I went to re:Invent in Vegas
I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted, and there are a lot of good reasons for that which I’ll get to soon enough. That being said, I wanted to put a post up about my experience at re:Invent 2022. It was quite the event, and quite the experience.
First up, let me preference this with this was my first time going to re:Invent, as well as my first large technology conference. I’ve been to a number of SQL Saturdays, but they don’t compare. Mentally, however, I was not prepared for the conference. I should have taken the time to read up on what to expect for first time attendees. Which is why I’m posting up a few of the tricks I learned, if for no other reason than to remind myself for next time. I also need to clarify, my company sent me with a group of others so when I say we, I mean them.
Getting there
Sunday starts out at the Duluth airport at 03:30 where a few of us met up to to catch the first flight to MSP at 04:45. This part is mostly uneventful until we got to MSP. In MSP I learned real fast there are no clear indicators for connecting to other terminals. We came in on C-27 (?), and the Vegas flight was leaving on G-20. I got all the way to C-4 before I realized something was off - like I missed the 5 mile long skywalk between C and G.
I made the plane, barely. The upside is, I had my morning work out in. The downside is, I was carrying the work laptop in a backpack and personal laptop in a different bag. Next time, there is only going to be one laptop. Which brings us to the next travel tip I learned that morning - I will never book travel on Delta via the damn company travel program again. Or at least, if I do, I will immediately bump my seats to Comfort+. Oh what an uncomfortable flight to Vegas (I know, I know first world problems).
Vegas
When we got to Vegas, everyone I was withjust poofed. So I went to baggage claim and then found an AWS Ambassador (which were a godsend all week) who pointed to badge pickup - which was mostly painless. On to getting to the hotel…
I took a shuttle to Treasure Island where we were staying, gave up my bags to the bell desk, and went to find breakfast. Post breakfast, hung out outside to catch some sun and reset the circadian clock until the noon check. Once in the room, I chilled out until 15:00 where I had decided to treat myself to a massage. Which I can’t tell you how awesome Julie the massage therapist was. Post massage, back to the room and met up with everyone at 18:00 for dinner. Which was kind of comical because most of us had never actually physically met - we’ve worked together for years, some of us are friends and know each other well but still wasn’t sure what we might look like. I was able to hang until about 22:30, then the travel day won. Back to the hotel and to bed which is prolly how I didn’t notice the volcano show at the Mirage.