BGOUG Autumn Conference

Well it’s was an enjoyable few days in Bulgaria, to say the least, although perhaps it tailed off a little towards the end through my own fault!

The trip out was fun because between the ACE Director Program and the Bulgarian Oracle User Group all my expenses were covered this time so I treated myself to an upgrade to business. The only sensible flights I could get were on BA so although I am a Star Alliance junkie and had to forgo air miles this time, I was pleased that BAs service was as good as I remembered. Terminal 5 was very swish and efficient, the lounge great and the inflight service very comfy with a nice breakfast 😉

As I’ve said before, the overseas conferences I attend alway seem to be organised by extremely passionate and friendly people who go out of their way to welcome and take care of you. So, when I arrived at SOF I met Dimitri Gielis who had been waiting for me for a while with Stoyan Ivanov of the BGOUG board who was going to drive us both to Hissarya. At a little over 2 hours, it’s not a taxi trip I would have been too confident of! So thanks to Stoyan for the lifts both from and to the airport and the good conversation 🙂

It was still good to arrive at Hissarya, though, which was obviously a beautiful small town that I would investigate later …maybe on Saturday after my presentations?

Although the Hotel Hissar Spa Complex was splendid, Dimtri and I both struggled with the layout at first and I suspect others did as well. When the lady at reception recommended I wait for the porter to show me to the room, I laughed that off and she drew me a picture of various lifts, floor plans and so on and despite me leaving the desk confidently, she may have had a point. Because the complex consists of several buildings built at different times on a hill-side, it turned out that the crucial part I didn’t understand was that the 3rd floor became the 8th floor when you walked through a set of fire doors. It was a while before I found my room and it took me a few attempts to get used to it, but I got there eventually. (Which was pretty fortunate, given the state of my navigational skills during subsequent attempts!)

After a quick beer or two with Dimitri and the sudden realisation that this was a hotel bar with beers for £1 (gulp!) we moved on to dinner which was a surprisingly large couple of tables once all the speakers and BGOUG crowd showed up. The main things I remember are

– Several techies being less than positive about RAC. Some were more convinced and it was just dinner talk, but was funny when added to ….
– Carol Merriman’s pre-presentation terror about having to talk to a bunch of techies about the Oracle Database Appliance.
– My ability to scrape cheese off stuff and eat it if I’m hungry enough. (The stuff under the cheese, that is, not the cheese itself!)
– Milena making sure I had a personal bottle of white wine even though rakia and red wine are the only alcoholic drinks a sensible man would drink in Bulgaria! (Although there seems to be quite an appetite for whisky too!)

All in all it was a great way to prepare everyone for the conference to come …

I only managed to attend a couple of presentations on Day 1. Dimitri’s presentation on Apex charts, which was an eye-opener for me because I admit it’s a long time since I looked at Apex and things have clearly moved on a lot with Apex 4 and Dimitri has a deeper knowledge than most of what’s new in Apex and what might be coming along soon. Definitely worth another look in one of my many free hours. (That’s a joke)

For the rest of the day I flitted between lunch, some final presentation preparation and popping into Carol’s presentation on the Oracle Database Appliance. I didn’t expect to learn very much after attending Openworld but wanted to go along to offer a little moral support because I knew she was nervous about it. In the end, she did a pretty good overview and there was time for an interesting Q & A session at the end where I think I was able to help out a little. I’d summarise the feeling in the room as being – ouch, still a little expensive for small customers – but maybe it’s about your definition of SME and maybe the definition changes in different markets?

With the final preparation for my own presentation I only really had the chance to catch the tail-end of Toon Koppelaar’s second presentation but I know Toon quite well and am very familiar with his work from the Hotsos Symposium and plenty of other conferences. Later he would chide me about my lack of progress on his and Lex’s book 😉

I thiink the latest Statistics on Partitioned Objects presentations went reasonably well. It felt fun for me and that’s always a good sign, the room was very busy and lots of people were complimentary about it later. I was particularly touched that several other presenters like Toon were so complimentary about it. But it also made me realise that it does need some work before UKOUG because it’s too long and there’s probably a little too much whining about old problems and not enough discussion about new solutions. Regardless, I was reasonably happy and ready for the party.

Oh, and what a party! Memories include :-

– Self-service buffet, so I could avoid any sign of cheese 😉
– Performances from Bulgarian dancers followed by a majority of the attendees joining in an extended dancing snake that unfurled around the room. If you imagine a side-ways conga with Tim Hall waving a napkin above his head, you’d get a reasonable picture! I’d include some photos of Tim but either they’re a little blurred or I simply can’t risk him posting photos of me dancing very briefly in retaliation!
– Toon realising that if he was due to leave for his flight at 3:30, he might just have to stay awake.
– Brilliant Bulgarian guys insisting I drink the strongest Rakia and whisky and all sorts of stuff I wouldn’t normally touch but their company was so good I didn’t feel I could refuse 😉
– The dangers of me finding an onsite night-club complete with ashtrays the night before a presentation.
– Deciding at 4:30 that maybe I should go to bed.

I think the most positive things I can say about Saturday morning’s 10am presentation is that I was there, I did talk for an hour (whilst bolting down glasses of water) and that it was well-attended. I felt pretty bad about this presentation because people made the effort
to show up after the party (they have much stronger constitutions than mine!) and maybe thought it would be ok after the
previous evenings presentation but it wasn’t close. I need to remember that although it is just about possible to present after a few hours sleep, it’s not recommended!

So, erm, then it all goes a bit quiet as I managed to grab some extra sleep before the final night’s dinner which was a much more low-key affair but none-the-less enjoyable for that before the trip home on Sunday.

It was a terrific conference, I met lots of new fun friends and you can be sure I’ll be going back if I get another opportunity and I am not scheduled to speak in the first slot after the party 😉

Usual disclaimer: My travel and accommodation expenses were covered primarily by BGOUG with some assistance from the Oracle ACE Director program. I believe I may have said something quite nice about the Oracle Database Appliance at some point but I’ve forgotten what it was now …. My thoughts on the BGOUG and Milena Gerova’s efforts are all completely positive. Several conference veterans agree – this lady is the ultimate conference organiser!