My Life Today: Visiting AdaCore in New York City - Oktoberfest with my Colleagues

AdaCore, in New York City

This week, I traveled to New York to meet and work with my colleagues at AdaCore, the company I work for as a full-time consultant.

In addition to the annual Summer Gathering, three times per year, the company has "hub weeks". All the consultants and remote employees in North America converge in New York for three days, Tuesday to Thursday. Often some of the European employees come from Paris for these hub weeks, as this was the case this time.

I came to New York last Sunday and went back to British Columbia Friday evening.

As we develop software on many different platforms, and we test the software products every night, in the New York office there is a "machine room" with many racked computers. When the company moved its ofice three years ago, they decide to have the machine room behind glass.

This is the first thing you see when you come into the office.

Oktoberfest at Reichenbach Hall

During these "hub weeks", there is usually an evening organized for whoever wants to participate. This time it was in "Manahattan's largest indoor beer hall", Reichenbach Hall.

We were thirty people on two long tables.

Of course, we drank beer. As I am very easily drunk, I only drank half a litre. But many of my colleagues ordered on or two litres.

And there were many different foods such as sausages and giant pretzels.

But, there were also several food items that were vegan: read cabbage, sauerkraut, potato salad, grilled Brussels sprouts. So, I was able to eat those.

Our German colleague Ingo seemed to be quite pleased.