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Looking at the last post, its been just over two years since I’ve posted, and reading an update from my friend Ryan about ‘What Do You Want’ inspired me to write-down a few things, this post will be an Update, the next my answer to What Do I Want.

Updates:

In the last two years I have:

Increased the family size

August 10, 2015 Natalie and I welcomed another girl to our brood. Kennedy joined us and over the last 15 months have figured out that all children are different, Kenna is nuts!

Natalie Stays Home

January 2016, we decided that it would be beneficial if Natalie stayed home for a bit and focused on the kids.  For the entirety of this year, she has done just that, and the kids are excelling on every avenue.  I couldn’t be happier with the results.

Ran a Half Marathon

February 2016- I ran the Gasparilla Distance Classic Half Marathon.  My goal was 2:10 and I hit 2:17 (i think)  I hit the wall around 10 miles, and I blame that on waiting on my friend Renee do his business around mile 7, standing around for 6-7 minutes was not a good idea and it caused me to seriously freeze up.  Will try again next year.

Remodeling the House

February 2016 – Lets open up the kitchen, knock down some walls and see what it looks like.   As of last week, I have permits and can start closing up the walls.  Progress pics here

Tried out for Microsoft

I thought about not adding this but I think its important as part of the story.  A friend invited me to interview for a Premier Field Engineering role at Microsoft, to which I interviewed.  Feedback indicated I was technically sound but didn’t have enough experience working with a team, which is baffling as I built the entire DBA team at my current gig.  I think the Army guy interviewing didn’t like that I was a Marine.   Not getting this was a blessing in disguise.

Lost Job

June 2016 – The company I was previously working was bought just 3 months after I joined,  hired a new CTO, and completely restructured the company, in the end shutting down the Tampa office, which was quite unfortunate, but I learned a great deal about my self during that time and hopefully can continue to grow from those experiences.

Started New Job

July 2016 –  I started a new job as database consultant for Taos.  I’m currently engaged in a multi-datacenter consolidation effort in which I am in charge of MSSQL and MySQL.  Brushing up on MySQL skills has been refreshing as its also brushing up on my Linux skills, which will set me up to take a look at Oracle in the future.  This position is work-from-home, which is awesome, since I get to see the girls throughout the day.

Started College…Again

I found a college that works well for professionals who can work at their own pace.  Western Governors University is working well for me thus far.  I was able to transfer some old USf credits as well as my Microsoft Certs in for credit.  In the last 4 months, I have been able to knock out 29 credits.  I have 2 months left in this semester and would like to knock out 4 more classes which is quite doable.

  These are the major items that have come and gone since I’ve last posted.  Stay tuned for the next update, which I’ll add some short term goals I’m looking at.

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This week I am attending PASS Summit 2014 in Seattle, Washington. PASS Summit is  gathering of SQL Data professionals from around the world who come together to learn more about our craft.  As most of you reading this site will know, I enjoy sharing and speak at the regional SQL Saturday events.  At some point I would like to be able to challenge my self to speaking at a broader audience, and while not an official speaker, I have been selected to compete in a competition for new speakers while at Summit.

This competition is known as SQL Speaker Idol.  It will be held in the style of the American Idol singing competition, fortunately for everyone, no singing will be involved.  Instead, 12 speakers will be selected to  present a 5 minute talk on  subject of their choosing, with judging to be done by an expert panel.

So not only will I be speaking, folks will be actively judging me and telling me how terrible I am.  On the bright side, I have had lots of support from my local user groups.  Both Pinellas SQL Pass and Hillsborough SQL Pass User groups have allowed me to give my presentations at their users groups over the last few weeks.  I’ve had comments and suggestions from SQL MVP and MCM folks who have been presenting for years, so I feel somewhat prepared and very well supported.

Luckily my session in on Friday morning, so I have a few more days to prepare, and prepare I will.  I have asked a few folks to allow me to take a few minutes of their time over the course of this week to present the session to them and get more feedback; an audience is always better than jabbering away to my self.

So there it is folks.  For anyone at PASS Summit, come over to the Community Session room 400 on Friday at 10:15 to cheer me on.  I’ve already put the Speak Idol Final on my calendar as I am an optimist.  If you’ve got the same faith,  put the final on your calendar as well, same room at 2:45.

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Title: The Church of Mercy Author: Pope Francis Publisher: April 25, 2014 Release Date: April 25, 2014 Format: Audio Book Pages: 168

In the year since he was elected, Pope Francis’s simple message of mercy, service, and renewal has spread to every corner of the world. Through his gentle demeanor, selfless actions, and welcoming call for service to others, Pope Francis has captured the attention of a world longing for an authentic message of hope—we want to hear what he has to say.

Collected from Pope Francis’s speeches, homilies, and papers presented during the first year of his papacy, The Church of Mercy is the first Vatican-authorized book detailing his vision for the Catholic Church. From how to be citizens of the world to answering God’s call for evangelization, Pope Francis's deep wisdom reminds us that the Church must move beyond its own walls and joyfully bring God's mercy wherever suffering, division, or injustice exists.

Named TIME Magazine’s 2013 “Person of the Year,” Pope Francis is helping the Church continue toward an authentic Christianity that is faithful to the Gospel and resonant with the world’s greatest needs. The Church of Mercy encourages each of us to ignite the flame within to help share the light of Christ and revitalize the Church.

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What you tolerate you perpetuate.

Title: The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin Author: Masha Gessen Publisher: Riverhead Trade Release Date: March 5, 2013 Format: AudioBook Pages: 336

In 1999, the “Family” surrounding Boris Yeltsin went looking for a successor to the ailing and increasingly unpopular president. Vladimir Putin, with very little governmental or administrative experience—he’d been deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, and briefly, director of the secret police—nevertheless seemed the perfect choice: a “faceless” creature whom Yeltsin and his cronies could mold in their own image. Russia and an infatuated West were determined to see in him the progressive leader of their dreams—even as Putin, with ruthless efficiency, dismantled the country’s media, wrested control and wealth from the business class, and destroyed the fragile mechanisms of democracy. Within a few brief years, virtually every obstacle to his unbridled control was removed and every opposing voice silenced, with political rivals and critics driven into exile or to the grave. Masha Gessen has experienced and reported this history firsthand, and brings it up to its present moment of unrest and uncertainty. Her spellbinding account of Putin’s rise and reign will stand as a classic of narrative nonfiction.

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Wanting to take a break from the more serious natured audio books I’ve been listening to recently, I found Jim Gaffigan’s Dad is Fat in my recommended reading list.  Since I’m a fan of his comedy and wanted something a bit lighter, I added my name to the hold list at the local library (using Overdrive of course) for the audio book.

Starting off, I immediately recognized the narrator as Jim Gaffigan himself, an added bonus.  In this book Jim offers short chapters about various portions of being a new dad, figuring out the new additions as they come, managing  as a dad, and juggling life’s responsibilities after becoming a dad for the fifth time.  While I can’t relate to that level of mastery he has seemingly acquired with five kids, I recognized many of his struggles and oddities as those that I’ve faced with just two kids.

The whole books comes across, intentionally or not, as an extended ode to his super-hero wife Jeannie.  Jim, like many of us dads, assumes that the more attractive partners in our relationships have had special instruction in child rearing, but throughout the chapters in this book you see a story of a dad who figures it out, and makes it work, documenting all the idiosyncrasies of fatherhood along the way.

Any parent who has balanced work / life responsibilities while raising their little ones will likely find this audio book an entertaining reminder of the joys that we have been through, and the joys that our kids bring us. For  any expecting parents, this is the book of things they don’t tell you in official parenting books, give it a read to know what you’re REALLY about to get into.

Title: Dad is Fat Author: Jim Gaffigan Genre: Parenting and Family Release Date: May 7, 2013 Format: Audio Book Pages: 288

In Dad is Fat, stand-up comedian Jim Gaffigan, who’s best known for his legendary riffs on Hot Pockets, bacon, manatees, and McDonald's, expresses all the joys and horrors of life with five young children—everything from cousins ("celebrities for little kids") to toddlers’ communication skills (“they always sound like they have traveled by horseback for hours to deliver important news”), to the eating habits of four year olds (“there is no difference between a four year old eating a taco and throwing a taco on the floor”). Reminiscent of Bill Cosby’sFatherhood, Dad is Fat is sharply observed, explosively funny, and a cry for help from a man who has realized he and his wife are outnumbered in their own home.

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Simple DIY Plyo Box built with Instructions from EndOfThreeFitness.com

Ohh how I ache this morning..  Currently I am recovering from last night’s workout of: three rounds of  24 Switch Lunges,  110 lb Farmer Walk @ 200 feet and a 264 yard backwards run, but that’s not the story, lets talk about my garage gym that helped me feel these ‘growing pains’

About 18 months ago, I joined TNL CrossFit Tampa.  I lost my cookies on the first visit and I was hooked.  It was a bit pricey compared to a regular gym and the only time I could fit in the schedule was butt-crack early in the morning.  Anna was only a few months old, Natalie was just starting back to work, and right in the midst of it all, I changed to a job that required constant travel, so I stopped.

Last year I was running late at night, making quite the habit of it for some time.  I would help put the kids to bed, and go for a run.  It was good, I was feeling great, continually increasing my pace and endurance, then life happened and that habit died as well.

Earlier this year I hit a number on the scale that is OK for most guys my age and height, but for me, it was a high point I’ve never seen, and I wasn’t particularly comfortable with.  My clothes were tight, carrying the kids got me winded, and then I realized, this is not how you age gracefully.

A few months ago I started watching what I ate which helped me get back to a more reasonable weight, but still not to ‘sexy beast’ level that I was aiming for.  Since I am the worst person in the world to keep to my diet, I knew I had to find something to compensate the occasional doughnut or the late night cereal cravings, I had to get active again.

After evaluating the gym options, pricing, and location I decided that I should just build my own gym in my empty garage.  Since CrossFit style workouts work well for me, that was the type of equipment I would need.

Go a good deal on a couple bars, kettle bells, and 250 lbs of weight from CraigsList

After coercing my brother-in-law, Wes, to join in my adventure, I started to procure equipment.  I found some on Craigslist, built a few items, and picked up a few  items from a local gym supplier.   For me, the accountability of having someone show up at your house makes it hard to allow myself to skip a day, and working out with friends/family is a good enough motivator not to slack during the workout.  It is a good setup for me.

So far I have built 2 PlyoBoxes, Pair of Parallettes, and a Pull up Bar.  I bought a set of weights, bars, and heavy kettle bells from a guy on Craigslist (pictured here) and we stole got a really good deal on a squat rack from Craigslist, and to round out the initial collection, I picked up some odds and ends from a local retailer called Valor Fitness (their prices are MUCH more reasonable when you go to their warehouse than those listed on their website)

So far, we’ve been going at it for three nights a week, for about a month or so.  There are a few other piece of equipment I want to pickup, but none are essential at this point.  We have a friend who does power lifting who joins us on Sunday morning workouts, as well as a friend who is a CrossFit coach who is scheduled to start joining us soon as well.  I get to squeeze in some people time during our workouts in great, as occasionally forget to do with our busy schedules. Life its good.

As an added bonus to being in better shape, I have met a few neighbors who also workout in their garages; building the community bonds through sweaty garages is awesome.

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When you look at people who are successful, you will find that they aren’t the people who are motivated, but have consistency in their motivation. – Arsene Wenger

Arsenal football coach Arsene Wenger shared these simple, yet clear words about motivation.  This simple statement describes what I’m doing wrong in my search for greatness, consistency. I often have great ideas that I should pursue, or an angle to attract new opportunities, yet the follow through, or consistency in my motivation is what lacks.

As I’ve been mulling over the ebbs and flows of my motivation, I recalled wavy lines of a biorhythm chart; you put in your date of birth and today’s date, and it magically knows where your emotional, physical, and intellectual highs and lows are.  I’m not sure how this magic works, or even how scientific the 1990’s website used to generate the below biorhythm actually is, but it’s fun. I’m not sure which one of those lines my motivation is tied to, but if I had to guess, its must be the physical one, as I’m definitely not on the top of my game these last few days, and I don’t have the motivation to figure it out right now, maybe in a few weeks when it comes back to me.

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To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often. Winston Churchill

  I’ve had change in the past few years, mostly of my own accord, mostly for the better, but not always comfortable. I am currently at a comfortably idle position in my career which my trusted advisors say is not always a bad thing; something I should take advantage of to do things for me, like blog more. For me, it is a change that puts me out of my comfort zone, makes me antsy and I don’t like it, but all my advisors say I need to stick with it, as too much change is no so good for the resume.

Lets see where it takes us.

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In my house, we’ve started being very diligent about ready to the kids every night before bedtime. One night I sit at Anna’s bedside and she gets to see the pictures while Matias listens and the next night we switch. After a few weeks of this, we ran out of books. Rather than buy more used kids books on Amazon.com which I’ve done in the past, I decided it was time to introduce the kids to an unlimited selection of books of all subjects, the public library.

After work one day, I picked up the kids as usual.  Knowing that my wife was running late leaving work, I figured the kids and I had enough time to stop in to the library before dinner. Although standing in line quietly is not their forte’, I managed to leave the front desk with a library card, which we promptly took to the children section and grabbed six books that would sustain us for a week or so. Getting a library card was easy, didn’t cost me anything, and now we have a new adventure we can go on together.

Later that evening I got around to reading the information packet the library provided about the various summer programs and services they offer, and I ran across a section about Overdrive.com, their online lending platform. With overdrive you could borrow eBooks and audio books, my preferred format, all from the comfort of your own home. Nice!

How do I?

After downloading the Overdrive app on my Android, I searched and found my local library which I added to my account. After the account was setup, I was able to search, filter, and borrow books up to my limit of fifteen, which the library had set. Since my brain isn’t complex enough to listen to more than one audio book in parallel, I keep my borrowing down to one or two audio books at a time.

Once you find the book you want to borrow, the process is pretty straight forward, enter your library card number, and click ‘Borrow’. If the book is unavailable you will be presented with a ‘Place Hold’ button which, just like a traditional library, put your name on the list to receive the book once it is returned. Since all audio books are automatically checked back in at their due date, the longest you should have to wait is 21 days, if you are first in the hold queue. Twenty-one days is my library’s max checkout time for digital media, your’s may vary.

One thing to watch for is when placing a hold, you are provided with an option to ‘Check out immediately once available’ which is nice, unless you already have a few checked out, then you’re just wasting time with it in your account, which could be used by someone else actually ready for the book.  This is more of a ‘be kind to other readers’ tip, rather than ‘do not do this it is evil’ type tip.

Added Bonus

I really like the fact that I can cancel my $14.95 a month Audible.com membership and get the same similar benefits for free from my local library.  Edit: I actually downgraded to the $9.95 a year plan rather than a full cancellation ,which allows me to share books with other Audible.com members.  This plan is not present on their membership page, but was presented during cancellation.  This plan allows for continued discounts on purchases as well as for continued borrowing of books among members, which is nice for books the library doesn’t have.

If you aren’t a member of your local library, by all means, get down there and say hi.  While you’re there, ask if they have Overdrive for online lending, your commute will thank you.

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Having led a care-free existence since birth, I always assumed that kids were for everyone else.  While skilled in the art of making said creatures, I never settled on the idea of having my own.  Occasionally I would have the thoughts, but never really had the partner I thought would be compatible enough to attempt on that epic journey.

Just shy of five years ago, I met a young lady that would change my life, reel me in and make me the happiest I’ve ever been.  In that time we’ve made not one, but two of the little creatures referenced above.  We’ve been through good times, scary times, joyful times and just daily life times, all of those times I cherish.

What is so amazing to me, is what appears to a single man to be a complete upheaval of everything you consider normal in your life with the introduction of a child, is just that.  It is an upheaval, a madness, things completely new, but as it turns out, most of what was filling your time before was nothing more than empty fluff.  The true joy of life the people we choose to surround ourselves with.  It is watching my baby girl turn two today.  A little girl whom I struggle to say no to, a little girl whom I wasn’t sure I could handle two years ago, a little girl who holds every piece of my heart in her devilish little hands. This is life, and it is good.

While being  father does not define my existence, it complete me.  It has made me a better man, a better friend, and a better partner. Thank you Natalie for accompanying me into the next level of  adulthood.  I can’t wait to grow old with you to see what our little creatures have in store for us next.  Thank you Matias for all that you have and will teach me. Thank you Anna for spicing up our lives just a little more than we expected.

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Growing up with the desire to study law, but not the dedication nor drive to obtain a Juris Doctorate, I have replaced those desires with a strong interest in politics and law through all levels of government. I find my self reading more books, and in this case, listening to audio books, on the subject.

This book contains the words of retired Justice John Paul Stevens about the six issues which he proposes that we fix with amendments to the Constitution.  The audio book is a short 3:42 listen.  It is a good smooth listen, but can be fast tracked at times requiring me to re-listen to a few sections to ensure I got the references and their meanings correct.

The six issues are presented in a more concise well written method than I could provide over here.  I’ll simply add my thoughts to each below.

“Anti-Commandeering Rule”   – I cannot agree with this suggestion as proposed as I feel that a locally elected official has a more direct relationship with those they serve, and ignoring a federally enacted rule or law can be an act of protest.  The current issues outlined in this book I believe are acceptable, and need no further assistance from the Constitution.

“Political Gerrymandering”  I fully support a law restricting this practice, as politicians will continue to be politicians who will continue to politic and do things that are both questionable and in their favor, this amendment could assist with those issues.

“Campaign Finance”  While I believe the proposed solution is decent, I could imagine where the dominant party in power could further restrict the speech (spending) of those not in power through rule making, which could make the situation just as bad as it is now.  Corporate money in politics is bad (epic proportions at this point) and must be regulated, but with due caution in mind.

“Sovereign Immunity” On its cover, I think I support this one.  There is no reason that agents of the state are protected from their actions of doing so.  The only thing I fear is the flow of tort actions this would result in.  I don’t like blank protections for any class of people, especially the state itself.  Should this be pushed on the federal government as well?  I’m not sure, but this is a start.

“Death Penalty” I don’t believe that the Death Penalty serves the purpose that it once did in the past. With the 20 year waits for executions, the deterrence factor of the death penalty is simply useless.  The excessive cost of holding death row prisoners over regular life prisoners is also not warranted either, I can agree with the addition of these five words.

“The Second Amendment” With the power the Department of Defense has over State’s National Guard units, I don’t see how stripping 2nd Amendment protections to individuals, and relegating those only to the ‘state militia’ is any less than fully revoking the 2nd amendment.  This is the most absurd recommendation I’ve seen yet.

Overall I enjoyed the book, not so much the message.  I am a fiscal conservative and social moderate, which is mostly where Justice Steven’s opinions floated towards the beginning of his career, but as we can see from his opinions over his later years, and in retirement, he has changed more towards a federalist leaning position.

Thanks for your service, and the book I guess.

Title: Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution Author: John Paul Stevens Publisher: Hachette Audio Release Date: April 22, 2014 Format: Audio Book

By the time of his retirement in June 2010, John Paul Stevens had become the second longest serving Justice in the history of the Supreme Court. Now he draws upon his more than three decades on the Court, during which he was involved with many of the defining decisions of the modern era, to offer a book like none other. SIX AMENDMENTS is an absolutely unprecedented call to arms, detailing six specific ways in which the Constitution should be amended in order to protect our democracy and the safety and wellbeing of American citizens. Written with the same precision and elegance that made Stevens's own Court opinions legendary for their clarity as well as logic, SIX AMENDMENTS is a remarkable work, both because of its unprecedented nature and, in an age of partisan ferocity, its inarguable common sense.

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“I cried because I had no shoes until I saw a man who had no feet” Sa`di  – The Gulistan

It is nice to remember that where ever you may be reading this entry, you are more fortunate and well off than the majority of the world.  While we all have our trials and tribulations, we must keep those in perspective to the world as a whole.  Take pride in your past accomplishments that have propelled you to where you are today.  A few minutes of self-reflection can be quite rewarding.

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Welcome back to our Directory of Jason project.   For this installment, we look at one of the more famous (in some circles)  Jason Carter.   This Jason Carter will be known to folks familiar with blue grass as he plays fiddle in the Del McCoury Band.

Jason was determined to be born in February, and made a most expeditious entrance to the world on February 1, 1973.   Being born and raised in Kentucky, Jason was surrounded by pickers and singers for the majority of his life.  He learned guitar and mandolin from his father starting in grade school and picked up fiddle in high school after hearing Del McCoury play at a bluegrass festival.

Jason made his way to Nashville destined to be in a world-class bluegrass band.  After only 6-months with another band, Jason ran into none other than Del McCoury, whom he promptly propositioned for a job, which was dully granted.

Jason like most other Jason Carters, Jason Carter of the Del McCoury band is a no-holds barred, see what you want and take it kid of guy.

If you’re in for some light reading, here’s some more info on Jason the Fiddler.  Bio, Interview and bGoogle

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Coming up on my schedule is another appearance at SQL Saturday Orlando.   Orlando is quite special to me as it was my first ever presentation, and their team is quite welcoming, and just plain awesome.

Looking at the line up this year, I’m quite excited to see a few of my favorite speakers Louis Davidson ( b | t ), David Klee ( b | t ) and none other than Mr. Argenis Fernandez ( b | t ) coming in to share their wisdom.

For those of you local to the Tampa area, you might recognize our veteran speakers Pam Shaw ( t ) ,  Miguel Cebollero ( b | t ),  Jeff Garbus ( b ), Ron Dameron ( b | t ), as well as our most recent contribution to the Microsoft team Jorge Segarra ( b | t ).  A locally recognizable, but new on the speaker list is Pinellas PASS User Group Leader Leigh Freijo ( t ) with a presentation on how to get hired.  Having been through one of Leigh’s interviews (successfully!), and having heard some of his interview tales, I can say that he has some insight on what will get you hired.

As far as my presentation, I’m working on a new one titled: ‘Encryption 101: A look at SQL Encryption Options’ which I hope will be as well received as my previous presentations.  We’re going to take a look at TDE, SSL, Column and even backup encryption options so safeguard your data. I’ve been really heads down in the details on this one and need to start getting it all together in a palatable 101 type presentation.  We are a few weeks out so I still have time to smoke test it on my wife.

If you haven’t already, get over and register. Its set to be a fantastic day of training as it has been for the last 8 years.

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I was reading Kendra Little’s ( b | t ) post on SQL Server Edition Changes and it reminded me of the work I did at my last position.   I did LOTS of downgrades, seriously, LOTS.

When we started auditing our systems we found TONS of Enterprise and Standard Editions being used in development and QA environments.  In the past, Microsoft gave us a pass and only cared about what was being used in production, but this year they indicated that not to be the case, so a remediation was in order.

Since I had done a good deal of work with Michael Well’s ( b | t ) Scripted PowerShell Automated Deployment Engine  (SPADE) for new server setups, I was the best candidate to handle the job.  I lost count of the total number of downgrades that I did, but I have a few dozen pages in my notebooks that look like the one below.  This page would have been one night’s work.

                                  The process which got me through a few hundred downgrades was fairly simple:

The first step of downgrading is copying off your system files. If you are not sure where your system files are you can simply view the Start Up Parameters of the SQL Service.  I usually copy this value to a draft email or temp file for reference, just in case.  Once I find the master I copy the master, model, and msdb database to a temp folder.   If you skip this step, they will be deleted during the uninstall. Don’t ask me how I know this.

Now that we have the lifeblood of our instance saved safely away, we can proceed with step 2, uninstall, which is just as it sounds.  Most of the time I will simply run the uninstaller and select everything as there is nothing better than a fresh install.  If you have SSAS or SSRS there are extra steps to safely migrate those services, which aren’t covered here.

 By default, when SPADE is run, it copies all of the install media over one time and sets a file indicating that the media is in place.  If you run SPADE a subsequent time, it will see the file indicating the media is already copied locally and skip that step completely.  If you’ve used SPADE in the past this would result in you installing the previously installed version, again.  So prior to running SPADE, ensure you have deleted the install folder if it is there.

Once SPADE has done its thing, installing everything, checking all the standard settings etc, we need to shut SQL down and move our old system databases back into place.  If you installed your INSTALLSQLDATADIR in a different location than you had prior, you will need to place your old system files in the new INSTALLSQLDATADIR location, once done, start the SQL Service again.  If all went well, it should start right up with no issues.

In some cases, we were actively changing the names of the instance being downgraded, and this would require us to remove the old SPN entry and add a new one. If you get linked server issues with AD logins, you likely forgot this step.  As you can see from my checklist, there aren’t any checks on this column, as this was not the norm, but normal enough that it had its own check-box.

If you are going to be industrious as I was and perform multiple downgrades at the same time, I recommend that you pre-stage the install media prior to your actual downgrade window.  SPADE has a -PRE flag that will allow you to run all the pre-checks without doing the actual install, this will stage your media locally, which will save you some time during the actual work. This check box was for just that, one check would be for version, other services (SSRS, SSIS, second instances) that would require more investigation, and I forget what the other check-box was for.

All in all, I was able to knock out this process multiple times, over multiple nights spread over a 2-3 month time frame.  Any thing that came up out of the ordinary during downgrade time I would simply skip that server and knock out the remainder.

One thing to note is that all of the servers that contained SSRS databases had to be coordinated with the team that ran those servers as the SQL Engine and SSRS engines have to be the same version, otherwise it wouldn’t operate.  Another gotcha, was SCOM I believe.  Luckily upgrading to a higher version has been a built in option of SQL Installers since 2005 I believe, a quick manual run of the install media in your SPADE folder and it can be upgraded in place, less than a minute in most cases.

This had been my experience, yours may vary.  If you have a large environment and find yourself doing builds fairly regularly, I highly suggest checking out SPADE, it can automate nearly all of your install and standardization tasks right out of the gate. Quick and Easy!

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No battle plan ever survived an encounter with the enemy – Helmuth von Moltke

It is safe to say that parents with small children, especially their first will appreciate this quote. There is nothing more to do than planning when your wife is expecting, how will we do this, how will we do that, we WILL do this, or we WON’T do that. It’s all great, until its time to execute, and then words of wisdom like the ones above really kick in. Good luck out there!

[buy-legos]

I wrote this post a few months ago when Matias first got glasses and have finally gotten to a point where I can polish it up, complete my rambling thoughts and share it with you all.  So without further ado, lets discuss the hard parts of parenting.

Recently Matias got glasses, and while they are cute as can be to us adults, I worry about how harsh kids can be, and how he will handle any teasing he might receive.  I often wonder about the various interactions that Matias will have with the other kids as he grows, which kids will like him, which kids might pick on him and which kids he gravitates towards. There are days when I pick him up from school where he is sitting away from the group contently watching TV which make me wonder: Why was he sitting alone?  Does he sit alone because they don’t like him? Or maybe his friends have already went home for the day.

Last Friday the kid’s school had an Easter Party for each class.  I delivered the table-clothes for both of their classes that I had volunteered to take, but didn’t think to take baskets for either of the kids.  I didn’t think much of it, even after Matias shared his version of how his day at dinner.  It wasn’t until one of the other daycare parents posted pictures of the 3 year old class on the playground doing an egg hunt that I realized that I had forgotten to take his basket, as the pictures showed him not without a basket, but with a random basket they happened to have lying around the daycare.  It was in that moment that I got sad, to my core I was saddened that I had let my son down.  I had put him in a position to be at a disadvantage, whether he was aware of it or not is another story.  The fact that I had made him different, un-cared for in that moment or whatever other thoughts that might have run through his head, I was sad, physically sad for the pain I (might have) put him through.

Whether or not that he realizes it or not, Matias is smart.  It could be the way Natalie and I raise him, without baby talk, correcting his words on the spot until he says them right, making him define new words he’s using incorrectly, or just generally setting an example.  I’m not sure which part of our parenting has blessed us with this kid, but we have him (and his sister too)   He’s quirky, goofy, talkative, and very emotionally intelligent.   The last one is the one I worry about most.  He cares so much for others, I’m afraid they (or me) won’t meet his expectations and he will be crushed.  Luckily, with his emotional intelligence he is quite forgiving as well.

With the way he is developing, I would not be surprised for him to have a few very close lifetime friends.  I have friends, but not closes, talk to every day type of friends.  I think Matias will, he’s different from me.  With that said, I do hope that whatever we may miss as parents his friends will be there for him to round out that support system, which is important.  I don’t want to raise a mirror of myself, I want a better version, and I think he’s getting there.  Since his best-buddy Carter’s family moved to Michigan he has found a new friends that he talks about all the time Ivana (“Eeee-vaaa-naah dad, Eevaanah ,say it right” – Matias)  I can’t tell if he’s sweet on her or just friends, but either way I think he’ll be fine.

Yet  I still worry, its kind of my job.