hotsos 2010

Said farewell today to the guys I met in the lobby of the Omni Mandelay Hotel in Irving, Texas. The final bits of the Hotsos 2010 Symposium. It has been a good run.

By the way, what did you mean Doug, with “a big laptop”, regarding your new Sony VAIO ???

It isn’t that big…

My last day already, so I hereby leave you with some impressions from Tanel’s Training Day. Maybe until next year.

If you also want to learn from him, then here’s your chance in Holland. Scripts and tools used by Tanel can be found here.

There she goes, squirreling into the corner of your carry-on.  Ready for another adventure.  Tucked between a fun floppy hat and the flourescent sun-block, of which she uses plenty, pale creature that she is, Monique is situated to prove to you that a seasoned traveller knows best.  Dressed in a curly mohair (so as not to show the wrinkles that betray one new to the jet set) and sporting a pale chiffon scarf - to double as a disquise in those cities where she is already known for her somewhat silly escapades - she seems to wink at you and beckon you along.  Forget your cares, but by no means your playing cards, and step lightly into whatever dreams your next voyage should hold for you:  let Monique be your guide.  

Her very presence alleviates all the maladies brought on by the jostling of trains, the dipping of ships, the swerving of buses and even by the simple fact that you are far from home.  For she has discovered the secret to successful travel; with the exception of the luscious few minutes in the X-ray machine, where she delights in making funny faces at the operators searching for more dangerous contents.  Monique never looks back.

Charleen Kinser Designs

(With thanks to Carol Dacko for bringing along an interesting dinner companion for my own cuddly friends. Somehow I doubt they'll ever be the same - she's terribly sophisticated for my lot!)

I heard someone bemoaning the lack of Swag at Hotsos - just an event program, couple of magazines and a small clockwork toy sponsored by Oracle. I don't think I ever come to the Symposium expecting Swag - it's just not that kind of event. But you do tend to get good speaker gifts, including the best speaker gift I ever received. This year, it's a digital photo frame.

As for that clockwork toy, the Cuddly Toys think it's *brilliant*!!! At first, their reaction was "What's THAT?!" then when I wound it up and let it dance in front of them, they fell in love.

The only thing is that it doesn't run for long per wind-up, so my right wrist is aching from them continually beggind me to "Do it again, Douglas!"

Then again, their reaction wasn't quite as relaxed as when they met Carol Dacko's friend while we were at the restaurant. Apologies for the quality of the photo, it was dark in there, but at least it proves that Little H and Chris were allowed out for dinner and that not all Cuddly Toys are made the same.

They were just stunned by their new friend. What's THAT?

All will be revealed in the next post ....

Bob Sneed being a hero and not to afraid to dance during the Hotsos Disco Night were others would chicken out…

Its Sunday and its raining outside. The nice weather on Saturday (approx. sunny / 20 degrees Celsius) has gone. After a decent flight on Friday where I actually made it to switch in Houston from the international Continental flight, going through customs and pick the next one, a domestic Continental Express flight, within the boundaries of 1 and 1/2 hour. I was so fast that switching for one flight to the other, that apparently my luggage didn’t manage to travel with the last flight. So after I found out that my luggage was still somewhere in Houston, I got from Dallas Love Field to the Omni Hotel in Las Colinas, Irving, where the Hotsos conference will be held again. The whole area is a bit in shambles because they are rebuilding a lot of the environment. While getting to the Grapevine Mills mall yesterday, I noticed that they also a building a new Irving Convention Center along the highway. Another addition to the already crowded Dallas/Plano/Irving Metroplex.

I will be presenting on two topics in HOTSOS’ 2010, an Oracle performance focused conference, in my home town Dallas, Texas. You can read about my presentation topics in HOTSOS’ 2010 Riyaj . This symposium is a valued conference for performance engineers, DBAs and developers who are interested to know learn about performance. There are many great speakers presenting in this conference and the main page for this conference is HOTSOS ’2010 . BTW, My friend Alex Gorbachev interviewed Gary Goodman and posted a video in his blog also.

Tanel Poder is conducting the HOTSOS training day this year. You can’t miss his training day and I heard that he is working on a MOTS (Mother Of all Tuning Script) and planning to release that in HOTSOS ’2010.

On behalf of the Dallasites, I invite you to visit Dallas and attend this great conference.

I wish you a Happy and prosperous New Year ’2010!