Hard to believe its been one year, but it was June, 2018 when I joined the unstoppable company known as Microsoft.

All-in Analytics

I joined, with the expectation that I would leave much of what I had specialized in behind me- Oracle, along with other non-Microsoft database platforms, Linux, optimization and DevOps. I was excited to start my journey in business intelligence. Power BI was already starting to take over the world. I’d noticed the patterns, having only arrived on the BI scene in 2015, it was encompassing a larger percentage of speaker sessions and focus of content on the web. Users were incredibly interested in doing more with their data, not just having someplace to relationally work with it and as it grew, deal with the challenge of big data.

It was an exciting change, no doubt.

There are busy times for everyone and if you speak at conferences, the busy times are March,May and November. I am recovering from the early spring rush, and now it’s time to prepare for the late spring one.

I’ve been fortunate enough to be accepted to speak at the following regional SQL Saturdays and look forward to speaking and meeting new folks, along with catching up with conference friends:

Its been a busy holiday for me. Tim and I spent the days traveling since the weekend after Christmas until January 2nd moving the RV from California to Texas. I’m not the biggest fan of the Southwest- I just like green and water too much… »

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When I arrived at Microsoft, I knew I would hopefully get to use my Linux skills for more than teaching SQL Server DBAs about Linux and was pleasantly surprised as I began working in Azure to find that, of course, it’s ALL LINUX.

After almost six months at the company and coming into the Christmas week, I’m thankful for all the technology I’m working with and what many assume that Microsoft won’t be about-  the command line.

Azure All the Time

As much as I feel GUIs are necessary, I’m happiest at the command line and recommend to all those I mentor to take the time to know how to perform any task from both the GUI as well as the CLI.  Since I practice what I preach, here I am six months in and have spent considerable time with all the features that you’ll find on the following page-

I have a t-shirt that says, “Underestimate me, that’ll be fun” on the front of it.  This statement pretty much sums up my life and I continue to both impress and annoy people, which means I’m living up to it.

The session evaluations came out for PASS Summit and I was surprised by some of the reviews I received.  The opportunity to under estimate you is kind of expected.  I’m pretty comfortable with my skills as a presenter, but it is still new to me to not be as well known in the speaking community as I was in the Oracle side.  There is an additional thrill, as there is less expectation on who I am and I’m graded just like everyone else going into a presentation.

My blog was hacked last week, deliberately and maliciously.  I was hacked because my lacking knowledge in the area of website management and saved by my control issues as a Database Administrator.  It was a valuable lesson to learn in regards to being a woman in technology and new technical skills.

Time Flies when you’re having fun or when you’re crazy busy-  I’m unsure which is more true.

I just completed my first review as an employee at Microsoft and good news!  They’re going to keep me. »

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I get a lot of questions about what it’s like to work remote while living in our 5th wheel.  I’ll link this post to danceswithwinnebagos.com, too, so for those asking the same question from that site, it’s a two for one… »

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The next nine days, I’m traveling to three cities for four events. We’ll just call this the 9-3-4 gauntlet of speaker life. I booked this travel as four, one-way flights to get the itinerary
I needed to make the most of my schedule and will have breaks between each event to make sure I don’t kill myself my last two weeks at Delphix.

GLOC

The only thing that stays the same is change….

As the time flies by and the world turns, I often am jarred back to reality when I discover how the little things we do can have a larger impact on the world around us.

Flying back from Interop ITX and StarEast conferences last week, I was reminded of this.  While reading the latest copy of Wired , I came across a story on D-Tech High School.  This is the school that resides on the Oracle headquarters campus, in its own building(s). The story was interviewing different students to discuss how they were making an impact on the technical world and how STEM schools, like D-Tech were changing the future.  What struck me, was that the lead in picture and student interview was with a young woman I’d worked with two years earlier as part of the Oracle Education Foundation.