During VMworld Europe 2010 in Copenhagen I will be keeping a diary to show what a blogger’s life is all about.

Tuesday 12 October 2010

7:00

The alarm clock is buzzing away happily. Good morning all a nice day ahead again. Time to move away from my bed and get ready. Booting the laptop to check the vmguru.nl stats and see what is happening out there in the world. Stats seem to be frozen so asking Alex if he can check.

7:04

While Alex is checking why the stats aren’t working I start shaving and washing myself. I hear some power words and Alex mumbling loudly that the programmers should make some decent documented manual or troubleshooting guide so you can find out why stats are broken.

7:40

Anne Jan just phoned. Erik and he have overslept so we will meet up at the breakfast table.

7:41

I haven’t put down the phone yet or it is ringing again, Wendy my wife calling, morning dear.

7:49

And yet again when I try to lay down my phone it rings again, Ron calling for breakfast. Yeah we will be there shortly.

7:50

Taking the elevator to level -1 the basement again for some breakfast. Two bread rolls some orange juice and a cup of coffee on the side.

8:30

We start moving to the Bella Center for the keynote which we can’t miss according to John Troyer. So the expectations are raised. Sun is shining and the breath of fresh air is great to get properly awake now.

9:00

We are being seated on reserved blogger spots with some nice chair with a small table attached for the laptop to be put on. Two rows in front of us several other Dutch bloggers are seated doing their thing also.  For a full report of the keynote see the following article here.

11:32

Coffee break time! Getting a cup of coffee after a very good keynote session. Thanks John for the tip! We move to the bloggers lounge to see if we can get a seat and some power for the laptop. When arriving at the bloggers lounge it is totally packed with people so we have to look else where.

11:45

So let us visit the press room again maybe we fit in there ;-) After installing at the front desk where we can plug in the several ac adapters we use.

11:55

Waiting at the VMware stand for Benelux party tickets for tonight. While standing there I have some nice conversations with lots of VMware representatives like Victor, Rob, Maurice and several others. Time ticks away slowly.

12:45

After some long wait and doing some PR and expectation management along the way there is green smoke. She is still not 100% convinced and I have to get my laptop from the Press Room to show I got an e-mail with a confirmation. Finally I got three tickets but still in search for a fourth one so my hopes are on some expectation management skills from a few people with VMware Benelux.

13:17

Yeah Rob found a loophole and a fourth ticket submerges, thanks Rob and Maurice for making it happen again. See you at the party tonight.

13:18

Time to move to the bloggers lounge after John asks us to move there because he made more room and a lot more power outlets to plugin stuff. So we all close our laptops and get on our way to the bloggers lounge.

Busy rendering and preparing photos and getting the diary of Monday ready for the blog, takes more time to get it done than expected.  A lot of activity is going on at the bloggers lounge, a lot of people dropping in and saying hello. It is turning into a huge meeting point of all sorts of experts, bloggers, vendors and conference attendees. I must say it is fun around here very nice atmosphere and good to meet up people you only know by a tweets and/or blogs.

14:57

Just met in person with Simon Seagrave or as I knew him first under his twitter account @Kiwi_si and from his blog site.

Simon is showing a new Flip camera from the US to Gabrie and Eric.

15:56

Yay the blog article is ready and posted on the website with the correct format and photos embedded. Packing my stuff and  time to find where the rest of the crew is hanging out on the solutions exchange.

16:00

Found them at the VMware booth in the middle of the solutions exchange. Will do a round with Erik across the solution exchange. We end up talking at the IBM booth about new products and some nifty equipment you can stack and build a huge server with a lot of memory for VDI implementations.

17:30

Hanging out at the bloggers lounge waiting for the vExpert gathering with Steve Herrod the CTO of VMware. More and more bloggers and vExperts stop by the bloggers lounge and are waiting for the session at 18:00.

18:04

The CTO meeting just has started. For a full coverage and photos see the following article here.

During the meeting I am talking to a lot of VMware people where interesting discussions find a spin off. We meet with a Paul Strong the CTO for EMEA. We have a nice discussion about how technology and business influence each other and what the impact of the cloud can be on day to day business.

Paul made a few very nice blog articles about changing the business of IT and innovation around the cloud. See the article here.

19:20

We hurry back to the hotel to drop off our stuff and I want to change some clothes and use the men’s room first, before we go underway to the VMware Benelux Party in club Nasa.

19:42

On our way to the metro station to hop on the M1 line to Kongens Nytorv metro station. We have to wait a few minutes till the metro arrives to take us into town.

20:14

After getting of the metro we have to guess which way we go to. We kind of choose a direction and start walking everyone forgot to bring a map of the city. After walking some time Alex flings on his gps and directions on his phone. It seems we are going the wrong way so we turn and start following the directions on the phone.

20:41

Unfortunately we got lost and end up asking in a hotel for directions. Erik and I find out at the desk that we have gone the wrong way and that we have two options, go by foot for another  20 minutes or take a cab. After consulting the other boys we decide to take a cab because we are running late already.

20:50

A cab arrives to take us to club Nasa, which is a 10 minutes’ drive from the hotel.

21:05

We enter club Nasa for the VMware Benelux party. It is all white inside and the staff I the club is completely dressed I white also.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

23:25

Time to get back to the hotel it was a great party! But we still are in for some food. So on our way to the metro station where we go to Norreport station where we know there is a McDonald’s just outside the metro station. After ordering some food we have to wait, it looks like we are the last customers but Gabrie is entering the room just after us to get a midnight snack before moving back to the hotel.

23:55

McDonald’s is closing and we are softly pushed onto the street where we finish our late dinner. Time to get back to the hotel. We are having a little bit of fun in the subway.

0:31

After a midnight walk from the metro station to the Cabinn Metro hotel we are back on the room, time for some last things and get ready for bed.

1:07

Lights out and good night all.