Kscope13, day -1

Introduction

For the last two years at Kscope I have live-blogged during the conference; Kscope13 will be no different.  This is both a fun and difficult task/duty.  Sometimes I am really, really, really busy and cannot blog during the day – I will do my best, but no promises.  And with that slightly deflating disclaimer, off we go.

Where oh where am I?

Why on the 31st floor of the Sheraton New Orleans.  Yes, that’s the Mississippi.  The view is pretty spectacular at night.

Volunteer day kickoff

The EPM (Essbase only, actually) started its relationship with ODTUG at Kaleidoscope 2008.  2008 was also the first volunteer event at the then Kaleidoscope and was in fact in a school.  We were back at a school, this time the Charles Easton Charter High School, in the Mid City/Bayou St. John districts of New Orleans.  

We did the usual back breaking (but welcome) work:  moving, painting, sanding, cleaning, etc.  Here we are in the cafeteria about to split up to our respective tasks.

Like a fool (I think I mentioned this in my last post), and yes, with me that is redundancy, I “knew” that indoors was hot, and outdoors was…less hot.  Hmm, I did not count on the working airconditioning but as I ignored my way out of the work I should have done and instead went to the outdoors work, you can guess it was hot, really hot.  And what did I do?  Sanded wood to make it available for picnic tables and benches.  Here’s William Booth hard at work.  Hot work, indeed.

Here’s a view of the painting.  We were busy, busy, busy.

You can see the lumber pile to the right – it’s just a fraction of what we sanded by hand.  

There was a bit of a spanner thrown into the works because of a rainstorm that happened in the middle of the outdoors work but we simply covered up and jumped back outside the moment the rain stopped.

The payoff and a warning

The school was really very nice about thanking we ODTUGers (not the official name but one I like) for the hard work we did.  It really is a pleasure and one of the things that differentiates Kscope from every other conference.

Back at the hotel, as I made my way up to my room, wet, smelly, and utterly wringed out, two women asked, “What’s an Od-Tug”.  I explained that we are an Oracle software conference (I passed by the whole the user conference marketing moment although perhaps I shouldn’t have) and that we always kick off with a volunteer day.  They were pretty surprised and said that it was really awesome we gave back to whatever town hosts our conference.  

It is really awesome and as I wrote, it makes Kscope unlike any other conference.

And now the warning

Hey, when the NOPD tells you not to bring a gun onto school property, they really mean it.  Hey, it’s only up to five years of hard labor in a chain gang; think how well you’ll be able to hone your Cool Hand Luke impersonation.  Happily I was only armed with my rapier wit.

There’s still the Welcome Reception to come later tonight.  

I hope to be seeing you all at Kscope13.