Cisco Live! 2019 - Day 2

Day 2

Glad I got some sleep, felt good today, went to the conference when the doors opened due to still living on Eastern time. Had some really nasty breakfast sandwiches because they are food and they really had me at food anyway.

Sessions

Had a ot of sessions involving UCS servers today, new CLI commands to use for troubleshooting connectivity, methods to test Hyperflex disk IO, all things I never really paid much attention to, Ehren at work usually delves into those things, never really absorbed the stuff. Good sessions to have. Lunch at the Marina, amazing weather out here. I have found a amazing amount of dude bros that sit in the middle of 2 seats during sessions, and at lunch just openly take 2 lunches, right outta the gates. Its weird, and they have no idea what they look like.

After the sessions

Went out to Fogo de Chao for my first Brazilian steakhouse experience with Dan from Sentinel and the fellas from the MSU network team. Oh my god, I can get used to people just reloading your plate with meat till it feels uncomfortable to stand. Why is this not more of a thing? Dan had a rough night the night before, I suspect he turned in early, Brian Franke and I went on to a Nutanix event at a Bar inside the Hard Rock hotel. I was not surprised to find out I am terrible at Guitar Hero. Zero coordination from this guy. Free beer made up for it. Turned in before midnight, nice day.

This room

Have learned that all partying on the block ends at 3:30 AM, must be when the bars kick everyone out. The music in the bar stays on for at least another hour, the staff must be closing out then.  The bums on the block have a particular preference to yelling incessant obscenities around 6 AM, it must be a sunrise thing. I have seen far to much of my floor-mates when visiting the community toilets. Uh, not necessary, people! Pretty sure the hotel manager puts something THC related in the morning coffee, just can't prove it. Its still delicious.

Cisco Live! 2019 - Day 1

This is the first year MSU has sent me to Cisco Live! 2019

I have never set foot in California, this is an amazing place!

The journey here

Wow, it sure seemed to all be in order, until I got on the plane.The first damn plane. Managed to somehow run into Brian Franke, a co-worker at MSU who happened to also pick the same doomed 6:30 AM flight out of Lansing. They backed the plane out to the tarmac, and then it set. No engines running, nothing. We sat and we sat. Eventually they informed us that they were resetting a system, and were in touch with the mechanics over the phone. 20 minutes later, they informed us that the super amazing reset was complete, and they were doing paperwork. 20 more minutes later they informed us that what was really being done was that they were trying to get permission to override the use of a device that "handles GPS and altitude settings to coordinate with ground control" Call me crazy, but that sounds pretty God damned important. Then they mentioned that it wasn't just them, it could be a nation-wide problem. Went a few times to the Delta app while I was stuck in the plane and I found that they started offering us alternate flights. I hesitated the first time I saw it, then when I went back, the choices dropped by 50%, so I picked a new later connection that I was inevitably going to miss waiting here, had nothing to lose. After 2 hours they conceded to us all needing to continue our day without them, so they unboarded us. With no ETA when we would ever get this flight out of LAN, I had a choice to make a choice with a connection waiting for me 120 miles away, 4 hours from now. With no guarantees the LAN flight was ever leaving, I got back in the car, and drove fast as hell to get to DTW and board that next flight. Made it to DTW, and the day went on as planned. And if you wonder if that flight ever left, yes, it did with about a 10 minute gap to catch a connection 1 terminal away, of course. I never would have made that run, I chose wisely. Shitty morning drive though, going from Albion to Lansing to Detroit, but oh well. Brian and his cohorts from network were not as lucky, they reschedule to get here later that day or the next.

Its only the airport, but oh shit Palm trees, yesssss!

Holy shit, I am in California!

Got here eventually, 1:30 PM Pacific time. Good enough for me to get settled in and get my room and Cisco registration stuff done

This is the convention center for Cisco Live! 2019

That's Hiro, he is down the hall from me, we waited out in the heat for the 3pm check in, this is their "lobby"

This is my room, yep, that's it.

Found a room at the Gaslamp Quarter hotel in the middle of the district. The entire experience getting a room here has been hilarious from the beginning. Upon doing more research on this place, turns our it was built in 1904 as a brothel. So I guess i am not going to give this room the workout its used to.

Dinner

Went down the street to Volcano Rabbit and found me some Ahi tuna tacos and a few local IPA's to drink.

That was good enough for me today, off to sleep, breakfast at the marina in the morning :-)