As I sit down to really dig into building labs for the upcoming Regional VMUG in Kansas City, I realize that I haven’t even mentioned it once on my blog.  I guess it is close enough now that I can spill some beans as to what we have in store.

Similar to what we did for the Omaha VMUG in March, we will be building and hosting live, hands-on labs for all attendees at the regional VMUG on December 6^th (details and registration here).  My company, Vital Support Systems, is fairly well known in the Omaha market, but the market in Kansas City is much bigger so this should be a good event for all the attendees as well as for us.

Our plan is to have six different labs in two large rooms.  They will all be self-paced, so there is no need to pre-register.  Simply walk up to our lab registration desk and let them know which lab you’re interested in.  Each lab will be limited to 15 stations at one time, so there could be queuing for the more popular labs, but I don’t suspect that’ll be too big a problem.

The labs we’re hoping to have available (subject to change of course):

• View
• ThinApp
• Lab Manager (yes, it’s still a viable, sellable, worth-considering product)
• Orchestrator
• ESXi Install & Manage
• vSphere Shared Storage

This is a regional VMUG, so the hope is that the combination of great speakers, hands-on labs and a vendor exposition will draw people from the surrounding states.  Everyone is welcome, especially those in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma and Arkansas.

Special thanks go to HP for helping us with the infrastructure (everything from the network switches to the thin clients) and the VMUG leaders (Ben Clayton, Jim Millard, Josef Adams & Jodi Shely) for giving us this opportunity. 

The labs we did in Omaha were a huge success, which I plan on repeating again, so come on out!

I was recently contacted by a good friend of mine (some of you may even know her) whose son went through treatment for Neuroblastoma a couple of years ago.  It’s a nerve-racking form of cancer that primarily affects infants and toddlers. I won’t go into all the details of the disease, since you can read more here or easily Google it.

The message she sent (the text is below) was a request to contribute to a new fundraiser I found very interesting and innovative.  They’re collecting recipes to create a cookbook that they will sell at the end of the month and provide all the proceeds to the Neuroblastoma Foundation to help find a cure.

Given the unique and innovative approach they have come up with, I have decided to create a contest to help drive more submissions to this fundraiser.  It’s a simple contest: submit a recipe here in honor of Nathan Shely, and then send me an email at cookbookcontest@knudt.net with your name, address and the recipe. Submitting it with Nathan's name is important so I can cross check your email with an actual submission.  Whichever person submits the recipe my wife and I like the best will be sent a free copy of the cookbook when it’s released.

Pretty easy thing to do for a good cause, huh?

The big catch is that submissions will only be accepted until this Friday, November 12^th, so go out and do it right now. Many little kids and unfortunate parents will appreciate it.

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Hello Everyone

I am asking everyone I know for their help.  As you may know, my son is now in his 2nd year of remission from Neuroblastoma Cancer. One of the main foundations that raises money for research has called upon me for help. Each year we put together the cookbook in an effort to raise funding for important Neuroblastoma research projects and this year is no different.  In fact, we believe the clinical trial selected as the beneficiary for this year's research funding is the most important and critical research project we have ever had the opportunity to fund.  There is no doubt that it will save lives and we are hopeful that it will also significantly reduce toxicity.

All the proceeds from the sale of this cookbook will be donated to the research foundation. If you have a recipe that you could submit for this cookbook, I would greatly appreciate your help.

You can submit your recipes online here:

http://LunchforaCure.org/recipe

This is for a great cause.  If you submit your recipe, please submit it in Honor of Nathan Shely.

Please hurry, Friday, November 12th, 2010 will be the last day we will be accepting recipes for this year's cookbook.  I know this is soon, but it only takes a moment to click on that URL and submit one recipe. Please take the time, it's important to help find a cause for such an awful disease.

Thanks

Jodi Shely 

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