was Firebird, now, brain farts

Well, fantastic to see some of the faces I remember from previous FB conferences. I attended Fulda (1), Prague (3) and now Hamburg (5), so I missed last year. Beer is being drunk in the bar as I type and I am back in my room making sure I have everything under control for tomorrow (OK, so I had a couple of beers, would have been rude not to). Nervously, I was hoping to get into the room I am speaking in tomorrow and check that everything is set up and working, but Holger is a lot more laid back about it. We'll test everything is OK tomorrow morning after breakfast, before registration.

Now I have brought my camera, but no lead to connect camera to laptop, so it is going to be camera phone shots whilst I am here.

I am doing 5 sessions tomorrow, as an Introduction to Firebird - I had assumed that everyone that comes to the event would be a FB expert, so I am a little nervous about how many people will attend and if the content is meaty enough for them. It does appear, however, that the key focus of the conference is beer and socialising with a FB technical bias - I think there may be some sore heads in the morning. Oh and it is raining again

... Does anyone remember this, the damn cuckoo clock!

Well, arrived in a very wet Hamburg. The directions from the Airport to the Hotel seemed very complicated and almost drove me to get a Taxi. But I don't think you learn as much that way, so I took a look at the map at the station, worked out where I was going and after missing the first bus, managed to get all the way here. Observation: The locals must walk slow (the blurb said 5 minute walk from the station and it was actually 2 minutes), a lot of people were drinking beer at 15:30 and a lot of people smoke. The beer idea is good, but I think I'll be taking it easy until I have completed the first day of talks.

Briefly met Holger and Paul Beach and had a quick dinner before talking to wife and kids on Skype (excellent DSL access in the hotel rooms - kind of what you might expect from T Mobile's training facility).

More of what I am talking about in Hamburg etc to follow. Just wanted to kick the blog off before going to have a "speakers meeting" at 20:00.