(* Inspired by Cary Millsap, although the story isn’t as elegant as one of his …)
It’s 3 weeks, 4 weeks, 2 months since I disembarked from my second boat cruise in a week but it already seems longer. Perhaps it’s because my client had thoughtfully waited until I got back into the office for the next Production release of the application I’ve been working on. That went well, but the subsequent infrastructure performance issues were the latest part of a 5 week long haze, and then it was time to handover to my replacement and make a start on a new role. It’s been an extremely busy few months 
(
Sunday
My almost traditional pre-conference illness (maybe it’s because these things are in Autumn and Spring or maybe it’s pre-conference stress – who knows?) and the last frantic bits of work for the release on the horizon meant that I had very little time to work on my two new presentations so when I set off for Helsinki on Sunday, it was with laptop powered up and ready to go. Fortunately I had managed at least half of one of the presentations before I got ill. What I didn’t have yet was a hotel room in Oslo for the Wednesday night because when I got around to checking on Friday, there was literally nothing. I was utterly baffled (really, how often is there *nothing* except for a hostel?) but decided I could sort that out later ….
The time difference stole another two hours from me (these things seem more signifcant when your back’s against the wall) but it was a pleasant, uneventful trip and a quiet night in the hotel prepared me for setting sail on Silja Serenade the next morning.
Monday
Having never spent any time in Helsinki, I decided I might as well walk to the boat and Helsinki looks like a beautiful city that I’ll be going back to at some point. Once on board and unpacked in my beautiful sea-view room, I realised that there was a stowaway on board! He has a habit of getting lost …
Tom Kyte and Bryn Llewellyn had the good grace to give keynote presentations using slides that I’d seen several times by now which gave me most of the first day to work on … (you get the picture). Never have I been so happy to presenting on the second day of a two-day conference 
But I was very keen to see Melanie Caffrey’s ‘Keeping It Simple in Database Application Development’. She’d been giving this presentation at Oak Table Sunday last year at the same time as my 8-bit presentation, so I’d missed out then.
Although I know Melanie through her being a regular at the annual UKOUG conference, I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen her present much before, but she was as engaging and smart as I expected as she went through some of the lessons learned in her role as a Senior Development Manager at Oracle, working on linux.oracle.com. I wish I could remember more of them now, but sometimes I’m so busy listening to the messenger that I can miss some of the message! LOL
I’d warned Melanie how weird it is to be presenting just as the boat sets sail because I remember it from my first time and, sure enough, stuff started clanging, the boat started humming and swaying ever so slightly – it’s an experience everyone should have at least once She also learned just how polite and quiet Finnish people are when in a sober audience of more than a few people. Never try a rhetorical question to the audience – you’re likely to just get stoney silence back! However, they truly come into their own when you add beer or have a more private conversation – somewhat like most Scots I know!
After that, Heli Helskyaho (@HeliFromFinland) gave the OUGF 25th Anniversary Speech, flipping effortlessly between Finnish and English which is about as impressive as it gets to my ears. Although I have to say, it seems that this 25th Anniversay thing is a bit debatable. Is it 25 or 26 or …. I think someone forgot to start counting!
One of the most enjoyable aspects of a boat conference is the food, and we had one of the first of many great meals, all with plenty of wine thrown in and I was lucky enough to have Melanie, Debra Lilley and Alex Nuijten for company so it was a great way to wrap the day up, particularly as I had almost finished my slides
Tuesday
Tuesday was a day of worrying about and deliverying two presentations and feeling not a little unwell. It wasn’t so much seasickness as the continuation of the long-running cold that I’d shared with lots of other people, so I was a little tense when I started presenting “10053 Trace Files – Mostly Harmless”, particularly as Tom Kyte and Melanie were in the audience, knowing Tom’s encyclopedic knowledge of Oracle! But it seemed to go reasonably well for the first time giving this presentation, but with some areas that I can improve, particularly some more useful examples.
Then there was time to actually eat some lunch (which is an achievement for me on presentation day) before I moved on to “Fast ETL Processes using Native Oracle Features”. But im the lead-up, I felt really sick and I was concerned I might perform the impressive but disgusting trick of being physically sick mid-presentation! I mentioned the possibility on Twitter, so Alex made sure he turned up with his phone at the ready so he could tweet the evidence! Fortunately I got through it ok. Again, it probably needs a little more polish but the small room was absolutely packed and it went well enough. What I needed most was to lie down and rest, which meant that I missed Alex’s Analytic Functions presentation again (something I have a long personal history of doing …)
It was worth it though, as I was in a much better state when I made it back to the conference area just in time for Heli’s wrap-up session. As well as having a prize-giving raffle from the numbers on peoples conference badges during which some really inconsiderate delegates walked off with all of the Cuddly Toys 
, Heli tossed balls around the room to elicit feedback from whichever attendee caught the balls and she asked what was their best thing about the conference. At first I thought it might be embarassing and took a while to get going (Scots and Finns have a lot in common!) but it actually worked really well because I don’t think anyone would have volunteered otherwise Maybe the real reason I liked the idea was when one of the delegates said that his favourite thing was my presentations, which was brilliant to hear. I always speak at a lot of conferences with great speaker line-ups, so I’ve never actually been told that in the past! Others who I won’t mention are used to it on a regular basis *cough* Jonathan, Tom, Cary … *cough*
Which put me in a great mood for the final dinner which was delicious, as all the catering was. Did I mention? But if you could have seen Bryn, Tom and Melanie *piling* the starters on to their plates, you would know I wasn’t exaggerating. In fact, there were so many interesting and tasty options (particularly for those with wider tastes than me) that a lot of people just about managed a bunch of starters and then a few puddings. Between the company and the food, I didn’t think it could get much better, but then I was voted Speaker of the Day. Again, that’s something that never happened to me and I probably shouldn’t care, but I’m afraid I did, particularly when I considered the other speakers on the agenda. Of course, I cheated a bit by doing two presentations on one day but, hey, I’ll take what I can get Heli presented me with a Moomin mug and some whisky
In the interests of actually submitting a blog post, I’ll leave it there for now. Justin Bieber? He can wait!
