I feel it’s going to be good fun – I’m only on my way to UKOUG 2006 but it’s already an adventure. I had the flight Ottawa -> London booked over Washington where I should have had 2 hours for connection. Registration went fine almost until the very end (had to give away my water though and Babette was finishing her coffee on the way) but at the US customs I’ve got the problem. Apparently, there is a new rule for transit passengers – they suspended permission for all international connections without a transit visa. It used to be so that transit passengers stay in the terminal and no need for any kind of visa. Not anymore and it’s valid “until further notice” as stated in their systems.
Being stubborn enough (the common quality here at Pythian ;-) and I’m not going to skip the fun just because of some stupid immigration rules so… I had to go back to the check-in counter, get my baggage and re-book my ticket to avoid a stopover in the States. They re-booked me on the direct flight Ottawa-London and that cost me only $200 after some negotiations (originally $2000+) and 2 hours of my time early in the morning. Unfortunately, I’ve got split up with Babette and I hope she is fine on her own there.
Babette, if you read this post by any chance, I should be in the Hotel on Monday at about 11:00. I also left you a message at the receptions desk.
Back to the UKOUG – I have three sessions there. These are first three right on Tuesday after the Opening Technical Keynote by Tom Kyte:
- Extending Oracle 10g Grid Control – New Metrics, Targets and Plugins – 11:00-12:00, Hall 6
- Refreshing Test Databases Using Oracle Transportable Tablespaces and Veritas Storage Checkpoints – 12:10-12:55, Hall 6. Here is the surprise – I’ll show how to do the same with ZFS. I’m really excited about that.
- Oracle 10g Change Tracking Inside Out – 13:50-14:00, Hall 9. Consider this if you want to get down to X$ tables and tracing.
Babette has two presentations the same day:
- Moving from Oracle Names to Oracle Internet Directory – 11:00-12:00, Hall 11b
- Oracle 10g Data Pump 101 – 17:50-18:35, Hall 5
See you there! I’m off to my flight. Again…
5 Comments. Leave new
Back home… :)
I can’t believe that! I’ve been told in the morning that the flight is at 5 pm so I was at the check-in counter shortly after 3 pm. Checked in electronically and handed in my baggage. Quick look at the ticket to find the gate number and… boarding time is 18:30! No way! Confirmed with Air Canada desk. Yep, AC888 departing 19:05. Huh… It was 4th time my darling driving to the airport today – good that we are just 10 minutes away.
OK. I will try once more in about an hour. Wish me luck – I need it!
PS: By the way, if you are running MySQL in your shop and have Grid Control 10g installed – the example I use during my first session will demonstrate creating new target type for MySQL monitoring.
Make no mistake, you’ll enjoy the conference, but Birmingham and the weather might be a bit of a culture shock ;-)
Hey, I suppose that means that you and Babette are invited to the Blogger Meet-up too, but I’m not sure how you’ll manage after long flights and three straight presentations!!!!
Thanks Doug! I’ll be fine with time shift (after couple Guinness) and definitely I’m in for the Blogger Meet-up. I simply can’t miss it!
Unfortunately, it seems that there is no “evening session” on Monday (which is probably good as I need a good sleep before Tuesday).
Sitting in the speaker lounge now. It’s really nice.
We were one of the first and all the speakers are slowly coming. I’ve just found out that Jonathan will chair one of my sessions today which is a great pleasure. :)
[…] 2AM and I’m off to bed early — somewhat unusual compare to my past UKOUG experience but hey, I’m presenting tomorrow. My session on RAC Connection Management […]