Thankful Thursday – 3/21/24

Stuart Ainsworth(LinkedIn) and Tim Radney(LinkedIn) came up with an idea on how to express being thankful for specific individuals who have helped you somehow throughout your careers. I thought this was an amazing idea. We all hear about some of these folks for their technical aptitudes, but I don’t know if we hear enough about how they are awesome humans as well. I am going to try and do one of these every Thursday for folks that have helped me, guided me, or just listened to me over my career.

For my second Thankful Thursday post, I am going to tell you about one of my best friends, John Morehouse(LinkedIn). I’ve known John now for the better part of 10 years. We’ve become closer over the past 5-6 years though. I remember first meeting John at a SQLSaturday(I dont recall which one), and was surprised by how approachable he was to chat with. He was known as “DBA with a bat”. I never saw the bat, I only saw an individual who truly enjoyed helping folks.

John is WAY more into the SQL Internals than I am, and by alot I might add. But he has a way of explaining things to even the average layman. It was one of his sessions on these internals that I really began grasping some things that I just couldn’t wrap my brain around. But what really stuck out, was when I talked with John after his session, he offered his business email and personal email to reach out to if I needed to ask more questions. We talked for about 15 minutes before we both realized we were late to another session we wanted to attend.

While working at Microsoft, I had to travel to Louisville, KY every week for a few months while working with a client there. This is after John and I began chatting on a regular basis(we have virtual coffee every Friday that we are able). I was traveling there while my Mother was in the hospital, so he knew it was a bit rough on me to be away from home. Each week, we got dinner somewhere. However, my favorite place was the spot that had bourbon slushies. If you ever see me and John together, you might just hear us discuss the bourbon slushies in our secret code. 🙂

John – You truly are a remarkable human being and a wonderful friend\ally. My Brother from another Mother and my bourbon slushie homey! herby derby bourbon slurpee my friend!