Travel

Korea and Japan visit – Recap, Thank You and Impressions!

Posted on May 1, 2018 by Mike.Dietrich Travel 0

A week ago, Roy and I returned from a 1+ week trip to Korea and Japan. It was wonderful but of course strenuous (as always). As today is a public holiday in many European countries including Germany I’d like to take the chance and write a non-technical short article about our Korea and Japan visit – Recap and Thank You!

Korea and Japan visit – Recap and Thank You!

I love both countries. Not only the countries, the food and the things to see, but of course the people. It’s such a pleasure to work with colleagues and customers in …

Thank you, United Airlines

Posted on June 7, 2017 by Mike.Dietrich Travel 3

Well, we all have read a lot of stories about United Airlines in the past months. And my experience with United isn’t that good either.

In the past, UA managed to either let my luggage sit for 5 days in London while I was already in Redwood Shores, and I spent roughly 10 hours in their terrible telephone system waiting for anybody tracking my luggage. Then UA let my luggage sit for only a day and a bit in Frankfurt while I was staying in Pleasanton, CA. And last weekend all my team mates flying in from Mexico to Nashua …

Lufthansa – 14th pilot strike in 2 years – lovely :-(

Posted on November 29, 2016 by Mike.Dietrich Travel 2

I don’t blame anybody. Really, I don’t.

But nevertheless this is awkward.

Bodenhansa - Lufthansa
Source: Facebook – https://scontent.fmuc2-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/15193604_10210663792047910_5774221704440071551_n.jpg?oh=99f7242c9283bf664db779354d594b3b&oe=58B51EA1

I’ve got affected by the most recent – the 14th (!!!) in two years – strike of the Lufthansa pilots. And not for the first time. I’ve had my share of strike experience already quite often in the past years with my main airline carrier.

Last week I had a hard time to reschedule my flight to Brussels, and I’ve got stuck in the Netherlands the other day as the workers union VC who’s taking care on the belongings of estimated 5400 Lufthansa …

Silence for some weeks?

Posted on June 15, 2016 by Mike.Dietrich Travel 0

You may wonder why I haven’t posted many things in the past weeks. Or why I haven’t replied to your comments yet. The few posts were pre-written – and I took off for a few weeks and traveled on the West Coast of the US from San Francisco towards the north.

So while I’m writing new content and answering your comments and building up a new hands-on lab for our upcoming workshops let me share some pictures with you – fully off-topic of course 🙂

Plenty of clouds in Northern California

Coast north of SF

Redwood NP

Orgeon

Mnt Hood

Some Seoul Impressions – 09/2015

Posted on October 1, 2015 by Mike.Dietrich Travel 0

A very intense week in Seoul, Korea, is over – and Roy and I both returned a bit sick 😉 The pleasures of traveling …

But thanks to all our colleagues who did all the orga work, to everybody who traveled from near and far to our 2 day internal workshop (and I still remember many names 🙂 – it was great fun to spend those two days with all of you) – and of course the the customers and partners we’ve had the pleasure either to visit or come to our workshop. Upgrade is in your hands …

Some Tokyo Impressions – January 2015

Posted on January 20, 2015 by Mike.Dietrich Travel 1

Just some impressions from our week in Tokyo, Japan in January 2015.

Tokyo 2015

-Mike…

Beijing, Seoul – and OTN Tour Tokyo – just in one week

Posted on November 6, 2014 by Mike.Dietrich Travel Workshop 0

Uhhh … next week will be a tough traveling experience. 19870 km (12347 mi), all in cattle class on 4 different airlines.

I tried to avoid Lufthansa as they canceled recently flights I heavily relied on – with no reason! And there’s still a huge risk of announcing just their 9th strike within a year and a bit.

But I’m really looking forward to the workshops, to see all the colleagues, customers and of course some great friends. Roy and I will do two internal two-day workshops in Beijing and Seoul with each more than 50 participants – and …

Back on Track :-)

Posted on July 7, 2014 by Mike.Dietrich Travel 0

No updates for almost 3 weeks? Well … sometimes I need a bit of vacation as well … and for sure I didn’t board an airplane. Thanks for staying tuned and you’ll see the next update within a few hours 🙂

–Mike…

Thank You for flying with “Hello Kitty” ;-)

Posted on February 19, 2014 by Mike.Dietrich Travel 0

Yesterday Roy and I flew directly after the workshop in Seoul to Taipeh in Taiwan. It’s our first time in Taiwan – and the flight to Taipeh with EVA Airlines was quite surprising 😉 I didn’t took a picture in the bathroom …

“Thank You for flying with Hello Kitty!”.

-Mike…

Some impressions from Australia

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Mike.Dietrich Travel 0

Being again in Australia was – again – a great experience. If only traveling to Down Under wouldn’t take this long … 🙂 But thanks to everybody who showed up – and sorry to those which got a “Sorry, it’s sold out already!” message. It was pure fun to talk to you and we’ll hope to get a lot of people to move onwards to Oracle 12c as soon as possible. Don’t forget: 11.2 will go out of Premier Support in less than 12 months from now on. Of course we’ll return one day – and certainly our colleagues …

Workshops 2013 – Recap and Map

Posted on January 16, 2014 by Mike.Dietrich Travel 0

2013 wasn’t a quiet year. But due to the slip of Oracle Database 12c we’ve had way less workshops than in the years before. But less workshops doesn’t mean less work. It just means different tasks such as more development work, refreshing our entire slide deck (will be uploaded tonight in a fresh new version), learning about new stuff such as Oracle Multitenant, attending at the OTN ACE Tour in Scandinavia, South and Mid America.

In tradition we’ll publish a map with markers in countries Roy and I had been in the past year. You can access …

Pictures from the OTN Tour 2013

Posted on August 23, 2013 by Mike.Dietrich Travel Workshop 0

Some very nice pics from the OTN South Leg 2013 in Uruguay, Argentina and Brasil taken mostly by the user group photographers 🙂

Thanks and credits to those who took the pictures 🙂

OTN Tour 2013 – Argentina

OTN Tour 2013 – Uruguay

OTN Tour 2013 – Brazil

– Mike…

Muchas gracias, Buenos Aires :-)

Posted on August 14, 2013 by Mike.Dietrich Travel Workshop 0

Again, thanks a lot to everybody who did attend to our Lab at the OTN Tour 2013 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and/or to Roy’s talk about Data Pump in Oracle Database 12c and my presentation about News in Database Upgrades to Oracle Database 12c on August 7. It was our pleasure to meet and work together with you. And thanks to the local folks of ArOUG organizing such a great event and taking care on us.

And – on another note – the person who did accidentally take one of our 64GB thumb drives at the Hands-On-Lab may please …

Muchas gracias, Montevideo :-)

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Mike.Dietrich Travel 0

Muchas gracias to everybody who did attend our Hands-On-Lab on Monday and Roy’s presentation yesterday at the OTN Tour 2013 in Montevideo. And thanks a lot to our hosts, Edelweiss, Nelson, Paolo and Daniel from the UYOUG. You were so nice, so helpful, so hospitable – it made this event and our stay a very special thing!

As usual you can download the slides from the Slides Download Center to the right (scroll down a bit, please).

And as I enjoyed Montevideo a lot here are a few impressions:

-Mike…

Thanks to our User Groups in Panama, Costa Rica, and Mexico!

Posted on July 31, 2013 by Roy.Swonger Travel 0

I just have a few moments in the airport to say “Thanks!” to the Oracle User Groups in Panama, Costa Rica, and Mexico for a great series of events last week. Your hospitality was wonderful, and I appreciate the work that goes into organizing and running events like these.

And thanks especially to everybody who came to learn about the variety of topics: Database Upgrades, Oracle Database 12c, Hadoop, EBS, Enterprise Manager, and more.

Great audience at the OTN Tour in Mexico City

Mike and I are looking forward to the OTN Tour events next week in Montevideo, Buenos Aires, and São Paulo!…

Back Home …

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Mike.Dietrich Travel 0

Now finally back from my short trip to Johannesburg, South Africa. Flying out Monday overnight, returning Friday morning after another overnight flight (all Eco). But thanks to Turkish Airlines – including the short stop-over in Istanbul was worth it as the seating comfort in Turkish’s economy class is far better than Lufthansa’s – as is the food and especially the entertainment system, the service … almost everything. And luckily the Turkish Airline’s employees didn’t go on strike in Thursday 🙂

But after running now 6 internal Oracle Database 12c: Upgrade, Migrate and Consolidate workshops in the US and …

Mile High … Collaborate 2013 in Denver

Posted on April 11, 2013 by Mike.Dietrich Travel 0

Collaborate 2013 is almost over – we are running our final Hands-On-Lab session right now in the Convention Center in Denver, Colorado. For those seeking for the Hands-On-Lab Instructions for our session please be patient until Oracle Database 12c gets released. As soon as this happens we’ll offer you the HOL Instructions plus many more information about Oracle Database 12c and the different upgrade and migration paths.

Denver apparently has become my no.3 US city – not only because the mountains are so close by. But the city itself is really worth a visit 🙂 Please find some impressions …

Long time no update …

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Mike.Dietrich Oracle Database 12c Travel 0

I deeply apologize for not updating the blog for some weeks now. I’m still working for Oracle, still in the same group – but due to some other things going on in preparation for Oracle Database 12c I had either no time or simply nothing to report at the moment. I didn’t want to bore you with Oracle Database 11.2 stuff as the slides don’t get changed right now. Oracle Database 11.2.0.4 patchset should be available sometime in early summer with a good bunch of fixes included.

Roy and me had delivered the first internal only Upgrade, Migrate and Consolidate …

Where’s Gangnam?

Posted on October 25, 2012 by Mike.Dietrich Travel 1

When somebody did mention “PSY” during a dinner at OOW this year with customers and colleagues from Korea I was completely clueless. I even didn’t understand correctly who or what “PSY” is. I did forget about that until last week as a German online magazine did report on over 500 mio youtube hits for “Gangnam Style“. Well … I didn’t know that I’ve almost missed a global phenomenon. And now I’ve learned that the song is omnipresent in Korea (and not only here) – and Gangnam is a really nice (and expensive) quarter of Seoul …

OOW 2012:
Under the Bridge ;-)

Posted on October 4, 2012 by Mike.Dietrich Travel 0

Just some impressions …

Remember SF’s landmark, Golden Gate bridge? Well …

Moon over Bay Bridge…

Airline mess – what a journey

Posted on September 28, 2012 by Mike.Dietrich Travel 0

What a day, what a journey …

Flew this noon from Munich to Zuerich for catch my ongoing flight to San Francisco with Swiss. And that day did start very well as Lufthansa messed up the connection flight by 42 minutes for a 35 minute flight. And as I was obviously the only passenger connection to San Francisco nobody picked me up at the airplane to bring me directly to my connection as Swiss did for the 8 passengers connection to Miami. So I missed my flight. What a start – and many thanks to Lufthansa. I was not …

Workshop in Denver canceled – thanks to hurricane Isaac

Posted on September 5, 2012 by Mike.Dietrich Travel 0

Yesterday Roy did start his journey on time to travel to Denver, CO for today’s Upgrade and Migration Workshop.

But unfortunately due to the remnants of hurricane Issac moving up the East Coast and scrambling up flight schedules Roy’s flight from NYC to Denver got canceled after a 3 hour delay leaving Manchester, NH, and there was no option to arrive in Denver this morning on time.

So we apologize for canceling that workshop. The local marketing department will contact you regarding an alternative date. Sorry for any inconvenience!…

Some impressions from Seoul and Beijing

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Mike.Dietrich Travel 0

There was not much time left to walk around and take some pictures during our fully packed workshop week in Seoul and Beijing. But as I have my camera almost always in my pocket I took some pictures … 🙂

Seoul View

Seoul Food … yes … BEEF … wonderfully thin sliced beef on the barbecue grid

Tumbling Seoul
(that’s exactly how I felt in the morning after our night at Peter, Paul and Mary’s (see below)).

Modern Beijing … very modern

Well … or even more modern …

There’s always a traffic jam … simply too many cars … …

The best Bar on the globe is … in Seoul/Korea

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Mike.Dietrich Music & HiFi Travel 3

As you know already sometimes I write about things which really don’t have to do anything with a database upgrade. So if you are looking for tips and tricks and articles about that topic please stop reading now 🙂

Actually I’m not a lets-go-to-a-bar person. I enjoy good food and a fine dessert wine afterwards. But last week in Seoul/Korea Ryan, our local host, did ask us after a wonderful dinner at a Korean Barbecue place if we’d like to visit a bar. I was really tired as I flew into Seoul overnight from Sunday to Monday arriving Monday early …

Travel

Thank you, United Airlines

Lufthansa – 14th pilot strike in 2 years – lovely :-(

Silence for some weeks?

Some Seoul Impressions – 09/2015

Some Tokyo Impressions – January 2015

Beijing, Seoul – and OTN Tour Tokyo – just in one week

Back on Track :-)

Thank You for flying with “Hello Kitty” ;-)

Some impressions from Australia

Workshops 2013 – Recap and Map

Pictures from the OTN Tour 2013

Muchas gracias, Buenos Aires :-)

Muchas gracias, Montevideo :-)

Thanks to our User Groups in Panama, Costa Rica, and Mexico!

Back Home …

Mile High … Collaborate 2013 in Denver

Long time no update …

Where’s Gangnam?

OOW 2012:
Under the Bridge ;-)

Airline mess – what a journey

Workshop in Denver canceled – thanks to hurricane Isaac

Some impressions from Seoul and Beijing

The best Bar on the globe is … in Seoul/Korea

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