Today Yesterday I was distinguished by Microsoft, as I received an mail in which they awarded me with a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award. It was one of those moments that’ll stick with you for a lifetime. I am truly honored and very, very excited about the days to come in this new role. As far as community goes, nothing has changed. But with the award comes a great deal of responsibility towards the products, the product teams and Microsoft as a whole. I am really looking forward to embark that ship.
In short, my excitement for today is best characterized as (this is supposed to be a gif – but using Word as publishing tool doesn’t seem to do the trick):
It’s been a joyful ride that began back in 2013 where I gave my first public talk. Since then I have been fortunate enough to be selected to speak at a number of events such as SQLSaturday, MSBIP, Microsoft Campus Days and not least the great PASS Summit. On that note, I’d like to particularly thank Mark Broadbent (b|l|t) who twice has given me the opportunity to be part of his phenomenal SqlSat Cambridge events. Mark was also forthcoming about nominating me for this award, and for that I am very grateful. Also, a huge thank you goes out to Regis Baccaro (b|l|t) who on numerous occasions has given me the opportunity to both speak and be part of the team organizing the SqlSat Denmark events for the last four (4) years. There are a lot of people whom I am thinking of right now, writing this piece. People from all over the world, some of whom I’ve never even met – but still, they are part of what made this journey so wonderful and interesting. So, a great thank you goes out to the #sqlfamily out there, wherever you may be. I will be looking forward to reconnecting with old acquaintances as well as new ones in the time to come. I am always open for a chat, even about the Microsoft Data Platform
Before my now roughly two and a half years in Maersk Line IT, I was working both as a consultant and an internal developer in Rehfeld Partners, now part of IMS Health. At Rehfeld I was both part of the Effektor team, but also worked in the Health Care team as well as the Private Sector team. Before joining Rehfeld, I had a short stop at KMD, which I will gracefully skip describing here. But, about Eight (8) years ago, I left Knowledge Cube where I had been scooped up as a Business Intelligence Rookie. Initially the Company (A-Ware) had three (3) partners, of whom two stayed on to become partners in Knowledge Cube. One of these partners, Erik Svensen (b|l|t), is now Owner of the Company CatManSolution. Erik was one of the initial three who instilled BI into my career path, and now he will, once more.
From today, I will (again) be working with the team on CatManSolution as a Business Intelligence Architect (effectively: BI Dude, so no change there). I am looking so much forward to taking on this opportunity, as I see a lot of fun and challenging tasks ahead – with great people around me. Not to mention a lot of potential for growth and research & development. I will, going forward, be working with the full suite of SQL Server as well as Azure offerings. I have missed out on that, during my tenure at Maersk, so It’ll be good again to get hands-on, rather than just reading up on new features and products.
CatManSolution allows you, as end user, to find report groups and concepts, such as
Status and ranking
Focus on development
Benchmarks and potentials
Promotion management
Zero sale and distribution
Price analyzer
New launchings
StorePictures and StoreEvent
Stock analysis
Data is coming in from an number of different sources, and obviously more sources are to come.
This is from back in 2011, but still valid I think
For just about any DIY-guy comes the time where the faucet has held back its last drop, and must be replaced. One might initially think that this would be a relatively easy task. Of the possible combinations no outcome would be disastrous, but there could of course have been reversed hot and cold Water – or no Water at all .
All this was well thought through when I took off to Bauhaus to buy new faucet . One of my final questions were “do I have everything I need? ” to which the expert replied ” Yeah, it should be square .” Just let me reveal now, that it was far from it.
When I first tried to install the pipes without mounting the battery itself , I discovered that the supplied thread did not fit on the extension tube . Hmpf! Shop was closed, so I had to re- install the old faucet .
Status Day 1 : no change
Back to Bauhaus where an employee cocksure announced that “it can only be those that fit ” so I rolled good-natured Home, finally to install the new faucet . Sure enough, they fit, the new gizmos, amazing! But it was only a partial goal. The mixer proved to be for the kitchen, so the piece under the table, filled more space than there was room for. In connection with this discovery, which of course meant the dismantling of the existing faucet was one of the hoses that connected pipe with faucet leaking due to damaged packaging.
Status Day 2 : still the old faucet mounted, now just only with hot water which, incidentally, was the dripping .
On the third day I unfortunately has to spend 3.5 hours to a fantastic important extra – extraordinary general meeting (important neighborhood stuff), so there was no progress in the project.
Status Day 3 : same same
The first mixer was chosen partly by design and partly by long-term use in mind. Now we had to choose again, and the priority now became price and feature the highest. We would now just need a mixer that could do the job for a short period . Somewhere on the horizon there is a new bathroom waiting, if it is while we live here is not known . Anyway, it was Silvan who was able to deliver a faucet that just met price + functionality, but they were so not able to deliver that much more. It was too much for the dear service representative when I explained how it was installed . When the original tube from balofixen was extended by a snake, it was too confusing for the employee. ” I need a coupling with external thread ” I explained, then Silvan boy quite upset proclaimed that ” that’s a strange system you have. I’ve never experienced it before.” Without seeming too defeatist and indulgent, I tried to point to one of the many variants that hung on the wall, and it did indeed finally get the his bulb glow a little. Now I had the feeling of being closer to the target than before. And the Silvan employee also seemed as if he had said the right things. Tugging in the kids and other domestic obligations, meant no more progress on the project that day.
Status Day 4 : same same, now just with the proper fittings, and the right faucet .
Friday I was to have the kids on my own, but I would just try to mount the bugger while they were in the bathtub. It all went fine, right up until the cold connection should be installed . The tube on the new faucet was of inscrutable reasons, two inches shorter than the original. So pipe was missing. # % } { % } ^ ^ # ^ { % | $ | | % {
The old faucet I had not dealt with very elegantly, so I could not mount it again. I therefore had to mount the warm support for the new faucet, which was now sitting in the sink. The cold could not connect, so I mounted it on the discarded faucet and put it under the sink. You should just not turn on the old faucet, the it would pour out on the floor.
Status Day 5 : new faucet, but only with hot water.
Saturday morning I took off to Silvan to buy a longer pipe to connect the cold end . With Rosa in the Triobike we were quickly on the road. There was good tailwind and therefore a fast pace. It was to be too fast, in an S-bend at the café Ae. Here a front wheel suddenly lost contact with the pavement, and I lost control of the bike. I tried to ease the impact with my leg, which was perhaps silly, but maybe the reason why nothing happened to Rosa. Luckily nothing happened to her, she looked a little glum for me when I rocked the bike back on all three wheels. But soon won her good moods again. Now we were almost there, so we hurried into Silvan, bought the hose, and limped back home, very slowly.
ER couldn’t tell me anything, because of the swelling in the knee. Now, hit hard on mobility, lying with wrenches and other tools under a sink was not exactly top of the to-do list.
Status Day 6: all purchases made, now we just wait for mobility. So close to the target now 🙂
Sunday I could half sitting, half lying attach the hose so we could get cold water. Bingo! It worked! And you don’t notice the slight trickle when you are with your leg up high, here on the sofa, in the living room.
Status Day 7 : Alles klar Herr Kommisar , well almost…
