After a busy Saturday morning in Tauranga I took the shuttle to Auckland to start my journey. For me VMworld is all about meeting up with people, the rare in person part of my involvement in the VMware community. This started at the Koru lounge in Auckland where around eight of us were on our way to the conference and met up in the lounge.
I’m trying out Stephen Foskett’s jet lag avoidance method, so didn’t eat from lunchtime in New Zealand until lunch time in San Francisco, about 19 hours later the same day. So far it’s working great but the real test comes at 4am tomorrow morning, if I’m asleep then it’s better than every other USA trip I’ve done.
Once in San Francisco I checked into my hotel, which is a cheap place on Powell Street where the famous cable car runs. Then registered for the conference and got an escort to take me past the security to where the community area was being setup. This is where I will spend much of my time here, making the vBrownBag TechTalks happen. At both registration and waiting to get access I ran into people from the VMware community, something that seldom happens on the streets in New Zealand.
The big event for Saturday was vBeers at the Chieftain. Just like last year this tiny Irish bar was jammed with twice the number of people it ought to hold. I knew about half the people there and met about half the others over the five hours I was there. Lots of people who make lots of awesome for the community as well as lots of people who get the benefit of the awesome that’s created.
My Saturday ended about forty hours after it started, had a great sleep and woke up with my 6:30 alarm feeling like Stephen’s method might be as good as he says. Today is VMware Certified Instructor day for me, hanging out with other instructors and learning about what’s in store for the next year with the training and certification programs. Then VMunderground in the evening.
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