I’ve been AWOL from the blogging world for quite awhile. Been busy for the past few weeks; working on another ITC white paper about RAC, assembled and delivered some internal 11g presentations and right now I’m in DC working with a client… all that has added up and kept me from blogging much.

I had the privilege to attend two days of partner training downtown in Chicago right before 11g was released. In fact Greg Pike from Piocon was in the same class with me and blogged about it a few weeks ago (part one and part two). There was quite a bit of information packed into the class and most of it is available right in the manuals on OTN so it’s fair game for blogging. I would strongly recommend reading his posts - they provide a really good overview of 11g new features.

I personally filled 16 sheets of notebook paper during the course of both days and so I’ll try to get a few of my highlights into this post.

Summary

They had a sales briefing at the very beginning but I skipped it (I’m more interested in the technical aspects). However it did seem like someone mentioned that a major theme for 11g will be agility. Trying to piggyback on the whole Agile coding thing I guess.

Here’s one way of breaking down many of new features into categories:

Read more

I have to be honest, I was just about done with Enterprise this Monday. The culture is a bit too superficial for me. Normally I wouldn’t care… but seriously, I’ve been using mostly Enterprise for car rentals all over the country - and it seems that everywhere I go it’s pretty much the same. Super-enthusiastic to give you that plastic smile, then as soon as there’s a break in the conversation they run back over to the circle of coworkers to crack jokes about how retarded the last customer (before me) was. Ugh.

But it seems that I can be bribed. Monday I was asking for my usual intermediate car… think I was supposed to get a Civic… and it was taking awhile but the guy assured me that it was on its way. After a few minutes of small talk (Cubs vs White Sox and the like) he went to check on it. Came back and apologized, saying that noone had even started cleaning it.

Then he offered me the free upgrade. But not just an upgrade. No. He takes me into the parking lot, walks over to this Pontiac G6. Now the picture here is after I drove all the way to the client from Dulles airport. Notice the odometer reading? When I sat down in the car it had 6 miles on it. 6 miles. So maybe Enterprise isn’t so bad!

Does that make me a bad person? Anyway, I’ve been having fun this week. :)

Not sure why but I found this amusing. Was at Midway flying to the D.C. area for my engagement this week and I saw this two people at my gate, getting a charge while working on their laptops. Not sure why Southwest had rocking chairs at the gate. I was especially amused by the colorful one that the guy is sitting in!

Spent Thursday and Friday in the DC area and I’ll be back there again next week. Found a Saxby’s to hang out at for a little while when I was there. Not quite as cool as finding a good independent place (I like those better) but I really did like it a lot!

So… yet another crazy weekend. Drove back to Michigan Friday night to drop off some more truck stuff with the parents. Also got cruise installed on the new car. Took Sophie to Rose Lake Saturday morning, then visited the Jeffries before doing dinner with the whole family at De Luca’s. (Best pizza in Lansing!) Then the drive back to Chicago. “Mission University” class at 9 and church at 10:30, then lunch at an awesome Indian restaurant on Devon. Back to Erin’s then off to Korean Fest for the evening! Which was amazing. I snapped this picture of guys sumo wrestling in the middle of the street. There were also a bunch of guys break dancing - and it turned out that they were from an organization just a block away from my apartment! So basically, I’m still catching my breath - it was a rather busy few days!

Download Oracle 11g for Linux now! Looks like it just went up on OTN!!!

Saw that Noel had reposted this on his blog from Eugene this and it seemed worth reposting here too.

To my lovely wife,

Honey, it must be hot and difficult there. I have no words to say to you other than that I am sorry. I can’t be more hateful of myself for eating and sleeping at a time when you must be really sick and going through so much hardship.

I told our children that you are staying with the children in Afghanistan a bit longer because you love the people there so much. The children are really proud of you for helping people living in poverty and distress. You must really miss our children, our darling children, our children that you so dearly love. Although you may desperately want to see them, we must be patient for a bit longer. For the sake of our children, stay strong and healthy and please hold on to positive thoughts.We will see each other soon. I am proud of you. Although it may be hard and difficult, please hang on for a little bit longer. I am sorry. I am really sorry, all I can say is that I am sorry. I love you, I truly love you.

If you aren’t following this situation then read Eugene’s post and this Newsweek article.

Taliban Subcommander Abdullah was on the lookout for hostages. Ever since his superior, Commander Daro Khan, was arrested by U.S. forces in Ghazni province’s Qarabagh district in June, Abdullah has had his men patrolling the main Kabul-to-Kandahar highway that runs through the province, watching for foreigners to kidnap. The goal: to exchange the prisoners for Khan and other Taliban operatives in Afghan and U.S. custody.

On July 19, Abdullah’s men got lucky. A pair on motorcycle patrol spotted a large, white passenger bus, traveling with no armed security escort. The fighters immediately pulled their motorcycles alongside the bus and pointed an AK-47 and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher directly at the bus driver’s head. Rather than speeding up and trying to outrun the gunmen, the driver stopped and the 23 South Korean Christian aid workers riding on the bus were trapped.