General

Now that I’ve been enjoying my holidays for a while now – they’re as good as over – I thought the time had come to let you know what I’ve been up to.  Like any good holiday, it’s been a mix of fun and household chores which had been postponed, waiting for times like these…

The Chores

Let’s start with the though part: the household chores.   These are not really my favorite occupation but sometimes they just need to get done.

Bookshelves

One of the larger tasks at home was mounting bookshelves against the walls in our children’s bedrooms, six in total.  To get a  bookshelf mounted, I first needed to mount a piece of iron on the wall.  This required drilling four holes in the wall, per shelf.  The largest challenge was hanging three bookshelves under each other, all straight and at a similar distance from the wall and each other.  As it just requires math and a spirit level (djeez, what a name, in Dutch it’s just called waterpas, spirits are not involved , that went quite okay using my regular electrical drill and its hammer function.

To finish off I had to shove the wooden shelf over the mounted iron and fix it using two screws that were part of the package.  And that’s were it went wrong, only slightly, just one screw has been messed up, but wrong it went.  Here’s the evidence:

So, what happened?  Well, lazy as I am, I usually use the battery-powered drill shown above to put screws were they need to go.  However, the iron screws that came part of the package were not up to the power of that drill.  This resulted in a total mess for the first screw (indicated as BAD).  The head is totally messed up which means I can’t even get it out of there without possibly damaging the shelf.  So it’ll just have to stay like that.  The remaining eleven screws were fixed using my manual screwdriver, with a perfect result.

The morale of the story here is that it’s important to use the right tools for the job.  The more experience you’ve got in a particular task, the better your initial choice will be.  Just like with SQL Server, you need to think about what needs to get done and then select the tool to do it.  You need to quickly add a couple of fields to a development database?  Hmm, what tool would you use?  sqlcmd.exe?  Or the Management Studio?  Both would do the job and probably with the same result, but which one would be the fastest for you?  I would go for the SSMS, as I usually already have it running anyway.

Enough about those chores, let’s get to the fun part.

The Fun

Holidays also mean having fun with the kids.

Theme Park

One of our yearly daytrips is a visit to the Efteling, a theme park in The Netherlands.  I’m always looking forward to seeing (and trying) the new attractions.  This year the newest attraction is called Joris en de Draak (George and the Dragon).  It’s a wooden rollercoaster with two trains running simultaneously on two separate tracks.  The blue one represents Water and the Red one is Fire.  And they’re having a battle.  The winning train arrives first.

I had to try out this attraction and was able to convince our oldest daughter – six years old – to come with me.  Luckily she was tall enough to be allowed on the attraction, but only just.  We had to use the carts in the middle part and she had to be accompanied by an adult – no problems there, I’m okay with the middle part

I let my daughter choose the color, and thus we went for blue.  Once the train started, I must admit that I was a bit shocked by its speed.  According to Wikipedia its top speed is 75 km/h (46.6 Mph).  Obviously speed is not the whole story here.  After the first couple of turns, there’s a huge drop down which results in the funny feeling in the tummy (not sure what it’s called) due to the G-force.  And that’s not the only time that G-forces are playing with you.  I can’t remember any other rollercoaster in which the experience was similar.  Again according to Wikipedia, the largest G-force exercised in this attraction is 3G.

If you’re a bit afraid of heights – the coaster is 25 meters high – don’t worry about it.  This thing goes so fast that you won’t have time to even think about how high it goes, plus you’re fixed really tight in your seat.

In total its length is 810 meters (per track) and the ride lasts for two minutes.  It can process 1700 people per hour.

Later the same day, me and my daughter went for another ride, and she again chose blue.  Blue lost the battle this time, and the first time as well.  Ow, and here’s the attraction’s official site.

So, if you have the chance to visit the Efteling, try out this new rollercoaster, the after-effect is just great

Have fun!

Valentino.

With this short post I’m participating in a contest started by Thomas LaRock.  He has written a book called DBA Survivor: Become a Rock Star DBA and is giving a copy away to the winner of the contest.

In the banner I see a man looking out of a window at a grey, dull world.  Based on that info, here’s my caption title:

SQL Server – Color Your Day!

And here’s another one:

Waiting for that report to finish?  Hire A DBA!

See this post on his blog for more info.

PS: first post from Windows 7 64-bit

Have fun!

Before you read what I’ve written below, I suggest that you have a look at this blog post by Tim Ford first.  Then it will become clear why this post is not related to SQL Server or even IT

Let me tell you this little story about Luke, a bloke living down the street not far from the city center.  Well, it was a Friday night and he was going to the pub, just like he usually does on Friday nights.  It’s his favorite pub, the LNCP, and he has a habit of meeting his mates there.  The LNCP, some people say it stands for the Live Nude Cats Pub because that’s what they’ve seen there after they’d had several drinks too many.  Or at least, that’s what they think and claim to have seen.  Luke wouldn’t know and he doesn’t mind, he’s allergic to cats anyway, nude or not!

LNCP, the real meaning is Local Natural Coffee Pub, which is a beverage that you can get there 24/7.  It’s known for its high level of several substances, including caffeine obviously. But also some other rather undefined ingredients.  The locals have come to appreciate this beverage – just like Luke – and especially in the weekend they consume quite a lot of it.  The pub owner doesn’t want to give away her secret, no one knows how this magical drink is created.  In fact, all that she’s told them about it so far is that the brewing process is done by simply using some magical tool, library or bong.  Which isn’t of much use to those who’ve tried to reproduce it at home.  They’ve searched all local libraries for books containing its formula, nothing.  They’ve asked around if there were any wizards who knew of magical tools that could produce such a drink, no result either.  And let’s not mention the bong – that’s what they’d use after yet another unsuccessful search to temporarily forget about the fact that once again they hadn’t succeeded.

Anyway, Carabella – which is the pub owner’s name – she was quite good-looking.  (Isn’t that always the case with female pub owners in a fantasy story?)  And Luke and his mates, as they were regular customers, they knew her quite well.  And it happened to be that on this Friday night she showed them a special little hidden door at the back of her pub.  She told them, if you drink three of my magical LNCs in less than five minutes time and then walk (or better, crawl, as the door was quite low) through this door, you’ll experience the most magical moment in your life!

So the guys – they didn’t have any other plans that night and they were quite curious after what she’d told them – they accepted the offer.  They went through the door and came in a sort of stable.  Looked a bit like a horse stable, only, it was different.  They didn’t really know why, figured it was probably just some magic playing around with them.  Then suddenly a little white horse came out from under the hay.  It spoke to Luke!  The guys first wondered about what was happening and then they saw: the pony had wings, it was a Pegasus!  And as everyone knows, Pegasus can communicate with humans.

The Pegasus said to Luke:

Could I assist you in any way?

Luke thought about it for a while but answered negatively.  Although they are strong creatures, he wouldn’t know why he would need assistance from a Pegasus.  But the little pony insisted and said:

Are you sure?

But yeah, Luke was sure.

One of his mates shouted out that there was a door at the other end of the stable and suggested they should go and have a look.

Behind this door there was a magical landscape: a huge valley filled with large fruit trees singing all kinds of song, birds in many colors looking like rainbows all around, animals in all kinds of shapes.  But there’s one problem.  A huge problem.  They are located at the top of a very steep mountain!  When Luke will look out the door the first time, he will appreciate the gorgeous landscape but as soon as he looks down he’s going to be very sad about the pony, or better, about the fact that he refused the pony’s help!  Because after all – as everyone knows – Pegasus can fly, even the small ones!

Then Luke woke up, all sweaty and reeking of something, he didn’t immediately know what it was.  When he looked down he noticed that he was in the middle of some horse dung in a stable he didn’t recognize.  He heard something move behind his back and turned around to face a small horse.  He vaguely seemed to know this animal.  Suddenly it spoke to him:

As I’ve started, so I’ll finish!  Would you require my help?

Luke thought about it for a moment and replied:

Sure, I’ll take your help.

Then the horse said:

Well done young Skywalker!  Just ask George “Let’s Have Padme Die Of A Broken Heart Instead Of Anakin Crushing Her To Death” Lucas what on earth LNCP stands for next time you see him.

And the little white horse took off its mask, or better, her mask.  Luke didn’t know what was going on but heard her say:

Shall we have a shower?  You really need to get rid of that smell!

Luke didn’t need to think twice this time!

Morale to the story: any man given a second chance should think twice about it before answering!