2012 Greater Midwest System Center Rally in Pictures

What a great event!  Put on by Oakwood Systems Group, The 2012 Greater Midwest System Center Rally was a huge success, with roughly 200 people in attendance.  I was completely humbled to kick off such a great event with a rousing keynote on “How System Center 2012 Promotes World Peace”, just after everyone started their day with Bacon.

It was pretty awesome to be in a town where I have friends. Steve Mitchell took me out on the town Thursday night to show me the St. Louis Arch and then to dinner.  I was amazed at how similar the Arch looks to the Halo ring in the Halo Xbox series.  Reed Porter was *supposed* to meet us for dinner, but I think he underestimated his drive to get there.  Ed Aldrich was there, giving the 1E platform message in the afternoon.  In fact, Ed and I stayed at the same hotel (the haunted Drury Inn) and had a breakfast meeting together before heading to the Rally venue.  We also rode to the airport together in the afternoon.  Another good buddy, Scott Ladewig, one of TechEd TheKrewe folks, was on hand.  It was really great to catch up with Scott, but we’ll be seeing each other again next month at TechEd NA.  I was also able to chat a bit with another good friend, Brad Price. 

It gets harder and harder these days to participate in an event where there’s not at least a few myITforum old timers present.  Kind of makes me want to tear up a bit about how far we’ve come over the years and how many friends we’ve made.  At the beginning of my keynote, I asked that familiar question: “How many have heard of myITforum?”  Nearly everyone at the event raised a hand.  I remember the early days when less than half in a conference room had heard about us.

I’m sure I’ll have more to say about the Rally later on, but wanted to make sure to get the photos online for everyone to see. There’s a mixture of day before and day of pictures littered throughout.