Back from Salt Lake City

I had a quick trip out to Salt Lake City. Friday afternoon to Sunday.  It started out a bit scary as the weather didn't look good and the plane was small.

 The event was good, and I got to see some sessions, including a neat one on Scala, but overall it was really just catching up with some friends.

 

The facility was neat. The business school at University of Utah. Having never been to Utah, this was nice. I didn't see much, but the city looked beautiful.

There was a football game just a few blocks away, and I could hear the announcer when I walked outside.

I had thought about exploring Salt Lake on Sun with some friends, but a few people bailed and I was tired. I'm more traveled out for work than I expected. So late Sat night I went to switch my flight. I was on a 5:30, and was thinking a 1:30 or 3:30, but couldn't get those. So I took the 7:20 and was home by 9:00.

A quiet day around the house. I watched some football after hitting the gym. I moved some snow. I just hung out a bit.

That was a nice break, now back to the busy week before holidays. And I got to wear one of my new shirts.

A good presentation

I had committed to the Denver SQL Server User Group last night to present. The guy in charge caught me on my travels in Oct and asked if I could present. Since I hadn't made it to any of the 3 Denver groups, I agreed. I try to get to each one once a year and I feel guilty for not making it.

I was stressed to get there, having to get Delaney after school and then race out to the tech center. I made it fine, and was only a little nervous. This was a presentation I hadn't done in a year, and I spent a bit of time ensuring the scripts and code would run this week, but I really only went over it once. I also wasn't sure how interesting this would be for people. I wondered if most had heard of the topic.

I was surprised to see that most people didn't know about it and of the 44 or so people there, there were 4-5 that were interested.  It went well, a good presentation from me (I thought).

The Refugees

Cato sometimes gets too libertarian for me, but this is a good look at data. Not emotion, data. I think we're pretty safe, and we can handle things.

That being said, if you still think that refugees are a problem and we shouldn't help because we'll get attacked, or they've evil, you're a fucktard.

If you want to say we should support veterans first, then why not both? And if you believe we should support veterans, why haven't you been pushing for that already? McCain voted to keep aid going to Egypt (among other places) and debated that (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/C?r113:./temp/~r113DNxy2o) Rubio voted with him, probably plenty of others since they opposed Ran Paul's amendment to stop that. Both also voted against a bill for additional funding of benefits for veterans.

So if you don't want refugees and you haven't thought about veterans before this debacle, double fucktard.

Will someone that threatens the US get in as a refugee? Perhaps. I'm sure we can handle it. I'm far more worried about domestic terrorism. I'm much more worried that some US citizen idiot with a gun or bomb would target kids, or blacks, or browns, or mosques, or synagogues.

As I go to the airport tomorrow, I'm much more likely to be detained and harassed by the TSA. As I go to a mostly white state, I'm much more likely to be mugged, or attacked or beaten by some young idiot whose parents taught him that dark skin colored people are lazy, or shiftless, or dangerous or some other fucking silly notion. I am far more likely to face issues from a police officer at night than from a terrorist.

I'm confident we can handle a few people in the US that might want to do us harm. We deal with that every day now.

My Afternoon

I got out late morning with the tractor to help Tia. She couldn't get the UTV out to the feeders. However with the forks on, I couldn't move snow. Just too much. While I spent a good 30 minutes trying to change to the bucket, she just fed by the barn.

 However I had to get out and move snow so she could then get the UTV to the front of the barn and put it inside. While some places had little snow, like the front yard, we had lots of 3-4' drifts.

I worked my way down the track and plowed out to the West pasture so those horses could get back and Tia could get to feeders later in the day.

 I had to go back and work a bit, but then I went out to plow. Kendall had practice, and we weren't sure what the roads were like. I'm glad I put up markers a few weeks ago, and added a few this past weekend. I'd have no idea where the driveway was without them.

I managed to plow out to the main road, but it was a mess. Fortunately the neighbor's workers drove a Bobcat down from their office and cleared all the way out to the county roads. I came back and grabbed the BMW, and saw that we could get out, so we left a little early and made practice.

Quite the day, and we returned home to find out the county cancelled schools again today. Apparently little plowing was done yesterday, so they weren't sure they could get people (staff) to work, and it's a bit dangerous for kids.

In any case, another snow day for the kids. Delaney is especially pleased.

Snow Day

This is about 3pm yesterday

In contrast to yesterday, it's a bit colder today. A snow day for the kids, with (supposedly) 12"+ down. I think most blew off the yard, but will go and run the tractor in a bit.

We had a fun night last night, with Kyle coming over to help Kendall make pictures for her school volleyball banquet tomorrow. We ended up with a large card game with the whole family last night.

Blizzard Warning

We're supposed to get 12" of snow tonight. This is me on the porch this morning

Second Place

Saturday was the first Knowledge Bowl meet of the season. I went up to watch Delaney while Tia had Kendall and volleyball practice. It was a long drive (2 hours), but I'm glad I went. I was supposed to drive, but the kids ended up getting a bus, so I dropped Delaney off at 6:30, came home to feed horses for 45min, and then headed up.

The kids had a smaller team go up. I know some kids are busy, like Kendall, but all in all, they were only8, so no subs. I got there as they were in the first oral round. Last year they were in second all year, by a wide margin behind Fort Morgan, who would kill them. This time they were up 7-2 when I walked in.

It wasn't all good as they had scored 41 to Fort Morgan's 49 in the written round. We certainly have some work to do there to get a better start. However they ended up winning the first  round and getting within 2 points.

 The started the second round in high spirits and hung in there. They seem to get down a bit in the round, moving slower at the end, and lost by 2 points. However being within 4 was great. Unfortunately they dropped in the third round when FM went on a 7 or 8 question run to win by 7.

The last round was a tie, and the kids were encouraged. A winning round and a tie, and well ahead of third place. They ended up taking second, but broke 100 points, to 101 (behind winning 112). That was encouraging as many of the meets were 120-85 last year. They're closing in, and hopefully improve.

We're sad that Delaney will miss the next meet as Kyle graduates that say, but hopefully the team does well.

Dropped

A small hint. Be very careful with the oil filler cap on a BMW. I dropped mine at a gas station into the engine. I had stopped to get some oil as I was a touch low. Trying to hurry, and stay clean, I dropped the cap.

However it didn't come out the bottom. There's a plastic cover on the bottom, a splash guard of some sort. I looked around, but couldn't find it.  So I drove home, thinking I could do better in the garage.

I did, but I had to remove 14 or so screws to pull the cover off, then reach around and get the cap. All of this, with plenty of oil splashed around the engine compartment from the ride home.

Not too long, 15-20 minutes, but a messy procedure.

I've learned to be more careful.

The Cross Country Banquet

Delaney had his end of the season, and final, cross country banquet this week. He got recognized by the conference as a student athlete for good grades.

The coaches also took turns talking about each kid. It made for a long night, but it was touching to see each kid singled out. Delaney was remembered for his mind, which is cool

 They also pulled all the seniors up to remember them. Quite a large class here, and a good one.

They each had a small speech to give. Some were short, some were touching, like the young lady who was injured for half her high school time, but the coach believed in her and she had tears in her eyes.

Delaney's was probably the most fun.

A #SQLWish

It's been kind of an amazing response today to my call to make a #SQLWish come true for a friend in the UK. I hope it continues as we have a long way to go, but so far I'm touched by people's generosity.

Make a #SQLWish Come True.

Moving Forward, slowly

Delaney's Eagle project has been moving slowly. Very slowly, but we got him going recently. We went out and marked some spaces, and sent them to his sponsor. We got a late start, and it was cold, so we were hurrying and didn't do exact measurements.

I want to get this moving, but have lots of stuff in the way. I travel the weekend of the 20/21 and then the 5th. Kyle graduates on the 12th, and Delaney and I were thinking of going to Florida on the 18th. Then Christmas.

Crazy. I'd like to get this moving, so maybe we can get some volunteers in short stretches to make this happen.

We did make it to the Veteran's Day celebration, which was nice. Delaney looked great in his uniform.

He also go to raise the American flag and helped with the Army flag. It was neat to see him up there and I think it was a bit inspiring for him.

We'll see if we can get things moving.

A Nice Surprise

I woke up today to a thank you from a friend. Brent Ozar wrote a post thanking me for the work I've done for the SQL Server community. It was a nice surprise, and not unexpectedly, I've been answering thank yous on Twitter all morning.

That was quite a surprise for me, and I was honored to see the response.

Snow, Sort of

We got some snow last night. The first of the season, and it was disappointing. I woke up and saw almost nothing out back. The front wasn't much better.

However I think things will get better. I dropped off snowboards and skis yesterday to get edged and waxed. It's been a few years, so we did the deluxe treatment and they should be ready next Thursday. Just in time for Copper's Friday opening.

Winterization

I started getting ready for winter over the weekend, putting the markers up. It was surprising to me that the first time it snowed we couldn't find the driveway and safely get out. Ever since then I've worked to get these up every year before the ground disappears. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, I'm glad I have these.

 I also got the tractor set with the blade on the back. Here's hoping we get snow.

Yesterday we decided to winterize the trailer. We've been putting it off since we thought Tia would take a trip, but she decided not to, so we rolled the trailer over to the sewer and dumped it in there yesterday. Since we went to that effort, we also decided to drain all the water, including the water heater, which I'm doing here.

We've never done this, but it seemed simple. We went slow, both of us double checking each other's work and reading the manual. We got the sewage drained, then the water, and once everything was gone, we closed some valves and then added antifreeze to the system.

Time will tell if we did things right, but we are now just waiting on a cover to come to close things up. A friend also suggested papering the inside with dryer sheets to keep mice out, so we'll give that a try as well.

Back from the long month

October was a long month. 10 days of travel to FL and the UK, then another 6 days in Seattle, which made for a long month. Half of it on the road.

However it was a good trip. A bit of silliness, as we raised 25k for Doctors Without Borders.

Our SQL in the City event was a success, even if I didn't quite fit in.

 I got to see a lot of friends. Pinal, from India, is one of the few that's been the ranch, and someone I rarely see since he's halfway around the world. However we had a chance to chat, as I did with a number of people.

It's always strange that I get so busy that I don't have time to spend with as many people as I'd like. I find myself missing opportunities to see people at events. However I do try and focus on the people I get to talk to. Some of them old friends, some of them I've met for the first time, but I give them my attention when they're in front of me. Overall, things work out well.

 Bob came to Denver in September, and then I saw him last week. Lots of fun.

 South Africa, Germany, Venezuela, and me.

 A good dinner at FareStart. They're a great non-proft in Seattle that I'm glad Redgate supports.

Overall, it was a stressful month with a keynote to polish and two new sessions to get done and deliver. Things went well, and I'm looking forward to a quiet month, with relatively little going on for a few weeks.