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For those who haven’t been to San Francisco, it’s one of those places blessed with ideal weather.  Of course it does get foggy and colder in the winter, but September is a great month to be here.  Nice, cool with some humidity, so you aren’t too dry.  Meanwhile, in the downtown area of San Francisco, things are heating up as Oracle Open World 2008 kicks off.

I decided to fly in yesterday and avoid the travel rush of Sunday.  It was a good choice, the airports were not crowded at either end.  Many attendees will arrive today, since the conference kicks off in full-force tomorrow.

Today’s schedule is primarily focused on many of the Special Interest Group meetings.  I’m planning on being at several OAUG SIG meetings today, including the OAUG Upgrade SIG and the Middleware SIG.  But there will be dozens of other Users Groups holding sessions as well, including QUEST, IOUG, IDTUG, and a lot of other acronymns I don’t recall.  There will also be other sessions that are more focused on new learning topics such as:

* IOUG and ODTUG: Building Web 2.0 Social Applications in Ruby on Rails with BEA AquaLogic Interaction
* Using Oracle SOA Suite to Integrate Oracle E-Business Suite with Your Enterprise
* Oracle Database 10g 10.2.0.4 Upgrade and Changes
* IOUG and ODTUG: BEA AquaLogic Versus Oracle Fusion Middleware Shootout

This will go on all day and then wrap up with a keynote speech by “Washington’s best-loved political couple, Mary Matalin and James Carville, who will entertain the crowd with a bitingly humorous look at the world of politics”.

Not sure what this has to do with Oracle’s products but given this is a heavy political year why not invite a couple who disagrees on just about everything in politics, right?

I’m rooming out near the airport to avoid the high prices of hotels in the downtown area so I’ll be commuting back and forth via BART.  This will be interesting, so stay tuned…

Incidentally, if you’re entering Triora Group’s “Oracle Open World Get Me Some Bling!” contest, I’ve highlighted the answer to today’s question. Just click on the answer, and you’ll be taken to the questionnaire.