#SQLNewBlogger Week 1 “Eye of the Tiger”

First, thanks to Ed Leighton-Dick (@eleightondick / http://www.edleightondick.com) for inspiring blogger newbies to start writing with the #SQLNewBlogger challenge. While I technically have written a couple of posts a while back I don’t consider myself a blogger (yet), but timing is everything.

** Brief history
I wrote my first post 3 years ago to say that I had a blog. The idea for the post was easy…it was the 100 year anniversary of the Oreo cookie and I have a killer recipe for inside out Oreo cookie fudge. Yes it’s 95% “inside” and a few cookie outside crumbled in. It is as delicious as it sounds.

My first two technical posts were about 2 speaking engagements. The first post was about my first lightning talk at the Denver SQL User Group. Submitting for my first SQL Saturday was my next post. I was accepted to 3 SQL Saturdays in a row! However, during this time, my father was in a nursing home and soon after these articles were posted, my father was admitted to hospice. I spent the majority of my time and emotional energy with him which I don’t regret. Obviously, with the distractions, I quit posting. The SQL Saturdays occurred some time ago, and I will recap those experiences in a future post.

** Reasons I started a blog
1) My grandmother was a teacher, my mother was an English major and my father was a journalism major, so in many ways, writing is in my blood.
2) I would like to organize my thoughts, code, notes etc. in one place so I can reference them later.
3) Avenue to communicate with many of the people I have met at different events over the years and have a place to post material if I continue to present at a SQL Saturday or other conference.
4) Opportunity to meet new people in the community.
5) Ability to participate in future #TSQL2sday
6) Paying it forward is important to me. There are many people who have helped me learn through their blog. If I can pass my knowledge on, it will be worth it.

** Questions as I was setting up my blog
1) Was this something I really wanted to do? I feel everyone has experiences they can share and contribute to the community, but would I really commit to the time needed?
2) My first thought after deciding to start a blog, was where to blog and should I get my own URL or just use the default WordPress URL.
3) Once I decided on WordPress, I needed to find a theme…
4) Next was the code I had written and would write in the future that would be posted to the site. Should I use creative commons…if I was going to use creative commons, which option?
5) Also, how do you do all the cool things in a blog like format your code correctly and post tweets?
6) Where can you find the cool stock photos I see in other people’s blogs? i.e. Where can I legally find stock photos, and how to correctly attribute?
7) How do you correctly reference posts from other bloggers?
8) What subjects would I want to blog about? Technology only? Personal things? I like food and travel/adventure so I decided to start with 3 main topics.
9) How often will I really blog? What is my goal and is that realistic? I have the next 3 weeks committed to #SQLNewBlogger, then hopefully monthly.

I recently got the “Eye of the Tiger” back. My personal life has been very hectic the last few years, but I have started eating better and working out again. These simple changes helped me get my focus back on learning, studying, and hopefully writing.