IDUG Db2 Table Talk
IDUG Db2 Table Talk
Big Numbers and Deep Thoughts – with Steen Rasmussen
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In this upbeat conversation, Steen discusses his Db2 career of more than 40 years, and the revolutionary nature of his favorite but "very boring" Db2 feature. Of particular note are Steen’s innovative method to save on IDUG travel costs, an eye-opening conference-related beverage experience, and the total number of IDUG Conferences Steen has attended. (Hint: it’s more than 60.) Don't miss his specific advice for anyone getting into the Db2 community, and make sure you don’t fall into the “BS” trap.
Learn more about IDUG, the International Db2 User Group, at www.idug.org.
Hi everyone. Thanks for joining us for this series of iDug Podcasts, where we speak to some great people in the DB2 community. I'm Marcus Gavage.
SPEAKER_00And I'm Julia Carter, and we represent the iDug Content Committee. We hope you enjoy today's edition.
SPEAKER_01Welcome to another edition of iDug's DB2 Table Talk, where today Julia Carter and I, Marcus David, are interviewing Stein Rasmussen. Welcome, Stein.
SPEAKER_04Thank you, sir. It's a pleasure to be here.
SPEAKER_00It's really great to have you on, Steen, because some people probably know already. I'm lucky enough that I get to work with you. And I very much enjoy having you as a friend and a colleague because you're the font of knowledge for everything, not just DBT, but pretty much everything. So it's really great to have you on.
SPEAKER_04No, I'm brushing.
SPEAKER_00That's just because it's so hot. So, Steen, tell us, how did a Danish guy end up in North Carolina? Can you can you talk us through your journey from starting out with DB2 to what you're doing now and how you've you've moved around?
SPEAKER_04How long time do we have? This can take a while. No, so like my name is not American at all, right? So I was born and raised in Denmark, and that's where I started to work with DB2, I mean, four decades ago. The last century, which sounds crazy. But uh it's a long story, I'll try to make it short as short as possible. But uh I was at IDoc in Nice in 1999. That was still platinum technology at that point in time. And uh I met a girl from Platinum Technology who was running tech support at one of the iDoc events, and well, something clicked, so to speak. So we were for about three years, we we were doing long-distance relationships. She was living in Chicago, I was living just south of Copenhagen. So we met at the uh IBM Technical Summit, whatever it's called, tech conference, I think, in Las Vegas, and I docks in North America and Europe, and Team Sanders meetings in London and Chicago and all over the place. But after three years, we decided, hey, this doesn't work that well, only to see each other a weekend of four days now and then every every quarter, right? So I was speaking semi-English, not perfect, but I could make myself understandable. My wife, who's now my wife, did not speak Danish at all, so it was almost impossible for her to get a job in Denmark. So I made an agreement with my boss who was in Chicago at Platinum Technology, well, at that point in time it became CA that uh I could pay for my own green card and I could work out of Chicago office, uh CA, and pay for my own expenses to go back because at that point in time I had three small kids in Denmark. So in late 2002, I got my green card, I moved my Danish address to south of Chicago, tried to enforce them back through Denmark and Chicago quite a bit on almost a week every month for a number of years.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_04So that's why how I ended up in in Chicago. Then in 2008, when the housing market crashed, uh we decided that, hey, it's time now to see, to look into the future, because at some point in time we will have to retire. My wife had some family in a small island called Oak Island in the southeast corner of North Carolina. And when the housing crashed, we bought our retirement home for almost nothing. Oh. And then in uh about seven, eight years ago, we decided to sell a house in Chicago and move permanently to the beach down here in North Carolina because I don't like the cold winters, I don't like snow, and four, five, six months. I I love to be outside as much as possible. So the Chicago weather did not really please me. So that since 2017 we've been living down here in North Carolina.
SPEAKER_00Wow, okay, that's an interesting story. And I think another interesting fact, if if you don't mind me adding it, is that it would be a shock to us Brits, but Steen actually has to have a cooler for his outdoor pool because it gets so flipping hot there. That's true.
SPEAKER_04In fact, I just think the tree kings and the spouses and my rain song two weeks in July. And the weather was so hot, so the pool went up to about 93 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 35, 36 or something like that. So a couple of years ago we decided to install a cooler so we could keep it around just around 30 degrees Celsius. So it's not a bathtub.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I was gonna say 35 is is kind of bath water, isn't it? So that's a bit.
SPEAKER_04It's not very refreshing.
SPEAKER_00No, no, definitely not. If you're doing your exercise or whatever, you you you need it a bit cooler. So you said 40 years. You've been working with DB2 since the beginning of DB2.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so uh D B2 career started a long time ago. I have a dark side before DB2. Before I started with DB2, uh, I was a computer operator at Ford Motor Company in Europe. Oh working with punch cards and your old disk drives and mounting paper on those line printers and sorting disks, uh punch cards and stuff like that. It was fun stuff. So for two years I was a computer operator, and then I went into the really dark side, I became a programmer. So I was coding assembler, RPG2, and COBOL. I'm a terrible coding person. So after one year I said this is not for me because I could never manage to get any programs to run efficient. So I decided to quit for the motor company and I applied for a technical job at an insurance company in Denmark in 1985. Got hired before I returned to my own place. I just bought my own apartment. There was a call. That was before we had cell phones, but we had an answer machine, and I was hired at this insurance company. And right after I started, I started as a programmer too doing PL1. So now this was the fourth programming language. And I said, like I said earlier, I'm a terrible coder. So thank God at that point in time when this company decided to start looking into DB2. I said, this sounds interesting. So I joined the D2 group as a DBA back in 1985. So 1985.
SPEAKER_00When DB2 was actually uh GA, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_04It just became GA, yeah. So it it was it was interesting because there were there was no tooling, it was slow as molasses. I mean it was but it was fun because no tooling, we had to invent our own tools. So there was an API from IBM called DB Maui. I don't know if you remember that. DB M A UI. I think it stands for database management migration utility 8, something like that. But it was an API to retrieve DDL and stuff from the catalog into a sequential file. That was the only tooling we had. So we uh we were using ISPF and REG 66 and TL1 and all kinds of stuff to create our own tooling back in the mid-80s. It was fun.
SPEAKER_01Excellent.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And then so you you're working at this insurance company.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so for 10 years I was a normal DBA, uh, DB2 and IMS. I also worked with IMS, so I still remember what a DBD and PSB and ACB GIN and all that kind of fun stuff is, but I'm not very proficient anymore. So for 10 years I was a DBA, and that's when I started to like tooling because everything was done manually the first couple of years, and then BMC and Platinum came out with the first tooling, and I was evaluating both Platinum and BMC at that point in time. For some reason, we decided to go with Platinum. Uh I don't remember the exact reason, but they had a local presence that we really liked. So for 10 years I was doing all that kind of stuff. And then in 95, since I was, I think I was one of the first people worldwide who installed database analyzer to automate all the housekeeping policies like Reorg and Runstats and copy and modify and all that fun stuff, right? So I had a close relationship with Platinum in the Scandinavian, and they were opening up operations in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. So they asked me to become the technical consultant for the Denmark part of the house. So I was part of the very first few employees starting up the Platinum operation back in 1995 in Copenhagen.
SPEAKER_03Wow. Excellent.
SPEAKER_04So yeah, I remember I was working in the basement by the country manager trying to get the modem to work because we had no cell phones or we had no pretty much no computers, everything was with faxes. So I did pre-sales and post-sales and tech consulting. So all the box that the cosmos experienced, I had to put them on a paper and fax that to Chicago every day. And you were it was different times.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I hadn't realized that you were you were part of it since the the very beginning of of the tools, really.
SPEAKER_01So when did you start in Platinum?
SPEAKER_04Uh April 1, 1995. Okay. So it's been 30 years this year.
SPEAKER_01I remember having an interview at Platinum in London, roughly '94, '95.
SPEAKER_04You see, that at that point in time it was it was kind of interesting, right? Because nowadays you have a pre-sales person, you have a technical support person, you have services. That point in time in Platinum in '95, we did everything. So I was a tech con tech support person, the pre-sales, the post-sales, the trainer, everything. I mean, it was so I mean we work 18, 19 hours a day for a long time because we took care of everything. Yeah. But it was funny. No, no, not I mean, I don't eight hours, that's enough nowadays. I'm getting too old, so I have a I have a second life too nowadays. That at that point in time, everyone taught me that I was married to Platinum Technology and not to my wife, which was almost true.
SPEAKER_00So in terms of DBT, you've seen you've seen it all over the years, haven't you? All of the interesting developments that have that have been and gone. Anything in particular that's really stood out for you as being like some a game changer.
SPEAKER_04Uh I remember I've I think I've listened to every single podcast that you guys have put together, and I really like them. I mean, it's it's so fun to hear. It's not only about a T2 change and technical topic, right? It's also about people's in this community's people's personal life, which is so interesting to hear about, I think. Yeah. Yeah, so they are you you guys always ask the uh people on the podcast what is your favorite topic? And I think my topic is very boring. Because having been a DBA for so many years and been called up at the middle of the night in the weekends during vacation to fix stuff, you know. I think my favorite thing in DB2 is what I call schema evolution. The ability to do painting changes and online schema changes is absolutely a game changer, reducing the downtime. Because there's nothing worse than what I call the nightmare of the DBAs, UDCL, unload, drop, create, load. So all the schema changes you could do nowadays, I could have really reduced my work effort 30 years, 40 years ago, I think. So I know it's boring, it's not something fancy, but I think this is absolutely a game changer in terms of keeping your databases alive.
SPEAKER_00I completely agree.
SPEAKER_04Nice one, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I don't think anyone said that before. So you're original as well. It's very true, and I think it's gonna get even better, isn't it? As over the the coming years, we'll probably see even more of it. Things that we still have to have an outage for now will probably, well, hopefully will mostly disappear.
SPEAKER_04Still hoping that it will be able to reduce the obchange, the column attributes that what you can't do today. I mean, you you you could do a lot of schema changes to change this from character four to character six over there, right? I would like to go the other way too, because once you've done that conversion and that's implemented a schema change, sometimes you do have to do a fallback, and there's no way to go back from character six to character four. And if you know what they're doing, it's not dangerous. I mean, I I can see why IBM hasn't implemented that, but that's one of my wishest items. Maybe you could speak to a vendor, maybe they could do something about it. I I know they can do it. But I I like I like stuff to be natively supported as well because it makes my life easier, I think.
SPEAKER_00So you've been working with iDug as well for a long time, haven't you? And you've been generous with your your time and your energy and contributions over lots of years, both with with the committee side of things, but also at the conferences where you you're delivering great sessions every time. How did you get involved with volunteering for iDug or with iDug?
SPEAKER_04I think I would like to take one step further back before I answer that question. That is that I'm going to present again in iDoc Dusseldorf in in a couple of months. And iDoc Düsseldorf will be my iDoc number 70.
SPEAKER_03Really?
SPEAKER_04Yes. Sorry, can you repeat that? iDog number 70.
SPEAKER_0170 iDocks. That's incredible. There must be an award for that.
SPEAKER_04No, so I mean, the reason is that I mean, if I look at the iDog EMIA in Europe, right? My first iDoc was when I joined Platinum in '95. And I had been at every iDog in Europe except for two, because I had vacation or something like that. Then when I came to the US, before I got my green card, I started to attend iDoc over here as well. So I've been at every iDog in North America except one, I think. I've been about 12 or 13 in Australia, three in India, three or four in India, and I did uh quite a few virtual ones during COVID, both for Latin America and Australia and Europe and North America. So counting the virtual ones, I will hit 70 uh in October in Düsseldorf.
SPEAKER_00That is immense.
SPEAKER_04That's fantastic. That's an amazing achievement. Yeah. I haven't, I must admit, I had I haven't presented uh at every one of them. And in fact, I had a hard time to get accepted as a speaker back in the 90s and early 2000s because I was not one of the recognized people like the gold consultants and those. And I had my my one of the big barriers was my dentless. My people in the southern states of North America sometimes have a hard time to understand what I'm saying. So but finally I did get accepted as a speaker, and since then it just accelerated. So the for the volunteer part, when I was working for CA in platinum, BMC and CA had a liaison, they have the liaison seats at IDoc, right? And Dave Skiber from CA, he was the uh board and iDoc liaison from CA, but he uh stepped away. So they asked me if I wanted to be the liaison for CA at IDoc and said this sounds fun. And I must admit, I mean, being part of this community is so rewarding. And I've been at the conference planning committee in North America now for 10 years, 11 years, give or take. And I just I just left the uh CPC position at the past IDoc in North America and gave it all to St. Buller from from Broadcom because I'm I'm starting to slow pass down to retirement. So it's time for new broadshore.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_0411 years been here.
SPEAKER_00A lot of years volunteering.
SPEAKER_01And congratulations for staying this long with one company. Because uh most people in the DV2 world they tend to split around from vendor to vendor.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and you know what? I mean, I've been part of Platinum and CA and now Broadcom, and it's three completely different cultures and how everything works, right? I mean, Platinum was a lot of fun. I mean, it was known as I remember the day I was at Texas Manja in Denmark and Norway at that point in time when uh when the announcement came out that CA or Computer Associates, as the name was at that point in time, acquired platinum. People called me next morning and said, Steen, what will happen to the platinum parties? We can't live without them. So, well, what about my position? I mean, I need to find a new job now because I don't want to work for CA. But anyways, in fact, at that point in time, I was interviewed by BMC in Denmark, become a tech consultant for BMC, but we never came to an agreement. So I stayed with CA, and I'm glad I did that because I must admit that CA Computer Associates, CA Technologies, I mean, they have many names, but it's not my favorite place to work, but I love the tool. I love being interacting with customers. So when Broadcom acquired platinum, is that six years ago now, I think? Give it to you. That's that's a complete different culture. I mean, but I love it that I mean it's it's so rewarding to work for a company that understands the mainframe, that treasures the mainframe, that invests in the mainframe, which we don't see at a lot of customers nowadays, right? But like I said, Marcus, three companies, and I just celebrated my 30th anniversary here at Broadcom, including Platinum and CA. So it's been a long ride.
SPEAKER_01Well done. And so when do you think you might retire and uh hang up your version 13 reference guide?
SPEAKER_04Well, I don't have a rock solid date yet. I mean, but it it is getting close, right? That's why I I turned over the CBC IDA position to Sand Buell or right, because the game or sometimes to to transition, because I was just thrown into this game 11 years ago, right? And I had no one to talk to and find out what's my position, what's my role, what I'm supposed to do, and so forth. So having a smooth transition was good. And uh, to be honest, I mean, I have a hard time to see myself retiring because I love what I'm doing. I love the tooling, I love working with customers, solving critical issues, but there is another life as well, right? And one thing that's been great about being part of DB2 and iDoc is the travel. I mean, I love to travel too, and we are cruising all over the place, right? So I want to have more time to travel because I don't think my employer will appreciate that I'm vacationing six months a year, which is what I what I'm looking forward to. So I don't have a date yet, but it it is getting closer.
SPEAKER_00Being on vacation for six months a year is a great target though. That is definitely.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, we like we like cruising and we're gonna try something new. And I had a little dispute with my with my employer because we have IDOC in Düsseldorf in October, right? So my wife and myself are getting to the eights where we are getting a little fragile. I mean, flying economy for eight hours is not good for our bags and our old bodies, right? So a one-way business class ticket from Wilmington, North Carolina to Düsseldorf is about $3,500, which is a lot. And that's not being caught by the company, right? So I found out, hey, what about going to one of those transitioning cruises from Europe? Because all the cruise ships are, not all of them, but a lot of the cruise ships are in Europe during the summer months. And then in September, October, they're moving back from Europe to the Caribbean. So we said, hey, let's look into a transition cruise from Barcelona, going via Cadiz and Gibraltar and Canary Islands, and then eight days across the pond to Fort Laurie, Florida. And for a nice, instead of sitting on an airplane for 12, 13 hours, now we have a nice bed, a balcony, all we can eat, all we can drink from the top shelf liquor, good red wines, shows at night for $2,500. So it's cheaper to stay for 16 days instead of flying for half a day.
SPEAKER_01That is living the dream. I am so impressed. Well done.
SPEAKER_04And we are just about to book our I mean, we we've been doing two weeks in February because when when we live in Chicago, I mean, like I told you, I hate the cold weather, right? So we're always doing a two or three-week cruise in February in the Caribbean. Uh last fall in October, we spent two weeks in Australia snorkeling on the Great Bear Reef on our cruise. And now we're looking to a smaller, smaller ship in the French Polynesia, which will probably be in September next year. Yeah, we like to travel.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And you've both done a lot of travel over the years, as you said, over 70 conferences, the majority of those have been in person. Any particularly memorable conferences or trips or any funny stories from the IDUGs that you've been to? Because I've heard that they used to be um a little bit wilder before my time.
SPEAKER_04Well, I mean, it was back in the 90s, it was absolutely nuts. I mean, I remember the it was in Berlin, but the BMC and Platinum, they've always uh come compete in who can put together the best party at IDOC in Europe and North America for that matter. And I remember that year in Berlin when the uh expo was over, uh, Platinum had a party one night, and at midnight they that was when the Berlin Wall was taken down between Eastern and Western Germany. So on on the top floor of that hotel, they had built a wall. So there was nice music, uh dance music, uh appetizers, free bar and everything. At midnight, some guys came out with big slit hammers and they just knocked down the wall, and then there was a rock band on the other side, and the part that kept them going until four or five in the morning.
SPEAKER_01Wow, that was autumn 1989, just for reference.
SPEAKER_04Okay, thank you.
SPEAKER_01I was uh I was in university doing computer science and I had a friend who was a foreign student and he lived, he was from Berlin, uh West Berlin, and he hitchhiked all the way back to Berlin just for that party. All the way from Aberistworth in West Wales to Berlin. It took him three days to get there and twenty three hours to get back because he caught a lift from Berlin all the way to Shrewsbury, which is like the next town. So that was pretty amazing. I just that my biggest regret is not going with him.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that was the fun times.
SPEAKER_00That does sound quite memorable, one thing.
SPEAKER_01That's a fantastic memory.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but I mean the Travel has I mean I I like to travel except when things don't go to the plane, right? I remember when I was working with Steve Thomas, who's now retired, another good friend and old colleague, right? And that year that Steve Thomas was the chair of iDoc Europe, he was supposed to go to Japan and do the mainframe keynote for the for our customers in Japan. So since he was this was in intermingled with his iDoc responsibilities and the board meetings and all stuff, he said, Steen, can you go instead of me? He said, Okay. And that that was my first trip to Japan. So I went there and all the meetings went well and my keynote went well. Then I had to go back on Saturday. Came to the uh I left the hotel in good time, but it was snowing pretty good. So this was the worst snowstorm in decades in Tokyo. So it was very it was only about 10-15 centimeters or nothing major, but apparently they were not used to snow. So we saw all those, about 150 small Japanese guys walking around on a runway with jars trying to clear the runway so the flights could take off. Apparently that did not work. So I spent two nights on the floor in Tokyo Airport because the trains didn't go, the buses didn't go, hotels were full, so that was another fun trip.
SPEAKER_00Oh goodness. Yeah, the the less glamorous side of travel, sleeping on an airport floor.
SPEAKER_04Exactly. Not the most convenient place.
SPEAKER_00No, no, not nice at all.
SPEAKER_01So you've worked uh well, you've done tech support and uh technical consultancy for quite a few years. I guess you've seen a few horror stories in your time.
SPEAKER_04I do, and in fact, that is a presentation I'm giving at uh IDOG in Düsseldorf. I did that for North America back in June. I'm repeating that in Düsseldorf. I think it's called uh Personal Experience, 40 Years of Battle Scars, and Ministering the Trooper Setaways, something of that nature, right? So there have been quite a few, yeah. So I'm I'm not gonna I'm not gonna reveal all the secrets and all the good stuff here. You will have to come to Idach Düsseldorf to see seven or eight horror stories.
SPEAKER_01Oh, fantastic. What the you hear it here first as a plug.
SPEAKER_04Now now I can get a leap piece of the advertisement income, right?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. My first eye dag I think was Barcelona 2013.
SPEAKER_04Was that too?
SPEAKER_01I was uh well yes, because that was the first time we met. Steve Thomas. Uh I was I'd arrived, and Steve Thomas was waiting for me in uh the hotel bar and I knew no one. And he said, Oh Marcus, yeah, welcome. Let's help you let you let's get you settled in. You must meet Stain. And that was the first time we met. You probably don't remember, but it was in the bar in uh the hotel in Barcelona, and uh I remember reading your very helpful and insightful uh replies to people's requests on DB2 Listserve.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So your name went before you and your reputation preceded you as uh somebody who knew what he was talking about.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I'm I'm good at pretending.
SPEAKER_00That's a really good point, Marcus. Steen's name always comes up on DBTL, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I mean, I mean that's why some people, including my wife, sometimes blame me that I'm that I love D B2 more than I love them. But uh it's not quite true, but it's close. I mean DB2 has been great to me. I mean, I've I think I've had a fantastic career. I experienced a lot, tried a lot, and every like every day is a new challenge, right? I mean, I always ask myself when I go to bed, did I learn something today? And almost every day I can say, yes, I did. But more importantly, I ask myself, Did I manage to teach someone something today? And the answer is yes. I like to have another goodnight drink, good night cap, and then I have had a great fantastic day.
SPEAKER_01Wow, that's a great principle to live by.
SPEAKER_00It is, but it must be quite expensive buying all that.
SPEAKER_04Well, uh I I I mean I used to drink uh Scotch way back, like Lamrangie and things like that, right? But since after I moved to North Carolina and you know some local people here, bourbon is the national drink in North Carolina. So I love bourbon and I love it good old fashioned now and now and then. But yeah, bourbon is my favorite one. Well, I shouldn't say that red wine is still my favorite drink.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yeah. I must agree, I do like a drop of red wine, but uh, I think it was a previous uh interviewee on our podcast. Anna, one of the superstars from IBM, she introduced me to the old-fashioned, and I had to ask her what it was. But since then I've had a few, so I quite like them. So I do like an old fashioned. So give me uh give me the name of your favorite bulb, because a bit of a plug.
SPEAKER_04Oh gosh. There are many. Uh one of the good ones I had lately is called Penelope, like Penilope Cruz. I also say I'm gonna have a chat with Penelope Cruise, and that's my bourbon nowadays. It's got a little got a little kind of an orange flavor to it. It's got it's very smooth, uh, so that's one of my favorites right now. But you know what? Uh for Father's Day, my wife has given me a present the past couple of years. So every month or either quarter, I get a new shipment, a new bottle. It's a nice way to try. So every month I almost changed my favorite burger in the ball. So there's always something great I can try.
SPEAKER_00That is a really good idea for a present, isn't it?
SPEAKER_04Nice one.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And you are a bit of a wine connoisseur, aren't you? You do quite a lot of wine tasting.
SPEAKER_04I wouldn't I wouldn't call it white connoisseur. I know what I like. I mean, you know what? I don't care if the bott costs $12, $150. If I like it, it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And I I must admit, I mean, I'm probably bringing a lot of rules because people often say that with fish and stuff like that, you need to drink white wine or sea wine. I'm not a white wine person. I drink red wine with everything, except for desserts, because red wine and desserts don't go well together. But with this normal food, I am a red wine guy. And I have a fun story about that. I mean, a couple of years ago, marketing over here in North America wanted me to do the uh PSP presentation at IDOC. I said, okay, I can do that. But I was already, I mean, had a lot of stuff in my plate. So I told John Connor, our product manager, hey John, if you want me to do this presentation, you have to buy me a bottle of wine. I said, okay, what bottle do you want? I said, I want a penfold granger. He said, okay, no problem. The story behind that because a few years ago before COVID, Steve Thomas and I were in Australia for IDOC. And I never tried the Penfold Granger before. So he said, there was uh down on the rocks, downtown uh Sydney, there was a small uh wine place called uh the Odyssey, the Wine Odyssey. So he took me there and we shared a glass of wine and it was $100 a half a glass. What? Whoa. So when John Connor found out that I requested this pin for grain dance, and it's about $1,500, he backed up and said, You promised me you'll do that. So he backed out unfortunately. So I had still that was the only time I tried pinful grains. That was with the Thomas and Sydney down on the rocks.
SPEAKER_00But you had a quarter of a glass, did you?
SPEAKER_04Uh no, we had a half each.
SPEAKER_00Half each, right.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and it was hundred dollars a person.
SPEAKER_01But it was it was good. I like a drop of red wine now and again, but that is a little bit beyond my budget.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I haven't tried it since then. That's why I tried to kind of put that bait out for product management person to keep in that to put together that presentation, but that never came to fruition. So unfortunately I still have to try that the second time.
SPEAKER_00But did you do the presentation?
SPEAKER_04I did.
SPEAKER_00Oh wow.
SPEAKER_04Oh what an honourable man.
SPEAKER_00Maybe they gave you a free t-shirt or something.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I get more I have more t-shirts than I need for the rest of my life.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I know. Well, you you had um a lot of the the old platinum jackets as well, didn't you? Because I remember you you gave one to me because they're kind of uh an icon, aren't they? These the jackets are easy to get at the conference.
SPEAKER_04I think it started a couple of years ago, so my wife wanted to clean up the changes here in the house. So I think I brought three or four platinum jackets from the 80s and 90s to Ida and gave them away to people. And I have one one platinum jacket left. That's not true. I have one platinum jacket left, I'm gonna give away uh in Düsseldorf. But I have one platinum jacket I'm not gonna give away, and that is the uh the the blue, green, and white platinum leather jacket. Because I was way back in I think that was in '96 and '97, I was the precedent person of the year at Platinum Technology, and I was at the club at Maui. And Flip gave me that leather day for being the precedent person of the year. So that's that will never be given away.
SPEAKER_00No, that that is.
SPEAKER_04Of course, Flip, yes. Yeah, I can remember at the last President's Club in Maui, Hawaii, uh, just before the acquisition by CA was announced, he walked around in the pool with a big cigar and a t-shirt where it says friends dog that friends buy from CA and then two months later we were it was history.
SPEAKER_01Hmm, that's what's sub ironic.
SPEAKER_04Money talks, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it sure does.
SPEAKER_04It does.
SPEAKER_00So looking back 40 years, have you got any advice for for the current or the next generation of people that might be just starting out with their careers in DB2?
SPEAKER_04Out of the get-go and just on top of my head, I would say the iDoc community is a fantastic resource. So I would urge anyone getting into the DB2 arena to take it, have a taste and smell of iDoc. And I know it's intimidating, but you know what? We we really need speakers with user experience to present at iDoc. And when I talk to people at iDocs, they said, hey, I mean, you have this fantastic topic. Why can't you present? No, it's nothing. I mean, that's nothing new. You know what? That that is BS, right? I mean, every person working with them tool has some stories, some experiences that other people can benefit from. So I would say that any new person, newbie or next generation, or whatever we call them, should get involved with iDoc and find a topic. I mean, in fact, I'm I already started to work on a topic for next year's iDoc because uh there's something I didn't know about. And I always tell people, find a topic that you think, that you don't think anyone else can benefit from, because I'm sure those experiences would be of value to a lot of people. Another way that I'm doing it is I I'm trying to find a topic where I have no clue what the what the topic is about, and then take a deep dive and spend days and weeks and months trying to take a deep dive and find out how this thing really works. And one thing was why Julia was you you were on leave a few years ago, and one of your customers, I'm not gonna say the customer, called me and said, Hey, I have an issue with set current. What the heck was the name? The value is HTD or DB2.
SPEAKER_00Oh, it's uh a special register.
SPEAKER_04Yes. Yeah, it's it's it's a way where you can control how db2 and when db2 will create implicit defined objects, right? And I said, What are you talking about? Is there a new feature in DB2 12 or 13? No, it's been there for a decade at least. I said, really? So I had no idea about this topic. So I said, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna take a deep dive and find out how this guy works. And that doing spending three or four weeks on that topic, I turned that into IDOC presentation, and it was well received. I got so many nice comments, people provide me feedback, but also emailing me after the fact saying, hey, we found this doing a Google search on the internet. Can you please share your presentation? So, new people get involved with IDOC. You don't need to do a lot. I mean, get involved and then take baby steps and try to become a presenter one day. And I know it's very intimidating standing there in front of you might only have 10 people, but you might have 200, right? But presenting and feeling that pride after the fact and people up writing your comments, that is so rewarding.
SPEAKER_00Definitely, definitely. Good point. You can do baby steps and still be involved. You can you can respond or you can contribute to threads in the the forums. You can read the articles, you can uh comment on the articles that iDug posts, you can become a member of the committee, one of the volunteer committees. We've got the content committee, the conference planning committees in North America and in Europe. There's more there's more out there, there's ways that you can get involved.
SPEAKER_01And you can cut your teeth on local regional user groups.
SPEAKER_00Very true.
SPEAKER_04Exactly. And there are most of them are virtual. Yeah. You can even have a 15 minutes possible. I I don't have enough material for a full hour, right? But you can start to speak at local user groups and it's virtual as well, right? Find a small topic, it might only be 20 minutes, but trying to get, like I said, get your teeth cut and start into that game, and that is a that's an excellent path.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, very good point. And uh and and finally, I know that you're a great cook, but what other talents do you have, or what do you do when you're not being a DBT wizard?
SPEAKER_04Oh, quite a few things, and that's a good segue into my concern about retiring because what the heck am I going to spend my time doing, right? So you're right. I mean, I like to cook. Uh I like to I like the uh North Carolina kitchen with smoke brisket and smoke pork butt and stuff like that. But I love to be in the garden. I mean, that's another reason why I escaped Chicago because down here I can pretty much do garden work all year round. And I'm I just two years ago, I started my own palm tree farm. We have palm trees in the garden. And one day, a couple of years ago, one of them created a huge leaf. It was about 50 pounds, but it had hundreds of seeds of those palm trees. Wonder if we can grow those into palm trees. So I started to grow my own palm trees from seeds now, and that would be my retirement income when I retire. So share all those palm trees for for a few bucks. Wow. Yeah, I like to keep my my garden nice in the pool area. I mean, we're growing tomatoes and jalapenos and banana peppers and things in that nature, and trying to keep everything blooming and fresh uh 11 months a year, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00Wow, that's cool. Yeah, that's really cool.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, there's nothing better go out to harvest your own. And I just was chatting with Dan Luxitis uh last week because he is all he also likes to grow stuff in his garden. So we're experiencing uh exchanging ideas how to use our shishito peppers for cooking when we're doing chicken on the grill and stuff like that. So yeah, that's nothing better. Go out and harvest your tomatoes, your banana peppers, your jalapenos, slice them up and eat them with your meal. That is so nice.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04One thing I want to do spend more time in Lisbon is that I need to work out more. I mean, I used to work out a lot, but I'm getting a little lazy. But I I have to spend an hour and a half every day to work out. Uh so that's not a goal. Get up in the early morning, work out, and then see what the days bring.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a good thing today. I think a lot of us could probably benefit from doing a bit more exercise. So yeah, if you've got time, Steen, if you've got time, I bet you don't know. When you if you do have a return, I bet you don't have time because you'll just be so busy doing everything else.
SPEAKER_04I have to say busy, otherwise I get bored.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Steen, for such a wonderful conversation that we've had. Very relaxing, chilled, and just a little insight into one of the greats of DB2. We appreciate the time you've taken. Thank you for your company and thank you for the chat.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we're so lucky to have you, Steen. Thank you for your time.
SPEAKER_04Thank you, guys. Uh I mean I I was just being appreciating that you guys invited me for the for this podcast. It's nice to talk off the lever and just share all the fun stuff from working with DB2 for 40 years. So thank you guys. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00Visit iDoc.org for the latest DB2 community news, information about events, and all of our technical content. Tune in again soon for the next podcast at idog.org forward slash podcast.