highlights that will stay with me for the rest of my life. At the time, when I wrote my trip notes about the cruise, I concluded that Erika and I would rather have flown to one particular island and stayed there through the duration. That’s probably still true, but it’s not like cruising is a bad way to spend a vacation.
I think about this cruise at least once a week: some of the photos are up on my wall at work, I use some as desktop wallpaper, and I’m planning my next cruise, this time with Mom.
I’m surprised that I haven’t gone snorkeling since the cruise. I live near the Keys, for crying out loud - I should get up off my behind and go snorkeling down there at least once a month.
The cruise ship experience convinced me that I don’t want to buy my own boat. I like the idea of cruising on my own sailboat, but the horror stories I’ve read about accidents and problems pretty much put an end to that. While I enjoyed attending the Miami Boat Show in February, it was strictly as a dreamer.
February: Pushing GTD, Remember The Milk on my coworkers
I believe firmly that David Allen’s Getting Things Done is the best way for information workers to manage their work and their lives. I started using RememberTheMilk.com to manage my GTD to-do lists, and in February I blogged about RTM and GTD. I can’t imagine doing IT work without these two tools, and they’re the reason that I leave the office every day between 5pm and 5:30pm, guilt-free and upbeat.
March: Changed Companies
Back in October of 2005, I was hired by Adjoined Consulting to work as a data warehouse administrator for Southern Wine & Spirits. In March, Adjoined got bought out by the much larger (and mostly Indian-based) Kanbay Consulting. The whole consulting thing left a really bad taste in my mouth, so in March, I gave my notice and took another job in Miami. At the last minute, Southern made me an offer to stick with them and become their overall DBA, and I accepted because I really liked the people and the company.
I enjoy toying around with gadgets, and with my new job came a new phone - a Cingular 8125. It’s a combination of a PocketPC and a phone. I had a lot of frustrations with it initially, blogged about it here and here, and by the end of the year I completely relied on it for everything from directions to blogging to photos. The high point was probably during a visit to my grandparents in Naples: Grandma wanted to go to a knitting supply store, but couldn’t remember exactly where it was. I pulled it up online, got directions from Google Maps, and guided us right to it.
One of my favorite features of the new phone is the ability to shoot a picture, send it to Flickr, and send it to my Blog along with comments, like this one:
That helps me capture spontaneous, amusing moments. I like that. Hard to put a price on that.
Speaking of walking Ernie, the new phone really helps me keep on top of what’s going on in the world and with SQL Server. Every morning, I walk Ernie for about 45 minutes, and during that time I’m able to read up on all of my favorite news sites and blogs via the phone. By the time we get back to the house, I’m up to speed on what’s going on, and I spend less time catching up in the office. It’s a great way to start each day.
July: Became a Mac User
Southern humored my lifelong wish to use an Apple Mac, and bought me a 15″ Macbook Pro. Now that they run off Intel processors and can run Windows in a window, I can completely do my job on an Apple. This fact still amazes me.
Initially, my coworkers thought I’d get frustrated and give up quickly. One of them flat out told me that I’d be back in Windows within two weeks. While I’ve had my ups and downs with the Macbook Pro, I still love it, and I’d never go back to a Windows-only PC. I do the majority of my non-SQL work inside OS X, but I still have to drop down to a Windows window in order to do my SQL Server work. I make a great living off Microsoft software, and I’m thankful for it, but I really enjoy using the Mac for everything else.
Looking forward, I keep hearing rumors about an upcoming Apple phone. Supposedly the first generation one won’t be a smartphone: it will make phone calls, shoot photos and act as an iPod, but no email sync. That pains me. I’d love to have a phone with the famed Apple usability, but I’m not sure that I’m ready to part with my morning blog-reading routine yet or my phone’s full keyboard, which makes emails a joy.
Summer: Light Hurricane Season
The closest we came to a hurricane was Tropical Storm Ernesto. Other than that, all quiet on the hurricane front. A great relief after last year’s multiple-hurricane debacle.
I still don’t understand how newcomers to South Florida can justify the house prices, taxes and insurance, though. Then add in the cost of evacuations, storm shutters, generators, etc., and this place is a financial sinkhole. I love Miami, but how are we supposed to buy a house with these economics? It’s easy to weather a hurricane when you’re renting, but the stress level has to be something else entirely when your money is actually tied up in these homes. If my condo’s windows blew out and my stuff got soaked, big deal - the repairs won’t cost me anything. But the owner, ouch.
September: My Last Fast Food Meal
I gave up on McDonald’s after a bad experience and a revelation. Since then, I think I’ve eaten fast food maybe twice - once on accident without realizing what I was doing, and the second time with Erika when we were desperate for something fast and cheap. I don’t miss it at all. For 2007, I’m considering giving up caffeine, too. I’ve known for years that it has some bad attitude side effects, and I don’t like being grumpy. Caffeine definitely makes me grumpy, especially in the quantities that I enjoy drinking it, so I’ll be switching to decaf.
Fall: Started to Run, Changed Blog
Looking back, in the light of giving up McDonald’s, it almost sounded like I was on a health kick. Trust me, these items are unrelated. The key to me starting to jog was the Apple Nike+iPod kit pictured here. I loved how it turned jogging into metrics-gathering: it helps us geeks visualize our runs as something measurable, something quantifiable, something that can be clearly improved and gauged.
Pretty soon, at the urging of my coworker Ben, I’d ran my first 5k. I’ve signed up for my next one in January with him as well.
In October, I switched my blog platform from MovableType to Wordpress. I’m glad I did - it’s easier to use, feels more powerful, and helps me do a lot of interesting things that I wouldn’t otherwise have had the time to do. Now, for example, I do audioscrobbling: I use Last.FM to automatically post my recently listened tracks on the blog. I doubt any of you are even mildly interested in that, but it gives a more complete picture of me as a person. I find that kinda nifty, and since it doesn’t cost anything and doesn’t require any work on my part, I’m all for it.
During 2006, I blogged less than I have in the past. I attribute that to my newfound in-office job. It’s not that I have less free time, it’s just that I spend that free time differently. Instead of writing a blog entry to recap a funny incident or a problem, I talk it over with my in-office coworkers instead. The end result is that I share fewer day-to-day amusements with you, dear reader.
Another side effect is that my blog entries have started to skew towards the professional, documenting more SQL Server experiences. I’m in a much larger company now (over 10,000 employees instead of under a hundred) so I get exposed to more interesting, large-scale SQL Server setups. I have to document some of this stuff to pass on to my junior DBA and to friends in the same line of work, so it’s just as easy to copy/paste that stuff into here and help strangers as well.
Erika, Ernestina and I finished up the year this weekend with a great mini-vacation in the Keys at a friend’s house. We’ll spend New Year’s Eve vegging out at home, maybe walk down closer to the pier to get a better view of the annual fireworks. Our condo isn’t quite up high enough to see them.
Summing It Up
Whoa: this year, I’ve become a jogger, a Mac user and a snorkeler. I’m happy with that. I didn’t start this year with goals to do any of those things - they just sort of happened along the way as a result of being willing to try new stuff and take on new challenges.
For next year, in my professional life, I want to become a better database administrator, focusing on data mining and analytics.
In my personal life, I want to snorkel more, run a 10K, and maybe get up to Michigan for my fifteen year class reunion.
Stay tuned. I think I’m getting the hang of this “life” thing.
