Disclaimer: I recently attended Storage Field Day 7.  My flights, accommodation and other expenses were paid for by Tech Field Day. There is no requirement for me to blog about any of the content presented and I am not compensated in any way for my time at the event.  Some materials presented were discussed under NDA and don’t form part of my blog posts, but could influence future discussions.

My full disclosure post will be nowhere near as epic as Justin’s, although he is my role model for this type of thing. Here are my notes on gifts, etc, that I received as a delegate at Storage Field Day 7. I’m going to do this in chronological order, as that was the easiest way for me to take notes during the week. While every delegate’s situation is different, I’d also like to clarify that I took 3 days of vacation time and 2 days of training / work time to be at this event.

Saturday

I travelled BNE -> SYD -> SFO. A period of time passed and I consumed plane “food”. This was included in the price of the ticket. Alcoholic beverages were not, but I stuck with water. United (economy class) is all about the destination, not the journey.

Tuesday

On Tuesday night we had the delegate dinner at Dasaprakash Indian Restaurant. They specialise in Southern Indian Cuisine and you can check out their menu here. I had a bit of everything, and two cokes. I think one was diet. They may have been trying to tell me something. As part of the gift exchange I received a beautiful home-made jewellery set from Claire. Let’s be clear that this is for my wife, not me. I also had one Dos Equis at the hotel bar after dinner. [edit: Keith also pointed out that Claire gave us all  a care pack of various American snacks, including some cookies and “diet” beverages].

Wednesday

At Kaminario’s presentation on Wednesday morning I was given a pen and USB portable battery. Primary Data gave me a portable whiteboard, notepad and tiny little briefcase (useful for storing business cards in). The SFD networking event was held at BowlMor in Cupertino. I had a variety of snack food (including those tiny hamburgers) and a Stella Artois. Manish Apte from SanDisk gave me a 16GB USB stick at the networking event on Wednesday night as well.

Thursday

Thursday morning we had a continental breakfast at VMware. I had a coffee and a doughnut. They also gave us a Captain VSAN t-shirt. Connected Data provided us with a Greek lunch. They also very kindly provided each delegate with a Transporter 1TB private cloud appliance (worth approximately $249 US RRP), and a 4GB Drobo USB stick. SpringPath gave us a  pen, a sticker, a travel mug, and a USB car charger.

For dinner on Thursday we went to Billy Berk’s. I had a mix of starters and the Mojito Skirt Steak as a main. I also had 3 Stella Artois beers. We then went and watched “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” at the Camera 12  Downtown in San Jose. Tech Field Day covered everything, including the bottle of water and Reese’s Pieces. Here’s a picture.

Friday

On Friday we had breakfast at the hotel. Cloudian provided me with a leather folio and pen. Exablox gave me a great espresso courtesy of Sean Derrington. Exablox also provided lunch in the form of a gourmet sandwich and Lays crisps from Specialty’s Cafe. It was great. Maxta gave us a wooden Maxta Jenga box and a pen / 2GB USB drive. We then had drinks and snacks (happy hour) at Maxta afterwards. I had two bottles of water and a whole bunch of prawns (shrimp). Tech Field Day then made sure I got to SFO safely.

Conclusion

I’d like to extend my thanks once again to the Storage Field Day organisers and the companies presenting at the event. I had a great time. Since I can’t think of a good way to wrap up this post I’ll leave you with a photo.