A few weeks back, right after attending Snowflake Summit, I had the pleasure of chatting with Sanjeev Mohan on his podcast – It Depends. We spent an hour or so chatting about trends in modern data management, data mesh, data vault, my now semi-retired life as an advisor to several Snowflake partners, and my love of martial arts.
So sit back, relax (I did), and enjoy!
Aloha.
Kent
The Data Warrior
The new normal – we are all pretty much in some sort of lock down due to COVID-19. Some are quarantined, some in with mandatory shelter-in-place orders, some trapped in a foreign country unable to get back home, and many, many people are now working from home and practicing social distancing.
This is a very stressful time for us all.
In the meantime, it is VERY important that we maintain our physical, emotional and spiritual health. A strong constitution helps us combat illness. A strong mind helps us keep a positive outlook.
Several decades ago, as part of my journey in the marital arts, I was introduced to the practice of Tai Chi and Chi Gung. As it worked out there was a class at noon a few times a week in the fitness center at my place of work. I found it to be not only a compliment to my Tae Kwon Do practice (which I taught nightly at the time), but also found it to be a great way to reduce and relieve stress in the middle of the work day. This let me return to me cube refreshed and ready to work the afternoon.
So with that in mind, I though it might be helpful for many of you to add this to your routine to insure you get a little exercise and relaxation every day.
For those that do not know, Chi Gung (or Qigong) is an ancient Chinese practice designed to calm and focus the mind, strengthen the body, and increase your overall energy level (Chi). It is practiced by thousands every day in China and all over the world for its health benefits. Often referred to as moving meditation, Chi Gung breathing exercises have been shown to have innumerable health benefits as the gentle motions aid in the flow of Chi energy throughout your system.
In the 20-minute video below, I will guide you through several easy to learn routines that anyone can learn. The movements are similar to what many have seen in Tai Chi, but unlike Tai Chi, the movements are for improving your health and have no martial arts or self-defense intentions.
In the video (recorded in 2012 in San Antonio, Texas at the JW Marriott) you will see me give detailed instructions and explanations of several Chi Gung “still stance” breathing meditations. I lead the group in doing Upward-Downward, Inward-Outward, Raised Hands Stance, Tai Chi Ball, Four Forms, and the Warrior Energy Form. Each of these moving meditative sets can be done individually or in the series as demonstrated, depending on your available time and fitness level. Do what you can to mirror my movements, but don’t push it too much.
It may take a few days to get comfortable with all the movements. Take your time and remember to relax. Be warned, you may find your quads a little sore for the first few days if you bend your knees as much as I do! 🙂
So take a break, go outside, maybe your backyard, a park, or even the beach, and try some Chi Gung. Teach it to your kids and do this as a family!
I hope you find this practice helpful for getting through these challenging times.
Stay healthy my friends.
Kent
The Data Warrior and Chief Technical Evangelist at Snowflake
One of my favorite non-tech bloggers is Leo Babuta over at ZenHabits.com. This post came up yesterday and caught my eye.
Why?
I had just been at my weekly yoga class and was a bit bummed out looking in the mirror at the profile of my not-so-slim-anymore belly while doing Warrior 2.
Not a pretty picture. 😦
To be a good warrior of any kind it really helps to stay in shape. And, like every year this time, I do think about such things as I contemplate all the yummy treats headed my way.
I really could stand to loose a few pounds here (definitely before Christmas), but have been pretty unsuccessful doing so in the past few years.
The older I get, the easier they go on, the harder they come off. It’s a fact of life.
Then I see Leo’s post and think – hmm maybe this will get me going in the right direction. He made it a challenge, and who is not motivated by challenge eh?
So here is the intro for my fellow warriors to peruse.
The SFH Holiday Challenge
We recently announced our holiday challenge to SFH members, and today I’m sharing it with you guys too.
What’s the challenge about? Basically, sticking to rules you create to stay healthy during the holidays — not gaining all that holiday weight, and maybe getting leaner and healthier in the process.
How does it work?
- Choose an eating habit. We have several suggestions, from No White Foods to our Mindful Diet to a vegan diet, but what you choose is up to you.
- Choose an exercise challenge. Again, it’s up to you, though we have a couple of suggestions here.
- Make a big public commitment. Announce it big time.
- Stay accountable. Check in daily or as often as you have time for. This will help you stick to the challenge.
Sound good? Read more here.
Read the entire post here: The Simple Fitness Habit Holiday Challenge : zenhabits.
Once you click through everything, you will get to all the details. One of the suggestions is a push up challenge for the exercise piece. Since I already walk most days at lunch I decided to try that one out.
This morning I did the the initial test and pulled off 30 good-form pushups in a row.
In a few days I will start the program based on that result. Looks like I get to skip all the way to the week 3 program! Wow.
So who else is will join me in this Data Warrior Challenge?
Leave a comment below to let us know who will give it a shot (that counts as #3 above – public commitment).
Let’s get in better shape so we can start 2014 in prime form!
Pil Sung!
Kent
The Oracle Data Warrior
Yes, the last day of the conference arrived. Many folks got a bit of a slow start as they recovered from the prior evenings festivities (but that is true almost any day in the French Quarter!).
Morning Chi Gung was smaller but still a respectable turnout of 14 people. Some of my participants had already started their trek home, others just could not quite get up… c’est la vie.
Morning Chi Gung participants practicing a still stance meditation and breathing exercise.
My first session on this final day was Charles Elliott from Rittman Mead, discussing how to do Social Network Analysis with Oracle Tools. He discussion centered around using R and a graphing tool called D2 (www.d3js.org).
Network analysis of KScope contributors and influencers across two tracks.
Charles had mined some data (from twitter I think) and then charted some of the connections to determine who were the major influencers related to KScope13 and several of our tracks. My name is up there, but I am a very small dot. You might be able to see in the picture a pretty big dot which is Gwen Shapira, who was not even at the conference this year!
Looks like very cool tech. Not sure where I would use it (yet).
One session I was not too happy with was this one. It was titled as an agile implementation success story but it was (IMO) a veiled pitch for a free addin to SQL Developer.
The entire presentation was a statement of issues in trying to do version control of database objects. And they were all legitimate issues. But there was no case study of a specific project and how they tried to solve the problem. The solution was a product from the speaker’s company that they have developed as an add in to SQL Developer to allow you to control database object check in and check out at the database level.
Nice idea. Looks like it will work.
But, the product is not even available today! It will be release later this summer and is free for up to five users (then I assume it will cost $$).
My beef is that this should have been clearly labeled as a vendor presentation not as a “success” story.
For my last session I went to Stewart Bryson and Edward Roske’s presentation on Innovation in BI: Oracle Business Intelligence Against Essbase & Relational.
This was a great collaborative effort between these two guys who work for companies that might be considered competitors. I am pretty sure this is a KScope first (in many ways).
A KScope 1st: Stewart Bryson and Edward Roske do a joint presentation on using OBIEE against both Essbase and a relation data warehouse at the same time.
In the end, after some demonstrations of how to do this, they guys left us with a really nice comparison chart on when to use which tool and its relative effectiveness in solving specific problems.
Edward and Stewart came up with this nice chart trying to compare the two technologies on a number of features and functions.
Nice job guys!
A relatively new KScope tradition is to hold a final closing general session. Here we say farewell to the event and the city with some slides and humorous videos from the week.
We also get to learn who the top five speakers were for the event (as ranked by session evaluations) and who the speaker of the year winner is.
This year the Best Speaker Award went to Edward (don’t call me Ed!) Roske from InterRel.
There was also an award for the best Kscope Ambassador (the one who helped with the most sessions). This went to Mark Becerra.
Congratulations to both!
Attendees at the KScope13 closing session with their KScope14 travel mugs
As a final note we got a great little video welcoming KScope14 to Seattle.
The even bigger news was that we already have sponsors for the 2014 event! Platinum, gold, and sliver level sponsors have already signed! Plus a boat load of exhibitors.
We must be doing something right that they have secured their spot a year in advance.
We have come a long way baby!
The website for Kscope14 is up and running. You can register, submit an abstract, and make your hotel reservation for next year.
So head on over there now while you are thinking of it! KScope14.com
I can’t end this series without at least one picture of the great food here in New Orleans. I did eat well!
Ending the conference on a high note with blueberry upside down cake at celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse’s restaurant NOLA in the French Quarter.
See you in Seattle (if not sooner)!
Kent
The Oracle Data Warrior
Well Tuesday was another fun and fact filled day at the annual ODTUG KScope conference in New Orleans.
As we do each morning, the first event is Morning Chi Gung. This morning the group grew again to 22 participants who met at 6:45 AM (yes it is early) to walk down the street a few blocks to get in some morning moving meditation. Today we even picked up a few “strays” who joined us (folks not part of the KScope event).
Only in New Orleans would people wander by and join an Ad Hoc exercise and meditation class.
I consider that a sign of success. 🙂
After that is was back to the hotel, breakfast, a quick shower, then my first session.
To start off I went to the SQL Developer Hands-on Lab run by Oracle Product Managers Jeff Smith and Ashley Chen. We had a very nice lab (downloadable from OTN) on how to use SQL Developer for Tuning database queries.
It was very education and useful for me. I even learned a few new options in the tool I had not seen before.
Next, after writing yesterday’s blog post, I got to participate it an ODTUG annual session – the BI Panel Lunch and Learn.
This year they improved it by allowing 30 minutes first for everyone to eat before we started the discussions and questions. Much better (at least for us panelists!).
Quite a good audience for the Oracle ACE BI Lunch & Learn Panel discussion
We had a great and interactive session with lots of give and take and a few somewhat controversial comments from Dan Vlamis to liven things up a bit. Our esteemed moderator, Mark Rittman, did an excellent job of prompting us with relevant questions and controlling the flow of the conversation so everyone had their say. Rounding out the panel was Gurcan Orchan, our resident ODI expert (amoung many other things)
After the panel I went on to see my friend Ashely Chen introduce people to SQL Developer Data Modeler in her Data Modeling 101 session.
Oracle Product Manager Ashley Chen presenting Data Modeling 101 with SQL Developer Data Modeler
Ashley dd a great job setting the stage by showing people what is meant by data modeling and how it fits in the life cycle of developing a database. She then showed many of the basic features of Oracle Data modeling tool.
After Ashley’s session then I had my final presentation on my Top 10 Cool Features in SQL Developer Data Modeler. Ashley and Jeff Smith both attended along with 20-30 other folks as I ran down my list of things I use and like in the tool.
The talk went well with some good questions about the product and how to use it (except for the fact I kinda ran out of time and had to rush the last 3 features). I got some great feedback from Jeff and Ashley on the talk and an excellent suggestion for my next talk. 😉
This was a KScope first -sessions about topics aimed at people on the other side of the fence. So this session was for database people who know nothing about the Hyperion and Essbase products that Oracle acquired a few years back.
It was an excellent session, even if not highly attended (something about being after the happy hour in the exhibit hall perhaps?).
Andy Jorgenson conducts the first ever Hyperion 101 Crossover Session (for database people)
I learned that they are solving many of the same problems as we database people do but just with a different technology. Some of the terms are used a little differently. For example what they label as BI is much broader than I tend to think of – to them it is basic reporting against an ERP. I tend to associate BI with a data warehouse or a data mart (but the data comes from an ERP or operational system originally).
We also got a full list of some of the pre-packased applications that Oracle provides in this space. Very focused on financial solutions.
During the Hyperion 101 session, Andy discussed all the pre-built packaged analytic application that Oracle offers.
The really cool thing I learned was what Essbase stands for:
Very telling!
After that it was off to another fine dining experience in the French Quarter.
Probably not going to lose weight on this trip!
C’ya! Tomorrow I should be reporting on our big event!
Kent
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