On our About page, I mention many things….perhaps bordering on TMI. Do you really care that I have a Stephen A. Smith type affection for Aaron Rodgers?!? If Adam ever comes into work and says to me, “Ben Roethlisberger is a better QB than Aaron Rodgers!”, our friendship may end! I’m just kidding of course, but our exchange would look a lot like this classic First Take segment with Stephen A and Skip Bayless.
I also wrote that I don’t really care for “either Pittsburgh” team. Which team did I leave out? Probably the Penguins since I’m not a full blown hockey fan though my wife is currently working on that.
Anyway, in the last sentence of my About me paragraph, I state that I enjoy photography. Whether it’s work-related or personal travel, my camera is typically with me and so I thought it may be fun to look back on some of the pictures I took while work-traveling in 2017. In this post, which is not intended to be a VeeamON conference review, I’m simply sharing some pictures I took while in New Orleans attending the conference.
May 2017 – VeeamON / New Orleans, LA
In May 2017, Adam and I attended VeeamON in New Orleans. This was my first VeeamON and my first time in New Orleans so I was very much looking forward to it. I took this picture of the main stage (below) before the first general session started. I suppose there was a third first that occurred at VeeamON 2017 in that I preferred the longer, bigger picture general sessions over the shorter, but more focused, technical sessions as I enjoyed hearing the vision and thoughts of Veeam’s executive leadership.
We arrived in New Orleans the day before the conference started and had some time to explore. After checking into the hotel, we headed to Cafe Du Monde in the French Quarter to enjoy some beignets….and they were delicious. After consuming the beignets, the exploring began and again, never having been to New Orleans, I was fascinated by the following:
- The sheer volume and varieties of hot sauces and hot sauce shops
- The sheer volume and varieties of daiquiris and daiquiri shops
- The highly customized bicycles
- The variety of songs and music from street to street. On one street you may a person or group singing, “Somewhere over the Rainbow”. You turn the corner and someone is singing “The House of the Rising Sun” (of coursev), and then on the next street you may see a couple singing “This is the Day”. It was great
- The James H. Cohen and Sons, Inc. Rare Coins and Collectibles shop on Royal St. What a storefront!
One of the conference highlights was hearing from Ratmir Timashev, Veeam’s Co-Founder….
But when the conference activities we’re done for the day, it was time to head out for food and more pictures.
I enjoyed my first VeeamON conference as well as my first trip to New Orleans and would gladly return to either. VeeamON 2018 is coming up soon, May 14-16 in Chicago….maybe Veeam 10 will be released by then? For the next picture review I’ll post some pictures from San Francisco as I attended the VMware EUC Partner Technical Advisory Board meeting in June 2017. Another first happened while I was out there for those meetings….
