2020 Blog Review

Ahem.

select apex_string.format(q'[It's been %s days since my last confession]' 
                         ,trunc(Sysdate) - date '2020-04-14'
) "G'day World" from dual

G'day World
-----------
It's been 282 days since my last confession

It's been so long, the Blogger UI has changed. I don't think I like it. Maybe another thing to consider adjusting in the new year...

It's also been four years since my last blog review, and I promised this one may be a doozy.

2020 was something else, right? I spent a good portion being thankful that I 

1. kept my job
2. could work from home
3. live in such a remote city, which helped keep my family & friends safe

Aside from the APEX@Home event in April, I decided to scale my extra-curricular work right down, hence the lack of blog activity over the past year. I've kept active in the forums, because looking through those helps give my brain a bit of a reset when focus starts wandering.

But I wanted to be sure I had the time, energy, or whatever it was I needed to power through whatever 2020 potentially dished out.

Thankfully, from my end of the world, things are relatively OK. I've been to a few outdoor gigs, and aside from a few regular adjustments, life is kind of normal. Kind of. We're not completely insulated from the outside world, and things could change in a moment.However, I've used this down time to improve my investment game, should my IT career start to falter.

But that leads onto another astonishment for the year. I saw a lot of people I knew outside tech lose their jobs, though thankfully most of them had options elsewhere. Meanwhile, I'm presented with numerous avenues. I happened to choose a new avenue.

As of the end of January 2021, my tenure at Sage Computing Services comes to an end after 13 years. 

When I look back, it's staggering what I've done with the support of Penny at Sage.

• Transitioned from Forms based development to Oracle APEX.
• I published a video series using Oracle APEX. 
• I published a book involving Oracle APEX. 
• I was recognised as an Oracle ACE.
• I spoke Kscope. Twice. Well, two cities, 5-6 sessions, I think.
• Helped create some amazing project work with an amazing team.
• Found a great work-life balance.

And I still have the yearn for more.  I have two more ideas for video series I still want to explore, and one could work as another book.  

It was a really tough choice leaving Sage, but yet again, Penny supported me through the options, and I'm fairly sure I've found a project that's the perfect fit for me, and it was hard to ignore.

And for a moment there I felt like I was presented with the cliche of red vs blue pill.

Development or ...

I'm not sure which one represents the world of development, but I didn't identify a managerial style job back at University - so while I 'manage' a lot of things as a developer, my passion is cutting code.

Therefore, the coming years are going to be explored as a contractor at a new firm, while I return to a past client to transition them from Forms to Oracle APEX. The good & bad news: I built a bunch of those Forms!

2020 project challenges were tough. I'd be kidding myself if I didn't think 2021 projects at a new location will be any different, but I'll be looking to step up my skills & habits while I'm at it.

Hopefully you'll be hearing more from me via this medium in 2021.
I've missed it, and I'm ready to come back.

And here's to seeing James Webb Space Telescope finally launch this year!