Pythian Goodies - PX

When I was in Ottawa, Christo Kutrovsky asked me to talk about Parallel Execution for the series of Pythian Goodies he's organising. After I'd done it, I insisted that he let me see the video before it was published on the web so that I could make sure that I was happy with it.

After watching it (which is a tough call in the first place - you should try it!) I had a page full of notes of things I'd said unclearly, misleadingly and some of doubtful accuracy too. There are times when I wonder about the rubbish that can tumble out of my mouth for a few moments. Most instructors will tell you that they've experienced that more than once - mouth open before head fully into gear.

But, rather than whine about it and refuse to let it out, I thought it would be okay because

1) I don't underestimate how much some people might want to see it. Not so much for the technical content as to "meet" me That's not a conceited as it sounds because I've experienced for myself what it's like to meet someone who you only know electronically, and it's a super-duper version of 'putting a face to the name'. With the video out there, I can safely stick to photos of The Boys (and Polly) for my blog. (Oh, and I do recognise 'me' in this video, at least I got that bit right )

2) Christo was very specific in his intention that this would not be a presentation, but an informal discussion (note the use of the term 'pissed-off users'!), and so he wanted me to talk off the top of my head about some things I thought a wide range of DBAs with different skill levels and interests might find useful. He did not want me to repeat any presentation that I might have spent a lot of time preparing. Christo talks about the format more in the announcement blog. I think I got the general idea but as close friends won't be surprised to hear, the audience didn't get as much of a word in as they're supposed to

3) My preparation time immediately before I stood up was filled with answering an urgent customer email straight before walking in to start, so I was a little flustered to say the least!

I promised myself I would limit the excuses and self-flagellation, so I'll leave it there. I still have that list of slightly stupid things I said but I'll be keeping it to myself until I see who picks up on what I might post some basic corrections later.

Keep an eye out for it on Pythian's blog because I think it will be appearing soon, maybe later today.

The bit you'll miss, sadly, is the post meeting discussion over pizza

The bit you'll miss, hopefully, is the fact that my flies are undone for the entire presentation!

The bit that I hope some well-known Oracle types might miss is me ripping them off, arguing with their views and name-dropping shamelessly! I must have forgotten the video camera and I seem to recall I make reference to this towards the end!

Let me know what you think of it, anyway, but only if you're nice about it
and you should feel more than free to post questions, corrections and so on to the blog itself, so that they exist alongside the video.