Second star to the right… and straight on ’til morning – virtually

Yes, that is a quote from J. M. Barrie’s character Peter Pan, describing how to get to Never Land. Obviously this is not a real place, but rather an imaginary place where you can have amazing experiences you can only dream of.

Unexpected Dreams
In contrast to J. M. Barrie’s famous line about dreams ahead, I have accomplished several things I would have only dreamed about 10 years ago.  No I’m not going to bore anyone with most of these.  This post isn’t about that.

I wouldn’t have dreamed 5 years ago that I would have a blog with enough content that would warrant many repeat visitors.  Here are the top 5 most visited posts for 2010 on my site. Jon Owings (@2vcps) latest post inspired me to list these.  I am honored that I could contribute to the community.

• vSphere 4.1 – Batteries (Client) Not Included in ESX/ESXi –
  This is likely because VMware created a little confusion when they removed the vSphere Client from being included with ESX/ESXi 4.1
• VMware ESXi – Optiplex 620 –
  Probably because these systems are really cheap, and many want to start using vSphere
• PowerCLI: NFS Settings for vSphere (NetApp NFS Recommendations) –
  I used to work in an IBM/NetApp/EMC shop, and this was a way I used to configure NFS settings for vSphere & NetApp storage
• NFS performance gotcha: vmnic Autonegotiation, RX, & TX –
  I’ve read many papers/articles on Storage/Host/Switch configurations using NFS, this is an article about how to mitigate the fact that flow control settings aren’t persistent across reboots.
• ESX Post install config via PowerCLI –
  This is a generic script that can be customized to make changes to a vSphere host after an initial installation using PowerCLI.

Dreams to Come
Now on to why I picked the title of this post.

“Second star to the right…and straight on ’til morning.”  Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, James T. Kirk

He said this after being ordered to return the U.S.S. Enterprise to Space Dock for decommissioning. Rather than obeying orders, he chose to continue the long running mission of exploration. A mission of learning and discovery in an effort to better understand our universe.

Well, I’m not a ship’s Captain going AWOL, but I feel the essence of his message.

I continue to look forward to what hasn’t been discovered, or invented yet.  I can only imagine the new technologies in store for 2011 and beyond.

Who knows how our world will change over the course of the next year?

Most importantly, we need to keep our dreams alive, fostering thought, communication, and understanding, while being good citizens of the world we live in.

I think Kirk would agree.