C16LV - Having Fun in Vegas

As I mentioned in one of the other postings I don't actually like Vegas, however once I arrive and meet up with my friends it is fun.

This year as ever I managed to catch up with most, but the community I miss is EBS, as I move further and further away from here I see less of the team. I do see Nadia Bendjedou at a lot of events around the world, but very few of the others. However I did see most whilst pacing the show grounds or sessions, no one missing their step count at Collaborate. I also met Steven Chan in an elevator on the last day and it was great to catch up with him. 

Alex

I attended the IOUG first networking party to see Deiby Gomez received his Select Journal Award, this young man is our future in user groups, we need more like him. I was also pleased to see Alex Gorbachev thanked for his contribution. Well done to all the winners.

Dieby

Then I popped along to the Quest Kickoff. I am not a JDE or PeopleSoft user but their Oracle Product Executives support Quest and UKOUG and over the years have become friends. I love the customer intimacy that Quest has for their members.

I was speaking for OAUG and their kick off party looked amazing although having attended the other two events I was too tired to join the very long queue to get into the nightclub.

Monday evening I has the ACE Dinner and Tuesday was all the vendor parties. Wednesday was the party and I had a great time. Thursday evening when the event was over I spent time first with Dan Norris (Oracle Exadata but more importantly the man who persuaded me to try diving) and his wife Ann. Later I met up with Daniel Strassberg and his wife Sharon from Sydney and several other Quest people.

I did manage a couple of hours by the pool but to be honest the weather wasn't too good this year and it was quite cool. Sadly I broke a flipflop, no big deal except these were flipflop my daughter bought me many years ago and I loved dearly. I did manage a temporary fix with a delegate pin badge and it was so successful I felt like MacGyver!

Then all too soon it was time to go again. 

I have over the years made many friends in the user group community and I could spend the entire week catching up without actually attending anything at conference, so if I missed anyone I really apologise.

Back to main #C16LV Blog