Tag: otn

OTN Tour of Latin America 2015 : The Journey Begins – Arrival at Montevideo, Uruguay

ace-directorAfter the quick flight to Montevideo, I was met by Edelweiss and Nelson. A couple of minutes later Mike Dietrich arrived. You know, that guy that pretends to understand upgrades! We drove over to the hotel, arriving at about 11:00. Check in was not until 15:00, so I had to wait a few minutes for them to prep my room. The others were going out to get some food, but I had a hot date with my bed. I got to my room, showered and hit the hay.

I was meant to meet up with the others at about 19:00 to get some food, but I slept through. In fact, I slept until about 04:00 the next day, which was about 15 hours. I think that may be a record… I’m feeling a bit punch-drunk now, but I’m sure once I start moving things will be fine…

Today is the first day of the tour proper. Fingers crossed…

Cheers

Tim…

OTN Tour of Latin America 2015 : The Journey Begins – Buenos Aires Airport

ace-directorThe flight from Paris to Buenos Aires was long, but relatively uneventful. One little patch of turbulence, then plain sailing.

For the main meal they didn’t have me down as vegetarian. I don’t know why I bother ordering special meals because the vast majority of the times I don’t get them. Interestingly, they did have a vegetarian breakfast for me, probably fixed one up after the dinner issue, but they gave it to the lady 2 seats away from me. She had seen the issue with the dinner and passed it across to me. In big letters on the tray it said 27J, which was my seat number, so I’m not quite sure why it was so difficult. I honestly think a lot of people look at me and think, “There is no way he is that fat and a vegetarian!”, so they give it to someone who looks suitably skinny… 🙂

I watched Insurgent, which was OK, then started to watch Fast & Furious 7, but couldn’t get into it on such a small screen. Amazingly, I did manage to catch small snatches of sleep, which was very welcome, interspersed with the obligatory periods of standing at the back of the plane pretending there aren’t loads of hours of sitting left.

So now I’m in Buenos Aires airport waiting to get back on to the same plane to fly the last 25 mins to Montevideo. I will be back in Buenos Aires in a couple of days, but I will be arriving by ferry next time! 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

OTN Tour of Latin America 2015 : The Journey Begins – CDG Airport

ace-directorI’ve been in Charles de Gaulle airport for about three hours now. Only another four to go… 🙂

I tried to record another technical video, but you can hear kids in the background. Now the timings are sorted, it should be pretty quick to re-record when I get to a hotel, so that’s good I guess. I’m not sure I can face doing another one today.

My YouTube channel is on 199 subscribers. About to ding to the magic 200. 🙂

Perhaps I should get the GoPro out and do some filming of the barren wasteland, which is the K gates in Terminal 2E.

Cheers

Tim…

OTN Tour of Latin America 2015 : The Journey Begins

ace-directorI’m about to board a flight to Paris, where I will wait for 7 hours before starting my 14 hour flight to Montevideo, Uruguay. I think you can probably guess how I’m feeling at this moment…

Why won’t someone hurry up and invent a teleport device?

I will probably put out little posts like this along the way, just so friends and family know what is going on. It’s wrong to wish your life away, but I’m really not looking forward to the next 20+ hours…

Hopefully I will get power in Paris, so I can do some stuff on my laptop…

Cheers

Tim…

OTN Tour of Latin America 2015 (Southern Leg)

ace-directorI put out a brief video a few days ago (re-uploaded today to fix typos) about my participation in the OTN Tour of Latin America (2015). I’ll be on the southern leg this year. Sorry to those countries who make up the northern leg. I will be back soon I hope.

Anyway, the southern leg of the tour shapes up like this.

  • 3/4 August Uruguay UYOUG
  • 5/6 August Argentina AROUG
  • 8 August Brazil GUOB
  • 10 August Chile CLOUG
  • 12 August Peru PEOUG

I’m looking forward to seeing everyone. See you soon!

After the Peru leg, the wife and I will be going off to see Machu Picchu.

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle ACE Program : Thanks Folks!

As you will know from my previous post, I picked up the “UK Speaker Award” at UKOUG Tech 14. I’ve already done a bunch of thank you messages, but I’d just like to take a minute and thank the Oracle ACE Program for the part they have played in this.

Many of you will know, I was invited to the ACE program because of my online contributions to the Oracle community. Prior to joining the program I had not done any public speaking and had not been part of any user groups. I hadn’t even attended a SIG or a conference before. The first conference I ever attended was Oracle OpenWorld in 2006, where I picked up the “Oracle ACE of the Year” award. It was only from that point on that I started to present.

If I had not been invited to the program, I doubt I would have ever tried to present at an Oracle event. Even if I had taken the plunge, I doubt I would have done enough presenting to come away with a speaker award like this. The amount of people I’ve met over the years and the amount of advice they have given me on presenting has been invaluable.

I know I’m not the best presenter out there and I know I’ve still got a long way to go, but I honestly don’t believe I would have come this far without the help of the Oracle ACE Program, so many thanks to everyone involved in the program, both organisers and ACEs alike, for all your help over the last  8 years. It is very much appreciated!

Cheers

Tim…

OTN APAC 2014 : Auckland to Birmingham

Everything went smoothly at Auckland airport. Boarding an A380 takes quite a bit of time and I was near the front of the plane, so I was in the last group to board. Fortunately there was loads of room for hand luggage and the seat was pretty good. The people too my right were a couple, so they were leaning together, which gave me more elbow room. The extra room and a plug socket meant I was able to have the laptop open for most of the 4 hour flight.

At Melbourne we had to get off the plane, go through security, then wait to board the same plane in the same seat. My neighbours were also flying through to Dubai, so I had the same folks next to me for that leg of the flight. No matter how good the conditions are in economy class, and they were good on this Emirates flight, sitting in a plane for 14 hours is hell. Eventually I get cabin fever and have a desperate desire to get out. I have thoughts of faking a heart attack and forcing an early landing, just to get out. It’s really not cool. With a little bit of sleep, some re-watching of films and a lot of pacing up and down by the toilets I managed to get through it. The only bit of drama was when I was leaving the plane I realised I had left some things behind. I was allowed back on the plane to get them, so all was good!

After a totally uneventful 2+ hour layover in Dubai, it was back on to a 8 hour flight to Birmingham. By this time in the journey I’m usually kind-of frantic. Not so much thing time. I think my brain was mush by now. This flight didn’t feel so long, but I don’t remember too much about it, apart from ripping one of my finger nails and needing a plaster. I don’t think I slept much. I think I was just kind-of dazed.

I arrived in Birmingham in the early afternoon. After getting my luggage it was a relatively short taxi ride home. At one point we got in a traffic jam and I wanted to die, but then the traffic opened up and I got home. Once home I got a drink, put some washing on, had a bath, then went to bed. It was about 14:00.

Next thing I know, I was having a dream about something biting my finger. I shook my hand to get it off, and knocked my tablet off the bedside table. Freshly awake, I looked at the clock and thought, damn it. It’s 5 o’clock and I’ve slept for only 3 hours. I got up and drove to a store and it was closed. I checked the clock again and I had actually slept 15 hours. It was 5am, not 5pm. I guess I was pretty tired… 🙂

So now I’m back and I think I’m OK. I have that “aeroplane nose”, which I’m hoping is not a cold coming, and I also have a foggy head, which is I guess a jet-lag thing. I’ve got today off as it’s Sunday, but it’s back to work tomorrow…

My next post will be a wrap-up post…

Cheers

Tim…

OTN APAC 2014 : Auckland – Day 2

My day 2 at the conference started with my analytic functions session. I’m always a bit worried I oversimplify things, but people seem to appreciate it, so perhaps I’m just being paranoid. I’m sure the feedback will let me know. 🙂

Next I went to Chris Muir‘s session of Developing Web and Mobile Dashboards with Oracle ADF. I had already seen this at the AUSOUG WA event in Perth, but I liked it, so I thought I would give it a second go. 🙂 You can see some of the stuff that gets bundled with ADF 12.1.3 here.

From there I moved on the Anton Els’ session called Is Your Standby Database Locked and Loaded, Ready to Take on the Disaster?, which was a whistle-stop tour of standby database. The session started with an overview of standby technology in general. It then focussed on Data Guard, including a discussion of Active Data Guard and the Broker. It then moved on to implementing standby databases with Standard Edition (SE), using manual scripts and third party products, like Dbvisit Standby. The discussion then moved on the impact of flashback database in the context of standby, including snapshot standby. Next up was situations where you’ll need RMAN to fix problems, or use RMAN in conjunction with your standby database. This was the first time I’ve seen Anton present and I was really impressed. He’s very relaxed, confident, presents at a good pace and most importantly sounds like he really understands the subject matter!

I missed the next session because I got talking with Anton and Arjen from Dbvisit. Some tech talk along with the state of the movie business these days… 🙂

Then it was time for my 4th and final session of the conference. This one was my WebLogic introduction presentation, which is a bit of a braindump type session. With people scattered around a big room, you feel a little separated from the audience and I don’t think it works so well. It’s better to be in a smaller room so you feel more up-close and personal, but it’s all good. 🙂

Once my session was done, it was a quick goodbye over an ice-cream, then off to my hotel to get my bag. It’s a little sad when you have to rush off from a conference. It feels a little ungrateful somehow. I shared a taxi with a guy from Dunedin who had been at the conference, I’m so sorry I forgot your name. 🙁 That made the journey a lot more pleasant though as we got to talk about the conference and life as a DBA etc.

This was my 4th visit to New Zealand and I hope it’s not my last. It’s always a really friendly conference and the fact I get to visit non-Oracle friends as well is a bonus. Hopefully I will get to pop in again on another APAC tour in the future! Thanks to everyone in the NZOUG for inviting me and making it run smoothly.

So I’m sitting in the airport now, waiting to start the nightmare journey home. I’ll post that as a separate post, along with a wrap-up post when I get home…

Cheers

Tim…