This past week I was out in the Bay Area for the MySQL Conference and Expo.  I hit the pre-event parties and attended the conference's opening day.   The first day featured a great set of opening keynotes from Marten Mickos, Jonathan Schwartz and Werner Vogel, CTO of Amazon. 

Marten Mickos, tellin' like it is. 

 
Jonathan Schwartz divulging Sun's "secret plot." 

The main reason for my attendance at the Conference was to get a bunch of podcast interviews as well as to be interviewed by the press as Sun's "Linux Guy."  I ended talking to the Register, Information Week and DevX as an interviewee. 

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I got into San Jose last night around 4:00, picked up my rental car and headed over to the annual pre-conference party at Marten Mickos' house.  The food was amazing and it was great to finally meet the MySQL crowd in person.

It wasn't long however before I was invited by the MySQL Community Team to join them as they headed to the next event on the social calendar.   Armed with a garbage bag full of stuffed dolphins we headed over to Pedro's and the …