My JavaOne Performance tuning Lab Submission Accepted

The title says it all, well almost all because there is a wee bit of a story behind this one and it starts just after the call for proposals. For those of you that looked over the website used to collect proposals don't worry if you don't recall a selection for labs because there isn't one. Traditionally labs have been reserved for Sun employees. Now having had some experience with the entire process, I now understand why. I was asked to include a Sun employee with my proposal. I didn't have to think about who I wanted with me on the ticket. Fortunately Simon Ritter agreed to join in. I've known Simon for a couple of years and the guy is an amazing speaker. Since labs are big, I'll need more help. So, I've been trying to talk Heinz into joining me.

Heinz and I first spoke together at Sun Tech Days in JoBurg. We where the first Java Champions to speak a Sun techdays. We have been told that we were the first non-paying non-Sun employees to speak at a Sun Techdays. In getting us to the podium, someone or some people inside Sun really stirred up the pot. If I get to J1 with my lab intact, I will have become the first non-Sun person to present a lab session. Again there was some opposition to the idea but in the end, the side that is promoting a more open Sun won. It would be really cool if it were Heinz and myself working through this next barrier. 

The condition from Simon was that I'd have to do the lions share of the preparation. Since got the entire lab pretty much mapped out, I agreed without any hesitation. I've not been told by someone else, someone that there is no way I'll be able to get through the processes without Simon. So, what I've quickly learned is that J1 is very heavily orchestrated. Which makes sense as the conference is so big that anything else could quickly break down into chaos.

I was involved in two other proposals that didn't quite make it. One was a concurrency proposal written by Victor Kratz. Then entire presentation was written as some Swing annomations with a bit of text. Rejected. I put in one by myself entitled how to find a memory leak in 5 minutes or less. It hss been relegated to the alternate list. That was probably a good thing because I wasn't sure what I was going to do with the remain 45 minutes ;-)