Writing a weekly blog isn’t always easy. For one, you have to come up with a topic every week. As fellow DBA Monica Rathbun recently pointed out, that’s not always easy. But sometimes (ok, often) I get lucky and the universe conspires to give me a topic.

This is what happened this week. The other night I was talking to my son about a possible project I might need his programming skills on. We reached a point in the discussion where I realized what we wanted to do was possible from a technology point of view, but I honestly had no idea how to accomplish it. I literally said, “I have no idea how to do that. But that’s ok, that hasn’t stopped me before. If I don’t know how to do something and I need to, I’ll learn it.”

That said, earlier in the week I was chatting with a friend of mine who has her doctorate in psychology and we were discussing learning new things and one of the items that came up was how it does get harder to learn as one gets older. On the flip side, we have more skills and memories to build upon which can help compensate.

Going back, even further, I remember my maternal grandfather. He was a PT Boat vet from WWII. Some of my earliest memories were him staring at me surrounded by a bright glow. No, he was not an angelic being, rather he loved to film everything on 8mm film and often used a bar of bright lights to make it bright enough. Later in live, he started to move all the 8mm and Super-8 film to VHS. He learned the necessary skills.

Even later in life, with some help from us grandkids, he started to move everything to DVDs. He was probably in his 70s when he took this up and learned how to edit everything on the computer, add in new sound tracks and titles and more.  I mention this story because I remember the day my mom again called to vent her frustration with her computer and how she was ready to toss it in the microwave and have them commit a murder-suicide together. She claimed she was too old to deal with learning how to use her computer. I mentioned to her that her father had learned how to edit DVDs and he was even older.  She was quiet for a minute and then agreed I had a point. Now in her defense, I will say, more often than not she will now call up and say, “Well, I had a problem with the computer, but I figured it out.”  Again, proving, you’re never too old to learn.

What brought all this together though in my mind was this post from Grant Fritchey. It’s well worth the read and I think he makes a lot of valid points. I know as my career in IT I’ve had to constantly learn. What I need to know today is often vastly different from when I did my first install of SQL Server 4.21a. It’s one reason why I made a point last year of buying a LattePanda singleboard computer and installing Linux and then SQL Server on it. I had decided to challenge myself and set a goal of building a SQL Server for under $200.

I plan on learning up until the day I die (and who knows, perhaps after that!) What about you? Will you stagnate or grow?

And as a reminder, if you enjoy reading my blog, please subscribe to keep abreast of updates and additions.

And a final note, I will be travelling over the next two weeks, so I may be too busy to blog.