Continuing my series about PASS Summit memories today I am going to talk about a moment in time that was fairly unique for a variety of reasons. First, I was in Barcelona for the PASS European Summit. Second, my wife Suzanne was with me, doing her best to not be so incredibly bored when surrounded by all sorts of geeks. It was a moment where worlds collided. It was also a place where I took a few extra steps in my professional development and decided that I wanted to be a Rock Star (well, I already had the nickname anyway).
I Wanna Be a Rock Star
Suzanne and I were enjoying our last night in Barcelona and made our way to the lobby bar at the Hotel Fira Palace. The place was mostly empty except for one group of folks and a couple of airline pilots. And then at some point a few more folks came walking in and he was with them.
It was Ken Henderson.
I knew of Ken, he had helped answer a question of mine about a year previous. And I had attended the precon session in Barcelona he delivered with Bob Ward . What I loved about Ken’s talk was that the first thing he did was hand out sheets that had nothing but terms and definitions, I think it was two or three pages worth of definitions. He did this, as I recall, to “make certain we would understand the rest of his talk”. It was awesome. I even have the handout from the slide deck but sadly not the extra piece of paper with the definitions.
I remember listening to Ken give this talk and having to refer back to his definitions every now and then, just to make sure I understood. It was like trying to translate a foreign language while someone is talking, and they never stop. To describe it as a firehouse would come close, but would fall short by several orders of magnitude. I had been given the title of DBA roughly two years before sitting in on this talk, so much of everything was still very new to me at the time. I am sure I looked lost. Ken might as well have been speaking Spanish.
So there we were, sitting at the piano bar in the lobby, and in comes Ken with a few friends. And I said to Suzanne right then and there:
“That’s who I want to be.”
I told Suzanne about Ken, how he was like a rock star, how he was one of the top experts in the world when it came to SQL Server. To put things in perspective I told her it would be as if Annie Leibovitz had just walked in with a few friends to have a nightcap before bed. I simply found it surreal to be in the same place as Ken. And here’s what I did next.
I sat there.
I am a shy person by nature. I know people don’t believe that, but it is true. I didn’t get up and go over to say hello. I didn’t know Ken and didn’t want to intrude on his time with his friends. So we stayed at our table. And that was fine, because Suzanne and I spent time talking about where I wanted to go with my career. And the goal was quite simple.
I wanted to be the SQL Rockstar.
