BrainShare 2010 - Day #4

Another late night...I started packing to make sure everything can fit in my bag.  Looks like it will.  Oh, and I forgot to mention yesterday that I got a new picture with GWAVAMan, so hopefully I don't look SO tired.

Anyhoo...I missed the PartnerNet Breakfast, which means I missed a few announcements on the Collaboration side, so I'll nudge Norm to tell me all about it tomorrow morning.  I completely missed breakfast as I missed the buffet lines before they closed as well, but it was well worth it.

I ran into my friend Mike M. first thing in the morning, so nice to see a friendly face!  Hugs all around and then he told me about the wheeled bags being for sale in the Novell store for just $25 and it's the last few from the warehouse.  The Novell warehouse is moving from Lyndon to Provo so they're clearing things out.  I was most fortunate to grab one of the last few and with the discount coupon it was only $13.  Yay!  (Yes, I do pay for Novell schwag from time to time..geez, I'm not ALWAYS a mooch). 

After seeing Mike, I ran downstairs to see Pam and Kim (and all the rest - great now Gilligan's Island is stuck in my head!) at the SysOps booth when I spied Rusty, Teresa, Angie, and Brian doing something down the hall so I went to see what was up.  We all helped Rusty with some video for his class and had fun.  I hung out there for awhile before Brian and I had the Novell Support session.

Found out some interesting stuff regarding our support options and will continue working with Novell on some ideas to help those of us that truly should be passed up to at least 2nd Level Support get there.  It was a lot of great information, great side conversations, and I think we may see some honest changes.  And no, I didn't strangle Coleen O'Keefe, although she was in the room.  And Pam Robello was highly praised (she deserves it) as was Kim (who also deserves it).  So I'm fairly happy at this point.  Amazing!  A conversation with the support folks and I didn't wag a finger or yell.

While eating lunch, I overshot the start of my ATT class, so I just skipped it.  This IS my vacation after all, I'm here for me.  Had lunch sitting on the floor with Brian, and got online to put in some Enhancement Requests while we both thinking of it.  I saw a few folks I know and got helped up off the floor by a very nice gentleman from the Salt Palace team.

The smell of chocolate chip cookies freshly baked was overpowering, so I hit the dessert station where I took up space while eating and had the most fortunate of encounters.  Anga, from the SLE (desktop & servers) R&D team was looking for input from customers.  We had the nicest chat, I mentioned WMLUG, and found out we both loved animals, especially horses, and connected.  We'll be emailing more as I play with SLED 11 on my mini and continue working with SLES at work.  This is what BrainShare is all about, making those vital connections that you didn't know you needed or wanted; those oh-so-important chance encounters.

I made a detour to the Installation and Migration Depot, and after that milled around, visited GWAVA and GroupLink, saw Costas from EOS, saw Laila and dropped by to drool over the guitar at the Interoperability booth.  And I spent a lot of the afternoon weaving in and out of Jonathon's and Dennis' orbits, ending the afternoon conversing with Dennis and Rodney Bliss (yep, Richard's brother).  All in all a good day.

I hit the GroupLink dinner - great food!  And listened to Angie talk about her implementation of the Everything HelpDesk.  We had fun.  Then it was off to IT Tech Talk where I'd already had all of my questions answered, so mostly I hung out with the sales teams at GWAVA and GroupLink.  No idea if there were any prize drawings, but I did give a t-shirt to Jared Lord and mooched another one for Casey Trujillo who helped with my pass.  (They rock!).

I eventually ended up making myself at home in the GroupLink booth waiting for Jonathon to catch up and then I snagged Brian as he was walking by, so we all headed to GWAVA's Game Night - awesome idea Richard! - and had a blast playing Ticket to Ride with John from Canada, Jonathon, and Brian.

Howard Taylor was there - Scholock Mercenary fans you missed out!  I love Howard, and Scholock Mercenary and Writing Excuses, which Howard knows already.   Howard knows I love his drawings, so he did a quick pen sketch of me and he drew me really cute!  It really is a cute drawing and when I get home I'll see if I can scan it into my desktop in a fashion that does it justice, after which it will be framed and hung up with the Penguin one he did for me a few years back.  Then it was back to the room to pack.

Having a great time and hoping to hit PartnerNet Breakfast tomorrow morning before a busy day of classes, prize drawings, and the ending Keynote.  And maybe, just maybe, we can convince Laura to come out and play with us afterwards.

I can't believe it's almost over and even though I'm beat and ready to head for home I don't want it to end.  It's kind of like camp all over again, only an adult camp for Geeks.  :)