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Tim Ford(WWW, Twitter) tagged me. This meme is all about what you would do if you were trapped on a deserted island with nothing but a laptop and aircard. Here is an excerpt:

So You’re On A Deserted Island With WiFi and you’re still on the clock at work.  Okay, so not a very good situational exercise here, but let’s roll with it; we’ll call it a virtual deserted island.  Perhaps what I should simply ask is if you had a month without any walk-up work, no projects due, no performance issues that require you to devote time from anything other than a wishlist of items you’ve been wanting to get accomplished at work but keep getting pulled away from I ask this question: what would be the top items that would get your attention?

Well, first I would have to set camp, kill The Others, and salvage the wreckage of Oceanic Flight 815. But after I would ferment coconut juice so I could have drinks on the beach. Priorities, right?

So after a couple of months of drinking, surfing(waves and pr0n), fishing, and basically being an all around  beachbum I would do this:

Study up for the Oracle Certified Professional exams.

I should be doing this now but I have trouble finding time and motivation. I have the books, study material, and an Oracle lab environment in the cloud. I have been pondering why I find it easier to put my head down and learn the new versions of SQL Server but procrastinate on Oracle. I have come to the conclusion that it is the fact that I do not use books with SQL Server. I usually learn all of the new engine feature before any books are written. I guess I just need to get more hands on with Oracle.

Design a set of default policies for new SQL Server 2008 installations.

In SQL Server 2008, we have policy based management. I want a set of default policies that guide people into best practices. For example, preventing a new database from being created with 1MB autogrow. The policies should mostly cover server and database settings. Schema oriented policies could vary between dev teams and should be handled by them.

Powershell as my default administration method.

I got into a powershell kick for a while but I lost interest. I need to give up the whatever GUI and do all administration through powershell. That is how I learned TSQL. Today, I use the GUI when it is a couple of clicks versus lines of TSQL but I could do it if I needed to. If I give up all MMC snapins and other GUI’s, I might spend a little extra time with powershell at first but it should pay big dividends in the long run.

The Others:

Brent Ozar(Twitter)  

Grant Fritchey(Twitter)

Thomas LaRock(Twitter)

I am tagging the following:

SQLChicken

SQLFool

Jeremiah Peschka