Still Grateful to Rodney Landrum

Professional Development
So, my blog got hacked. They edited the page where I thanked Rodney for all that he did. I had to remove that post as a part of the cleanup (still ongoing). However, I couldn't let that stand. I've used caching on the internet to track down the original post because that must live on. Here you go Rodney. Thanks again. I recently was honored to take part in the SQL Sons of Beaches Tour. It was a whirlwind of five user groups across the entire state of Florida in five days. I was joined on the tour by Denny Cherry. He and I did most of the presentations (except Tampa where we also had Buck Woody). We were driven from place to place by Karla & Rodney Landrum. I…
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I Am Grateful For…

Misc
I'm almost done reading the book Connected (will be by the time this is published). It's fascinating although, at least so far, little in the way of suggestions for how to take advantage of this information. That however doesn't change my plans around working on positive thoughts and emotions as a way to hack your own mind and increase productivity. I'm also trying to figure out how to reinforce my network. In short, these are completely self-serving posts. I am grateful for Thomas LaRock (b|t). Tom is hard to miss. If you look at the floor all the time, the green shoes might be a giveaway. If you look up a lot, keep looking up because he's quite tall. Oh yeah, and he's the President of PASS (for a couple of…
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I Am Grateful For

Professional Development
I decided in January that I would write regularly about people that I'm grateful for. Now it's April. Oops. The concepts are simple and science based. Positive emotions help your clarity of thought. Further, your moods and actions extend out through your network to the third layer. With that in mind, I want to think more clearly and the most direct path to positive thoughts and emotions being gratitude, I'm attempting to focus and publicize my gratitude by publicly sharing it through these blogs (in short, I'm trying to tune my brain like I would tune a query). I am grateful for Tim Ford (b|t). Tim is a great guy. Further, Tim can be patient with thick headed dorks (raising my hand). For example, among all the other stuff Tim does…
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I Am Grateful For

Professional Development
A while back I wrote about saying "Thank you" to people. Last night I was listening to NPR on my ride home from a great New England SQL Server User Group meeting (yes, I listen to NPR). Two different reports came on during my ride that got me thinking again about my previous blog post. The first talked about how negative emotions directly impact your ability to make rational decisions. They've found that people actually spend more money on items when they're depressed than they do when they're happy. There's a bunch of research around it, but I missed where it was published. It was a great discussion. They found that getting yourself into a positive mood directs your focus outwards rather than inwards. One of the best ways to get that…
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