I just embarked upon a trip to Europe to visit some of our Business Intelligence partners and customers and thought I would share some of my perceptions and adventures along the way…

Day 1: Arrival in London



After a 10-hour non-stop flight, with little sleep, I arrive at my accommodations in central London about 4 pm local time knowing that I have to be up at 4 am the next day to catch my next flight. I am too wired to sleep, so I decide to go for a run to tire myself out and then try to catch some sleep. As I run around Green Park I am shocked to see people in lawn chairs trying to catch the short 5 minute bursts every hour when the sun makes it through a gap in the clouds. It is only 45F, and I’m wearing 3 layers for my run. I think about developing a BI dashboard that shows how many hours of sun there are on average each day in London in different weeks of the year and using history from previous years to predict which weeks are the best for sun and which are the best to go on vacation. I am sure the English would like it since they are obsessed with going on vacation to sunny places – who can blame them!