The Data Warrior

Changing the world, one data model at a time. How can I help you?

Archive for the tag “#chigung”

01 Oct 2012
2 Comments

Oracle Open World 2012: Day 2

A crazy group of us got the day off to a rip roaring start by heading down to the Dolphin Club on San Francisco Bay for an early morning swim in the bay. We cabbed it down and were greeted by a full moon over the Golden Gate Bridge.

Good Morning San Francisco Bay!

It was about 62 degrees (F) and the water was purported to be 59 degrees (F), even if it felt much colder. Here I am with my friend Debra Lilley (@debralilley) and few other crazy Oracle people, right before we took the plunge.

Ready to swim the bay!

Well, we all survived. You can see more pictures on twitter (@kentgraziano) and Facebook if you really feel the need.

Thanks to our buddy Chet (@oraclenerd) for setting this up and shaming us into doing it. It was quite invigorating and great way to start the day. (I did some Chi Gung on the beach too in order to prepare and to warm back up). Next year, we want ribbons or t-shirts or something for the effort.

After trekking back to the hotel and cleaning up, it was on to the conference.

Missed the keynotes but instead got to attend a real live press briefing (thanks to my blogger status) with Mark Hurd, the president of Oracle Corporation.

Mark Hurd Press Conference

It was great to be in the small room with all the reporters and bloggers getting the scope first hand from Mr. Hurd about Oracle’s strategy.

Oracle Strategy

The slide sums it up well – simplify IT by providing a complete stack of software and hardware and by giving customers complete choice. The choice now is host your own set up, use a private cloud, use a public cloud (hosted by Oracle), or use a hybrid model. You pick where and what you want hosted. You can mix and match and change your mind later. Sounds like a good idea. The next year or so will show us how will it works as a model.

Mark had a lot to tell us, much of which you will be able to read elsewhere in the main stream tech media. The thing that got my attention was the fact that Oracle  has spent over $14 billion (with a B) in the last two years on R&D, and over $6 billion in the last year on mergers and acquisitions. It is good to be Uncle Larry.

Most memorable quote from Mark: “we are the best”.

In other news…

The exhibit halls opened today. Bigger and more stuffed than before . A dizzying array of vendors hawking their wares. This year there is even an Airstream trailer and a very large Buddha in the hall (check my twitter stream for pictures of those).

OOW 2012 Exhibit Hall Opens

I spent some time in the hall today catching up with some product managers, learning about Oracle NoSQL, and even talked to the MongoDB guys (another NoSQL engine). So much information, so little time.

Went to a few sessions as well. Checked out Big Data Mining and RDF Graph Tools. Still trying to get my head around why you use these other technology approaches like RDF, NoSQL, and Hadoop. Spatial I get, since I did some GIS work in the past, but these others are harder.  Lots of companies seem to be including them in their overall solution architecture so there is something to it. I think I just have not run across a real need on my projects (at least not yet).

Like Oracle Endeca, there are a lot of advances in what Oracle is building in this space.

I am sure it will sink in eventually.

Oracle In-Database Analytics Platform

On the networking side, I attended the ODTUG reception this evening and manage to hear the last two tunes from Jimmy Cliff who was performing at the Oracle Music festival.

Tomorrow – chi gung in the morning, two keynotes and a few sessions. Then the first every Tweet Meet at OOW.

More to come…

Kent

 

 

Posted in Chi Gung, Oracle and tagged , , , , ,
14 Sep 2012

Oracle Music Fest Schedule is Out & My Oracle OpenWorld Schedule

Happy Friday!

Yes Oracle has finally relased the schedule of artists and DJ who will grace tha attendees at OOW 2012 with their talent.

Suffice it to say – WOW!

You get all the details over at the OOW site – here.

And I have finally put together my tentative schedule of events, sessions, meetups, and concerts. I plan to focus on data warehousing, BI, and SQL Developer (no surprise there). Looking forward to learning about some new tools (Endeca), and more about Exalytics.

Also looking forward to seeing and networking with longtime friends and colleagues.

And of course, hearing some GREAT music (followed by early morning Chi Gung to keep healthy and energized).

You can see my schedule by clicking the link below (PDF).

OOW Schedule

I added a bit of color to differentiate the fun stuff from the work stuff…

There are few other dinners, etc on my agenda too (Stinking Rose anyone?), but some things you all do not really need to know <wink>.

Have a great weekend.

See you in SFO.

Kent

Posted in Oracle, User Groups and tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment
21 Aug 2012
3 Comments

Fun and Education at Oracle OpenWorld 2012 and the 1st OOW Music Fest

Hard to believe, but here we are again – almost time for Oracle OpenWorld 2012.

Will you be in San Francisco September 30 – October 4th? I will.

This year, along with the usual keynotes, exhibits, and sessions, Oracle is introducing the first every Oracle Music Festival. Like the famous SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, this festival has a stellar lineup of exceptional performers who will be playing at venues all around downtown San Francisco.

Something for everyone – rock, jazz, pop, blues, and reggae. And the hottest DJ’s in SF.

All free for attendees.

Check out the details here.

Of course  the real reason we all go is to network with colleagues and Oracle folks and get the scoop on the newest stuff.

Once again this year, my  favorite user group (ODTUG) has put together an outstanding lineup of speakers giving presentations throughout the week as well as five stellar symposiums running in parallel on Sunday.

We’ve got APEX, BI, Fusion, Database Development, Hyperion/EPM.

We’ve got ACEs, ACE Directors, and just the best and brightest Oracle developers in the world.

Hope you are registered and ready to get in on the action.

Look me up in San Francisco!

Kent

P.S. Anyone up for Chi Gung? Drop me a line if you are.

Posted in Chi Gung, Oracle, User Groups and tagged , , ,
09 Jul 2012
1 Comment

Learn a Little Chi Gung with my KScope Morning Chi Gung Video

A little background…

Last year for the ODTUG Kscope conference, then-president Mike Riley asked me if there was something from my martial arts training that I could offer to Kscope attendees that would enhance their conference experience.

I proposed doing some Chi Gung moving mediation exercises in the morning, something I had started teaching at summer martial arts camps about 20 years ago.

The ODTUG Board accepted the proposal and the rest, as they say, is history.

We introduced Morning Chi Gung at Kscope11 in Long Beach, California with great success and reviews.

We did it again for Kscope12 at the beautiful JW Marriott in San Antonio, Texas, with another great turn out. I lead sessions every day, Sunday through Thursday at 7 AM. (It went so well a few folks even joined me on Friday morning after the conference for one more session.)

This year we also added organized running groups and a running meet-up sign up board to encourage attendees to network in a new way.

Fitness activities are fast becoming a ODTUG tradition, so we plan to do them again at Kscope13 in New Orleans.

As far as I know, ODTUG is the first, and maybe only, Oracle user event to offer organized fitness activities for attendees. It may be the only technology conference doing so.

Pretty cool. Hopefully we will inspire other events to add similar activities.

Morning Chi Gung at Kscope12

My morning Chi Gung group

Chi Gung – The Video

Several of the attendees this year wanted to be sure they could continue to practice the meditations after the conference was over. So they asked if I had any videos of the routines available. There are a few clips from KScope11 but none with audio instructions.

Thanks to Lori (ODTUG Social Media Maven) and her digital video camera, we have a brand new instructional video to share with everyone. Now I had to work around having a microphone with a short cord attached to my jacket, but the audio is really good so you will have no problem hearing my instructions and descriptions of the various exercises.

The video is now live online on the ODTUG YouTube Channel over here.

In the video you will see me give detailed instructions and explanations of several Chi Gung “still stance” breathing meditations. I lead the group in doing Upward-Downward, Inward-Outward, Raised Hands Stance, Tai Chi Ball, Four Forms, and the Warrior Energy Form. Each of these moving meditative sets can be done individually or in the series as demonstrated, depending on your available time and fitness level.

So if you were in my classes, I hope you find the video useful to help you continue your practice.

If you weren’t there, I hope the video will inspire you to start a new practice.

Either way I hope you will all join me at KScope13 next year in New Orleans.

Until then…Peace

Kent

P.S. If you have not done so already, please consider subscribing to this blog, or follow me on Twitter @KentGraziano

Posted in Chi Gung, Fitness and tagged , , , , , , ,
28 Jun 2012
2 Comments

ODTUG KScope: Day 5 – Happy Trails

Well the final day of KScope12 finally arrived and it was another hot one with the final sessions and the Texas heat. Another bright red sunrise greeted us as it has all week.

image

Today I managed to get a picture of the group that showed up for Chi Gung every day at 7 AM. We even had some new people today (officially the last day). They all enjoyed the sessions and learned (hopefully) enough to practice a bit once they return home.

I am grateful to all the participants for showing up early each morning with enthusiasm and a willingness to try something new. It made my job to lead them much easier. (There will be a You Tube video sometime next week for people to review, so stay tuned)

The first order of business for the day (after Chi Gung) was the official KScope closing session. Even though there were still two sessions to go afterward we had the closing at 9:45 AM. We were entertained, yet again, with some photo and video footage taken throughout the week, including one interview with me! We also learned who got the presenter awards for each track and for the entire event.

Then we all got beads to remind us to go to KScope13 in New Orleans.

Next was my final session for the event: Reverse Engineering (and Re-Engineering) an Existing Database with Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler.

I had a surprising number of people for the last day after the closing session. I think there was about 70 people wanting to learn more about SDDM. Apparently most people are unaware of the features of the tool (which I have written about on several posts).

So, that was nice.

Finally I went to JP Dicjks talk about Big Data and Predicting the Future.

His basic premise is that we should now never throw away any data as it all can be used to extend the depth of analytics. We can react to events in real time and proactively change outcomes of those events.

The diagram above shows the basics of one way that data moves through the world and into the Hadoop file systems. I am oversimplifying but it is a cool diagram.

Part of the challenge is uncovering un-modeled data. I guess that is where the recent Oracle acquisition, Endeca, comes in with their Data Discovery tool (again oversimplifying) .

And that was pretty much it for the show. It was a great week with lots of learning and networking (and tweeting). We all had a good time and learned enough to make our heads explode.

I look forward to meeting folks again next year at KScope13 in New Orleans.

Kent

Posted in Chi Gung, Data Warehouse, ODTUG, Oracle, SQL Developer Data Modeler and tagged , , , , , , , ,

Post Navigation

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →