VMware Workshop : The Journey Begins

I mentioned a few days ago I would be attending theย โ€œVMware Expert Database Workshop Program Oracle Editionโ€. That trip started today.

I got up at silly o’clock to get my taxi to the airport. As usual I had some problems sleeping, worrying about potentially missing my early flight. Thanks brain!

The airport was really crowded. There were queues to the queues to the queues. I find it really irritating when you tweet about it and get a, “I’m sorry, we really care!”, type of message. Nonsense! If you cared you would staff accordingly! You know the schedule of the planes. Sort yourself out!

One of my colleagues happened to be on the same plane, on his way to see family, but he arrived at the airport a little later than me, so didn’t make it through to the gate until boarding time. That was a pity as I wanted to impress his wife with my witty repartee, whilst he squirmed waiting for me to start swearing and generally being obnoxious. Despite views to the contrary, I can behave when I need to. ๐Ÿ™‚

The flight to Cork was only about 70 minutes, so it was shorter than the queues I had already stood in!

Once at Cork I was met by the driver and a few minutes later Frits Hoogland turned up. We headed to the hotel and sat down in the lounge chatting about Docker, Ansible and Vagrant while we waited for our rooms to be sorted. We arrived hours before the official check-in. ๐Ÿ™‚ After a while we were joined by Martin Klier and the conversation continued.

Once our rooms were ready we headed up to them for a while, before getting together in the evening to meet everyone and get some food. After the food we stayed up in the hotel lobby until about midnight chatting about tech. It was good fun, but probably a bad idea since we had an early start planned for the next day! ๐Ÿ™‚

Cheers

Tim…

A quick thank you…

Just a quick note to say thank you to everyone involved in making the 2-day PL/SQL workshop in Utrecht happen last week. Thanks to Miracle Benelux for staging the event, to Anjo for inviting me and to Annette for organizing everything, including Anjo. ๐Ÿ™‚

Of course the biggest thanks go to everyone who came to the workshop, because without them it wouldn’t happen. See you all soon. ๐Ÿ™‚

Cheers

Tim…

Slovakia Day 2

I’m not nervous about flying, but I am nervous about being late for flights, so day 2 was a complex day for me. The plan was to teach from 9:00-17:00 then go straight to the airport and leave. Having the deadline for the airport in the back of my mind all day meant I was a little on edge. Even so, it all went pretty well.

Anyone who’s seen my conference talks knows I do quite a lot of demos. Well the 2 day workshops are crammed full of them. I more or less try to prove every sentence I say with a demo. Of course, this means things inevitably go wrong from time to time. I had one demo hang, and Enterprise Manager decided not to work, so I had to miss out another demo. Overall though, things went pretty smooth and by the numbers.

I’d like to say thanks to everyone who came to the session and thanks to the people at Oracle that make it possible, especially Stefania Panaite.

So I’m home now and I have 4 days to prepare for the next two conferences (ORCAN and OUGF) that happen back-to-back. I’ve got two new talks to rehearse, one I’ve not even written yet, and one 60 minute talk I’ve got to somehow turn into a 30 minute version. Don’t even mention the paperwork I have to do. ๐Ÿ™‚

Cheers

Tim…

Slovakia Day 1…

That’s day 1 over as far as teaching is concerned. The audience is quite a diverse mix. Everything from 6 months to 10+ years of Oracle experience and from variety of countries too. I’ve even got a member of Oracle staff in the group. I wonder if he’s a spy… ๐Ÿ™‚

It’s always dangerous to start getting too analytical about the lessons part way through course, so I will leave that until after I finish tomorrow.

I probably should go out and do some sightseeing now, but I think I’ll probably get some food and come back to the hotel and collapse. ๐Ÿ™‚

Cheers

Tim…

Slovakia Day -1

I got to Slovakia with no major trauma.ย  I also had enough time to have a quick look round. As always, I used the shotgun approach. Several shots of each scene in the hope something would come out looking OK. ๐Ÿ™‚

Not sure if I’ll have time to do any more looking around. The schedule is pretty tight for the next 2 days and I leave straight after finishing the second day. Better than nothing though.

It’s a Sunday so the streets are pretty quiet except for tourists.

Cheers

Tim…

You know you’ve travelled too much when…

You know you’ve travelled too much when…

  1. You are asleep in the bath while your taxi is waiting outside to take you to the airport.
  2. At the check in desk you can’t remember where you are going.
  3. You can’t find your flight on the departure board because you’ve forgotten it’s a connecting flight.
  4. The computer equipment in duty free looks tempting.

All of these have happened to me this morning… ๐Ÿ™‚

I’m in the airport on my way to Bratislava (Slovakia) toย teach a 2 day Oracle University course. In about an hour I have to get on to a flight to Zurich, then on the Vienna, then I have a taxi ride to Bratislava. As it happens, this is much quicker and about a quater of the price of flying to Bratislava from Birmingham…

It’s got to be about 12 years since I was was in Zurich. Pity I can’t have a look round to see how much it’s changed. I was in Vienna last year and I loved it, but once again, I won’t get to see any of it, except through the window of a taxi.

Please let me sleep on the plane…

Cheers

Tim…

Update: I’m in Bratislava now. No sleep yet. ๐Ÿ™‚

Estonia Day 2 Update…

I’ve just finished the second day of teaching in Estonia…

I didn’t have any database issues today, which was a relief. Everything went according to plan, but it was a struggle to get all the information across in the time. I think I’ve got more than 13 hours of material and only 12 hours to present it in, but I can’t really see what I can remove without missing out something important.

As it was, I managed to get through everything, but I did need and extra 45 minutes. ๐Ÿ™‚

I enjoy doing these 2 day sessions, but they are extremely draining. Anyone who knows me will find this hard to believe, but it’s really hard work to talk for 12+ hours in 2 days. I’m not sure I could cope with teaching a 5 day course, or teaching every week. I take my hat off to anyone who is a full time trainer, because it’s a very difficult job…

So now I’ve got a couple of days sightseeing before I head home. I had a quick walk round the city last night and it looks really cool. The weather is great and the days are so long it’s unreal.

I think I’m going to head off to the hotel gym to do some yoga, the go and have another look round the city before I start my proper sightseeing tomorrow.

Cheers

Tim…

Estonia Day 1 Update…

I’ve just completed day 1 of my PL/SQL workshop in Estonia. The first few minutes proved especially eventful!

When I did my workshop in Copenhagen, I had a lot of trouble with the projector. This morning I plugged the projector into my laptop and all was well. I even made a joke about how well it was going. Little did I know…

I started the presentation and the first demo hung! I don’t think I can fully describe the panic that sets in when something like that happens withing a couple of minutes of starting a 2 day workshop. It’s like a little piece of you dies. ๐Ÿ™‚ I did a little messing around to try and get it working, but quickly realised I had to keep things going or it was going to get really boring, really quickly, so I just rebooted the virtual machine.

Lookily, wiser men than me (Andrew Clarke and Mark Rittman) had warned me long ago about the dangers of live demos, so I always carry a backup plan. I had text representations and screen shots of the expected output from the demos, so I used those while I waited for the VM to restart. After a little while the VM was up again and was working fine, so with more than a small sigh of relief, things were back on track.

I wonder what fate will throw at me tomorrow. What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger, or gives you a heart attack…

You gotta laugh…

Cheers

Tim…

Copenhagen (again)…

I mentioned in a previous post I had a days sightseeing before I started my workshop. Copenhagen is a really cool place. I would definitely like to visit again.

Regarding the workshop, I think it went really well. The people were very friendly and interacted a lot. It’s hard work presenting for 12+ hours, but it’s cool when the audience are getting involved.

One of the attendees (Ian) was a guy I worked with in a previous job, so when we finished the workshop on Thursday we went out for a drink in the city centre with one of Ian’s friends (Tony). That evening led to a rather messy morning, which I’m not going to elaborate on, but I did manage to get to the airport on time… ๐Ÿ™‚

All in all, I had a really good week. I’d like to thank everyone at Oracle for allowing me the opportunity to do the workshop, and everyone who attended for making me feel welcome.

Cheers

Tim…