Tech Days Events: Sessions, Hands-On Labs, and more

I arrived this afternoon in Frankfurt Germany for Sun Tech Days. Community Day is tomorrow, Monday, Dec. 3, followed by the two-day Tech Days event. I'm especially looking forward to this Tech Days session because I'm planning to focus on mobility-related sessions. In fact, I plan to attend all of the Mobility Day track during Community Day tomorrow. Why am I excited about mobility? Two reasons:

• I spend most of my time at Sun writing about Enterprise Java-related topics. On the few occasions when I'm not covering Enterprise Java, I'm likely covering desktop Java. So mobile Java-related topics such as Java ME and Java FX are pretty much foreign territory to me.
• I know there's a lot of great stuff going on in the mobility space. All you have to do is look at some of the cool apps appearing on cell phones and higher-end mobile devices these days to understand that.

So I'm ready to be wowed over the next few days.

But that's not the reason for this blog. The real reason I felt compelled to write this blog is that I think I'm falling in love with Germany -- at least the German people. In less than a full day here I've seen first hand what gemutlichkeit means. These people are genuinely nice. Case in point: I was having trouble figuring out how to use the ticket machine to get the correct ticket for a train to the Messe part of Frankfurt (where the event is being held). Seeing my distress, two young girls came by and helped me. Not only did they show me how to get the correct ticket, but they actually led me to the correct platform and waited there to ensure that I got on the right train. Second case in point: the clerks at the front desk of my hotel were beyond nice -- a far cry from some other experiences I've had at hotels in other countries (you'll have to read my earlier Sun Tech Days blogs to learn more about that). By the way, here's the hotel I'm staying at:

Marriott Hotel, Frankfurt

Case in point 3: The waiters and waitresses in one of the Hotel's restaurants (an American style brew pub) were very, very friendly. When I told the waiter that I was from Las Vegas, he told me about his passion for hold 'em poker. And he recommended some excellent German beer. Now that's friendly!

I think this week will be a terrific experience. It already is.

I'll have more to say about this as the week goes by.

Here is the venue where Tech Days will be held:

Congress Center, Frankfurt

Auf weidersehen.

Ed Ort