I'm getting in touch with old friends. Just finished reading another book that I had started a long time ago - "Oracle DBA Guide to Data Warehousing and Star Schemas". It's a good read if you can get past Bert Scalzo's arrogance. If I had his credentials, maybe I'd be arrogant too. I've seen that lately he's been coverting all his work to talks about MySQL. The new MySQL has partitioning and some spruced up features that will let it compete with Oracle/DB2/SQL Server.

I'm still working with Pentaho. I am also going through data mining examples using SQL Server 2005. I must admit, MS is getting better. I recently built a nice prototype for one of my clients using Windows based ETL and OLAP reporting tools.

I also finished updating the site for my mom's spa (www.spafloridian.com). I've got to get better at CSS and layout. I suck right now. I did manage to put Google Analytics tags on all the pages. I'll see how much traffic is going to her site. I'm also going to cross promote her foundation on the site www.joyandcaregivingfoundation.org.
I'd much rather learn Omniture but Google Analytics is free and available. Maybe one day, they'll be more competitive with Omniture.

There's a whole stack of other things I want to learn while I'm free. Ruby on Rails/Endeca/Statistics-Regression/Correlation, Data Mining, Pentaho, Web 2.0 stuff. I'll just have to keep plugging away and build up by doing one small project at a time.

I've applied for a 4 month project to build a protoype using Ruby on Rails. I hope I get it because it will be a great opportunity to get my feet wet with Ruby. I've also applied for a 100K job in Philly mentoring people in BI. I figure it's not too bad if in the mean time I can build up opportunities for 20 - 40 K in side work. I can't be too agressive because I've got little ones. When they're bigger, I will definately have to really get out there or maybe not.

I'll keep walking down this path and let you know through this blog where I end up. I'll probably be starting another Pentaho specific blog. I'd like to start building up my name in that community and perhaps parlay it into a regional partnership or a job at their Orlando facility.

I'm starting up my Ruby activities again for LockandKeyId. I've got some incentive now to get better with listings out there like the Ruby on Rails prototyping gig.