I go to the UKOUG conferences to learn stuff from the presentations, but I also go to meet people. If I didn’t really know anyone, I wouldn’t go! (As evidenced by the fact that I didn’t go until 2 years ago, which was not long after I’d met Doug Burns and let him talk me into going! Doug knows *everyone*, I swear!).
Here are the Social highlights of this year’s conference for me (I could detail every meeting, but even I would get bored of reading all that! Needless to say, everyone I met was brilliant, and the discussions etc that we had were entertaining.):
People I met/met up with during the conference (in no particular order!):
- David (@Farkough on Twitter), who is an old friend (and fellow spod!(*))
- Martin Widlake (@MDWidlake on Twitter). A fellow Oracle London Beer conspiritor
- Neil Chandler (@ChandlerDBA on Twitter). A fellow Oracle London Beer conspiritor
- Doug Burns (@orcldoug on Twitter). Yet another fellow Oracle London Beer conspiritor (they get around, right?!)
- David Kurtz (@davidmkurtz on Twitter).
- Niall Litchfield (@nlitchfield on Twitter). An occasional Oracle London Beer attendee
- Patrick Hurley (@phurley on Twitter).
- Piet de Visser (@pdevisser on Twitter).
- Tony Sleight (? I think that was his surname!)
- “Big” Dave Roberts (blog).
- Karen, Tony, Kalyan, and Aftab (? I think I’ve probably got the wrong name here; hope somebody will correct me!) – ex-colleagues of Martin Widlake’s.
- Jonathan Lewis (blog). Another occasional Oracle London Beer attendee.
- Connor McDonald (@connor_mc_d on Twitter).
- Kyle Hailey (@dboptimizer on Twitter).
- Marco Gralike (@MGralike on Twitter).
- Alex Gorbachev (@alexgorbachev on Twitter).
- Debra Lilley (@debralilley on Twitter).
- Lisa Dobson (@lj_dobson on Twitter).
- Alex Nuijten (@alexnuijten on Twitter).
- Tim Hall (@oraclebase on Twitter).
- Ben Burrell, aka Munky (@munkyben on Twitter).
- Martin Bach (@MartinDBA on Twitter).
(If I’ve forgotten to add anyone, it’ll be my shoddy memory, and not down to them!)
Highlights
- Going out for a meal on the Monday night with David (@Farkough), Martin W and Neil, and having a laugh
- Going on to the Tap and Spile following the focus pubs on the Monday night with Niall, Martin, Neil, Dave R and Tony, with Munky popping his head in occasionally. I shall never look at carrots in the same way again!
- Going out for a meal on the Tuesday night with Martin W, Dave R and Martin W’s ex-colleagues, then heading off to the masked ball, and bumping into Connor, Kyle, Doug, Niall and Tony amongst others
- Ending up at the Jury’s bar until the wee small hours of Monday evening, and talking lots of random stuff with various people, including particle physics, and also getting told off by Marco about my shoddy XML db design *{;-)
- The Oak Talks, whilst not strictly a social thing, were fun and entertaining. I hope they have them again next year!
(*) We’re both members of the same BBS: http://www.mono.org/ – still accessible via telnet!)
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