Yes, #oow11 will go on without me

Last year, during Oracle OpenWorld 2010, I wrote this:

It's strange how your priorities change when you're not in the midst of the firehose.

I had every intention of listening to the Sunday evening keynote online. I wanted to hear what both Oracle and HP had to say (and not just for the soap opera reasons). Oracle was sharing the keynote online at http://www.oracle.com/us/openworld/index.htm, so I would be able to hear it, even though I'm not in San Francisco. (Actually, one year when I WAS in San Francisco, I went back to my hotel room to listen to the Sunday keynote online; I wasn't feeling well that evening and didn't feel like braving Moscone.)

And I did listen to the keynote - for about five minutes.

You see, my wife and I wanted to go to dinner, and we had to do some shopping for the daughter, and I had to do some shopping for "Project Joe," and this, and that...

Fast forward to this year, and the keynotes will start in about 2 1/2 hours. And my wife and I have to do some shopping, and I need gas for the Ford, and bla bla bla.

Pity, because it sounds like there will be some interesting stuff - if not tonight, then by midweek for sure. You see, the Oracle ACE Directors all went to the Bay Area on Thursday for some super-secret meetings with Oracle staff. (As an aside, do you know the REAL reason why Oracle OpenWorld doesn't relocate to Las Vegas? If they did, then all of the Oracle ACEs and Oracle ACE Directors would be mistaken for blackjack dealers.) Anyway, the Oracle ACE Directors are under strict non-disclosure, and since I'm not under non-disclosure at this point, even my own company's ACE Director can't share stuff with me. And stuff is definitely happening - so much that the ACE Directors adopted their own hashtag. One of them, Lonneke Dikmans, tweeted the following on September 29:

Impressed with the view of Oracle (Mark Townsend) on NoSQL and SQL #aced

So I asked:

@lonnekedikmans Will Mark Townsend share his thoughts on NoSQL during a public presentation, or was this just for #ACED only? #oow11

She responded:

@empoprises this will be a topic during #oow11, just be patient ;)

Mark and Larry, your ACE Directors are doing their job. Lonnke ain't tellin' me NOTHIN'.

Of course, any database news from Oracle is only going to be part of the story over the next week. As we all know, Larry has a large stack stack stack stack stack stack stack, and I'm sure that there will be news across the board.

So if you're not shopping with your wife at 5:30 Pacific time this afternoon, go over to http://www.youtube.com/oracle to catch the Sunday night keynotes from Larry Ellison, Safra Catz, and Mark Hurd.

By the way, Ann Livermore is now on HP's Board of Directors. I don't know if she's on the executive compensation committee.

[3:30 PM - Oracle ACE Director Eddie Awad didn't say nothin' either.]