By Aaron Sweemer published: Monday, September 22 2008
Let me
start by telling you about my morning. After a very late night hanging out with customers, 5AM rolled around
and I'm sure the alarm sounded, but I didn't hear it. Nope, I must've been dreaming about sugarplum
ferries, or sandy beaches in Tahiti, or line dancing with the Wizard of Oz
munchkins in Munchkinland (a very weird reoccurring dream I can't shake). Anyway, at some point I realized I had
overslept and i sprang to my feet.
Running to the bathroom to grab a quick shower, I didn't notice the
collection dirty towels my wife conveniently left in the middle of the slick
tile floor (I mean it's really the only natural, logical place for dirty towels
to live). Not surprisingly, this forced
my feet to fly out and up over my head. To make matters worse, mid air and on my way down, my boxer shorts
caught the edge a low hanging towel rack ripping them off, leaving me bare butt and squealing like a
little girl. As my wife runs in see what
the fuss is about, rather than lending a helping hand, she starts cracking up
and scrambles for a camera.
The
Keynote Speech and Breakout Sessions
As a
result, I actually missed the keynote speech this morning, which really bums me
out because I hear it was awesome.
Everyone I talk to says that Dr. Stephen Herrod, CTO of VMware, did a
fantastic job and the demos presented by his on stage colleagues were
impressive. From what I understand, the
crowd came alive with cheers at numerous times throughout the speech. I'll see if I can find a YouTube video or
some type of recording and if I do, I'll update with a link.
I had
the privilege of being a Session Owner.
What is this? Someone that had
the job last year described it as "herding cats." That term always made me giggle, so I'll use
it here, but it's definitely an exaggeration.
You can probably imagine that coordinating the hundreds of breakout
sessions and labs would be a difficult task.
So the VMworld leaders leverage volunteers, such as myself, to
"manage" 3 or 4 of the sessions.
As a Session Owner, I was responsible for helping the presenters meet
their pre-VMworld deadlines, help ensure the content was accurate and exciting,
and a variety of other tasks. And
immediately before the session, I was there to help make sure all last minute
issues were resolved.
So,
despite my hectic schedule with customer meetings, I actually got to sit
through the three breakout sessions for which I was a Session Owner. Today's breakout session was TA2275 Tech
Preview: VMware Infrastructure Virtual Networking - Future Directions,
presented by Andrew Lambeth. Andrew
works at VMware headquarters while I work out of our Cincinnati office. Therefore I had never met Andrew
face-to-face, but we had a number of conversations and email communications
prior to the event. Speaking with him
briefly before he took the stage, I could tell he was a little nervous. And with 1200 attendees slated, I could
understand why! But he's a super smart
guy and very well spoken, so he did a great job :)
The
After Party
The
official VMworld party was today at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. And though I heard it was a blast, the
majority of my customers hung back at the hotel. So I decided to stay with them, which turned
out to be a good thing. The evening started
with about 20 of us at The Sports Book, a very cool sports bar in the lower level of The Palazzo (the casino
right next to the Venetian). From there
most of us went to dinner at Tao, a very sheik Asian bistro that
converts to a night club in the
evenings. And finally, a few of us ended
up at the Black Jack tables until about 2AM where I won about $400! (Too bad the wife immediately snagged it for
a Coach purse she's been eyeing ever since we arrived)
