It all started with a simple question. “What’s a table?,” my nine-year-old daughter asked me during a session I was giving at SQL Saturday #184 last year. Now, being my daughter, I know that she has the innate ability to ask questions just for the sake of being difficult. But in this case, I believe … Read more
No one sets out to become a DBA. Nobody. Well, there was that one kid who wanted to be our summer intern, but I’m fairly certain he was just saying that to get a job at the time. Truth be told, I did want to be a DBA. But that was only after having been a … Read more
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the USA. It’s a day where we are supposed to be thankful for what we have been given and instead we mostly use it as an excuse to eat obscene amounts of food, watch 10 hours of NFL action, and force retail workers to work longer hours in the name of … Read more
Recently our town completed a sidewalk to one of the schools. I saw the sidewalk as I went for a jog today, and it got my mind wandering and thinking. We moved here over 10 years ago. At the time we had one fifteen month and one minus-2 week old baby. There was no sidewalk across … Read more
That question is in my Top Ten Most Offensive Statements ever said to me, or to any father that is trying to share in the responsibilities of raising children. And it happened not once, but twice, in my career. But that’s not why I’m writing this post. This post is about how to say “no” effectively. … Read more
There’s a scene in Pulp Fiction where Vincent opens a briefcase to look inside. What does he see? It’s a MacGuffin. What’s a MacGuffin you ask? Great question. A MacGuffin is a plot device. It’s something of value that is important to the plot of the story. In Pulp Fiction it is the shiny contents of … Read more
