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52.4 Miles in the 2010 Jimmy Fund Walk

 

Yes. I will be walking 52.4 miles on Saturday September 11^th, 2010.

 

 

  

A little bit of background first. Just over 3 years ago a close friend, Rich Haskins was diagnosed with Leukemia.  He is an incredible father, businessmen, husband, and friend. He took the news stoically and started to rally together Rich’s Road Crew. The crew put together a modest 20 walkers in 2008.

Rich’s Road Crew has grown tremendously over the last 3 years, in regards to # of walkers, total $ raised, total contributors and # of pacesetters. The Crew is on pace for raising more than $60K. Rich, his wife Susan and another fearless fundraiser, John Esler,  were invited to help make the 2010 Jimmy Fund television commercial.

  

 

And well… it is that time of year again. For the 3rd year running Rich's Road Crew is hitting the pavement for ALL of the right reasons. In 2009, I made the decision to publicly acknowledge all of these events with colleagues at EMC, our customers, and partners alike. I honestly did not know what the reaction would be…I was nervous about mixing my personal life with my professional life. Holy Smokes!!! The amount of support received has been truly amazing and since then I have come to learn that many of you also donate on behalf of a family member, a work colleague, or a personal friend.

  

If you are unfamiliar with the event, many supporters donate on behalf of a specific loved one. Last year I was able to fit all of the names that were passed to me on my t-Shirt prior to the walk and I would like to thank you for the honor of walking on their behalf.

 

 

 

 So how did I decide to walk 52.4 this year? Well…. I walked 13.1 miles in 2008 & 26.2 miles in 2009.  As it turns out, there is a historical granite marker on an old postal route that says “48 miles to Boston” near Rich’s house. During the 2009 walk some of us on the Crew (thanks a lot Denise) came up with the idea of doubling the mileage again. 

 

While the money is certainly a critical component of the fight (by the way more than 88% of the money raised goes directly to fighting cancer via "unrestricted" funds.. if you don't know the significant of that ask me OR a  friend because it gives very smart researchers at DFCI every edge possible to make impactful breakthroughs), but my favorite thing about the Jimmy Fund Walk is the emotional bond and spirit that the entire event embodies. And so 52 came up, and I think it stuck because it embodies not just a way to extend a goal, but also as a way to show commitment and willingness to support a friend.  It all seems to fit… even if a bit wacky. So my goals this year are:

1)    Walk 52.4 miles

 2)    Recruit 5 walkers (I need 3 more so come walk with us)

3)  Raise $5,000 (currently at $3,500)   

4)    Lay the groundwork for EMC’s Community Involvement fund to match EMC funds (looking for an Executive Sponsor now).

 

  

2010 also brought two more reasons to walk. Another good friend started his chemo cocktails this summer and has a very bright outlook (Tuckerman’s post with GarryM), and another lost the fight this past August back in my native Southern California. She was a fellow high school alum (Corona Del Mar High School ‘92) and college alum (Claremont Mckenna College ‘96). She left an 18mo old daughter behind.  It gave more reason to walk further.

  

 

 

So, Yes. I will be walking 52.4 miles.. and I will be leaving from Rich’s doorstep.

 

 

  

Thank you for all your support and Warmest Regards,

 

  

Travis T Grant

  

Donations can be made here: http://www.jimmyfundwalk.org/2010/ttgrant

Follow live walk updates here: @ttgrant

follow Rich's road crew on facebook:

 

 

vDisco Caught #in public: on vVineyard & off #vodgeball training wagon?

Rumors recently flew that vDisco had been left off the rosters for the annual VMWorld Vodgeball tournament. An annual Charity event to help raise money for the Wounded Warrior Project (Donate Here) the Vodgeball tournament was publicly known as the marked event for vDisco's return from retirement.

 

As the only profesional dodgeball player to claim 32 straight seasons without any changes in wardrobe & more injuries than Ripken played games, at 6'3" and 285 pounds he seemed to have pulled off the feat of going into hiding. Over 6 months ago there had been some press leakage about a training regime and possible return. He was caught on camera on Martha's Vineyard in a photo taken by a "friendly passerby" that was likely a diehard fan in disquise. vDisco is #5 from left with the infamous green shirt under the same tracky he wore during his rookie season. Many of his new entourage members are unkown in the vodgeball community.

 

Seen here again later that night with an unidentified new member of the entourage, the question becomes will he get picked up by any teams for the tournament? Commonly expected to have played for an #EMC affiliated sqaud due to past sponsorship succcess his return from retirement may be in jeopardy. Could it be the vSquirrels? Would he accept sponsorship from the likes of HP, Cisco, Juniper, Dell or Netapp?

 

Many newer fans had begun to question if he was really planning a return or even if he had existed. Some even began to question if the tournament existed. Some basic sluething by this author has uncovered some actual footage from 2010. Obviously edited, and could be a hoax. Only time will tell.

 

 

Presentation Abstract: How to Leverage the Cloud technology trend #in the Real Estate Market

Growing up #in Southern California I had the rare privelage of "looking at dirt" on Sundays. It was a family activity that usually meant a new Real Estate development project was being looked at. Now with over 13+ years in the technology industry I have often theorized about combining knowledge of trends in both industries: Commercial Real Estate & High Tech. Two critical things lined up over the last few years:

1) First decently successful (nothing earth shattering) play in Real Estate: In 2009 I shifted ~10% of my portfolio into Vanguard REIT Index Inst (VGSNX) and I've been slowly growing the position since. Likely just lucky timing (I'll take it!), but the good ride (up 24% over past 24Mo) has forced me to think there is more to be gained by looking at both sectors.

2) Incredibly fortunate Tech Perspective: At #EMC I have had the fortunate role (I Love my Job!) of watching the convergence of networking, virtualization, and storage. Previously as a global leader helping to start a Virtual Data Center Practice and now as the Global Services Alliance Manager for VMware & VCE.

One thing is very clear: Cloud represents a significant shift in the way IT operates & it is already impacting people, transportation, and corporations. Understanding the trend at a high level may help clarify some of the more visible impacts both good and bad (Google investing 800+Million in Data Centers OR Canadian Government closing 280 Data Centers). What is the impact to the workforce? Does virtualization really allow DC footprints to shrink? Why are sleepy towns getting courted by High Tech companies? Take a geek's peek into the tech trends... and then you make the call on the Real Estate side. See you soon.

Rich's Road Crew - On Pace with 5 days until 2010 JFW

With momentum growing, Rich's road crew has just notched above the 60K team goal for 2010, as well as amassed a small army of 110 walkers. Denise Stuart has committed to join me on the 52.4 mile walk and we are both jazzed. I've received many pledges ranging from $13 to $500 where supporters have specifically cited the longer distance as an eye opener, but still was not 100% certain it was having a positive impact. Any doubts were removed yesterday when a good friend made an anonymous donation of $1,000 each to Denise and I.  

The 52.4 mile route is finalized with a final training walk completed this weekend.  Preparations are under way for the "stashes" which will contain some energy and water rations. We've decided to set them up at about every 6 miles. As the first 8 hours will be darkness fresh off a new moon, we will be placing glow sticks in the stashes and wearing headlamps and flashing red LEDs.

The route is finalized, and I've provided an interactive embedded map using the new Google Maps walking feature.

View Larger Map

Training miles in the last 6 weeks total just above 100 (50 in the last 7 days). Most importantly the thing missing from the training walks is the Hero signs.... with a quick hello to each one every mile the last half of the walk Denise and I will be unstoppable.

Donations to Support Denise

Donations to Support Travis

Thank you for your support in 2010

VMWare Frenzy

It is most certainly that time of year again. Many of you have been working like crazy getting prepared over the last few months for VMWorld. Many of you are already on planes heading to SF.

While my favorite is seeing colleagues and meeting new ones, and I occasionally get a few really good sessions in, this year the frenzy has reached whole new levels. Their are many sponsored events all week ranging from the Tuesday night Partner sponsored events, to the sporty Run, and even the Rave (where last year hands-on labs were featured on the top floor in a downtown building). But this year if you do not have an invite to Silicon Valley's most exclusive event this week well then you simply have no red carpet influence.

As a former professional dodgeballer, I have to say it is about time the sport is starting to achieve the attention it deserves. The death match is is between Blogging Heavyweights Chad Sakac  ( Virtual Geek :: @sakacc ) and Chris Hoff ( Rational Survivability :: @beaker ). I don't know Chris yet but Chad in short shorts, Chuck Taylors, and fake mustache throwing something at me is enough to make me void myself.  Both have declared victory already. Nuetral ground has been secured. Kegs are rumored.

If you don't have an invite yet find a vSpecialist at the show. The only thing confusing about this whole thing is why the league has inexplicably allowed regulation balls to be sold at Dick's. Now anyone can join the fast growing global sport?

HD Streaming over wireless - Lookback

A "lookback" post often gives some good context to where innovation has brought us and what the next releases are likely to unveil.

Professor Robert Kinicki had to be one of my favorite at WPI. Of course when he challenged the class and offered an A to any project team that got published.... I took the bait. Result is below.

I leveraged the work I was doing at the time for EMC in the IPTV space (probably knew too much about AT&T and Verizon FTTP Infrastructure build outs) and made what I thought was a logical conclusion at the time. If FIOS or Lightspeed projects were complete and homeowners had more than a T1 of bandwidth, and HD content was growing rapidly, and many people went wireless in the home... Many folks might want want to view HD content on WiFi on the home. So we set it up. Remarkably... we came to the conclusion at the time that the experience was "Miserachi"... it stunk. But that was 2007.  

“Windows Streaming Media Performance Analysis on a IEEE 802.11g Residential Network ”

EMC Steps across Networking Market Segments

Networking? EMC? Some quick fundamentals, EMC leads the Storage Networking market segment which is estimated at  ($US2.6B). For more than 10 years the company has introduced new products and driven technology initiatives around this space primarily as a means of facilitating agility and simplicity for IT managers responsible for storage infrastructure. Today we announced a network convergence strategy (press release).

That was significant for two reasons:

First, it marks the public acknowledgement of a strategy to grow our networking expertise leveraging a combination of partners, enabling technologies, and our existing Storage Networking skills and expertise beyond Storage Networking and into the Data Center Networking Market which is estimated at ($US50B). Key technologies to consider as part of multiple parallel trends are 10Gig Ethernet and FCoE. Stuart Miniman does a good job of covering a few more details here. Brocade was featured prominently as the partnership will extend into the Foundry line of products (Cisco is an obvious critical component also but limited to VCE and Nexus outside of the coalition).

Secondly, EMC is going to be extending their vast amount of networking skills openly through a services portfolio that will tie directly to the private cloud strategy. Think Assessment and augmentation. Is your Infrastructure really ready to triple the number of VMs and leverage vMotion at scale? Are your WAN links healthy enough to meet the new demands that Federation will require? Do you have enough expertise on staff to design an overhaul to your Infrastructure that results in a converged network?

More to come... but can't tell you how much hard work has gone into this over the last two years from some very insightful business execs and technologists. Great to see it come to fruition and can't wait to show our stuff in this space.

Tuckermans Spring 2010

Absolutely Jazzed about this year's pilgrimage to Tuckermans Ravine. Last year's trek was solo for 3 days (as much as one can go solo to the crowded bowl on a Saturday in late April). I stayed in the Hermit Lake Shelters and ended up bonking only a few hundred  vertical feet from the summit after topping out of Right Gully. You can read last year's trip report on timefortuckerman.com. Those guys do a great job on that site, and there is some excellent discussion and tips.

Anyway this year's adventure was very different and every bit as memorable.  After Matt, Guy, Garry and I first committed to going in October of Last year, cancer hit. We certainly thought the subsequent required  surgery and chemo would make the trip impossible for our good buddy. However we were sorely mistaken. No Shelters for all, no skiing for one, but a good time in the bowl had by all (4). Garry you are a true inspiration.

The video is courtesy of a new ContourHD (1080P) helmet cam. I am going to start taking it to tradeshows for work as it is small and easy to record on the go with.

Changes to Software Algorithms in Celerra functionality optimized for Virtualized environments

EMC just announced the latest software for Celerra that provides three key benefits in a virtualized environment:

1) Further reduction of VM image footprint through thin provisioning, dedupe, and some management changes that are closer aligned to the common IT Admin tasks for virtualized environment

2) >100% faster cloning

3) SRM Automation (manual tasks become optional - can be leveraged for controlled)

Integration is already deep between VMWare and EMC (Across both portfolios) and this provides a glimpse of the innovation pace (which I believe is going to accelerate in 2010 and 2011) that will culminate from extensive integrated roadmap planning over the last 2 years.

More to come in regards to changes I believe were required to achieve some of these enhancements.

Black Ball at The Wedge

The last time I saw the Wedge get over 20' was in the summer of 1996. After skipping work only to find my boss there also (JLikins), I got a good womp session in for an hour or so with my big stiff UDTs. Never got over 15' when I was in. I came back the next day for a new session and got sucked over on the first wave, which put me flat on my back in the sand. Lost a fin. Sucked in a bucket of salt water and stumbled back to find a seat.

A couple of kids, marriage, and a job on the East coast have all hampered my body surfing days, but in a bittersweet twist of fate, my best buddy called me two weeks ago to come out for a Surprise B-Day (Feliz Compleanos Muzz!) and his virgin Triatholon. This will teach me not to listen to him - could have been an epic weekend.

Friday July 24th 2009 the stars lined up again. This time however I'm sure there will be some more local banter than in storms past as an additional dimension of tension has been added with SUPs in the lineup.

Cloud Bursting and The Fisher King

I have been pondering various repercussions of not having succinct concrete definitions of "cloud" (noise, confusion, dilution, and adoption anarchy). Yesterday I was pointed to NIST's definition of clouds by Wayne Pauley. Wayne is the co-founder of the New England Cloud Computing Users Group the group that is coordinating a cloud focused conference in Cambridge, MA at the Microsoft NERD building later this month.

Technically I have no issues with the definitions. In fact, they resonate very well to me. I can only hope that Peter Mell and his team's hard work helps make their spaghetti stick longer than others. Possibly given the heavy focus on funding and collaboration around cloud in the Federal space NIST's definitions will stick.

On a lighter note, under deployment models, the definition for Hybrid Clouds includes an example "(e.g. Cloud Bursting)". While I have always understood the portability between two different clouds to be "Federation" Mell's example reminded me of "The Fisher King" (Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges) in which both actors end the movie lying on their backs sans clothing in Central Park staring at the clouds trying to break them apart with their minds - Harry (R. Williams) calls it "cloud bursting". My memory is rusty, so hopefully someone will confirm or correct me.