Alright, this is it. I think 5 posts is enough and I'm sure you're quite sick of it.
This was the first time (at the conference) I had met Alex Gorbachev, I asked him to do his Heisman pose for me. He looked at me like I was nuts. You know the one...
Normal Alex looks like this:
For whatever reason, I thought he would be a giant. Perhaps it's the name, I don't know.
That happened quite a lot; I had created mental images of everyone that I had never met, some matched, many didn't. Someone told me they thought I would be a lot shorter (maybe because I'm kinda round). Anyway.
Martin Paul Nash is up next. He owns one of my favorite named blog sites, ORAganism. We met on Sunday at the Exadata SIG in true geek/nerd style:
I almost left the first picture out, you know, courtesy and all that. But what the heck?
Here's a much better one of him with George Woods, though I'm not sure exactly what he's doing
George is from Tennessee (cue Rocky Top song) but I did not find out if he was a Vols fan or not. George created the list for Oracle OpenWorld attendees who are on Twitter here.
Next up, Tim Hall and Tariq Farooq. Tim is the one signing, Tariq is the one with the beard and no shirt (DQ'd right?).
Tariq was my second favorite at the event behind Jason Arneil. He came up and gave me this giant bear hug when he saw me or realized I was that guy.
Tim Hall is always at the top of my list. He gets the award for most frequent wearer of the oraclenerd T-Shirt. Check it out:
Despite telling me I don't know how to count, I will not post the picture of her from the meetup. Eyes shut (blinding flash) and so on. I'll be nice a put this one up:
That's her, Stanley and Dan Norris there on Saturday.
I've had a run in with Stanley before...and it wasn't pretty, for Stanley that is. Can you say "fat guy in a little coat"? Poor Stanley.
Sadley I didn't get any information on Philip Mwai, other than that he was the current president of Kenya. He's in the middle there.
Flanking him are his 2 security guards. I'm guessing this was near the end of the event.
In the image below, you have Vanessa Simmons, Chen Shapira, Alex Gorbachev, Jason Arneil, Paul Vallee (maybe, it was the hair that gave it away if so), and quite possibly a Sheeri Cabral sighting. You'll note that I offended Miss Cabral the other day by thinking she was someone else. I'm sure she'll get me back someday.
Have I talked about Chen yet? Oh wait, I did.
How about Roel Hartman? I have no pictures of this guy, he scared me a little bit. On Sunday evening, he jumped out of some dark corner and attacked me. That's how it seemed anyway. Roel and I were supposed to meet at COLLABORATE, but he was foiled by the Ash Cloud. I taunted him from Vegas I'm sure which probably prompted him to scare me like that. We ran into each other again on Tuesday night as I happened to be at the same bar as the APEX meetup. I don't think he jumped out at me there. I guess we were even.
David Haimes? What, no pictures? I was slacking near the end or most likely trying to save my phone from dying. We didn't talk much at the meetup, but we ended up together for (more) drinks and dinner. For some reason I thought he was from Nebraska...but he had a funny accent, I think it was British. Apparently he's Mr. Fusion Financials (if there is such a title, if not, I'll make it one as I'm wont to do).
Sunil Ranka whom I met at COLLABORATE this year and appears in quite a few photos, though none at this event. He's an OBIEE dude and an Oracle ACE. He's also a showoff as seen here.
I'm pretty sure that's some other award he was "rubbing my nose" in (yes, I am allowed to make whatever I want up here...my blog).
I did get Mr. OTN, Justin Kestelyn to sign my shirt, but we didn't get to talk much. He seems to be in high demand.
Tim Hall introduced me to Sve...Sve...Svetoslav Gyurov. Sve I'm not going to ever say your name right, so I'm sticking with Sve. He came all the way from Bulgaria and he had actually read my blog. He was super tall as well. I asked him how often he heard, "How's the weather up there?" and no sooner did he finish did someone walk up to him and ask him that exact question.
Vanessa Simmons...have I talked about her yet? I told her from the start that she was cheating. Knowing me, it may have been completely inappropriate, so I won't rehash it here. ($10 (canadian) says she laughs when she reads this though).
Editor's Note: I just realized I left out Espen Barroso-Gomez. We didn't get to talk as long as I would have liked, but he did share with me that he loved the Yo Gabba Gabba links I put up. Or maybe it was just one of them. The one of the Banana song by the Aggrogolites. His kids have to hear it every morning! I did forget to ask him, after finding out he was from Oslo, if he knew someone from Bergen...but there have to be more than 3 people there right? I hear there's quite a rivalry between Oslo and Bergen though, so it's probably best I didn't ask.
Last, but certainly not least, were my compatriots during this week of fun. John Piwowar (author of the "PeeVoVar Challenge") and Jake "don't punch me in the kidney chet" Kuramato. John graciously allowed me to stay with him this week and didn't kick me out after the first night, like Lewis Cunningham did. I could tell you all kinds of secret info on John, but I signed an NDA...sorry.
As for Jake...that would take forever. DO NOT WANT! is the T-shirt he is wearing. I just looked it up because I was too lazy to ask him. He probably would have chided me too. I seem to have this nasty habit of answering all of Jake's rhetorical questions. So, if you get the chance, answer one of Jake's rhetorical questions and watch the fun ensue.
Oh yeah, he's a picture of Jake goosing me. It was quite shocking. I think he muttered something about "When in Rome..."
Summary
Yeah, I bet you thought I would never stop. I have. A whopping 5 part series on the Blogger Meetup alone. I'm not that good of a writer, nor am I succinct. Besides, it just felt normal to write all this.
I had an absolute blast at Oracle OpenWorld and the Blogger Meetup specifically. It was a great experience to put the names to faces...and I just don't want to forget.
Thanks again to HP, Pythian and OTN for making this possible.
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