Eric Stewart: Running Off At The Mouth

Cisco Live 2022 in Las Vegas was, for me, a welcome return to seeing a large number of people again, though there were some notable absences in the extended group I hang out with.

I have this concept in my head of “once a year friends.” I had them when I did SCUBA – a group of us would go on a New Years trip and for the most part that would be the only time that I would see them. They were some of the closest people to me, and they felt like true friends.  After (probably more than just me) undergoing a few life changes, it just seemed to not happen any more, and I lost touch (outside of Facebook and some Twitter) with most of them.  Sad … but that happens.

Then in 2013 I started attending Cisco Live.  It took a few years before I started truly solidifying some of those friendships but now, those people are my “once a year friends.”  And to go three years not being able to see them, and so desperately wanting to, an in-person Cisco Live was welcome.

Which is not to say it wasn’t simultaneously scary.  Cisco Live was at least billed as a “must be vaccinated” event, though there were rumors that they got somewhat lax in their validation procedures.  And that said, Cisco Live wasn’t the only game in town – it is, after all, Las Vegas.  Finally, you have to remember that the vaccine doesn’t stop you from getting the virus or even getting sick – it just greatly increases your ability to deal with and recover from it.

So, when a large portion of the people I hung out with (including one of three coworkers who also went) tested positive on their return home, I can’t really say I was surprised.  I have (apparently) dodged the bullet and in spite of having been in close proximity to a number of people that did test positive, tested negative twice.  And since it was so good to see them … I regret that they got sick, but I’m happy I got to hang out with them.

I had this plan to do live streaming on Twitch, but aside from a few short dabbles, that just didn’t work out for a variety of reasons … not the least of which is laziness on my part.

Format Changes

I won a cape for tweeting (too much).

The timing this year was … weird.  Sessions (aside from hands on labs and the Sunday seminars) were 45 minutes, when I think we were mostly used to a full hour or even longer.  There was seemingly always a 45 minute break between sessions.  Enough time to get bored, but in retrospect, not a lot of time for much else given the nature of a convention.  So you had sessions where the instructor wouldn’t take questions, or if they did, would only get five slides into a twenty-five slide presentation.  Most of them seemed to have figured it out, but still – the short session length was … unsatisfactory.

It used to be I would tell people not to get burnt out – drop a session so that you have time to do other things, don’t pack your schedule too full.  Thing is, with 45 minute sessions and 45 minutes in between, it often did not look overloaded, but as indicated earlier, in a weird way, it still was.  Having over two hours instead of like an hour, hour and a half just looked like too much of a gap when I looked at my schedule, so I’m really not sure how to fix this given that they apparently not only wanted to limit the amount of time people were in relatively close proximity, but also wanted time between sessions to do some disinfecting/cleaning.

Thursday, things seemed to end a little too soon – World Of Solutions started breaking down right at like 2pm, so the Departure Tweetup had to be scheduled for 10-11am.  The closest thing to a “closing keynote” was the day before.

All in all, it just seemed a little weird, and not quite like the Cisco Lives of years past-

Food

-which wasn’t wholly a bad thing.  Food was a little better than it had been the last couple of Cisco Lives.  I’ll still complain about things like “premade breakfast sandwiches containing cheese,” “no Dr. Pepper,” and “warm cans requiring a cup with ice to make the soda cold,” but, in general, there was something to eat (and seemingly more options than usual), and it was pretty good.

Las Vegas

It was fucking hot.  If lucky enough to go next year, I will definitely have to come up with a safer (meaning more indoorsy) way to obtain distilled water for my CPAP.  Part of that had to do with the distance from Mandalay Bay to the CVS.  Other than that, well, prices are definitely higher than they had been, including air fare.  So, be very wary – while Las Vegas was built to separate you from your money, they’re a bit more active about doing that in ways other than you gambling it away.

Cisco Live Celebration

I found it entirely possible to stay until the end of Dave Matthews Band’s set.  Do kind of prefer the other venues we’ve been in over Thomas and Mac, but it was a stadium.

So … was it worth it?

For me, yes.  However, I defer the overall “Was it worth it?” opinion to those that caught COVID, especially if they hadn’t gotten it until then.