Dave's Adventures in Business Intelligence

I was fortunate to once again be invited down to the Mastering BusinessObjects conference in Australia. I hope this conference continues to do well because I certainly enjoy going. Two weeks prior to this conference I was at ASUG Annual Conference / SAPPHIRE, and the difference is substantial. SAPPHIRE is HUGE, which might explain why their name is in ALL CAPS. 😀 The Mastering conference is much smaller (they’re only just getting started, really) and feels much more intimate. I talked to quite a few folks and got to hear some really interesting stories.

And like last year I got a few pictures…

The Airbus is an amazing airplane. It’s huge (double-decker) but incredibly smooth and quiet. I really enjoy flying on this plane.

I got to Melbourne early in the morning after flying all night. Here was the view from my hotel (quite a bit different from Manly last year).

They took a number of pictures of the speakers. Here’s one of me where I am obviously trying to make a point.

One night I was invited to join Tom Nather (and his wonderful wife and daughter) for dinner…

… on this trolley car…

The trolley spent 90 minutes driving around Melbourne while we ate a wonderful meal and were entertained by the restaurant staff. The food was amazing. After the food, we walked back to our hotel and saw the flaming casino.

The jets of fire go off every hour on the hour. We were across the river when I took this picture and we could still feel the heat!

On our continued walk back we saw this restaurant:

On Thursday I had a free day before heading back home. I walked all around downtown area looking for fun shops. I love learning about new musical artists, so I searched for music stores within easy walking distance of my hotel. I found five. Four were local independent stores like Record Collectors Corner:

or the appropriately named Basement Discs:

I was also drawn to what I am calling a “Corvette Truck” because I don’t know of any other way to describe it:

It’s a GM vehicle, but not one that they sell here in the United States. It sure looked fun to drive though. Even if the steering wheel was on the wrong side…