Data Community Fun: A visit with Paul Turley

 

A few weeks ago, Paul Turley, his wife Shirley, their two spunky dogs and anti-social cat pulled up at the "Letourneau Resort" for a 3-day visit. We spent some time working together on the patio while his dogs raced around my property. The cat hid in the Data Bus and only went out when forced to do so. We shared several meals and spent many hours working at our computers (he visited Thursday, Friday, & Saturday. We both had to work Thursday & Friday). 

"Fancy" patio set-up. Just the computer, but we do have internet out there and the weather was perfect for sitting outside enjoying the fresh air while also getting a lot of work done. 

View from patio when you look up from computer. :) 

On the last day, Saturday, my boss at 3 Cloud, Kathi Vick, and her husband joined us. Paul has a blog called "Data On The Road", so he interviewed both of us before getting back on the road heading eastward. 

Guy loaned Paul his "Director's clapper" - it was the award from the Sakuracon 2005 AMV competition and was signed by a bunch of the convention guests - for the filming. The interviews took place on my patio couch. The clapper was definitely a fun way to start the videos.

I got to put the "Arizona" sticker on their "Places We've Been" map attached to the side of the Data Bus.

In early 2020, Paul and I had planned on being co-presenters at the Phoenix SQL Saturday, so I made cloud shirts for both of us so we'd match. Unfortunately, COVID came along and the Phoenix SQL Saturday never happened. 

For the interview with me, Paul and I donned our matching shirts to demonstrate how cool it would have been if we had presented with matching cloud shirts. They look pretty spiffy, eh? And the cloud earrings are of course a necessary accessory for any cloud data professional!

The above is a screenshot of the video posted to Paul's blog. I recommend you go see the video on his page, and also check out the other interviews he did with a number of other wonderful people in the data community. He also has a schedule posted telling you where he'll be and when. If he's coming to your area, reach out to him and say, "hi". 
 

I can't wait to see the Data Bus again when it next passes through the Phoenix area. 

Vacation is NOT Work Time

I’m taking two days off work to sew (wait, why I am blogging instead of sewing?) and to “use up” vacation time because my boss reminded me that working without an occasional break for vacation is unhealthy. Thus, my two “mental health” days are for me to stay away from the office and do anything except work.

So far, I’ve succeeded in that. My work computer is sitting in its bag in the closet and I’ve only used my blackberry once – to call my husband because he couldn’t find HIS blackberry. I did peek at the emails that had popped in overnight, but I did my best to ignore them. Vacation is a time to PLAY, not to WORK. If you take your work along while vacationing, then you aren’t actually on vacation, you’re working remotely.

Technically, one could state that I am “working” right now even though I’m not currently doing the work that my company pays me to do. That is, my job requires me to use a computer all day, so technically speaking I’m “working” rather than “playing”. Of course, the only way I could officially stay away from any computer all day would be for me to break out my antique Singer sewing machine (Model 60 made in 1949) and use that to sew. My Bernina 830e, Pfaff Creative Vision, and Janome 10001 are all “sewing computers” that can be connected to our home network or to other computers.

Also, if I were to avoid my home laptop, I wouldn’t be able to use my pattern drafting software to create and print out new patterns to sew nor would I be able to search through my 50,000+ embroidery designs to pick just the right ones for my latest projects. These are, of course, simply excuses. I have several patterns already printed, cut and waiting to be sewn.

A very wise person once defined a “good” vacation as one that was fun enough that you forget your passwords when you return to work and a “great” vacation as one that was fantastic enough that you forget where you work and what you do. I don’t think a 4-day weekend of sewing will get me to “great” vacation mode, but I did write my password on a post-it note that I pinned to my work bag just in case this short break turned out to be great.