When we first started we had very little idea of what we were supposed to be doing. Just what is a Call Center and how would our product fit into the rest of CRM? Dave wouldn't tell me, saying that he wanted a virgin opinion. He did want to do it in Java, since it seemed to be an interesting language and he was tired of working with C++. Hey, I didn't care, either way it was going to be a new language.

The group Christmas party was right after I was hired, naturally I went. Back then CRM was only a couple dozen people, most of whom I hadn't met. It was a small get-together at the club house of the apartment complex where Mark lives. We had a couple of chefs making food and games and a gift exchange. So before this party we go out to the mall to look for gifts. I buy a cheese gift pack from Hickory Farms and Dave got a multi-function screwdriver which I really wanted.

The gift exchange went like this. Everybody gets a number. The first person picks a random gift. Thereafter, each person can either pick a random gift or they can take a gift from someone else, that person then gets a random gift. I think there was a limit to how many times a gift could be stolen, and there were a couple of coveted gifts. When the time came for me to pick a gift, I already knew how Dave had wrapped that screwdriver so that's what I picked, then I feigned surprise at getting such a useful gift that nobody else wanted. I still carry that screwdriver in my backpack.

In January or February we attended the Computer Telephony Exposition in Los Angeles. This is the first time I'd been on an actual business trip (no, driving to Visalia to fix a computer doesn't count). We had to book airline tickets and rooms through Oracle Travel. We were all going to stay at this one hotel a few blocks from the Convention Center, but since I had booked Prasad and I quite late, we had to go to another hotel for one day. It was ok though because that other hotel, though miles from the Convention Center, was very nice. The closer hotel was run down and hot on the upper floors.

I'd been to one or two trade conventions before -- MacWorld and DECWorld. They didn't impress me. It's just a lot of sales people showing off their products while the masses jostle around and pick up freebies. CT Expo is much the same and the show floor wasn't all that interesting. Sure, we were ostensibly "researching" the competition and seeing kind of features we needed for our product. Frankly, I didn't pay much attention.

There were also seminars and I went to a couple. I think one was on Computer Telephony Integration. As you can tell, they didn't leave an impression on me. But we did have to pay like $1000 each for the priviledge of attending the seminars, so we tried to go to several, so I must have gone to more than two. The thing I remember was the Speaker's Breakfast. We had to wake up sinfully early to get there, but there was food and we listened to this guy who is very influential in the CT field, though I don't remember his name.

Officially, it was not a very productive trip, at least for me. Maybe the other guys got a lot out of it. But we did bond a fair deal, which is important for a new group where everybody is new. We'd go out every night and do things, or at least go out to dinner. I did most of the driving since I had rented a full-sized sedan. Once we drove most of the length of Sunset Boulevard, another time we drove to a boardwalk. We ate at such fine establishments as the Spaghetti Factory and other nondescript restaurants. It was actually quite a nice trip, and I didn't kill anybody with my driving.

The Los Angeles trip is the only activity that I've ever expensed at Oracle, because it came out to over $2000 which was a whole lot back then. I tried to expense one other thing a few months later but that never went anywhere so I've never expensed anything since. (Yes, I did get reimbursed for L.A.) I buy a lot of books and pay for dinners occasionally, but I figure I'm paid well enough to pay my own way.