Oracle Conference Recap
Posted on April 4, 2019 by Ching under Travel.
A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to spend some time in Austin for a work conference. These were actually two conferences scheduled back to back in the same week. It was the Oracle Customer Edge Conference for the first two days (Monday and Tuesday) and then the Oracle Utilities Users Group conference on the last two days (Wednesday and Thursday). It was both my first time in Austin and my first time attending these conferences. I really didn’t know what to expect.
However, I did know that I would be done with the conferences by Thursday so I decided to take a day of vacation on Friday. Brian had never been to Austin either so we agreed for him to meet me down there and then we would fly back home together on Sunday and just make a fun little weekend getaway out of it.
Oh, did I mention that that I just missed SXSW by a few hours? That’s on my list of things to do in Austin. Someday I hope to able to attend. In the meantime, the stage at our hotel was still up when we got there on Sunday and didn’t get taken down until Monday. This is the closest I’ve ever gotten to SXSW. LOL.
I also took pictures of my room (because I do that sort of thing, specially if it’s my first time staying somewhere) which was nice and modern.
The room is not that big but it is nicely furnished. I also lucked out and got a great view of the river and bat bridge. More on that later.
The bathroom is just so-so. Not that best, largest or most luxurious bathroom I’ve ever had but it met all our needs. When I say “our” it’s mostly me because Brian actually didn’t arrive until late Wednesday (in the middle of the night on Thursday after all of the flight delays, truth be told). It worked out great because I had enough Hyatt points to cover our post-conference stay and I talked to the hotel ahead of time so they combined both of my hotel registrations (both my conference one and my personal one using points) so that we didn’t have to check out of our room and check in to a separate room for the second part of our stay.
Conference registration/check in had already closed by the time I arrived in Austin on Sunday so I just had enough time to check in to my room and meet up with my coworkers for dinner. That was my first visit to El Alma, the Mexican restaurant that Brian and I were raving about.
Besides the group dinners at the end of the day, food is the one thing that is in abundance at these conferences. They were pretty much feeding us all day long, starting with breakfast. The food that the hotel provided was quite delightful – better than the generic food you get at these things sometimes. We even had chocolate croissants at breakfast on Monday, which I enjoyed immensely. I had two of them. Regrettably, they never showed up again the rest of the week so I thought I should have smuggled six more in my bag to enjoy for breakfast the rest of the week. Unfortunately, I didn’t have that much foresight but I probably didn’t need to eat all those chocolate croissants calories anyway so I guess the universe was looking out for me there. LOL.
Because I love food and collect pictures of food, here are some conference food pics for you to feast your eyes on.
There was also always something yummy for dessert. I skipped the cookies and brownies, though I’m sure they were delicious, but I definitely tore up the flan the day they served it.
I also enjoyed the banana pudding thing and would have had a second one if they hadn’t ran out by the time I was ready for another.
Besides all the delicious food I got to eat, there was also a lot of learning and networking that happened. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to presentations from some of my coworkers. I work with some really smart people!
Here’s Jeff Horn talking Analytics at Oracle Edge.
Kelley Sanders and Chad Carsten talked about our recent MDM upgrade at Oracle Edge, which they presented a modified version of with Antony Rithin at the OUUG conference (the conference that followed Oracle Edge).
Lois Stark and Vicki Barszczak talked about the One CIS project at OUUG.
I learned so much and got to spend time with people I don’t normally get to work with on a daily basis (because I’m in Wichita and everyone else is either in Kansas City or Topeka). Anyway, we did some fun things too. I will post about the dinners and fun activities later but will end it here for now. GNG.
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