vBrisket and the Geek Whisperers go together like BBQ and Beer
While preparing for VMworld this year I had a checklist of activities and events on my calendar that I was looking forward to attending. My VMworld week started Sunday with the 5K Fun Run that started on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge and it ended in Crissy Field.
36 minutes later you can see my friend Dave Hicks and I finishing when they were taking the picture, were the 2 bright yellow dots on the right side of the picture above.
After lunch with friends, it was off to Opening Acts hosted by the VMunderground and vBrownBag groups. I was able to catch a few panelist discussions before heading over to the v0dgeball tournament that benefited the Wounded Warrior Project, I was on the vExpert team. We made a good showing by getting to the semi-finals and eventually losing, but watch out next year!! A special thanks to Mike Colson (@Mike_Colson) for all the work on the shirts and assembling a great group of guys and also for the sponsorship from DataGravity and VMware. We had the best looking shirts, not even close.
My last stop for the day was the VMunderground party to catch up with old and new friends. A special thank to the VMunderground crew and their sponsors for such an awesome event.
Monday started with breakfast hosted by PernixData for their PernixPro members. After breakfast I attended the VMworld opening general session in the hang space. After attending a few sessions I was off to the VMUG Lounge to assist the group selling VMUG Advantage subscriptions and it was a great warmup for my “vBrisket vBrownBag Tech Talk” in the hang space that I was lucky enough to present. I received an awesome vBrownBag Presenter shirt and care pack and would like to thank them.
After another session it was time to get over to SouthPaw BBQ and prepare for the vBrisket Party at VMworld. Tickets sold out shortly after opening and we had a packed house all night long. Elizabeth and her staff at SouthPaw BBQ were a joy to work with and the food was off the charts good. A special thanks to our sponsors including Expedient, DataGravity, Nexsan and Veeam. You can also check out the pictures of the party on the previous blog post “vBrisket Party at VMworld Picture Recap”.
Tuesday started with breakfast and then off to the General Session focusing on EUC and Project Photon. Lunch was spent with all of the VMUG Leaders that attended VMworld and we had three special guests including Pat Gelsinger, Kit Colbert and Raghu Raghuram. The night ended with our local Western PA VMUG get together that we had hosted at 21st Amendment Brewery. We had a nice attendance and we were fortunate enough to have it fully sponsored by Rubrik and PernixData. We hit a few more parties that night and I thought all of the major events were over and the rest of VMworld would be sessions and vBrownBag tech talks. To my surprise and the rest of the vBrisket crew, we were asked to do a live video and audio podcast with the Geek Whisperers on Wednesday afternoon in the Hangspace. We were totally blown away by this and excited to be apart of such a great podcast. The Geek Whispers Podcast has helped me along my career journey (still defining that journey) and I have learned from each episode I have listened to. Here is the link to the “Localized Community on vBrownBag with vBrisket at VMworld 2015: Ep 95” with John Brescia and myself, Gabe Maentz and Clint Wyckoff were unable to attend and were greatly missed. Below is the Youtube video that the vBrownBag crew recorded.
I wanted to end this blog post by thanking Matt Brender (@mjbrender). Matt was a panelist on our Career Development vBrisket Event and I cherish his friendship, guidance and mentorship that he has provided to me and the rest of the vBrisket crew.
