Today started bright and early…which was just fine – my body keeps thinking I’m back in Texas and wakes me up at 6am everyday. But this morning was something a bit special. I joined the SQL Developer community (hosted by Jeff Smith and Kris Rice) on a “run” across the Golden Gate bridge. The distance across and back is roughly the same as a 5K. Some of us chose to walk instead of run (my calves and hamstrings were still hurting from the hilly treks the day before), so we got there early and started before the proposed time so we’d hit the halfway point at the same time as the running group.

We took a couple of pre-walking shots and then started the journey. It was fun! The weather was great and I talked to a variety of folks and learned all about Tim Hall’s “dance” preferences, Pete Mahon’s experiences living in Abu Dhabi, and some of the community’s obsessions over Pokémon Go. After we crossed over the bridge, we stopped for a photo op with most of the team.

Afterwards, I went back to the hotel and got ready for the day. I attended the Oracle general sessions. interRel was a final nominee for 2 awards: the Oracle Excellence Award for North America EPM Partner and the Oracle Excellence Award for Global EPM/BI Cloud Partner. And we won both! (Yay!)

While Edward awaited the formal announcement, myself and Tracy McMullen had to do a last minute stand in for his Sunday Cloud Atlas session. He caught up to us with only 9 minutes left to finish it off. Then Tracy and I ran up to the OTN Women in Technology panel.

From what I understand, the Women in Technology panel this year is the first of its kind. Sponsored by OTN, it was launched in tandem with a new Oracle online community. Check it out! 

It was a great inaugural panel at OOW, with some fantastic women and mentors speaking: Natalie Delemar, Heli Helskyaho, Laura Ramsey, Kellyn Pot’vin-Gorman, and Michelle Malcher.

Afterwards, I needed some important downtime to catch my breath and stave off sleep. So I grabbed some drinks with my fellow interRelites to do a pre-celebration. interRel had a plane advertising our win and we marveled at how much blood, sweat, and tears the entire organization put in to make this happen. It really was amazing, and I was glad to be an active participant.

Then we headed over to the OPN Special After Dark reception for partner winners. We took pictures next to the announcement banners and went in to eat some fancy grub and drink some fancy drinks. The drinks were lit up red!

The party was really nice, with food from all over the world to advertise the different geographic winners. We also got to do a nice, team photo shoot, holding one of the prop awards.

On the terrace we caught part of the Welcome Reception. The band American Authors was playing and there was a nice crowd. 

Afterwards, we went out to a nice dinner to formally celebrate our win internally. It was a great night of enjoying good food, reminiscing, and cocktails (while fighting off much fatigue).

Congratulations to all of interRel! All of our employees contributed to make this happen. We did it!