Spending Time in London

I’m currently working in London, to the west of the centre but within coverage of the underground system. As a result, getting to and from home and work takes a looong time. This gives me a little time to do stuff on my netbook on the train, but if it is really busy and when I am on the tube it is not possible to do this. It’s wasted time.

To keep as much of my sanity intact as I can and reduce the amount of time I spend doing nothing but wondering why all other commuters appear so unfriendly {I know, most of them are thinking exactly the same :-)}, I opt to stay in London a couple of nights a week. The benefit of this is that either I have nothing to do in the evening and I can read manuals and do this blog {or alternatively watch rubbish on TV or read a book}. Or I can go and drink beer with people I know. I don’t know that many people in London, I have to confess, but I have had a couple of very enjoyable evenings so far.

Tonight was with Doug Burns. I don’t know Doug that well, but have enjoyed talking to him at UKOUG meetings and exchanging emails/comments on blogs. It was excellent to spend a couple of hours and maybe one too many beers with Doug and talk about what can only be described as an eclectic range of topics. I also managed to mug him for his excellent presentation on AWR for the next MI SIG meeting in October. I hope that last beer was not too much and he remembers…

This is part of the whole Oracle Community thing. It’s good to Blog, it’s good to go on forums and it is good to exchange emails, but you can’t beat meeting in person, either at conference, at user group meetings or just because you are in the same town that evening. I find once you have met, communicating is a lot easier {I had an excellent night in Newcastle with Piet de Visser about 18 months ago and now we exchange rants and thoughts quite often}. So, if anyone out there is in London and fancies a beer, you could drop me a line. I’ll buy the first one if you ask nicely.

Right, where was that manual on oracle wait interface…Oh, “Celebrity animals have got talent on ice” has come on the TV, maybe I’ll watch that.