Friday 22 May 2009

After the EDB party...

Well, it's that time of year again, when I make an ill-advised post immediately following the EnterpriseDB party whilst full of beer at 2:30AM!

After some excellent talks today, as well as our keynote - which seemed to be well received, if not that polished, we held the usual conference party. As I mentioned in a previous post (which I can't be bothered to link to right now), we held it in the Velvet Room on the Byward Market again, this time without the dueling pianos. The venue staff laid on two buffets this year so we weren't all crammed in the room upstairs - they told me just before we left that we had 70 downstairs and 70 upstairs for dinner! That seems like a pretty good turnout to me :-)

Anyway, I need to get some sleep now, as much to Greg's disgust, it's breakfast at 9AM with Magnus & Selena. Laterz....

Thursday 21 May 2009

PGCon 2009 - Day 1

Yesterday was the first full day for me at PGCon here in Ottawa. After quite a few beers upon arrival on Tuesday evening, the quiet serenity of the Developer Meeting seemed like it would be the perfect way to unwind. Following weeks of planning (mainly on Greg's part), the Novotel proved to be an excellent venue, with a nice room, AV equipment that just worked, and some interesting food (popcorn, fruit pizza or candyfloss anyone?). We had 24 hackers there in person, and were joined by Suzuki-san, Shimogaki-san and Takahiro-san (from NTT) on the phone - who were with us from something like 10PM to 6AM their time - and Simon Riggs via Skype. The minutes will be posted on the wiki as soon as Josh Berkus is able to write them up from his notes, but in short, we had a number of fruitful discussions on various topics. Certainly a successful meeting in my mind.

After we left the Novotel, Selena, Magnus and I headed to Don Cherries to work on our slides. I had a text from Magnus just before I left the UK, telling me we were doing the keynote. Of course, I put it down to too much beer on his art, but it turns out we did manage to get conned into doing the talk, so figured we'd better come up with something to talk about. It's only a short slot, so I shouldn't be able to embarress myself too much hopefully.

Finished off the evening with a quick beer with Denis, Jimbo and Scottie from EDB and Gavin, Jonah and Michael from MyYearbook.com, before heading off to Colonade Pizza for pizza and a couple more beers with a few of the usual suspects, courtesy of Paul, head honcho at the Pythian Group. Thanks Paul!

Oh well, that's enough for now - got that pesky keynote soon and need to get ready. More later, after this year's EnterpriseDB Party (assuming I survive)!

Monday 11 May 2009

EnterpriseDB party at PGCon

A few people have asked me if EnterpriseDB will be hosting a party at PGCon 2009, as we've done in previous years, and I'm pleased to announce that yes, we will!

As always, the party is open to all PGCon attendees, organisers and speakers and will include a dinner and booze (Mmmmm, beeeer). This year however, due to popular demand we have not booked the dueling pianos again!

The party will be at:

The Velvet Room
62 York Street
Ottawa, ON K1N 5T1
(613) 241-6810

[Map]

Doors open at 6:30PM on Thursday 21st May, and dinner will be served from around 7PM. See you there!