{"id":887,"date":"2005-12-30T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-12-30T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/?p=887"},"modified":"2005-12-30T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-12-30T12:00:00","slug":"so-long-2005-and-thanks-for-all-the-memories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/2005\/12\/30\/so-long-2005-and-thanks-for-all-the-memories\/","title":{"rendered":"So long 2005 and thanks for all the memories"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tomorrow is the final day of 2005 and my 40th Birthday. The next day I fly to New York for a one week celebration. How a group of Scots decided to check in at 7am for a 9am flight on the 1st January is still something of a mystery to me. (To be honest, it lets me spend my birthday with my daughter, who’ll be staying at home with her Mum) I’ve been given the task of making sure everyone is in a fit state for boarding!<\/p>\n

I don’t feel at all negative on entering my 40th year. Older friends have been quite depressed when it happened to them but I don’t feel particularly different and I’m not expecting any change. Maybe I was just an old man already 😉 Sitting in the pub last night talking to Peter Robson about Oracle, writing, the user group and other interesting things, it struck me that he’s as enthusiastic and energetic as anyone I know despite being the owner of a bus pass! Sorry, Peter 😉 I’m enjoying my new job, have lots of work to do for the Hotsos presentation and no doubt there’ll be plenty of brand new problems for me to face.<\/p>\n

Life begins, indeed.<\/p>\n

New York is one of my favourite cities (along with Edinburgh and Amsterdam). I only visited there for the first time about 2 years ago, by myself, and have been back once since then with my Mum (who is 67 and had always wanted to visit America but had never managed). Although it has all the big city feel of somewhere like London, it’s not nearly so crowded, bad-mannered or dirty. I used to live in London so that’s my opinion, based on personal experience. Importantly, it has the least confusing city layout I’ve encountered, which makes aimless exploring more feasible. I could go on for hours, but choosing it for the third time in two years should tell you everything you need to know (or confirm me as a very unadventurous person).<\/p>\n

I can’t imagine much blogging from New York, so here are some of my favourite moments of the year :-<\/p>\n

1) Seeing Mogens Norgaard presenting in full Scottish Highland dress<\/a> at the OUG Scotland meeting.<\/p>\n

2) Buying Jonathan Lewis’ new book<\/a> and spending the first few hours with my chin hitting the floor, trying to absorb how good it was. I know I’ve gone on and on about this but as I said to Peter the other night it’s a true Oracle classic. Regardless of whether the financial rewards match the amount of effort (unlikely, I guess), it’s something that Jonathan can be truly proud of and something to aspire to, even if I never get there.<\/p>\n

3) Attending the Bloggers Dinner<\/a> at the UKOUG conference (thanks again to Mark Rittman and the UKOUG for setting this up) and realising that Tim Hall<\/a> looks exactly like his blog photo (an achievement in itself considering how strange many blog photos are) but *moves* and *talks*! Seriously, I’d dipped out of the user group community for a number of years and it was enjoyable getting involved again and meeting some new people. I think it’s a great community and for all my intermittent carping, I’ve met a lot of cool, decent people (I could give many examples, but would only end up leaving someone out!)<\/p>\n

4) Unleashing Mogens on an expectant public<\/a>.<\/p>\n

5) My ISP4400 server<\/a> turning up and meeting all of my expectations, particularly in the decibel department!<\/p>\n

6) Adopting ‘The Rabbit’. He’s been a find, let me tell you, and has provided hours of fun! With the dual-purpose of introducing a new, young, hopeful year and saving everyone from more than a couple of weeks of Bill (as I promised), it’s over to you, Rabbit! (I’ve let him keep his Xmas hat on – he thinks he’s a Pirate.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Have a safe, prosperous and fun New Year!<\/p>\n

Cheers,<\/p>\n

Doug<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tomorrow is the final day of 2005 and my 40th Birthday. The next day I fly to New York for a one week celebration. How a group of Scots decided to check in at 7am for a 9am flight on the 1st January is still something of a mystery to me. (To be honest, it… Continue reading So long 2005 and thanks for all the memories<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":886,"url":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/2005\/12\/31\/my-lucky-day\/","url_meta":{"origin":887,"position":0},"title":"My lucky day","date":"December 31, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, it's officially my birthday now. I've had more birthday wishes than I'm used to, then I came across this. (I'm mentioned some way in to an interesting blog)http:\/\/stephensorablog.blogspot.com\/2005\/12\/almost-all-users-are-idiots.htmlI tend to have a terrible memory for course students (I met a lot in quick succession) but I remember Stephen and\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 7 comments","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":917,"url":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/2005\/11\/03\/ukoug-2005-presentations-available-online\/","url_meta":{"origin":887,"position":1},"title":"UKOUG 2005 Presentations Available Online","date":"November 3, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"I've just noticed that the UKOUG 2005 presentations are online. You need to go to the agenda then select the presentation you're interested in and there are download links at the bottom of the abstract. If you're a member of the UKOUG you'll know the password for download and can\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1122,"url":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/2006\/11\/06\/ukoug-agenda-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":887,"position":2},"title":"UKOUG Agenda","date":"November 6, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Another late shift today followed a busy weekend attending an evening wedding reception on Friday and a friend's 40th birthday party in Newcastle on Saturday night, so that closing part of the Recovery Design series might have to wait for a day or two. I'm also in a growing panic\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 10 comments","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":922,"url":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/2005\/10\/31\/ukoug-2005-day-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":887,"position":3},"title":"UKOUG 2005 – Day 1","date":"October 31, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, after a power cut in Central Birmingham that delayed the start of the conference by about an hour, things are moving along nicely. The presentations that I've attended so far are :-Tom Kyte's SQL techniques. As excellent as I expected and I preferred Tom's presentation technique to last years\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":876,"url":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/2006\/01\/23\/ukoug-2005-presentations-cd\/","url_meta":{"origin":887,"position":4},"title":"UKOUG 2005 Presentations CD","date":"January 23, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Peter Robson, one of the directors of the UKOUG asked if I'd post the following ...\"You will remember the CD that was made of some of the presentations atOUG last autumn.Could you ask, via your blog, if anyone brought a copy of this CD, andif they would be prepared to\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":986,"url":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/2005\/03\/04\/bun-fight\/","url_meta":{"origin":887,"position":5},"title":"Bun Fight","date":"March 4, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Oh, how could I have forgotten this one!","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}