iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Context switching has rendered me useless

Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

I started posting on my substack again to get better at writing. I'm aiming to just post about my experiences as a data professional and how my past experiences have helped me. Here's my most current post if any are interested. substack.com/home/post/p-...

substack.com

The Power of Detail in Data

Attention to Detail

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Does anyone here have a data stack using resources in the Azure Marketplace? I'm looking to get a data warehouse going for my small team What do you use for: - ingestion - transformation - storage - orchestration #databs

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

Data SMEs need to have a seat at the table when discussing KPIs or OKRs. Especially when those metrics determine compensation actions. If you don't, you run the risk creating a metric that can't be measured or over promising on measuring capabilities.

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

Me: “Hey, can I set up some time to go over your code that uploads a file to share point?” Dev: “sure, I’ll need a code to charge my time to” Does anyone else experience this?

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

TIL to inspect/clean my data prior to merging in pandas. Output had 0 rows. Def something with the join. Inspected the output of each df prior to the merge and saw the column I was joining on had extra spaces. Trim function worked. db2 to SQLServer data joined. 80 sec vs 2 hours in power BI

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

Last week instead of learning about Kestra for orchestration, I used 'productive procrastination' to learn about the terminal, shells, prompts and plugins to achieve a beautfil terminal. Proud to say I achieved both form and function on my little sidequest. Here's what it looks like now.

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

On Fri I was handed off a dashboard to update/maintain. The analyst combined excel files using python with a csv output . Then Tableau prep to join the data from the python output to data from SQL Server. The tableau prep flow output a csv which was then used by Power BI to create the dashboard.

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

Failure is an integral part of growth and learning.

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

Is there a command in uv that gets me a list of environments? #dataBS

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

Forgot to tag #dataBS Follow and watch me stumble along.

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

Setup a little dedicated study station in my house. Previously I was just on the couch distracted by the TV. Bought a desk lamp from Goodwill for $6. Was surprised when I found out only after I put a bulb in it that it had a USB-C port!!

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

Re-watched Interstellar last night. I want my own TARS.

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

This will be my thread/journal on the things I learn during the upcoming Data Engineering Zoomcamp. For those interested in joining, here is the link to the Github repo github.com/DataTalksClu...

github.com

GitHub - DataTalksClub/data-engineering-zoomcamp: Free Data Engineering course!

Free Data Engineering course! . Contribute to DataTalksClub/data-engineering-zoomcamp development by creating an account on GitHub.

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

TIL to batch load data from a csv to Postgres in a Docker container

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 01/01/2025

TIL that Claude is much faster at troubleshooting issues than my Google Fu ever will be.

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

Another day, another TIL Docker version. One of the HW assignments of the Zoomcamp is to get used to Docker --help, specifically build --help. Was running into the issue of Experimental commands & flags hidden. Google Fu found export BUILDX_EXPERIMENTAL=1

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

TIL that the docker daemon gets started when the docker engine on the docker desktop is started. I was trying to follow a video on simple docker operations and was getting the error that the daemon was not started. Docker Desktop as a terminal to run the commands that were previously failing.

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 29/12/2024

TIL that I have a lot to learn when it comes to data engineering.

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 21/12/2024

A week of potty training starts today. Wish us luck!

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

Slept almost 10 hours last night. Now just need some motivation to finish the year strong. Maybe some Christmas music in the background? What gets you motivated to kick ass at work?

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

Learn publicly. Started the an online learning track for Associate Data Engineer. 1st sect was on general "What is Data Engineering?" followed by beginner SQL. Learned about INTERCEPT and EXCEPT. Two set operations I have never used. Also learned to use a subquery in the SELECT statement.

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

Is there a way to unfollow from a starter pack? I may have gotten more than I can chew.

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

Just little something to build momentum. #dataBS open.substack.com/pub/smallvic...

open.substack.com

Restart

Living up to the theme of this blog

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

Just Dance is a Thanksgiving tradition at my in-laws. Glad my 2 year old can join her much older cousins.

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

I might have missed this, but is there a way for me to see how people get to following me? I doubt I am in that many starter packs. #dataBS

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Reposted by Mer

Kirsten Lum @machsci.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Do the transforms in the SQL, not in the visualization tool

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 24/11/2024

Flew to KCMO to spend Thanksgiving with my in-laws. Here’s a cute pic of my daughter and her papa feeding their kittens.

Photo of an elderly man and toddler feeding 3 kittens

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 24/11/2024

Catching up on reading articles/repos posted on #databs I got some reading to do.

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

@kellyeastman.bsky.social Check this site out! We can use these to pick out colors for our dashboards/reports

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

Is there an intermediate version of #databs ? Heck even a beginner version? Y’all are too smart for me.

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

Sometimes I feel like I’m chasing pavements when it comes to my career.

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Post a picture you took (no description) to bring some zen to the timeline

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Perfect way to avoid the Sunday Scaries

Photo of a half liter beer with a canal in the background

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

I hope she becomes more creative than her dad, which is not hard to do.

A photo of a little girl drawing on a table

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

I'll take interactions over followers please.

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

My team and I are using our #PowerBI workspace as our semantic layer using dataflows. I think we can achieve this with an intuitive filing system for data flows vs semantic models and reports. As we split into a "Dev" and "Recurring Reports" teams, I think this will be important to ensure efficiency

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

We don't co-sleep with our daughter, but this morning she came to our bedroom and wanted to sleep with me. I'm usually second fiddle when it comes to snuggle as she prefers Mom for that, but I'm solo parenting this week and could not resist. Tucked her in and she slept the rest of the night.

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 13/11/2024

I get these random bursts of energy to work on side projects after work. How do y’all Stay consistent on learning, exploring and writing articles after your day job? #dataBS

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 07/11/2024

It's been a while since I posted an article on my substack. Have been inspired by all the others who have continued to share or have started back up again. Here's a little update on me. I plan on sharing my struggles and small victories. #dataBS open.substack.com/pub/smallvic...

Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 04/11/2024

In my world the equivalent to defining a “customer” is defining a “new hire”. Anyone else work with HR or People data? #dataBS

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 04/11/2024

?: How do you handle a column value = "--" when trying to cast said from string to double? Causes the rest of the code to be commented out when using CASE or IF Context: Downloaded Garmin data (.csv) has "--" for null values. Trying to clean up data a bit before using in Evidence #sql #databs

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 03/11/2024

The energy I bring to Bluesky #databs

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Mer @mertheman.bsky.social · 29/10/2024

Wow, this one was a gut punch. Am I an “Older Worker”? I’m 38. I’ve been in the workforce for 22 years! But in data for only 5.

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