This week I was doing Java ME and NetBeans Mobility Pack presentation in London at JavaUK06 event. I haven't been to London for a quite long time - for almost 10 years. The last time I was there, I was a fresh graduate and I was returning from a three months stay at the University of Ulster in Derry. To my surprise, many things hasn't changed and on the other hand many has. For example, the British are still using the old designed taxi cars (I'm wondering how old are they actually, and if it is only the design which hasn't change or whether is it still the same car - i.e. the same engine and other "internals"), the Tower castle, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and the neon signs on Piccadilly Circus are still there (I'm wondering how much TDK and Sanyo had to pay to have their signs to be there for such a long time - does anybody know how many years they have been already there?). On the other hand, there has been a lot of significant changes since 1996 - for example the London's Eye and the new buildings across London's Tower. But I have to admit I really liked it and I'm glad London is such dynamic city. If it is going to take another 10 years for my next visit (I hope not), I'm wondering what I will see there - I suppose the taxi cars will be still of the same design and there will be a lot of new hyper modern buildings around the Thames river :-).

The event itself was great, perhaps even more than great. A lot of people came along and I'm sure it was well spend time for all of us at attending it. Personally I liked a lot the idea of having specific pods for NetBeans, Mobility Pack, Profiler, Creator and other products in the exhibition/refreshment area, so the delegates could ask various questions and we could show specific "on-demand" demos. I was at the pod for almost the whole day (except the time I was doing the JavaME/NetBeans Mobility Pack presentation) and I was kept quite busy. Many people were coming after my presentation and were asking detailed questions about Java ME, MSA and Mobility Pack. So in my opinion, pods on which are available the actual people doing the presentations is definitely a great idea - this really helps to both sides to start the conversation about the technology/products.

I also met a lot of interesting people from Sun and all of them were very passionate and confident about the technology and products we are currently offering to our customers - this is very good and it is great to be part of such company. The future looks bright - a lot of Sun(shine) will be there :-).

What did not look so bright at some point, though, was a little adventure which happened to me when I was going to the Heathrow airport to catch my flight back home. My plane was scheduled to take off at 18.55 from Heathrow, so at 16.30 I took the Piccadilly Line and was thinking myself what I'll do at the airport, since it looked I had a lot of time. The train was going ok (a little bit crowded, though) but when we stopped at Hammersmith, we started to wait - 5, 10 minutes and then I heard that "the services are stopped, because there is a security alert at the Stamford Brook station". I waited for another 10, 15, 20 minutes and started to be a little nervous - it was 17.20 and my plane was scheduled to leave at 18.55. Then even better message came from the station - "the services are stopped and it is not known when they are going to be resumed, so passengers are advised to use local bus transportation". I thought myself - great, I will need to use bus or taxi, but I have to do something now, the time is running away quickly.

I got off the train and went to the bus station just above the Hammersmith underground station. I got upstairs and asked the staff how to get to the Heathrow airport - I was told I have to take two buses (one and then change to another one), but I need to ask for details at the bus station, because they didn't know which buses are going that way. Even better, I though myself, and tried to get to the bus station. But when I moved a little bit further, I saw a huge crowd of people blocking the entrance to the underground station - it looked like nobody could get in or out. I was starting to worry a little bit at that time - it looked like the only option left is to try to get out of the station and catch a taxi (actually would the taxi make it to the airport from Hammersmith in 30-40 minutes during the rush hours?).

Well, fortunately when I was trying to burrow my way through the crowd, I heard from a security guy's walkie-talkie that the services are being resumed soon., so I immediately turned 180 degrees and rushed back to the train. The train was still waiting at the station, so I got successfully on and at around 17.30 we started to move closer to the airport again. I finally managed to get to the airport in time (well, it was 18.10 when I was checking-in :-)) and got a message from the check-in lady the flight is late 20 minutes. Eventually, the flight was late almost for one and half hour, so perhaps it wouldn't had been a problem to even walk on foot to get to the airport :-). So at the end it was not so bad, but if the services would had been stopped for another 10 more minutes and the flight would not had been delayed, it would had been very likely I would be staying in London for one more night (which is not actually a bad thing, but I'm afraid my budged wouldn't like the additional price of one more night in the hotel and a new ticket for the flight back home the next day).

Nevertheless, I'm very glad I was able to attend the event - JavaUK06 was really great. Now let's hope JavaUK07 will be even better :-).