I'd call this Day 0 but apparently it officially started yesterday. Or early this morning. I landed at SFO at 1pm and never got a second break until 9pm. That's just day 1 for me. I walked over to Moscone West and let me tell you - I felt the room vibrate from anticipation - and I don't just mean the vibration from the 6.0 earthquake in Napa early in the morning!
I picked up my free backpack, notebook, t-shirt and water bottle - the essentials really to a successful geek fest. From there I tried to check in to my hotel but the room wasn't ready. Back over to Moscone South this time. Webcor Builders is remodeling or expanding or doing something to the Moscone complex. I'm not really sure exactly what it is but it's already huge! wow!
At 2:30p I wandered over to Moscone South - trying to find my way. The first thing I ran in to was the VMware store. Is it just wrong that I am more thrilled about shopping there than at Nordstroms? After salivating over all the VMware stuff there I wandered down to my first session - v101 - basically - the "how to" navigate VMworld for newbies. We were handed a button upon entering the session with a baby pacifier on it and the words - vmworld baby. Telling.....
After that it was no break and straight in to the Solutions Exchange "hall crawl". I have worked and perused many a exhibitors area before and thought my experience would serve me well. It did but Wow!. It's huge and overwhelming to some extent. I was there for over 2 hours and worked the floor methodically and calculated like I am want to do but I didn't even come close to doing about 20% of it. SWAG wise? Total score. For the 1/2 day today I walked away with 12 t-shirts and all manner of trinkets. it's not for me - it's for my guys.
I met some great people and got some valuable information but quickly came to the realization that significantly more time would be required. I've vowed to start at 7am sharp Monday morning. Wish me luck
