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This month’s topic is “Folks Who Have Made a Difference”, by Ewald Cress.
Ewald Cress has given us a prompt “to give a shout-out to people (well-known or otherwise) who have made a meaningful contribution to your life in the world of data.”
The people in the community who have taught me things and contributed to my life are too many to list, and impossible to rank. So I thought: who made the biggest impression on me in just the last year?
You can’t really predict what people will remember
Memory is a funny thing: sometimes you try to remember something and fail. Lots of times, we return to memories that are of an event that may have seemed normal at a time. It’s just funny what sticks with you.
Kalen taught me about In-Memory OLTP, and also about a love of adventure
I was lucky enough to attend SQL Saturday Portugal last year. I taught one pre-conference session, then jumped at the chance to attend Kalen Delaney‘s training day on In-Memory OLTP in SQL Server the next day.
It was a great day of learning about In-Memory technology, and I’m happy to say I remember a lot of it — but I also remember a conversation that I had with Kalen a day or two later at the conference. She mentioned that she was going to visit with a friend locally. She and her family had met this friend years before, when they were traveling in Mexico, and then sailing (by themselves) from Mexico to Hawaii.
I’m a person who gets seasick looking at a bathtub, and I’m not particularly strong on geography either, but that seems like a long trip in a sailboat. I asked about the trip and hearing about it was just delightful. I won’t tell the whole story here so that you can ask Kalen about it sometime 
This is one of those memories I didn’t realize would stick with me, but hearing Kalen talk about sailing that day comes to mind fairly regularly. It always makes me smile, and it always reminds me that adventure is a really important part of life.
And this isn’t just the adventure of trying new technologies (although isn’t it perfect that I also learned about In-Memory OLTP from her?). This is also the adventure of going new places and seeing new things! Plan that road trip with the family. Figure out how to fly someplace that you’ve never been next year. Really take time off, then come back to work refreshed and ready and inspired.
Adventure is important. And the memories last a long time — even for the people who get to hear about them.