In the US this week, we are celebrating Thanksgiving. It also marks the time of the year when we many of us really start celebrating the holidays full steam ahead. This means two things. First, less time to blog. Second, time to be thankful about the people we have in our lives, personally and professionally.

In this blog I wan to note a few things I am going to briefly note my upcoming plans, and then I am going to list many of the primary people (and a couple of other things) I have in my professional life that I am very thankful for.

Coming Up

While I plan to blog less until the calendar clicks over to 2026, I do plan to do something I have been considering for a while. Doing Vlogmas. 24 videos with 24 practical writing tips for blogging as a programmer.. My target audience is anyone thinking about starting/struggling to write a blog and feeling bogged down in some part of the process.

I have a few of my Tilting with Tuples episodes dropping as well.

Finally, I need to do something work and figure out how to get my blog to get some search engine traffic and fooling with this stuff takes some time.

Enough planning, start thanking

I have a lot of things to be thankful for this year professionally, despite one thing that occurred… but even that has led to some things that I wouldn’t have done without that event. And this is honestly the last time I want to bring that event up unless I am specifically talking about career stuff. (Like in a conference or blog about advice.)

Hey, it has also been the first year in a while where my visits to one of a doctor hasn’t included a semi-concerned look from a medical professional! I am not exactly the picture of health, but also nothing major.

But I want to thank a few specific groups.

My friends who were my coworkers

When you stop working for a company, you have no idea how it will affect your relationship with people your worked with. And as my previous position was very public… it really feels terrifying… until it doesn’t.

Steve Jones reached out to me to check on my status immediately. And again later. And a few more times. Kellyn Gorman and Grant Fritchey reached out a bit later. I interact with them on social media frequently. I look forward to seeing them in person again someday, hopefully soon.

Tony Davis reached out later, and he wanted to ask me if I wanted to write with him again (I agreed to and we just posted my first article on using SQL Prompt AI to fix smart quotes. Louise Domeison reached out and asked if I wanted to be a Redgate Ambassador again: I did.

A host of others have reached out and/or liked LinkedIn posts I have made about (and not about) Redgate products. Through it all, I have known Redgate, and people at Redgate far longer than I worked there, and I still love them and want to help them as much as I can.

My friends who were my coworkers and are again including a few new ones

When I needed a new employer, I called my previous one to see if they needed me. Fortunately they did and I went back. Most of the people I worked with were still there, including all of my managers. It has felt like home, and some of the things I have been working on recently are really exciting and stuff that will be making it to the blog eventually.

Not only could I not be more thankful to be able to slide right back in, I was joined later by a heck of a great person who has been a major asset to our team that I have know for years.

Note: I don’t use names here because none of us are in marketing like at my last position. Only a few of us are actually out in the data community very much.

The whole freaking data community

This isn’t just true this year, but for so many years. The love and camaraderie in the community is amazing. The stuff I have learned and the friends I have made over the years has been amazing. This blog is long enough, but so many people who I love to interact with online and in person.

Starting a new website

When I stopped writing for Simple Talk, I really didn’t want to stop writing. In fact I wanted to write more. So I did. It is actually the first time I have done this. I went from a blog on Microsoft’s spaces site, to SQLBlog.com, and then to Simple-Talk. I certainly might post again on an aggregated site, but I will be keeping a presence on this blog for the foreseeable future.

So far my this site has 100 posts, with 35K views and nearly 10K visitors. And I still have very little search engine traffic.

Most all of the traffic has come from mentions by the wonderful Brent Ozar Limited and awesome SQL Server Central in their newsletters.

Most of all… thankful for you

You, yes you.

If you are reading this text, you are in many ways, the most professional community/inspiration I have is anyone who reads one of my blogs, LinkedIn posts, or attends a session I might give. While my advice is to do all of these things for myself first, it is very inspiring for someone to see my work and read far enough in to get to the end here.

I am thankful for you as much as any of the people specifically mentioned and hundreds of people who were indirectly mentioned.

Happy Thanksgiving and if you celebrate any holidays over the next month or so, I hope they are wonderful.