A Little Backstory
On October 19, 2011, I landed at historic Lambert Field in St. Louis and headed into the city for to prepare for a speaking engagement the next day. The home team had an amazing comeback that year, as any good baseball fan would know, so there was a pretty big game on. Although a life-long Red Sox fan, I mused aloud as I walked into the Hilton, “boy I’d love to have tickets to see tonight’s game!”
By chance, a passer-by stopped me and asked, “do you want to go to the game? I have a spare ticket!” I sensed a scalp, but it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. “Sure,” I replied, “let’s go!”
This turned into one of the more magical events in my life. The casual passer-by worked for a different MLB team that happened to be in town that day, and his ticket was pretty good, as you can see above. That’s me watching David Freese handle a line drive at third, if memory serves.
I remember it being cold and wet, and I wasn’t dressed for the weather. I had a bit of trouble photographing the game since I was trying out a brand new lens combination: A hand-cranked Minolta 135 (as old as me) on my Sony NEX-5. But some of the photos came out.
Thanks to that experience, I’ll always have a fondness for St. Louis.
VMUG User Conference Keynote
It’ll be great returning to St. Louis for the VMUG User Conference on March 24. I’ll be delivering the Lunchtime Keynote!
Gestalt IT – Why It’s Time to Stop Thinking In Terms of Silos
Enterprise IT has always been a study in silos: Specialists in networking, computing, storage, and more spend all their time and energy in their own little world. But IT is converging, and it’s time for us all to see that the whole is not just greater than the sum of the parts, it’s all that matters. Converged computing, hyperscale, and software-defined everything are showing that these technologies aren’t all that different after all, and DevOps threatens to bring applications into the fold too. After two decades in IT, Stephen Foskett considers the changes that have happened and what lies ahead for IT.
This is one of my favorites, and kind of a greatest-hits presentation for me. I previously delivered this topic at the Chicago VMUG User Conference, and I’ve refined it since. I hope you love my napkin-tastic(tm) doodles!
If you’d like to come to the VMUG User Conference, head to the VMUG web site and register! And if you do come, be sure to come over and say hello. I’ve got some tokens of appreciation for you!
Returning for TechTarget Seminar
I’ll be back in St. Louis on April 7 to present the Modern Server and Storage Infrastructure seminar for TechTarget. I’m teaming up with my good friends, Marc Staimer and Alastair Cooke on this one, and Marc put together one hell of a presentation. But St. Louis is my first date and I’m really looking forward to it!
Sign up and join me at that event – registration is free for qualified end users!