Aaron Lowe » General

Allow me to reintroduce myself

Aaron Lowe — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 04:29:40 +0000

Alright, alright, I haven’t posted in a long time (7 months or so). In my defense I have had some things going on. But someone has been ~~bugging~~ encouraging me to get back to it. I argued that I have better ROI spending time with them, when I was politely informed that I don’t really need the full 6 hours of sleep I attempt every night. So I’m typing this up at 11:30 pm while the rest of my family is asleep so please read quietly so as to not disturb anyone.

Now that I’m typing and you’re reading quietly, on to the reintroduction: here I am, over here to, also mentioned here and here.

As to why no activity lately, to be honest I have had a lot to say and I have a whole list of ideas for blog posts however as soon as I start to write one, my perfectionism comes into play and I never have time to create what I think would be a perfect post, so I don’t. I look up at what I don’t know and decide I don’t know enough, instead of looking down or around at what I do know to talk about. This is the beginning of the effort to change and just put some thoughts out there (for better of worse .

For those keeping score at home I’m still at Magenic and while a couple good friends have left, we’re hiring. In fact in the Chicago office we have had 3 people start in the last 2 weeks (including here)! So if you are looking, hit me up and we’ll see what can be done.

Other than that, I’m still doing all things SQL Server from SSIS to Service Broker to CDC to Replication to CLR to encryption to SSRS to data modeling and of course VSDBPro. Basically the entire stack and oh by the way, still loving it!

For review this post had 3 purposes:

Begin Momentum
Remind everyone I’m still around
Fulfill my promise to Ted

Mission Accomplished!

2008 Holy Land Tour Itinerary

Aaron Lowe — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:07:11 +0000

Well my wife and I received our Itinerary for our Holy Land tour coming up in November. We are really looking forward to it.

Wednesday, November 5
- Depart Chicago
Thursday, November 6
- Arrive Tel Aviv early afternoon
- Visit Caesarea
- Transfer to Tiberias
- Dinner and overnight in Tiberias
- Free Evening
Friday, November 7 – Galilee
- Breakfast
- Capernaum, Tabkha, Mt. of Beatitudes
- St. Peter’s fish lunch
- Communion with Dr. Barclay on Sea of Galilee
- Jordan River baptism
- Dinner and overnight in Tiberias
- Free Evening
Saturday, November 8 – Nazareth
- Breakfast
- Cana, Nazareth
- Jezreel Valley, Megiddo (biblical Armageddon)
- Mukrakah
- Dinner and overnight in Tiberias
- Free Evening
Sunday, November 9 – Jerusalem
- Breakfast
- Drive through Jordan Valley, Beit Shean
- Ascend to Jerusalem, Thanksgiving Service on Mount Scopus
- 1st Century Model of Jerusalem, Dead Sea Scrolls
- Yad Vashem
- Dinner and overnight in Jerusalem
Monday, November 10 – Jerusalem
- Breakfast
- Mt. of Olives, The Tomb of the Prophets
- Garden of Gethsemane
- Pool of Bethesda
- Communion with Dr. Barclay at the Garden Tomb
- Ancient pavement, Ecce Homo
- Overlook of Temple Mount
- Fellowship dinner with Dr. Barclay
- Overnight in Jerusalem
Tuesday, November 11 – Jerusalem
- Breakfast
- Jerusalem/Old City
- Jewish Quarter, Roman Cardo (ancient road)
- Rabbinic Tunnels, Davidson Center
- Shopping
- Bethlehem (pending)
- Dinner and overnight in Jerusalem
- Free Evening
Wednesday, November 12 – Dead Sea area
- Qumran Caves
- Valley of Elah, Cave of Adullam
- Oasis of Ein Gedi
- Dead Sea swim
- Dinner and overnight at Dead Sea
Thursday, November 13 – Tel Aviv, Jaffa
- Mini-Israel – models of major churches
- Ancient Jaffa
- Modern Tel Aviv
- Shopping
- Dinner and transfer to the airport
Friday, November 14
- Depart from Tel Aviv – early morning
- Arrive in Chicago (afternoon)

Losing our joy?

Aaron Lowe — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:13:21 +0000

A couple weeks ago ESPN has their yearly fundraiser for the V Foundation. During which they replay Jimmy Valvano’s acceptance speech from March 4, 1993 ESPY’s (transcript and video) where he accepted the inaugural Arthur Ashe Courage Award and announce the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research (he passed April 28, 1993 from cancer).

In his speech he said "To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. Number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special."

We certainly know the saying "Laughter is the Best Medicine" and it has even been researched. However I was thinking about that and I was trying to remember the last time I really, truly laughed, or even heard another adult really laugh? You know what I mean…lost it with tears or milk through the nose or something like that. Certainly I type and see others type LOL in twitter, IM, email, etc. but to be honest we don’t really Laugh Out Loud, it might be a smile or chuckle or a smirk or even an occasional "Ha" (like when I saw Joker’s disappearing pencil trick ). I’m not saying we’re depressed or aren’t enjoying our lives, jobs, families, but there’s a different between a smirk and an all out guffaw. Perhaps it’s just that the humor today is either sexual, predictable or so dry it borders on sarcasm. Or perhaps we’re just becoming too serious/jaded. Or maybe it’s just me.

So when was the last time you really, truly laughed? Heck when was the last time you even saw someone smiling in their car?

Broke Down on Twitter

Aaron Lowe — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 19:48:43 +0000

Alright I finally broke down and signed up for twitter. You can see me here – http://twitter.com/Vendoran. I’m syncing facebook and found an app that will also synch my IM status called Twessenger. I don’t know if I really want to update my IM status with it, but I’ll try it it. I’m also using a vista sidebar gadget called Twadget.

Too busy – rant

Aaron Lowe — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 22:44:02 +0000

I cannot stress how much of a pet peeve this is of mine. The number of times I’m told in a single week, "I’m sorry but I was just too busy…", "I’m too busy", "I’m very busy", "I’m really busy" etc, etc is just ludicrous. And of course this reason (excuse) always comes right after or right before, that person saying they can’t or didn’t do something.

Now, I’m not saying people aren’t busy, in fact I’m saying the opposite. I’m busy too, here’s my schedule/responsibilities:

Husband to my wonderful wife
Father to my 4 wonderful kids (ages 2, 4, 10, 15) and one wonderful dog (age 4)
My wife and I home-school our kids (SharedView and IM works wonders)
I have a full time job as a DBPro consultant in Chicagoland at Magenic
Recently was appointed to the Magenic Technology Council
Co-ordinate Magenic’s Internal DBPro meetings
Attend church 3 times a week (Sun morn, Sun night and Wed night)
Help with upkeep/repairs at church (Sat morn and throughout week if necessary)
Ensure my eldest daughter can get to and from youth group and church (Fri night)
Attend school (Mon night)
Play basketball (Thurs night)
SQLPASS Member, involved in the DBA SIG

So I’m pretty active, I’m not the busiest person in the world, but I’m not a slacker either. Yet I still find the time to do things that I feel are worthy of my time (like UserGroup meetings, special events, etc). Sure I get backed up sometimes, and sometimes I make decisions that say I can’t do something because something else is more important right now.

But what the "I’m too busy" is really saying is it’s not a priority right now. And I don’t have a problem with that. But stop saying that such and such is a priority and you want to do it, you’re just too busy (especially if this has been the mantra for over a month). Because that simply doesn’t work, you can’t have it both ways. If something is important, get it done, if not, stop saying it is.

We all make time for those things that are important to us.