I don’t know why I always poo-poo Saskatoon, because I always have a great time when I am here. However this week I expected would be a bit rough… I arrived in Saskatoon on Thursday fighting a terrible head cold which I had brought with me from Montreal. I used no fewer than 40 tissues during my user group presentation, much to the amusement of the great and vibrant audience of nearly 40 IT Pros.
When I showed up at the Saskatoon Business College at 8:30 in the morning, ready to set up for a 10:00am start. I had a healthy dose of Benylin (non-drowsy formula), Cold-FX, lozenges, and decaffeinated tea bags. One eager attendee (who had won a great prize at the UG meeting!) actually got here before us, and helped us to set up the room. We got the room set up, and within a few minutes the room started to fill up.
We had a great time, and the Challenge was exciting right through the end, with three teams heading into the last challenge of the day with fewer than 5 points separating them. However the prizes weren’t as important as the knowledge – a lot of people learned a lot about Microsoft Virtualization, iSCSI SANs, Failover Clustering, and more. They worked as teams, nine teams working as cohesive units with the hopes of winning the prize, but with the certainty that they were learning about technologies they hadn’t previously played with.
Of course we also discussed Server 8 – very briefly – and topics such as Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), and all sorts of other fun side-topics. We had decent lunch, a few laughs, and a lot of fun.
Tomorrow is another day… we will start with 10 new teams, fresh and ready to learn, compete, and bond. I love working with community… so much better than working alone! –M
The World According to Mitch 
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