It’s T-SQL Tuesday again! And in fact it’s the 99th one! Given that T-SQL Tuesday runs once a month that means that Adam Machanic’s (b/t) brainchild has been running for over 8 years! This month is hosted by none other than Aaron Bertrand (b/t). He’s given us not just one, but two fairly wide ranges of topics. Including What are you passionate about? and T-SQL bad habits. I choose to go with the passion topic, although I did think about writing about cursors. … you know what, maybe I’ll do that too, just not today.

Today I want to write about one of my hobbies. I was actually discussing this with someone recently as one of my methods of stress relief. Now if you follow me on twitter then this comes as no surprise to you, but I make small metal models.

You can see I’ve made a few over the years. Here are a few I’ve done recently.

Aside from the fact that I have something afterward to put on my desk (the downside is dusting, I mean really, you have no idea), building these is awesome for stress relief. If I feel a need I can just grab my model (sitting right next to my laptop)

and put together the next piece.

There isn’t much thought involved so I can shut my brain down for a few minutes, or, more likely, process some stuff in the background. It’s also nice during meetings. I have a horrible habit of working, reading emails, etc during meetings. Recently I’ve started working on my models and have found that I can concentrate on the meeting without any effort.

IT, in general, is high stress. Our jobs involve tight deadlines, high precision, and a risk of costing the company a lot of money if you make a mistake. Not to mention DR .. I mean Disaster is right in the name. Stress relief is important to all of us and for me, these types of minimal thought hobbies (coloring books are another great example) are wonderful.