Ok, so what have I been up to?  Well a lot has changed for me over the past couple of months, primarily my job.  Initially I wasn’t going to blog about this, but after a couple of conversations with a few well respected people in the SQL community I decided to write a post.  As many of you know I was a Business Intelligence Architect for Pragmatic Works, which was a great position.  That job catapulted my career into orbit, literally.  However, with the fast-paced I kind of lost myself.  I was given some advice when I started the position and that was, “You have to learn to say no”.  If you have met me in person or talked to me before, you know that I am one of the most laid back guys you will very meet, and saying no to a giving a presentation or helping out with a volunteer activity is not in my nature.  I enjoy speaking and giving back to the community.  Well as a consultant you constantly meet people that read your blog, books, and articles or attend your presentations.   Of course, if they ask me a question or to speak at their local user group, I would quickly say yes.  Because of this I quickly overwhelmed myself with work and community involvement.  Looking back over my calendar last year I gave more presentations (Online and In Person) than there are weeks in a year.

As a result, I decided to take a break from everything including work.  Over the past two-three weeks I have been home learning to cook, playing XBOX, Wii, going to the movies, taking my wife out on dates.  You get the picture.  In addition, I changed jobs.  You may have noticed by now that I have been referring to my job with Pragmatic Works in the past tense.  First I want to say that I did not leave the job because of any ill feelings or anything like that.  Pragmatic Works was one of the best jobs that I have ever had, and the people are awesome.  By the way they are hiring if you are looking for a job.  I left because I needed to learn to balance a job that required travel with my home life.  Travel is ok, but I need to take baby steps with it before I am ready to take on a full-time consulting job while maintaining a healthy family lifestyle.

So, where has all of this ended me?  I recently accepted a position with Microsoft.  I think this is going to be a great opportunity for me and my family.  I will be traveling, but at a level that will allow me to learn how to balance my life, work and community involvement.  I hope to maintain a healthy involvement in the SQL Server community.  I will be ramping up the SQL Lunch soon, so stay tuned for that.  What does the future have in store for me; well to be honest I am not quite sure.  For now, I am going to learn the ropes at Microsoft and learn everything that I can about SQL Server and the accompanying technologies.  If you want to contact me or ask me questions please feel free to email me at pleblanc@sqllunch.com.

Talk to you soon

Patrick LeBlanc