(this is a belated post from Tuesday…)

I bet you’re on the edge of your seat wondering what route I took to get to the Boston Convetion Center.

Well, pretend.

I got up and showered and fed the dog before hopping on my bike and
going the 1 mile to the Oak Grove T-stop. I locked up my bike with my
new Kryptonite U-shaped lock. Like a dope, I left a bag attached to the
seat with my gloves and some bike tools in it.

I got on the orange line and it took, like 20 minutes to get in to
Downtown Crossing! I guess that’s how long it always takes — it just
felt much longer today. I got off the orange line and switched to the
red. As I approached the platform the train arrived.

PERFECT!

I went one stop to South Station where I changed to the silver line.
When I approached the platform there was a goofy-ass bus waiting for
me!
PERFECT!

The convention center was a short walk from the T-stop. The
registration process went smoothly. they gave me a big nylon brief case
to hold all my swag in.
It seems like everyone wants to get me on their mailing list. to tempt
me they tell me they want to sign me up for a drawing where I could win
an iPod or something else. But there’s always an iPod to give away.

I competed in a day-time debugging competition. The competitors are
given an SAP that’s been tampered with and told to put it back in
working order in under 30 minutes. I didn’t make it, but I still got a
t-shirt and giant book on learning DB2 just for competing.

They fed us a decent breakfast. I had time to put together my schedule
for the day. I watched the keynote address at 10am by Shai Agassi.

I bumped in to a consultant that we use a lot. I like him and was happy
to see him. I got to see a couple of the vendors at the vendor fair
before having a great lunch (steak & shrimp). I hung around at the
SAP Developers Network “Clubhouse” and sipped capuccino. They had a
gamecube and an X-Box connected to some nice plasma screens. I liked it
up there. I got a chance to talk to them about some of the projects
they’re working on. It was interesting stuff.

I bumped in to an old friend named Al from my Siemens Nixdorf days. He
was running a booth for another company and appeared ot still be doing
well.

I attended an amazingly boring class on SAP’s integrated Internet
Transaction server. What are the advantages of integrating it in to the
netweaver application? Hmmm… I guess I did learn something because I
know a couple of reasons to integrate them. Nonetheless, it was awful.

Still, the next one was all about Single Sign On in a heterogeneous
environment.
And as interesting as that title sounds, the presenter managed to suck
every drop of life out of it. I dozed off while they were presenting.
On the upside, I understand I was only one of about 30 people who fell
asleep.

I was hoping to get more out of these sessions than I did.

I took the T home and brought some flowers for Liz.

I got home and found my stairs had been mostly rebuilt!! happy days!
For the first time EVER the stairs didn’t creek as I climbed them. I
understand there were painters and carpenters crawling all over the
place for much of the day. Tomorrow they will work some more on the
stairs and should be complete on Thursday. The floor-guy will come on
Friday and will replace the floor in the main hallway.

Tomorrow I go to the office for the first half the day. My first class
of the day isn’t until 2pm so I think I’ll go and root around the
vendor fair and see what kind of stuff I can find.

I did actually see a couple of products my company could use. One
company invited me to a party they’re having at a local hotel tomorrow
night. I don’t think I can possibly make it but its nice to be invited.

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