COLLABORATE: Day 4 Wrap Up

The day started out with the realization that I pulled off the best (COLLABORATE - self annointed) prank ever. Twitter was...all atwitter about the fact that Mark Rittman was Oracle's Person of the Year. Of course it wasn't true. If you look at the picture, you'll realize that he's wearing exactly the same clothes in the magazine cover as he is in real life.

I ate lunch in the exhibition hall. Sat down at my table, opened my soda and it exploded. Everyone at the table seemed to ignore me after that. What can you do?

From there I headed over to the OBIEE and JavaScript session by Sunil Ranka. Guess who attended? Mr. Rittman. Thankfully he knew I was joking...but he did spend a significant amount of time debunking the rumor that I started.

From there I spent the next 2 hours writing and "relaxing" (sitting down).

Then I went to the Exadata SIG.

On the way there though...I finally met @tyf who spotted me (probably my dirty oraclenerd). We had been trading tweets for the last couple of days but could never seem to meet. Within about 3 seconds I realized that she was one of those rare, awesome people. You know, the ones where you instantly feel comfortable with?

So I asked for a picture with her which turned into an absolute fiasco. We tried twice holding the camera out in front of us...and I'm not very good at that apparently. I finally asked a passerby to take a picture and he agreed, only to spill his ice all over the floor at the base of one of the escalators. We kicked the ice out of the way and finally got a picture.



After an informative Exadata SIG meeting where I got to meet Arup Nanda (again actually) and a couple of Oracle folks including Jean-Pierre Djicks (JP) of The Data Warehouse Insider blog.

With a 2 hour wait until the Beach Party, I headed back to the room. On the way back, I ran into Floyd Teter and we talked for a bit before being hassled by one of the "wives of fishbowl" and her husband Rick.



I then headed back to my room and got completely lost.











Obviously I did make it back...but it took close to an hour.

How could I forget?

I met Debra Lilley today. She's the keeper of Stanley. Of course I asked if I could take a picture with Stanley, you know, oraclenerd meets Stanley photo.



As I put on the vest, all I could think of was Tommy Boy

Tommy: Richard? Is this your coat?
Richard: Don't do it.
Tommy: Fat guy in a little coat. Fat guy in a little coat.
Richard: Don't
Tommy: [singing] Fat guy in a little coat. / Fat guy in a little coat.
Richard: Take it off, Dickhead, I'm serious!
Tommy: Richard! What's happening?
[coat rips]
Tommy: Uh oh!