My first VMworld has come and gone and I feel like this was my greatest high yet. Everyone remembers D.A.R.E. in school right? When the officer said, people become drug addicts because they are always reaching for that same level of high as the first time. After VMworld, I'm going to go to different events and perhaps next years VMworld and won't reach this same level of high.
First and foremost, I can't say enough how twitter pretty much rocked this VMworld for me. Over the past two years I've been talking to loads of people on twitter and I easily met over 100 people last week. If it wasn't for these people, social gatherings would have had no meaning what-so-ever, but I probably would have been in bed at a reasonable time. Instead of trying to strike up conversations with someone you never met before, it was easy to get on topic and discuss. The best part was not talking about technology, but really getting to know someone that you interact with through twitter. I got to meet all kinds of industry experts and it was even better that they knew me as well.
Second, was getting the chance to speak at VMworld. David Davis was nice enough to let me be a part of his Top 10 Free Tools for vSphere 
Administration breakout session. David and I had 2 Skype calls before VMworld to practice our presentation and each time we talked at VMworld, it always seemed to change slightly. I remember talking to David and asking "How many people do you think we'll be speaking in front of?", David wasn't sure but I figured it would be a room that might fit 60-100 people. I couldn't have been more wrong. On Monday of VMworld, I caught the 9:00am breakout session with Howie Xu on the vNetwork Journey (sneak peak at insider info on a pic as well) and he spoke in front of 500 people in Moscone South 301. I took a look at breakout session booklet and saw that our session at 1:30pm that same day was being held in Moscone South 301. WHOA! I've only spoken in front of 15-20 people before, now I'm jumping up a bit with 500! David and I couldn't have been more pleased with the turnout for our session. Not only did we fill both of our 500 seat breakout sessions, but people were waiting outside in line to try and snag a seat when the room was maxed out. On Tuesday, David received an email that said the VMworld team were interviewing all kinds of people and everyone gave great reviews about our session so we were given the opportunity to speak for a third time in an encore session that seated 700+ people Wednesday at 4:30pm. Granted, we didn't fill the room because the only way you knew the session was taking place is if you looked at the live boards of upcoming sessions, but still had a good 250 people and some fellow twitterati. Thanks to everyone that attended our sessions and making me more nervous than ever before, we really hope you enjoyed it. I'm trying my best to hopefully make it to Copenhagen so be on the lookout!
Third, the parties were awesome! As I had discussed on my chinwag with Mike Laverick, I was expecting to consume a lot of beers. Mission accomplished. It first started out by consuming a Beck's waiting in line to get registered. I met Tim Oudin, Paul Valentino and Patrick Redknap at the 
blogger lounge. We went to the Sky Bar (i think?) where we met with even more twitter folks like Eric Siebert, Jase McCarty, Nick Howell, Jason Boche, Trey Anderson, Todd Scalzott, and more people that I can't recall. Patrick and I were in full party mode all week and definitely made the best of it. That night we hit up the WuPaaS party where I got to meet Sean Clark, Kelly Culwell, Rich Brambley, Matt Elias, Megan Mescher, Greg Guiimette, Justin Guidroz, and many more folks. Around 4:00pm on Monday before the Solutions Exchange Opening (or better referred to as grab as much swag as possible) free beers were starting to be passed out once again where Trey Anderson, Rob Markovic, and myself made our way around the place where I met the likes of Matt Leib, Matt Liebowitz, and Scott Lowe. Monday night we went to the B-Bar tweetup and I met Eric Gray, Calvin Zito, Scott Hanson, Duncan Epping, John Troyer Phil Jaenke, Mark Ylvisaker, some Train Signal people, some Xangati folks and many more. On Tuesday, Patrick and I made the rounds. We went to the vCasino Royale to start the night, then headed to the Netapp party at Tilt Arcade, then went to the CA party (which was awesome by the way), then finished up the night at the Thirsty Bear with all the Veeam folks. Wednesday night started out with the CTO event with the rest of the vExpert crowd. This party was definitely a highlight of the week. Beating Jon Owings in 2 Wii Sports was good until I saw Steve Beaver score a 230 in Wii Bowling, whoa. Got to meet Nick Weaver, Luke Kilpatrick, Alan Renouf, William Lam, and more. I hung out with Mike Laverick and Jose Maria Gonzalez for a bit before the INXS concert then met Scott Sauer on the lawn and completely missed the INXS concert. Afterwards, Patrick and I walked the streets for an hour and met the other Scott Lowe and hit up a karoke bar with David Robertson. I got to see Fred Nix in his Jaeger chugging style which was nothing short of a good thing! On Thursday night, the drinking had caught up with me and got to head out for a nice dinner on the wharf with Tommy from Xiotech. All in all, none of this social interaction would have been possible without twitter. I know I left a ton of people out on this list, but it takes forever to do all these twitter lookups!
Thanks everyone for making VMworld so memorable. Looking forward to VMworld Copenhagen and 2011!