Oracle OpenWorld - Day Three - Closing the Day

Just a quick update before bed. I ate early dinner in garlic heaven at The Stinking Rose. The ambience was combination old Italy (bottles of vino hanging from the ceiling) and garlic (they apparently have the world's largest garlic braid running around the room). Appetizers were garlic hummus cocktail, garlic Swiss chard fontina fondue, and garlic bread. For an entrée, I had neon ravioli with garlic basil sauce. I really wanted to try their "garlic soaking in a hot tub" but it had anchovies and I don't eat fishies. For dessert, they offered garlic ice cream, but I wimped out and got the non-garlic ice cream sundae. I spent the dinner discussing politics and television (Pushing Daisies? Love it! This season of Heroes and Prison Break? Not so much!). We discussed very little of the conference except to say that we all miss Solutions. I know I've been beating this dead horse point, but we're all in agreement on two points: Oracle puts on a very well organized show, and their Hyperion program is almost all marketing.

We finished dinner around 8, so I taxied over to Myth for late dinner. I got there really early and scoped the place. In my interRel polo and Oracle geek jacket, I felt very underdressed. I did enjoy people watching (I think I saw the cast of "The L Word: San Francisco" at the bar) while waiting for the rest of the crowd to arrive at 9. The décor was upscale and the food was mostly Californian with a little French thrown in to get the price of the entrees up. I ordered a vegetarian risotto. Discussion at dinner was mostly around Hyperion/Oracle and past conferences. One of the people at dinner remembered me from "Eddie and the Consultants: A System 9 Musical" so we went through the whole history of its evolution from a twinkle in my eye to a cast of thousands (oh, wait: it was a cost of thousands not a cast of thousands).

I never made it to the partner reception. Tomorrow I have keynotes to attend, but the Hyperion program is officially over. Most everyone that was here just for Hyperion is flying back today. I'm staying for a few more days to absorb the full OpenWorld experience. I may not be blogging as actively unless I encounter something particularly relevant (or snarky).