Introduction

This is a story from today as my wife Toni and I were driving overnight from Knoxville, TN to Charleston, SC to hop on a cruise. At 2 am.or so, I looked over at her to tell her a story. This is how it went…

Ken: There are about 101,000 weather monitoring stations around the world. There are over 12,000…

Toni: Stop right there. You are not allowed to tell any boring data stories on this trip. Nobody will want to hear them.

Ken: Do you live on planet earth?

Toni: Listen, you are not a soothsayer for planet earth. Therefore, just stop the story while you are ahead!

Why Did She React This Way?

The reason for this is that my wife has heard too many Tableau stories over the past decade. She has Tableau radar and as soon as I begin unleashing a data tale, she shuts me down. Today, this was her logic…

Toni: How would you feel if I started telling you about makeup, Barbies, or real estate?

Ken: Yeah, I get your point!

My wife no longer tolerates my data dorkiness. In fact, she has named me: “Mr Max Data Dork” because I’ve been known to dress like this:

Well, it is time to cruise. We are looking over at a young couple getting married and I’m sure this is going to be a great cruise.  More later!

Now It is Later

The trip came and went in a moment. Although I left my computer at home, I still tried to do a little Tableau and Alteryx during the trip.

I pretended to be an invited speaker to have people hear me lecture about Tableau and Alteryx. Guess what? Toni was right. Nobody wanted to hear my data stories!