Recap of 2009

Thank you to everyone out there that gave any attention to this little blog. I tried to supply new information where I could and also document my journey trying to improve at the esxcfg- commands. In 2009 the traffic increased from less than 100 visits in a week to approaching 500 in a week. That is a slow hour for some of the best vm bloggers (Yellow-Bricks, Scott Lowe) but I am not trying to replace them.

In March I was layed off. I spent 2 months full time looking for work. The VMware community really stepped up. Special thanks go out to a few people that tried to help out or checked in with how the search was going: @jasemccarty @maishk @jasonboche and many others. By the end of April I started a new position as a Virtualization Infrastructure Engineer at Veristor Systems. This job required moving the family from Memphis, Tennessee to Atlanta, Georgia. All the fun of a new job, house hunting and moving to a completely new city. We closed on our new house just a few days after VMworld 2009. My first trip to VMworld was amazing but I would suggest not buying a house while you are in and out of conferences, labs and seminars. Lots of details to fix, I will be happy if this is not the case ever again.

Getting into the VMworld stuff.
More VMworld Stuff

After such a busy year it was only the beginning of September. The rest of the year was filled with VMware Installation projects and VMware health checks. I was all over the Southeast US. Maybe I can come visit some of you in 2010?

Technical/VM/Blogging Goals for 2010:

  1. Continually improve the quality of content going to this blog.
  2. Schedule, take and pass the VCDX exams.
  3. Improve my overall storage knowledge.
  4. Renew my expired CCNA (bad move letting this lapse in 2009)

2009 was such a big year personally. I hope and pray for a little more stability in 2010 but I also love the excitement of new challenges, but the VCDX should be enough. 🙂

Our Backyard in December

Also, I scheduled a Merry Christmas post, but for some reason I didn’t do what I thought I did. So a late Merry Christmas to all of you out there.

Have VCP will Travel or Move!

As are the times, my employer has decided to move their focus in another direction. It was never firmly on the Virtualization industry, so I guess I could see it coming when things were getting tight.

So I write today to inform the world I am considering all offers. I have a passport so I am not against going international. I enjoyed my trips to the UK and Dubai, I have lived in Southern California and “The South” (Memphis). So I can fit in just about anywhere.

Now I don’t think having a VCP uniquely qualifies me for any job. I just thought it would be a clever title, and it does mean something, I guess. I have almost 13 years experience in the IT field. Started as a help desk associate at USC in September 1996. I had the fun time of supporting PC’s, Apples, and Unix for the entire University user community. I then moved to Memphis and started on the help desk for an investment firm here in town. Worked my way up to a Citrix Administrator role then left to become the Network Administrator for another company here in town. All of my experience led me to a position with my last company doing pre-sales, Design, implementation and management of VMware, Cisco and SAN products. I don’t know everything, but I can immediately help any organization.

I am looking now for a position Promoting, Designing, Implementing VMware in Enterprise environments. I would love to live near family in Southern California or Memphis Tennessee, but that is not a requirement.

The other idea is to take 2Vcps to it full potential. I just need some support until it gets off the ground.

So for the time being I am sending this to let the word get out. Thanks to everyone for their kind words. I know this is going to become a greater opportunity then I can imagine.

Contact me at jowings@2vcps.com if you want more information.