Mike Rowe Works

A nice open letter to ex-Governor Romney from Mike Rowe. Good to see people actually trying to help others get back to work.

Karen Lopez, Crusader

She might not see herself as one, but I really love the efforts Karen puts into making the world a better place. I met her a couple years ago and have since seen her speak on a number of topics, both technical and career based, and I think this post of hers is wonderful.

This is Why I #WIT…And Why You Should. Too

She’s a great inspiration to women especially, but really to everyone.

The Average SQL Saturday Attendee

I have been to quite a few SQL Saturdays. This year I have been to 5 and will go to 2 more, and next year I’ll do a few and perhaps run my own events.

One of the things that I’ve noticed from attendees is they often work at local companies, governments, with a common theme: a lack of training dollars.

However these people take a Saturday away from their families, some driving for hours (I’ve seen up to a 6 hour drive) to go and learn something. To go improve their skills, and make the investment in their career.

It should pay back for them, but I’m not sure that I would have made that investment when  I was younger. It certainly makes me want to deliver more training, and do more to help others.

And work on my own career.

Different Thinker

My brother is an interesting cat. Spending time with him on vacation, quite a few talks just the two of us, remind me of how different he is from me. He sees the world differently, and he really wants to make it a better place.

As we talk, and he's just started his Physician's Assistant internship, I'm touched by how he laments the lack of time the hospital doctors spend with patients. He is working through the internal medicine group, and so often he spends more time (with the nurses) talking to patients and checking on them. He genuinely knows there are pressures, and the almighty dollar rules, but he's still looking to somehow find time to help people.

The passion comes through as he talks, and that's amazing. Especially as I don't think I have great passion, and it's something I'm not sure I ever will find. I appreciate his, however.

The other day he also wanted to meet at his office, and I think show off a little. I'm glad I agreed as it was impressive to me. It's nothing special, an old stone building built into a hillside in Ellicot City, but a nice reception room, 3 patient rooms, and lots of oriental and Asian or Middle Eastern decoration. He really embraces culture, and more natural, almost mystical healings. It was impressive to me just to see my brother's name on a sign and the door.

He spent a few minutes looking at my wrist, which I injured snowboarding in March. I'd mentioned it a month or so ago, and didn't say anything, but he asked if he could look at it here. He cares, and his desire to help shines through.

It's a different path than mine, and not even what I want, but it is admirable. And it's inspirational in many ways.

Tweeting Before Coffee

It seems like this is shaping up to be a writing/thinking day. I woke up late, about 8, this morning, and with Kendall coming into our room and Tia already using her laptop in bed. I grabbed my laptop, checking on SQLServerCentral to make sure things were working.

While doing so, I checked Twirl to see what was happening in my Twitter-verse. I responded to a few tweets and then posted a "the best part of waking up is coffee in your cup. Need to go make some." Someone then responded with "not out of bed yet?"

A few people went back and forth, and it made me think that I was a  little more motivated for work than I realized.

I came downstairs and found this post on Blogging and intellectual craftsmanship, which seems to fit me. The inability to separate my personal life from my professional one has worked well for me. It's quoted in the post: “the most admirable thinkers within the scholarly community you have chosen to join [in this case sociology] do not split their work from their lives. They seem to take both too seriously to allow such dissociation, and they want to use each for the enrichment of the other”. I found the source essay here.

I thought that was very interesting, and it made me stop for a minute. In some ways I am a tiny bit of a sociologist. I read and comment on things, on events, and actions, talking often from the social and human side of things. It's editorializing, but I try to bring more to the link or event with my own thoughts and comments.

And I often draw on my own experiences in order to do so. The separation from my personal life to the professional is thin, sometimes non-existent.

As I finished his essay, thoughts of it still lingering as I moved on with me day, I read an essay that my Mom sent to me called Effort and Understanding: Having It Easy. I'm not sure if this is the original source as I just had the text in email, and it's been repeated a few times around the Internet, but it struck me as well.

I think luck plays a part in success, and it definitely appears that things are easy for some people. What surprised me is when people said that it seemed I had it easy. From my perspective, that’s far from the truth. I’ve worked hard, and I think I have been lucky to have things go my way, but it’s taken hard work.

We build our own world to a large extent. It might be that we have more ups or downs than others, but to a large extent I think it’s our efforts, our understanding of our capabilities, and our acceptance of our achievements that determines how successful we view ourselves.

And I think that our view of ourselves will shine through to others.

When we enjoy what we do, and work at it, to become good, it appears easy on the outside. We appear to be a craftsman that just goes about their daily work.