Keynote Collaborate 2012

Well, here I am at the Keynote given by Captain Mark Kelly Commander of the Space Shuttle Endeavour’s Final Mission. I can't help but think of my desires to be an astronaut when I was a pre-teen watching all the Apollo launches and the moon landings. But what if I had?

If I had become an astronaut 25 Oracle books probably wouldn't have been written, thousands of DBAs wouldn't have (hopefully) benefited from my mistakes as most of the books were the product of learning from mistakes. If I had become an astronaut I don't know if I would have had the same children I do now, or stayed married to the same wife. One decision and your whole life changes.

Of course, if you have attended one of my presentations you have probably heard the story of how I got started in Oracle. You see, I owe my Oracle career to the space program. In 1989 TVA hired Marvin Runyon (responsible for gutting the Post Office in the name of efficiency in his previous job) to streamline TVA. Every six months they laid off about 2-3000 people once he took the reins. In the third round of laying off all the non-union people with low seniority (i.e. my description) my boss called me into her office, she told me that I shouldn't turn down any job offers (her way of telling my my number was up.)

At that time I had experience with Informix (minor) and Ingre (several classes, 3 years of experience) and zero Oracle experience. I could spell Oracle (barely). Meanwhile NASA had experienced the Challenger disaster because of the effects of sub-zero temperatures on the e-ring in the boosters. NASA instituted the ASRM project (Advanced Solid Rocket Motor) in Iuka, Mississippi. The database was Oracle, the language Cobol. I used Fortan and Ingres, obviously a match made in heaven! Anyway, I sent my resume not expecting to be hired. No, I didn't lie, nowhere did I say I knew Oracle, just relational concepts and Ingres and Informix. I was very surprised when they called me and arranged for me to come to Iuka for an interview.

Iuka, for those who have no clue where it is, resides in the corners region of Mississippi (where Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi all come together). They moved a bunch of Sacramento, California to Iuka, Mississippi. Talk about culture shock! At least I was coming from Hixson, Tennessee. I bought and read the only available Oracle book on the way to Iuka. Anyway I got the job, thank God for Oracle and DEC training credits! I think I got the job because I was the only one that didn't run screaming when they saw Iuka.

Well, enough rambling. So even though I didn't get to be an astronaut, the space program was directly responsible for my Oracle career.