Collective Soul Concert

Because of the festivities tonight, I stayed home in the morning and got ready for tonight. I took Sydney to school at 9am then came home to get all our stuff together. I got the kids sleeping bags, clothes, etc ready to go and ater getting everything ready to go, I went to the Novell Gym to work out. I was able to ride 12.95 miles in 35 minutes. (my best time). I then ran (on the elipitical) for 6 miles (in 48 minutes.)

After the work out, I showered, dressed and drove to Springville to meet Deni.

I asked my mom to watch Sydney and Ryan while Deni and I went to SLC. Deni and I stopped off at a furniture store looking for our chair and ottoman for the office, but were unable to find something we liked.

Deni dropped me off at Brainshare at the Salt Palace and then went to the Family History Center. She enjoyed her time there. She had to look at a restricted film that was only in SLC. She looked at it and got the necessary information her Uncle was looking for. She also was able to find her ancestors in some census records.

Around 5pm we met up again and went to dinner at Macaroni Grill. After dinner, we headed to the Energy Solutions Arena for the concert.

Along with the technical sessions at Brainshare, Novell has a few evening activities for the attendees. Each year they rent out the Energy Solutions Arena (Delta center) on Wednesday night and have a concert. This year the band was Collective Soul. Novell actually wants to fill the Energy Solutions Center, so they handed out 5 extra tickets per employee. Deni got one and the other 4 went to four of our friends. I grew up (High School and early college) listening to Collective Soul, so I was pretty excited.

I was able to get seats about 10 rows back from the stage on the side, first row. They were great seats. Before the concert, the opening act was a comedian named Frank Caliendo. I don't think I've laughed this hard in a while. Frank is great at doing impressions, especially of President George Bush and President Clinton. He was very funny. He did a 40 minute stand up comedy sketch. It was great.

Here is a picture of Collective Soul on stage.



Here is a little video clip of Collective Soul playing.



Collective Soul played until just after 10pm. After the concert was over we walked and talked with our friends (Kevin and Rochelle Tolley). We hadn't seen them in quite sometime and spent a few minutes catching up with each other.

We left SLC about 11:05pm headed for home. I had decided that since I had to be up in SLC the next morning to early and because we were going to be so late that it would be easier if we just slept at my parents house in Springville. I crawled into bed at 12:20am, while Deni ironed my clothes for the next morning. The kids were asleep in the room in their sleeping bags.

It was a long but fun day today.

IKEA in 11 minutes

I woke up at 4:55am this morning and headed for the Provo pool to swim before I went to SLC for Brainshare. 5am is too early for me to get up.

I got to the pool around 5:20 and was in the pool by 5:30am swimming. I swam until lap swim was over at 6am. I almost got my mile in, just a lap short.

I showered at the Rec Center and then headed for SLC.

I attended a few technical sessions in the morning but taught my "What's a good password?" session at 4:30pm - 5:15pm. Who would have thought you would be able to talk about what's a good password for an hour and fifteen minutes? The session went well. It was interesting to hear from customers on their password difficulties. Some mentioned that their normal workers were forced to have a "strong" password and also to change their passwords regularly, however their CxO levels didn't want to be bothered with it, so they were forced to have their most critical people (CIO, CEO, CFO) with passwords that were weak and never changed. However, on the other hand there was a financial company that made their administrators change their password every 14 days. Ouch. I complain about changing my passwords once every 6 months.

Anyway it was a good day and the session went well.

I left SLC about 5:30pm and headed home.

I stopped at the new IKEA store on the way home and because I was late I spent only 11 minutes in the store. (timed myself as I walked in and out of the store with my watch) I've heard to see it properly, you have to have at least 2 hours, however I ran around looking for a chair and a desk and only spent 11 minutes. I didn't find anything worth going back and looking at again.

Start of the Brainshare 2008 week

Brainshare is Novell's technical conference they hold each year in Salt Lake City, UT. Brainshare is for Novell's customers and each attendee pays around $1500 for the week to attend (which includes the conference and breakfast and lunch each day.) On top of the $1500, they also have to pay for their own airfare and hotel. There are hundreds of technical "sessions" they can attend to learn and sharpen their skills.

For the last 2 years I've co-taught with a friend at work about a product I support at Novell. This year, we submitted the same idea but it was rejected. I guess the same info 3 years in a row is boring. My co-worker, out of a joke, submitted a topic on "What's a good Password?" and it was accepted. So I helped with "teaching" this session. The session is set up more as a discussion instead of the normal lecutre. Because I am a speaker at Brainshare, I get a free ticket to the conference. My session will be taught twice within the whole week, which gives me the rest of the week to pretend like I am a customer and attend other technical sessions.

Brainshare reminds me how much I love my 15 minute commute to work each day. I would go crazy if I had an hour commute each way to work everyday.

I left at 6:30am this morning and headed for Salt Lake City. I left early to miss traffic as well as give me enough time to register (get my badge) and eat breakfast. After breakfast, I attended the keynote speaker and then attended a few technical sessions until lunch. I attended one session after lunch then decided to leave at 2:30pm and head back to Novell in Provo. I worked out for about 1.5 hours at the gym at Novell and was home by 5:30pm. I'm going to try and keep my training schedule intact this week as much as possible.