All I Want For Christmas Is ...

  • Steve Jones - Editor (12/7/2007)


    No one wants their boss to do something?

    Peter, no first class travel? Extra night on the road?

    OK...OK...if the boss insists first class travel would be great. And how about a few days after TechEd to enjoy DisneyWorld with the family.

    ...and a Porsche 911 Carrera 4S.

  • One Christmas wish was granted - My boss bought 7 new SQL 2005 books for the Developers to use instead of mine.

    My wish is to have SQL 2005 training setup for all of the developers so they know what they are supposed to do instead of making me train all 30 of them. That way I can get the projects that I am supposed to be working on done....:)

    I hope everyone has a happy and safe holiday season. My prayers go out to the familys of the victims in Omaha during this Christmas season.

  • Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays to all

    In terms of material stuff I'm pretty satisfied although noise-cancelling headphones might help me concentrate in this cube-world.

    In other ideas I've decided to give more meaningful gifts this year. Plan Canada (and other charities I'm quite sure) allow you to give what they call "gifts of hope" to less fortunate people around the world. So rather than looking for gifts for that hard to shop for person I'll be shopping from this site (https://plancanada.ca/NetCommunity/SSLPage.aspx?pid=733&srcid=194) Saying you bought a goat or a school uniform is a great conversation starter for those Xmas parties.

    Best wishes to all

    Francis

  • Like many others on here, I have a fantastic life filled with a wonderful family (including a grandson!), great friends, good health and interesting work. Actually, this year has been the best year of my life. I have finally achieved a better work/life balance. My Christmas wish is to continue that balance in 2008.

    Kathi

    Aunt Kathi Data Platform MVP
    Author of Expert T-SQL Window Functions
    Simple-Talk Editor

  • Matt Miller (12/7/2007)

    Oh - don't get me wrong - a drill press would be LOVELY....hehe... oh and at work, Santa, can I get a 16-way quad-core test server with 128GB of RAM and oodles of disk space? PLEEEEEEZ?

    I gave my dad a drill press for Christmas once. I was leaving to do some xmas shopping and he wanted me to help him drill something. In doing so, he started complaining about what a worn-out POS his then-current drill press was. BINGO! Instant gift!

    We occasionally do evil things with xmas gifts, such as making them a little bit of a treasure hunt. In this case, all Dad got was an envelope leading him to the next clue, then the next, then ultimately to the trunk of my car where the press was. I wasn't going to unload that sucker by myself, it was heavy!

    Can't help you with the server, Matt. But we're hopefully retiring my 2xP3/500 in the near future, if you're interested. It's only running four instances for me. :hehe:

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    [font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]

  • For work, I'd like SQL Prompt and training with SQL 2005. With friends, we recently starting contributing to charities in their honor rather than buying each other gifts. We look for ones that are especially meaningful to both of us and have reasonable administrative expenses (so that most of the contribution goes to the cause.) Happy Holidays too all!

  • Well, I'm willing to get unrealistically material. A Mac tower with a terabyte of storage so that Time Machine will have no space issues, the tower will have an Airport base station so that my wife and my laptops can silently back themselves up to it. A nice TV, doesn't have to be a huge plasma wall ornament, just a simple 30" would do: I have the audio equipment that I need.

    But I think the coolest gift would be enough $$$ to clear all of our debt, or at least my car and our credit cards. We're not tremendously upside-down, but the help would, well, help.

    I'll be happy with continued good (or as reasonable as can be expected) health of my friends and relatives.

    Oh, and world piece. Or was it whirled peas? Is it time for my meds? 😀

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    [font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]

  • A friend of mine's immediate family is spread through Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, and California. They're not really getting together this year, so they came up with a cool alternative. Spend $100 on yourself on non-important items, then email pictures of your loot to everyone else!

    I like it. 🙂

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    [font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]

  • For the office, I would ask for just one day where people actually listen to each other and hear what is being said. We have a lot of frustration in the environment, and it is mostly due to the closed ear approach to a discussion.

    For home, my wife and I would like to have more time with the granddaughter. She is such a joy. Of course, she is not quite nine months old, not walking (yet) and hasn't learned to say NO. But even when all that occurs, I have no doubt she will still be a joy. Besides, we look forward to the spoiling and then sending her home.

  • ...is to have my injured chinchilla fully healed... "

    I hope you weren't looking for a coat or fur lined gloves!

    We used to have a chinchilla when we were first married, It was my wife's. It once suffered a broken leg and with lots of care, it healed. I built a large cage with 2 levels and a sand box for her. It eventually shared its home with 2 guinea pigs. Comical to watch.

    It didn't necessarily care for me but would behave perfectly for my wife. I think it was jealous.

    As far as Christmas at work goes, well who knows what the new owners will bring. For myself, my involvement with IT will be ending a little more as each month goes by and we phase in to their system which is a step back in time. For me, its one day at a time. I have other duties that will become dominant.

    Personally, I can echo a lot of what has already been said as far as health and family. I'm thankful that most of the troops I know through Church that are from the local Army base have now just returned over the past few weeks. This includes one that a daughter is especially fond of. One of those troops from Church did not return so he will be remembered this season.

    If I had one wish for this season it would be for our Country to return to God and the Christian lifestyle upon which this Country was founded.

    I apologize for the somber note, but I grow sick of "holiday trees" or "holiday shopping" advertisements. While this is not the time that Christ was actually born it is the time we celebrate his birth. Don't let the humanistic liberals spoil it.

  • Tolerance and acceptance that others may not share your point of view would be nice.

    Francis

  • Thanks for offering this as a topic.

    I have a new workstation on order, servers to work with that I do not have to administer only use, SA on the sql servers I need, and the trust of our Staff. It took 34 years of IT work to get here.

    What I would like at work are two things. One many years to enjoy the work and position I have finally worked myself into, and a quite reading time once a week at work where the office is silent with no interruptions, no phone calls, no email, and no conversations allowed for a couple of hours and we can just do some heads down work, read or performs some needed research. Just a little unstructured work related time. It has a real benefit to the staff and to the business.

    Merry Christmas,

    Miles

    Believe what you will, but live what you believe! 🙂

    Not all gray hairs are Dinosaurs!

  • I'd like to reiterate all the well wishes mentioned earlier.

    As for me in the office I'd like walls (not half cube walls) and a window. I'd like a lot more training on sql as I've really just learned on the job (and from you guys and gals - thank you very much!) and haven't any background in db design or query writing per se. I'd also like a tb of space on our FASt so I can stop worrying for a while about running out of space; but my SAN man doesn't like to just dole out tb's all whimsy; something about budget thppft!! Oh, and a massage chair.

    For those of us here that enjoy an occasional (that's a relative term of course :Whistling: ) beer/ale/stout/enter your beer word, I'd wish for our bosses to enroll us in a beer of the month club! :w00t:

    Though I'd throw it all away for plain old world peace. Yeah, I'd stay sober for that.

    Peace

  • Clients that listen to my advice the first time around and a raise to help pay for all the home renovations we have planned.

    Saner commutes would be terrific, too. (Current client is a 1.5-2 hour commute away. Fortunately I only go in 3 days a week.)

  • Well, if my boss were to get me a $20 or less gift, forget the wireless keyboard and mouse combination. I already bought it for myself and it's wonderful.

    If you decide to get me another Flash drive, just make sure it has a retractable head. I'm sitting here looking at the last one you bought me - the cap went missing long ago, leaving the connector quite vulnerable. BTW, I really like the ones with the glowing light when you plug them in - added bonus. 🙂

    My kids have taken to ending every conversation with a call for Peace, so I'll do the same.

    Peace out.

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