Miracle DBF - Day 1

These Miracle guys (and girls) certainly know how to stage an event. My highlights of the last 24 hours include

Sitting in the baby seats at the back of Mogens 7-seater, surrounded by everyone's luggage and some goat food, with Jonathan Lewis lording it at the front. Mogens has a really nice place - fantastic tree-house, office/garage right next door and ... (and this may be a first for this blog - real animals) very cool goats.

This is what a room full of geeks at an Oak Table looks like. I was hiding out in the next room, deep in presentation thought.

One of Thomas Presslie and Bill Thater chewing the fat.

Jonathan and I volunteered for one of the earlier lifts to Lalandia. It was about a two hour drive on what seemed like one of the straightest roads I've travelled, but the chat was great and I hardly noticed the time pass. Vivi Magnussen was our extremely pregnant driver and her partner, Morten Egan, the supplier of fine sweets. There were only two of us in the back which was a very rare treat I suspect and the first thing Morten asked me was - so is the turtle with you, or in the trailer? Sadly, Derek Junior was in the trailer with everyone else's luggage, but was liberated later.

We were possibly the very first to register, which meant that we were first in the house, and able to grab any room we wanted Our housemates were pre-assigned, so I'm sharing with Graham Wood, Cary Millsap, Tim Gorman and Tom Kyte. Cary's not here yet, so I had the room to myself for the first night

There are only two keys per house, so I popped back with mine to make things easier and a rather bedraggled-looking Tom Kyte turned up. I think his car trip down had been a little tighter than mine! He needed a beer. One small tip, though. In most countries I've been to, I need to ask for a large beer in order to get something approaching a pint. It wasn't until Tom ordered his that I realised why my 750ml glass had been making me feel so small. Tom ordered the 500ml glass and I instantly recognised something similar to 'a pint'. I spent a long time drinking mine and slowly absorbing the lesson.

The evening event was cool - a classic Mogens introduction where he introduced various Miracle directors and on to a 42-question technical quiz with fantastic prizes. I was in the front row and a rather competitive-looking Jonathan Lewis took the seat besides me. I folded up my answer paper and tucked it into my pocket In the end, after some serious debate over some of the answers, Tom narrowly beat Jonathan to win the proper bed with room service next time he's at Mogen's place! Jonathan retired to bed. He claims he likes to sleep at night but I think it was just the crushing disappointment of losing by a fraction of a point

Then we all adjourned to one of the houses for many drinks. A presentation is starting, so I'll blog about that a bit more later ...