Busy times and UK OUG

Once again I've been going through a quiet time; that the problem with something that's habit forming, sometimes you can fall out of the habit.

There are three main reasons for not posting recently, and all translate to me being very busy...

1) I'm getting married: And along with getting married comes organising a wedding. I wish someone would have told me that before I agreed!

2) I'm training for a half marathon: After managing my first 10km about 2 years ago I've been thinking about trying one... and a family member challenged me to one in my family's home town, so I thought 'what the hey'.

3) I'm presenting for the first time at the UK OUG in Slough on March 14th.

When Andrew Clarke surprised me by inviting me to participate, I couldn't really refuse, especially since he shares his name with my brother-in-law. So I'll be talking about the things that I've learnt about Oracle development over the last 18 months, a time I've spent on an Extreme Programming driven project. It'll be covering things that are outside of the core XP principles. Rather it'll be those things that I would now say were essential in a project no matter what methodology was being followed.
That doesn't mean to say that I don't think unit testing, pair programming, short iterations and close customer involvement aren't essential... it's more that I don't think I can add more to the discussion by focusing on other things.

Anyway, for those who read this blog, the topics will probably be quite familiar. Here's hoping it also makes sense.

I look forward to seeing some of you there!