Has it been a month since my last post? Wow, time really does fly. With everything that went on in the past four weeks, it is easy to see how time can slip. There was Mother’s Day, birthdays, my anniversary, prepping for 70-447, a dance recital, building a base for my marathon training, and getting ready for my MOM talk…
That’s right, I am going to get up in front of people and talk about something. It has been nine years since I have had to prepare a talk for a group of people, and that was simply a pre-calculus algebra class at Northeastern. Somehow, talking about MOM 2005 to other professionals is more intimidating. Even more intimidating than the interview I had with the NSA. Good times, indeed.
I have about a dozen slides right now. The talk is meant to be an introduction to MOM for those that have never seen it before. It is not meant to be an advanced discussion, just a way for people to whet their appetite and decide for themselves if they want to implement MOM in the environment. And despite my intentions, I am certain that someone will attend the talk looking for advanced information and be disappointed, that seems to be inevitable. I only hope they are nice enough to recognize that when they fill out the evaluation form.
So, I find myself rehearsing a lot these days. After all, how often do you need to spend, say, five minutes talking about yourself? What should I say? Do I dare tell people that I used to be a programmer (gasp!) Or should I gloss over that part of my life and pretend I was born and bred to be a DBA? Do I mention my time in prison? Do I talk about Brokeback Mountain, and the summers I spent there back in the sixties? What things do I leave in, and leave out?
And then there is the talk itself. My plan is to spend time showing the overall structure of MOM, and to walk people through the console interfaces, and to show some of the customizations possible right out of the box. I do plan to show a custom script, but that would be the most advanced item in the talk. I am presenting to a user group next week, and I hope to get some good feedback from them in order to make it better.
Hopefully it will all go well. If it does, I may be entering a new phase of my career where I write more, give talks, and get published a bit here and there. I am not looking to be the best DBA in the world, just the best DBA that I can be, and hopefully give something back to a community that has helped me these past few years.
