Arrived in Washington D.C. for ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2006

I'm over in Washington D.C. now, and staying in the Wardman Park Hotel in readiness for the ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2006 conference. Compared to flying over to San Francisco (11+ hours), Nashville (8 hours + another connecting flight) and flying over to Greece with the family (two kids to keep entertained) the flight was pretty relaxed and straightforward, especially as I had my new Macbook to watch a couple of movies on and Eric Sink's "The Business of Software" to read.

I must be getting used to coming over to the States (3 times in the last 12 months) as the process of landing and going through the "enhanced" security seems all pretty run of the mill now, although I was surprised by the temperature when I stepped outside of the airport doors - it was about 98ºF / 37ºC yesterday, and according to the forecasts it's going to be 100ºF today, which is just unbelievable - over in the UK, on the hottest day of the year you're lucky to get up to 90ºF and on my holiday last week, it was around 70ºF all week. Of course as you're indoors all the time you don't notice it, but I just never expected the capital of the USA to get so hot in summer - it's only just down from New York and you kind of assume it's got the same climate as England - colder if anything.

Well it's just gone 5.30am at the moment, and I'm just doing a couple of things before heading down to Starbucks in the hotel lobby for coffee and something to eat. The jetlag didn't seem as bad yesterday but I still crashed out around 7pm, hence being up so early today, but I need a bit of time this morning as I've got to rehearse the 15 minute slot I've got during the BI summit later today. Oracle are "launching" Oracle Warehouse Builder 10gR2 and I'm co-presenting with Oracle's George Lumpkin, with George talking about the product and the new packaging (licensing), and myself talking through a couple of short case studies where our customers have used OWB10gR2 on projects or evaluations. I've got 15 minutes to introduce myself and the company, talk through the two case studies and do two demos - one on where a retailer used the new Data Profiler, another where a university used the SCD2+3 support - so timing is important and I'll need to go through it a couple of times to make sure I don't end up running out of time. Then, just after lunch, is the BI Customer Advisory Board, an "invite-only" customer panel that Oracle uses to get feedback on their products, followed by the BI Summit itself, which as I said will involve the talk I'm getting involved in, plus a presentation on BI Suite Enterprise Edition. After that I'll probably grab some dinner and then go up to my room to practice the XML Publisher presentation I'm giving tomorrow at 11.00am.

Finally, if anyone reading this is familiar with Washington and the area that the hotel is in, do you know of anywhere local that worth dropping in to for dinner, breakfast, that sort of thing? I'm on my own over here so I probably won't go right into the city, but if there's somewhere local that's good, let me know. Also, on the Thursday, I should have a few hours free for sightseeing - if you had three hours to spare, where would you go to (I'm thinking the White House, Lincoln Memorial etc but I'm open to suggestions). Also - I'd really like to go down to Georgetown - is there much to see/do there, or is it just houses. Finally - I want to get my two kids presents and also something for my wife - where's the good shopping? (I'm thinking a mall or something, I've only got a few hours).

Anyway, down for breakfast soon, then it's on to preparation for today's meetings and presentations. Bye for now.