2011 review: the year by the numbers

The last post of the year! It's been an excellent year all round – I thought that instead of doing a long post about goals etc, I'd again count down the numbers that have been my life this year.

• 7374413 (roughly): the number of page views on my blog as tracked by Google, from 141 countries. 5 times more than last year! WOW!
• 103659: the number of miles I flew on United
• 21799: my current tweet total
• 11985: the number of emails I sent
• 6500 (roughly): the number of people who've joined our Insider mailing list since February.
• 4160: the number of people who follow my twitter ramblings
• 520: the number of books I've bought but not yet read
• 160: roughly the number of nights away from home
• 150.4: miles-per-hour we reached driving down the German autobahns in June this year in a rented 7-Series BMW. Zoooooooooooooom!
• 140: number of feet deep I dove in the Blue Hole in Belize (and I didn't get narc'd at all!)
• 117: the number of SQLskills blog posts I wrote, including this one
• 103: the number of photos I posted in travel blog posts (see here)
• 100: percentage of the 4 technical employees at SQLskills who have taught MCM classes for Microsoft
• 92: the number of days I was teaching classes or presenting at conferences
• 53: the number of books I read this year (see my wrap-up post)
• 45: roughly the percentage of time we were away from our 'vacation home'
• 44: the number of flights we took
• 30: the number of posts I did on our joint SQL Magazine blog
• 26: the number of dives we did (taking my total to 122)
• 24: the number of different hotels we stayed in
• 19: the number of multi-day classes I taught
• 16: the number of large tins of real haggis I ate this year
• 11: the number of new bird species I saw (taking my total to 407)
• 10: the number of countries we visited this year
• 6: the number of new countries I visited (Luxembourg, Germany, Liechtenstein, Belgium, Netherlands, Belize – taking my total to 29)
• 5: the number of hours I estimate we saved by using Global Entry to skip customs and immigration lines this year
• 4: number of SQL Server MCMs (and honorary – as Kimberly and I can't take the exams as we wrote them) on staff at SQLskills
• 4: the number of user group presentations I did
• 4: the number of squirrels we rescued (long story…)
• 3: the number of big Lego models I made
• 3: the number of Nixie-tube clocks I made (see here)
• 3: the top-10 PASS 2010 position of my Mythbusters 2 session
• 3: the number of new US states I visited (taking my total to 22)
• 2: the number of incredible Principal Consultants we hired this year: Jonathan Kehayias and Joe Sack – just the best employees and friends!
• 2: the number of excellent young girls – my daughters – 10 and 12 – who just passed their Scuba Diver certifications yesterday! Woohoo!
• 1: the number of kegs of Mac'n'Jacks African Amber we drank on our roof-top deck this year – my favorite!
• 1: the number of utterly indispensable and fabulous long-time assistants and great friends, Libby Hagen – without whom our lives would be a constant apocalyptic mess – who's battling breast cancer right now. Read her blog about her struggle: Stop the War in My Raq!
• 1: number of wives who beat me at PASS this year (who else can say that? :-)
• Finally, the one and only best person in my life: Kimberly, without whom I would be lost…

Thank you to everyone who reads my blog, follows me on Twitter, sends me questions, watches our videos, comes to our classes, and generally makes being deeply involved in the SQL community a joy.

I sincerely wish you all a happy, healthy, and properous New Year!

Cheers!

(About 40 feet underwater while diving off the coast of Belize in November.)