Disclaimer: I recently attended VMworld 2016 – US.  My flights were paid for by myself, VMware provided me with a free pass to the conference and various bits of swag, and Tech Field Day picked up my hotel costs. 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.

Here are my notes on gifts, etc, that I received as a conference attendee at Intel Storage Builders Summit, VMworld 2016 and Tech Field Day Extra. This is by no stretch an interesting post from a technical perspective, but it’s a way for me to track and publicly disclose what I get and how it looks when I write about various things. I’m going to do this in chronological order, as that was the easiest way for me to take notes during the week. While everyone’s situation is different, I took 5 days of training / work time to be at this event (thanks to my employer for being on board).

Saturday

I caught a Qantas flight from BNE -> LAX and then had a 6 hour layover before travelling on to LAS. I consumed plane food on the long flight over. It was sustaining and notable for its lack of taste. I had a Mexican breakfast at LAX, paid for by my employer.

Once I’d checked into my hotel, I made my way over to Mandalay Bay. Registration had opened early for VMworld so I picked up my VMworld backpack, t-shirt, notepad and ScienceLogic water bottle.

I also attended the Intel Storage Builders Summit (or, at least, the very end of it). I was given a gym tote, a pen, a notepad, a 4GB USB stick and a phone cardholder thing. At the cocktail reception I had some Coronas and helped myself to a nice selection of dim sum. Jet lag kicked in around 8:30 and I turned in for the night.

Sunday

I paid for a ticket to Opening Acts, vBrisket and the #VMunderground parties. Gabe Maentz kindly gave me a commemorative vBrisket t-shirt and pointed out on the map on the back of the t-shirt just where the bus broke down. I had dinner with Stephen Foskett, Tom Hollingsworth, Arjan Timmerman, Gina Minks and a few other folks at Grimaldi’s. Nice pizza! I also had two Peronis. This was paid for by Tech Field Day.

Monday

Breakfast was what seemed to be the VMworld standard for the week – classic continental (see the photo). I had some fruit, juice and a conference coffee. Incidentally, the scale of logistics required to feed 20000+ conference attendees always impresses me. While the breakfast wasn’t super exciting, it did the job and everyone seemed to get fed. I imagine someone is presenting at “CatererCon 2017” (or whatever) about the challenges associated with scaling out the “Classic Continental” to previously unforeseen levels.

For lunch I had fruit, salad, and some BBQ brisket. It was okay. Yes, I’ve clearly missed my calling as a food critic.

I then did a whip around the Solutions Exchange, and grabbed some stuff, including:

• Tintri-flavoured sunglasses
• A StacksWare bottle opener
• Rubrik-branded LEGO minifig (yay!)
• I won a $5 Starbucks gift card at the Netscout booth
• Various sized carry bags from Gigamon, Veeam and Netscout
• T-shirts from Code42, Netscout, Primary Data and Datrium
• Trucker cap from Datrium

I had dinner at Holsteins, this was paid for by a friend from VMware. I had a burger and a Trumer Pils.

Tuesday

Breakfast was the VMworld standard continental. I had fruit, juice and coffee.

Lunch was provided courtesy of Tech Field Day. It was fajitas. I was well pleased with this.

Paessler gave us a cloth shopping bag after their TFDx session.

I went to dinner at Lotus of Siam, paid for by Scale Computing. I had some beer and some garlic prawns and one or two other appetisers. Thanks @bocanuts!

Wednesday

Breakfast was the VMworld standard continental. I had fruit, juice and coffee.

Lunch was lasagne and salad.

I also grabbed some Pringles (a third of a normal can?) between sessions in the afternoon.

I then did a final tour around the Solutions Exchange to collect more tchotchkes. I picked up:

• A Catalogic Maester 2016 Mug
• Raspberry Pi 3 Model B courtesy of Datrium
• A handy little pocket multi-tool from Pure Storage
• SolidFire socks
• A Nimble Storage lense cloth
• Some random stickers
• T-shirts from Zerto, Veeam, Rubrik, ThinPrint, OnApp and Mellanox

Dinner was at Lotus of Siam again and paid for by a number of very generous people, including SolidFire/Netapp, Turbonomic, Datto, Scale Computing, and Tech Field Day. Thanks again to Howard for organising it.

Thursday

Breakfast was the VMworld standard continental. I had fruit, juice and coffee.

Scott Lowe left some excess Spousetivities t-shirts at the bloggers’ table so I nabbed one for my wife.

Lunch was a nice salad and shrimp. Like I said before, catering at this scale seems like it would be insane.

I had dinner at Cucina by Wolfgang Puck with Matt Leib, Keith Townsend and his wife Melissa. We split the bill. It was a great way to unwind after a pretty busy week.

Friday

I did some shopping in the morning, had lunch at a Mexican restaurant in my hotel (paid for by my employer) and then made my way to the airport in a cab (also paid for by my employer). As my flight was delayed by 4 hours Qantas gave me a $25 US voucher to spend on dinner. I bought a Cuban sandwich and a few bottles of water. At the time I didn’t realise the significance of the delay or I may have bought something more substantial. A good friend from VCE bought me a few Sapporos as all of our Qantas flights were delayed.