Data Saturday Chicago: Travel, Community, and the Power of “Database Crap”

Data Saturday Chicago: Travel, Community, and the Power of “Database Crap”. I started writing these notes at the airport on my way home after attending Data Saturday Chicago this weekend.

The event itself took place in Schaumburg, a suburb of Chicago, hosted at a local college campus. Like many community data events, it brought together people from across the SQL Server, Power BI, and Microsoft data platform ecosystem. But as often happens with conferences, the story of the trip wasn’t just about the sessions, it was about the people you meet along the way.

A Trip That Almost Didn’t Go to Plan

Originally, the trip was meant to include meeting up with one of my closest friends, Rhys, who lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. When he heard I’d been accepted to speak at Data Saturday Chicago, he said he’d come down so we could catch up and hangout a bit around the conference day.

Rhys and I have been friends for the best part of 45 years, so the idea of combining a conference trip with seeing an old friend felt like a perfect plan. But life has a way of rearranging plans. Two days before my flight, Rhys messaged to say work commitments meant he couldn’t make the trip after all. By that point my flights were already booked  and they were the cheapest tickets available, which meant there was no real option to change them.

So the trip went ahead, albeit slightly differently than planned.

A Small Travel Discovery

While planning the trip, I stumbled across something I hadn’t realised before. If you fly to the United States from Dublin with Aer Lingus, you can complete US immigration pre-clearance in Dublin before boarding the flight. Anyone who travels to the US regularly will appreciate how appealing that is. I’ve spent more hours than I care to remember standing in immigration queues after landing. The added bonus was that this route allowed me to depart from Birmingham, which is much closer to my home in Wolverhampton than Heathrow. So early Thursday morning I left home, flew from Birmingham to Dublin, spent a few hours waiting for my connection, cleared US immigration there, and then boarded the long flight to Chicago.

Everything worked exactly as advertised. I flew over Greenland – which I suspect I have must have done in trips gone by I never quite got a photo like this

By the time we landed at O’Hare around 7pm local time, it was already dark. I made my way to the Aloft Hotel in Schaumburg, arriving a little after eight.

The Hotel Bar Conversation

After checking in and dropping my bags in the room, I headed downstairs to the hotel bar. Jet lag was starting to kick in, and experience has taught me that the worst thing you can do at that point is go straight to bed. Staying awake a little longer is usually the better strategy. Although I haven’t found a good simple strategy for dealing with jet lag.

The bar itself was quiet.

One person sat drinking whiskey and scrolling on his phone. The barman was sitting on a couch. I ordered a Michelob Ultrasat at the bar, and started messaging home to let everyone know I’d arrived safely, though of course it was the middle of the night in the UK.

Gradually, a few more people arrived.

One person ordered a “Tito and Sprite”.

I remember thinking: What on earth is Tito? (It turns out it’s vodka.)

At that point, there were three of us sitting at the bar, all looking at our phones and not speaking. The bar was silent

Then another person walked in, ordered a drink, looked around the room and asked loudly:

“So what does everybody here do?”

That question broke the silence and the four of us started chatting

The person who was in the bar when I arrived replied:

“Oh, I do database crap.”

My ears immediately pricked up. At first, my internal reaction was slightly different.

My initial thought was:

This person needs to work on their marketing.

But the more I reflected on it, the more I realised it was actually ingenious.

In two words, he had explained exactly what he did in language that anyone could understand.

Not everyone knows what a parameterised query, a blocking process, or a deadlock is. But everyone understands the idea of dealing with the messy, complicated technical stuff behind the scenes.

“Database crap” cuts through all of that.

It reminded me a little of Apple’s famous “Think Different” campaign  simple, memorable, slightly irreverent, and instantly recognisable.

And clearly it works for Erik Darling.

Within seconds it had sparked curiosity, opened the conversation, and created an easy entry point into a deeper discussion about databases and the work we all do.

I have known Erik online for years through the SQL Server community,  but we’d never actually met in person until this weekend. I didn’t recognise him at first glance,  anyway, I now have a new mate.

Friday: Work and Conversations

I hadn’t booked onto a pre-conference session because I had some work to catch up on, so I spent most of the day working from the hotel. Interestingly, I often find that when I travel, business doesn’t slow down  it accelerates. There always seems to be something that needs attention. Perhaps the lesson there is that I should travel more often. Then again, and now I’m home, perhaps I travel enough.

I decided to sit in the hotel lobby to work, and throughout the day I began meeting more people speaking at the event, including Jason, Peterand Chris Hydewho had been running pre-conference sessions. Chris, I have met several times before, and I think, apologies if I’m wrong, I met Jason and Peter for the first time.

There was also a speaker dinner organised that evening, but because I’d originally expected Rhys to join me I hadn’t signed up for it. Rather than suddenly appearing at the speaker dinner last minute, Erik had suggested we go and get some dinner the night before, so we headed out to Chicago Prime, food, beers and wine. It was excellent.

Great food, a few beers, and very funny conversation. At some point we even ended up in a goth bar (Which Chris recommended before we headed out), which I certainly hadn’t expected when the evening began, before eventually heading back to the hotel.

Saturday: Conference Day

Saturday was the main conference day.

One of the things that makes Data Saturday events special is the atmosphere. They’re community-driven, volunteer-organised, and filled with people who genuinely enjoy sharing knowledge. A huge shout out to Andy Yun, Bob Pustari, Frank Gill and no doubt the many other organisers that put in countless hours to make these events successful.

I started the day with Erik Darling’s sessionwhich was excellent as expected. Parameter Sniffing was the topic

After that I attended Christina Ferris’ session on Microsoft Fabric licensingwhich was particularly interesting given how many organisations are currently trying to understand Fabric’s licensing model.

Later in the day it was my turn to present.

After the sessions finished, a couple  of us headed to a nearby Irish bar just up the road from the hotel for a post-conference drink.

After some headed off to  downtown Chicago, St Patrick’s day celebrations were well underway and the river was green. I decided to keep things quiet and head back to the hotel.

The Journey Home

Sunday’s journey home added a little drama.

Although my flight was technically on time, there were storm warnings across the region, and many flights were being delayed or cancelled. Further north there was snow and ice and blizards and lot of flights cancelled.

We boarded the plane, taxied out to the runway and then sat there for nearly two hours waiting for the weather to clear.

Eventually, we took off, but the delay meant that when I landed in Dublin, I’d already missed my connection.

That meant spending longer than expected waiting in Dublin before catching the next available flight back to Birmingham.

By the time I arrived around lunchtime on Monday, I was feeling tired and a little worse for wear.

From there it was the short journey home to Wolverhampton, where I’m finishing this post.

Why the Data Community Matters

Looking back, what made the trip memorable wasn’t just the conference itself.

It was the unexpected moments.

A conversation at a hotel bar that begins with someone saying they do “database crap”.

Dinner with people you’ve only known through the internet to that point.

Sessions where someone shares an idea that changes how you think about your work.

That’s what the data community does best.

It connects people.

And sometimes the most important part of attending a conference isn’t the talk you give  it’s the people you meet along the way.

Next up for me: SQLBits in April.

And if experience is anything to go by, there will probably be another story waiting somewhere near the hotel bar. 🤣🤣

Useful Links

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