Strategy for Understanding Data in a Database

I recently started in a new company where a database does not have any data dictionary at all. I'm now doing a brute force work where I am trying to create my own data dictionary but I was wondering what are your strategies in learning the data inside a database?

Missing Speakers in MySQL Conference 2009

I was looking through the list of speakers in this year's MySQL Conference and I just noticed that some good speakers will not be presenting in the conference. Well, the term 'good speakers' is relative, but I enjoyed listening to their presentations.

This is my list of the 'Missing' speakers for this year.

1. Baron Schwartz
2. Peter Zaitsev
3. Jay Pipes
4. Jeremy Cole
5. Arjen Lentz

I guess they are too busy with other stuff.