Hip hip hooray.

My only trip so far in 2008 was on USAirways, so I hadn't realized this until just now as I'm stuck in Dulles for 3 hours because  - oh shock! - my flight from Burlington was delayed and I missed my connection by minutes. As we landed, I saw my plane to Orlando sitting at the gate. I hoofed it down the hallway with my backpack on and my carryon in tow (not great fun in Teva's), arrived breathless to learn that it had just left. Now why don't they get the fact that I'm on a connecting flight - one of their own - and just pulling into my gate and just wait another 2 minutes?

Anyway, at least I had the nice surprise of the free wireless to go along with teh carrott sticks and packaged bites of cheese they have for us here in the lounge. Oh, how it makes me miss the Lufthansa and Ai Canada lounges with their real food and (even though I don't take advantage) local beer on tap!

 

I am part of United's mileage plus program and thanks to the way-too-much travelling I do, am a premier member. (I would have to fly 50,000 a year to get to the next level and I cannot imagine travelling that much more!)

I just received an email alerting me that United is going to start charging $25 for a second checked bag. This doesn't apply to me because I have "status" with my miles. With the rising cost of fuel, I suppose it isn't too surprising and possibly an interesting way to avoid raising airfares across the board significantly. This way, you just pay a little extra if you are loading more stuff onto the plane.

But geeze, what's next, airfare based on weight?

I change my mind daily about going to MIX.

I WANT TO GO TO MIX. The registrations are dwindling and it will soon be sold out.

But I don't want to deal with this:

SOUTH BURLINGTON -- Today's ice storm has caused numerous delays and cancellations this afternoon at Burlington International Airport, airport officials said.

Between about 3 and 5 p.m., there are expected to have been two delayed and two canceled arrivals, and another four or five delays and two canceled departures from the airport, said airport Facilities Manager Brian Searles.

"Right now, it's really all about where flights are coming from," said Searles. "We're operational here."

Searles said a continuing ice-build up could force the airport to close at some point this evening.

People should call the the airlines for more information on their flight, Searles said.

[source today's burlington free press]

This article doesn't even mention the winds that have been howling the past 6 hours. It's not much fun to be in a plane that is landing in high winds on ice covered runways. Been there done that.

And then there's always the fun at O'Hare. Last April we sat onthe runway for 2 hours when we landed at O'Hare, got on another plane and sat there for 3 hours before we took off. Bah!

I'm in Seattle and on my way home to Burlington. When I arrived at the airport, I saw that my flight was delayed but it didn't indicate for how long.

Shock of shocks ... there is snow in Chicago, so my flight through Chicago was potentially delayed. If it was delayed more than 1/2 hour, I would likely miss my connecton to get home - the last one of the night.

Normally, this would have made me unhappy. However, for the past two days, I had been trying to reroute my flight to Binghamton  or Syracuse NY so that I could attend a family funeral but it was going to cost $450 to make the change - with no option to use miles to pay for the difference. I had decided I would just fly home to Vermont, get up at 5am and drive the 5 hours to Syracuse.

But the delay ended up solving the problem for me. United was able to change my flight to go to Binghamton without any charge. This I can't complain about.

In the end, the Seattle to Chicago flight actually left on time, but I'm very happy that I'll be able to get to my parent's house tonight and we'll just work out the logistics of my getting back to Vermont later.

With the inclement weather all over the U.S. right now and a nasty forecast of snow & sleet for Burlington tomorrow morning, I've been watching the weather in Vermont, Chicago and Seattle as well as what's going on today with flights between those cities. I'm supposed to fly to Seattle tomorrow.

 

One great tool for watching flight patterns between airports is from the FAA's flight delay information - Air Traffic Control System Command Center website.

 

Another trick is just to go to United or whatever airline you prefer and ask it to show status for all flights between your destinations, rather than a specific flight #. SO I can see that flights between Burlington and Chicago today, some were cancelled, the 12:30pm flight left and arrived on time. The later afternoon flights are seriously delayed (eg 5pm flight delayed until 8pm). So it's all over the map. Tomorrow morning, my key piece of info will be when the flight FROM Chicago heads to Burlington because that plane turns around and flies back to Chicago which is the flight I'm supposed to be on. Snow & sleet also makes for interesting travel to drive to the airport, much less worrying about planes landing there. But pilots continue to amaze me when they make perfectly normal landings in conditions that have me white knuckled and with a racing pulse. I'll stick with the day job.

 

In the past month (plus a few days), I have flown across the country twice (one was an overnight trip to San Diego for an INETA talk, the other was for a few days for some training in Redmond at Microsoft) and driven to Boston twice (4 hours each way, once for COde Camp, and then again for REMIX) and Montreal once for a user group meeting.

STill ahead of me in the next month (plus a few days) are three more cross country trips. Las Vegas for DevConnections, Vancouver for DevTeach and then back to Seattle for another quickie trip.

(And before you ask, no, I am not interviewing. You should know me better than that by now. I'm just trying to learn a thing or two and rack up those miles.)

We had a wee scare last night flying from Washington/Dulles into Burlington (on my way home from a quick trip to San Diego to do an INETA talk ... that blog post is still on my laptop ).

It was a late night flight, due to land at 11:30pm in Burlington.

Five miles before we got to Burlington, the airplane's monitoring system reported excessive heat in one of the front brakes. The worst case scenario was that on touchdown or cruising down the runway, the brake could catch fire and it was quite close to the engine so...scary potential.

The flight attendants (both young and neither had yet been initiated with an emergency landing before this) had to prepare us very quickly with the news and for an emergency landing. Tighten the seat-belts, tuck into a ball, brace yourself against the seat in front of you (I had a wall that was a little far away). There was no time really for much else. They did a fabulous job.

I live with a general disbelief in anything bad happening to me or my loved ones. My parents have both survived minor bouts with cancer; my father has been in two car accidents where the car was totalled and he walked away; my husband cracked his head open on a rock face while we were hiking and while there was a LOT of blood, missing teeth, a scalped scalp and huge gashes to be stapled up, he recovered perfectly and they even shoved his teeth back into his gums and they remain there today. My Newfoundlands are living to ripe old ages beyond the norm for this breed of dogs.

So yes, I live in a little fantasy bubble world.

And because of that, while I was certainly shaking a little, I didn't really think that anything bad would really happen. And it didn't.

We landed. Nothing seemed to happen out of the ordinary. We did an emergency evacuation of the plane because the potential for fire and explosion still remained. Since I was up front I just went down the stairs like I normally would (vs. jumping off the wing like a lot of other people had to). Nobody was hurt. The plane didn't catch fire.

There was a lot of excitement on the runway. Many firetrucks and emergency vehicles and two guys in Hazmat outfits who looked like astronauts inspecting the plane.

It struck me as odd that I was the only person who walked VERY far away from the plane (you know, just in case.). I just kept going further and further out in the field by the runway.  And an hour later, I was allowed to go back on the plane to get my stuff out of the storage bin and I headed home.

One poor girl had been so terrified (possibly she has some past experience that this too closely resembled) that she couldn't stop crying for at least an hour. She had her boyfriend there to comfort her.

So, I got another day out of it. Didn't even bother calling my husband since it was nearly midnight; I knew he was sleeping and all I had to report was "Hi honey. I'm here. The plane didn't crash or blow up and I'm still alive. Talk to you later."  But I call him with that report after every single flight, which means generally twice in a day, since most of my flights include one stop over. So it didn't seem necessary to wake him up for that.

News stories about flying on planes always catch my eye because I travel a lot. Here's one from www.cnn.com today:

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Customs officers at Cairo's airport have detained a man bound for Saudi Arabia who was trying to smuggle 700 live snakes on a plane, airport authorities said.

The officers were stunned when a passenger, identified as Yahia Rahim Tulba, told them his carryon bag contained live snakes after he was asked to open it.

Tulba opened his bag to show the snakes to the police and asked the officers, who held a safe distance, not to come close. Among the various snakes, hidden in small cloth sacks, were two poisonous cobras, authorities said.

The Egyptian said he had hoped to sell the snakes in Saudi Arabia. Police confiscated the snakes and turned Tulba over to the prosecutor's office, accusing him of violating export laws and endangering the lives of other passengers.

According to the customs officials, Tulba claimed the snakes are wanted by Saudis who display them in glass jars in shops, keep them as pets or sell them to research centers.

The value of the snakes was not immediately known.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

I am currently in Seattle where I did some really fun presentations (thanks INETA) at Bellingham.NET and South Sound .NET (in Olympia) on Wednesday and Thursday. (I'll write about them in a separate post). I put off travel until April so that I could avoid winter travel problems. That didn't work out so well.

Flying to Seattle on Wednesday through O'Hare proved to be (as usual) quite a problem as Chicago had a big fat snowstorm. When we landed at O'Hare, we had to wait one and a half hours for gate. Then I got off one plane and onto another. They boarded us (huge plane) and then we sat on the runway for 3 and a half hours before taking off for Seattle! Unfortunately, arriving in Seattle over 5 hours late meant that I was unable to drive the 2+ hours to Bellingham. So I boarded a 6:50 flight to  Bellingham and actually started my presentation at 8pm! (That was 11pm my time.) Luckily, Paul Mehner had driven up and did a fabulous two hour talk on Workflow while they waited for me to arrive. So they got 2 hours of that and then 2  hours of LINQ to SQL. A double header. After this, Paul and I drove (well, Paul drove) the 3 hours south to Olympia where he lives and I stayed overnight at his family's beautiful house on the Sound.

The next night I did my talk at the Souht Sound User Group and then spent the rest of the time with Camey Combs and her family, visiting the very cool Olympia Farmer's market and being treated to a fabulous home cooked meal. I'd call it a home away from home except they don't serve food like that in my house!

Today is my trip home. I fly from Seattle to Washington D.C. and then take a small flight to Burlington. However, Burlington is expecting a major snowstorm tonight - 100% chance, sleet and snow with 5 - 9 inches expected. So I don't have high hopes of getting home tonight. I have a great back up plan to stay at Andrew Duthie's however (MSDN Dev. Evangelist in Washington D.C. area) . (All links coming but I'm typing quickly so I can go board my plane.)

So place your bets. Will I get home tonight? Will the little prop plane fly into a big snowstorm and land in burlington at 11pm? Then will I drive another 1/2 hour in the big snowstorm to my house? We'll see how it goes.

As someone who flies quite a lot, I am always interested in stories and news about airline flights. Today's CNN story about a Northwest flight out of Las Vegas being cancelled because the pilot (I can't believe this, yes the pilot!) was causing a disturbance (swearing up a storm and even at the passengers) that resulted in the police being called. Definitely something not right there and obviously, not at all normal. Talk about killing your career.

The fact that the flight was cancelled and the 180 passengers are now stuck in Las Vegas as a result of this definitely sucks.

They probably wouldn't be in the mood to watch this hilarious t.v. ad for the psycho stewardess who is trying to quit smoking. I wonder if that is what was wrong with the pilot?

I have definitely not had either of these experiences when flying.

This was one of the early highlights of our trip to Bulgaria. Chalga-Man!

Click on the image to see and hear Chalga-Man in action!

First of course I want to say how wonderful the DevReach conference was, how impressive the developer community is and what a great time we all had participating in it. It was totally worth coming all the way here.

In addition to the two-day conference, the Bulgarians have kept us busy. Here are some pics from the last few days.

Sunday night. Dinner at a classic Bulgarian restuarant where we had our first encounter with Bulgarian food ...

...and the famous Bulgarian Raika (brandy).

Monday morning. The start of DevReach! There were about 300 attendees at this conference. This is a pic during the keynote. You can see Goksin Bakir (raised arm) and Stephen Forte in the foreground. Although the conference was in English, the keynote was in Bulgarian. Luckily, someone was translating for us. Much of what we heard was about how strong the developer community is there which we were happy to be experiencing.

Monday night. We are driven up a long and windy mountain road for another amazing Bulgarian experience at Vodenitzata. More of the abundant and delicious food, more Rakia and this time also folk music and folk dancers as well as firewalkers! The taxi ride back to the hotel was a little wild - even for this ex-NYC dweller.

Tuesday afternoon. After finishing my talks, Stephen, Richard and I were taken to see the new Telerik offices. They building is not complete yet but it is going to be great. They have beautiful mountain views, lots of light and balconies galore. Here are some of the construction workers who are making this happen.

One thing about Sofia that is hard to get used to is the stray dogs. There are thousands of them. But they are part of the landscape, tame and somehow get fed and avoid the overwhelming traffic. There are 2 million people in Sofia, which is a lot more than the city was originally designed for. Therefore there it is pretty crowded but there is a ton of construction going on.

Tuesday night. After the closing panel of the conference, we went to yet another wonderful classic Bulgarian restaurant. No pics as I was travelling light that night. After that, the old farts went back to the hotel and I went on to a small nightclub with Angus Logan and Svetlozar, another one of the Telerik partners, to meet up with his wife and friends. I finally begged for mercy and was put into a cab back to my hotel, since I'm one of the old farts, too.

Wednesday was tourist day. Yay! Here is a view of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Sofia built in the early 1900's to commemmorate the liberation of Bulgaria from the Ottoman Empire. Of course,  you can't take picture inside, but needless to say, it was amazing.

We toured around Sofia all morning, visiting a Russian church and then a coffee shop, part of a chain that looks modeled after Starbucks.

Later we drove to Rila - a 2 hour drive on roads that are under construction (paid for by the EU who wants them improved for people driving through Bulgaria to get to other EU countries... and note that Bulgaria beocmes part of the EU on Jan 1.)

I thought seeing the goats wandering freely by the side of the road (and later some cows and horses) reminded my quite a lot of my trip to South Africa last year. Even just the dry grass here makes it look like I could have taken the picture in So. Africa.

I saw this woman when we were headed up the mountain. Mostly everyone we saw was modern, but she is certainly the image many of us may have.

Before we went into the monastery compound, we had yet another huge bulgarian meal. You can't imagine the food that kept coming out of the kitchen. We finally begged for mercy even though it was all amazing. The glass that looks like it was milk was really yogurt. It is also a known hangover cure. The pitcher is yogurt, too.

Here are a bunch of photos of the monastery. Inside this cathedral we were astounded. (Again no pics in doors). I love the stiped paining everywhere - it reminds me of persian pottery.

The end. IT's late. I'll post some more in another day or two.

The best part of my journey to Sofia was flying out of Munich over the Alps. For a good half hour we were right over the Alps and not too far up in elevation, so we could see so much very clearly. The rocky craggy mountains, the mountain lakes and streams, the switchback roads going up a few of them.

I had a window seat of course.

At one point the pilot said that if we looked out the window of the right side of the plane (where I was) we could see the Mediterranean Sea, and lo and behold, I did!

I was fortunate to be seated with two world travellers so we had a very engaging talk. One works for EU Customs and is coming to Bulgaria to help their customs officials prepare for becoming part of the EU in January.

We are in a lovely, elegant hotel.

I loved seeing this when i entered my room, something that belongs in the MOMA. As usual, my photography skills don't do it justice.

By tomorrow afternoon, we'll know if I really make it to Bulgaria or not for the DevReach conference, but even though my flight, which I reserved on August 4th, is tonight, there still is no ticket.

Here's what happened.

Reservations made (8 weeks to go)

Booked flights on United.com travelling on Austrian Airlines from JFK to SOF 8 weeks in advance.

Flight cancelled (2 weeks to go)

Two weeks before the trip, I get an email from (not Austrian and not United but ) the person I was flying with to say the flights were cancelled.

I called United and they re-booked me on flights that were highly inconvenient but I was told there was no option. When I recieved the email confirmation, they had messed up the flights, with 6 legs rather than 4 and some of them showing flights TO Bulgaria on my return date.

I decided to call Austrian and learned that their reservations actually have office hours! 9-5 est. So I waited to the next day.

Booked on new flights/new airline

Austrian fixed everything up and got me on the flights that made sense for me, though now on Lufthansa,  and sent me a link to a website where I could see that my new flights were confirmed.

No tickets? (1 week to go)

One week later I get a call from United saying my flight was cancelled.

It turned out that they were telling me finally about the original cancellation and had no clue about the new flights that Austrian had changed me to.

Again, Austrian was closed, so this time I called Lufthansa directly.

I was told that I was still confirmed on the Lufthansa flights but no ticket had been issued and only United could issue the tickets.

So back on the phone with United who said that they had absolutely no record of the Lufthansa flights, no access to the seats I was telling them about and that Lufthansa had no right to confirm me on their OWN FLIGHT, since I had originally booked through United. I asked how it was possible that Lufthansa could not promise me seats on their own airplanes!

New tickets

Finally, a supervisor found my Lufthansa reservations and said they would fix evertyhing up and issue me new tickets.

No tickets (4 days to go)

A few days later I looked on the United site and it had a trip with 4 legs over (the two old ones and the two new ones) and 4 legs returning (again, 2 old and 2 new!)

New tickets

I called united again and after a while on the phone was told it was straightened out and I should see the correct information on the site if I logged out and logged back in. But even after two more days, that wasn't the case.

Flight info changed?

This morning, I received a phone call saying to call United about a change in my reservation. That did not make me happy. However, when I called, I discovered that this was for a completely different trip that is two months away. While I was on the phone, I asked about the fact that the site was still wrong about my trip that I"m taking today and was switched over to the international desk.

No tickets (day of flight)

After a few minutes on the phone with the next person, I learned that the new tickets had still NOT BEEN ISSUED. So I would have flown to JFK tonight (that is on Jet Blue), gone over to the Lufthansa terminal and been sent home.

New tickets

So.... now, I'm still on the phone with United being told that someone from United is talking to someone from Lufthansa to make sure it's all fixed up becuase it's way too late to do anything through the regular channels again.

For the amount of time I have spent on the phone dealing with this nonsense, I probably could have paid to fly in Business class after all.

I've learned my lesson about booking non-United flights on the United website. It's still not settled and I'm really glad I'm not an A-Type personality or I may have self-combusted by now.

Vegas used to be known for it's $5 dinner buffets and other bargains that made it a fun and very inexpensive vacation. The few times I've been there (for conferences only as it's not really my dream vacation spot), I've been astonished at how pricey everything was - especially the Vegas shows, which I just can't bring myself to buy $100+ tickets for. Markus Egger had a wake-up call when trying to plan a recent weekend in Vegas and says "who wants to stay at the Venetian when gong to Venice is cheaper?" Hear! Hear!

In the past month, I have made a number of short trips that allowed me to get away with a small carry-on bag. My big problem was that I couldn't bring toothpaste with me. I hated the idea of buying toothpaste at my destination, using a touch of it and then throwing it away. I even felt guilty doing the same with teh travel-sized toothpaste that the hotels gave me. Use a small amount and then it gets thrown away. The packaging is my real issue - I am always at odds with the convenience of our disposable habits.

On the other hand, the hassle of checking my bags just so I could have toothpaste.

My deodorant is a solid, my face soap is a bar, hotels have shampoo and I don't wear make-up. So it was really just the toothpaste that was making me dizzy.

So I was happy to see this today even though my next three trips are long ones that I will be checking my bag for anyway.

I was looking on the United Airlines website at the prices of possibly flying to Seattle in December and had to laugh when this option popped up in the list.

For those of you who are comma challenged, this translates to 14,763,950 dollars. Oh, and this is in Economy. I wonder what the Business Class version of this flight costs?

Before flying to NYC last week, I tried to find some information on what I could expect at the airports regarding the impact of the new security. Since I couldn't find anything, I thought I would post these two airports.

Burlington (Thursday Aug 17th, late morning: 5 minutes)

The two ends of BTV are treated like separate terminals and each has their own security checkin. I went through the downstairs one which is for Jet Blue and some of the others, but I can't remember which ones. My flight was at 11:30 am. I arrived at 9:45 am. I got through security in under 5 minutes.

JFK Jet Blue Terminal 6 (Friday Aug 18th, late night: 5 minutes)

This shocked me. I arrived at about 8:30 and again was through security in 5 minutes. They had 4 lines open and there just weren't very many people.

Liquids in Carryons - oops

Both times, I inadvertantly had some liquid when going through security. The first was a small bottle of hand lotion in an outside pocket of my back pack. I had emptied out the backpack and repacked it, but had missed this. On the way home, I had totally forgotten about the small, nearly emtpy now, bottle of water I had been carrying around Manhattan on that hot August day with me. Both of these were extracted by the security workers.

I talked with someone who was travelling out west with a friend earlier that week. They had met up with her somewhere in the midwest. She too had a bottle of water. Security stopped her and found and tossed the water. The friend is from Texas and normally carries a Texas sized version of a pocket knife (a hunting knife!). When they arrived at their destination, she realized that her knife was still in her bag. She had forgotten to take it out before going to the airport and didn't even know it was in there. The security folks were so hell-bent on liquids that they hadn't found it.

wow!

I had to fly from Binghamton to Burlington yesterday. The flight was scheduled to leave Binghamton at 1:55 p, arrive in Philly at 2:30 and then another flight at 3:30 arriving in Burlington at 5:00pm. Philadelphia had more wicked storms yesterday which forced many airplanes to sit on the runway before allowing the passengers to depart. The reason was that they are not allowed to use the ramps when there is lightning (which is totally reasonable). Needless to say, the airport was a mess, many flights were delayed and people were even stranded. I did manage though to get home last night, arriving in Burlington at 11:30pm. The irony was that normally I drive, as it is only a 5.5 hour drive from Binghamton to my house. This trip ended up being over 12 hours door to door. 

Continuing our INETA Atlantic Provinces tour, Rich & I have been in Newfoundland since Friday. We are staying with Amanda Murphy and Shane Perran who have been fantastic hosts and tour guides. Amanda runs St. John's .NET User Group, the local user group where I am speaking tonight. She is also a board member of INETA. But most importantly, since we met in the blogosphere a few years ago, I think more of Amanda as a little sister. We have been having a blast here!

For those of you new to geography , Newfoundland is the eastern most province of Canada and out here in St. John's (one of the oldest cities in North America), we are on the eastern most point of North America. We even went to the tippy tip of it yesterday, to Cape Spear. We are surrounded by rugged, beyond gorgeous coastline and 500 years of military history.

St. John's itself is accessible by water through a narrow strip of water between big cliffs which has been protected during wars and attempts (some successful) to colonize Newfoundland over the centuries. Here is a picture of St. Johns looking out through the narrows, from inside The Rooms, a wonderful conglomeration of natural history museum, modern art museum and provincial archives up on the hillside of St. John's. The Rooms is not quite as loved by locals though. It's a massive structure that imposes greatly on the St. John's cityscape and cost a great deal of money to build. It has been open for a year and apparently the jury is still out as to it's impact. As an outsider though, I truly enjoyed the experience of being in the complex.

There are forts on both sides of the narrows. On the left side is National Historic site, Signal Hill. Here is a picture taken from Signal Hill looking at the other side of the narrows. You can see a lighthouse there as well and the ruins of another old fort.

We have been visiting many spots along the coast in this general area. In Middle Cove, I had to give up on trying to save all of the starfish that were meeting there doom out of the water.

 

We went to the amazing Cape Spear yesterday, the eastern most point of Newfoundland (and north america) and with NL's oldest light house. We saw lots of whales (distant) while there also.

   

We also went on a whale/bird watch with a wonderful tour operator, O'Brien's. We followed a whale for a while and it made a number of deep dives, which means the tail comes up and out of the water for a big splash. I did not get the timing right on clicking my digital camera (darned lag time) so I don't have a good pic to share, but O'Brien's has great pictures and videos on their site.

We went to an island with millions (literally) of birds - gulls, puffins, awks and more. The puffins were fun to watch. They have small wings and flap them furiously to fly. On the water they go across the top doing this flying/swimming/bouncing thing.

We also went to small fishing villages in many little coves. Here are some pics (those are crab pots) from Petty Harbor.

 

Today I will go for a hike up Signal Hill with my silly husband, who has been patiently waiting for me while I created this insanely long blog post. Rich is quite prepared for whatever foul weather we may encounter!

Yesterday Rich and I drove from New Brunswick, where I had spoken at the local .NET User Group, to Halifax Nova Scotia, about a 2 1/2 hour drive. Before heading into the city, we drove out the coast a bit to an absolutely-not-to-be-missed treasure of Nova Scotia called Peggy's Cove. Peggy's Cove is a very historic fishing village that provided respite from the wind but easy access to great fishing. It is a beautiful rocky place with a famous lighthouse that also houses the local post office.

   

You can see why this is the most photographed location in Nova Scotia. Even I can take a calendar worthy photo in this town!

The  (INETA sponsored!) user group talk was in Halifax that night at .NET Nova Scotia. Derek Hatchard, who runs both the Moncton group and this group, drives the 2.5 hours to Halifax (and back home) for the meetings. He picked me up at the hotel after Rich and I had a quick dinner (it was Rich's birthday, so I couldn't totally abandon him for pizza with the geeks). The meeting was at a local college and not only were there students attending, but a professor, with a long history that included working at Bell Labs (who the students are really lucky to have) from the college. I had a blast, as always, talking about ADO.NET and as always, most of the questions were around the query notification. It is such a cool feature and I have to be careful not to use up the entire session time talking about it.

Today Rich and I had a pure vacation day and have driven out to the Eastern Shore. I am now at a magnificent inn in a very remote location on the ocean. Too bad we can't stay here for a month or two.There is so much history here and no time to absorb a good portion of it. We stopped at a living history museum  (Fisherman's Life Museum) which is the homestead of a fishing family through the 18th and 19th century. That was really fascinating and I was amazed at the rugs and quilts in the house as well.. Oh and if anyone is in the market for kittens, it was all I could do not to take them with me, but they are looking for some homes!

The other big thing we did today was a glorious hike along the wild and windy Nova Scotia coast at Taylor's Head.

Last night I did an INETA event in Moncton New Brunswick (northeastern Canada). We came early and spent the weekend in the Bay of Fundy area. The Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world thanks not only to the shape of the bay, but the fact that the amount of time that it takes for the tide to move into the bay happens to be the same amount of time between low & high tide (6 hrs 13 min) . The tides can be up to 46 feet high! We stayed in Fundy National Park the first night at the HIghlands Inn and Chalet which has a collection of totally adorable little chalets that were built in the 50's but are very well maintained. They are also dog friendly. I hope we can get back there someday.

The Park and the whole area is beautiful and very special. Not only is the Bay of Fundy amazing in it's beauty and natural phenomenon of emptying out so much that you can walk on the ocean floor and then quickly filling back up, but the park is an Acadian forest, lush wet filled with spruce and just ends as cliffs right up at the edge of the bay. Rich and I went for a great hike in the park and then paddling at the end of the day with the local outfitters. It was a windy day so we had a blast kayaking in the big waves.

      

When the boats come in, they throw cage-like platforms over the edge which go under the boat. As the tide recedes the boats  are held up on these cages, rather than sinking into the mud. It's hard t see the platforms, but you can easily see the boats are hovering above the mudflats.

That night we stayed at a wonderful B&B called Innisfree. In the morning we went over to see the famous "flower pots" aka The Hopewell Rocks, amazing formations in the bay that are mostly covered at high tide and that you can walk around in at low tide. I'm surprised they don't bill these as the 8th wonder of the world! Here's Rich doing the classic pose we saw in many tourist guides!

 

On our second day in Fundy National Park, we went to Alma for breakfast. We had a yummy classic diner breakfast of eggs, bacon & toast, then I headed over to the local baker, Kelly's Bakery, to get a sandwich for our hike. I ordered the sandwich while enjoying the smell of the sticky buns that had just come out of the oven. Everyone coming in was ordering sticky buns. Then asking me (an obvious out of towner) didn't you get any sticky buns? No, but they smell great. But you must have some sticky buns. Oh, no ... really we just ate breakfast, I couldn't eat any more. This went on with everyone who came into the bakery that was slowly filling up.What I finally learned was that these sticky buns are famous in the province  of New Brunswick and beyond. It's practially the town currency. So we got a sticky bun for our hike and yes, it was amazingly yummy, soft and sweet. Google "Alma 'sticky buns'" and you'll see what I mean!

I did go grab my camera to get a picture of the world famous sticky buns of Alma, New Brunswick. The sun was shining on the pastry case, so this was the best I could do. I also got a picture of four guys who had just come down from Moncton (a one hour 15 minute drive) on their motorcycles just for some sticky buns.

In addition to having a great time presenting at WeProgram.NET last week, there were two other things I wanted to share.

When it's possible, I try to bring back a local beer for Rich. Unfortunately, there was no bringing a 6pack of Castle back from South Africa, but in Virginia Beach, the local brewery is St. George. I had to find them via google, but was able to grab a 6-pack at the local market. Since my laptop is not too heavy, it wasn't so bad carrying it back home in my backpack.

While there, my brother brought me to one of his favorite lunch spots, the Warriors Grill, which does a buffet in the style of the Mongolian warriors of centuries past. I love the history of this, described in ther menu and got a good laugh out of "at the Warrior's Grill, we do the gathering and preparing for you. No need to place the meat under your saddle to tenderize it as the Mongol Warriors would sometimes do."

At the restaurant, you pile prepared vegetables and meats along with a great variety of oils into a bowl and then they are cooked on a hot surface.

Unfortunately, the whole history is not on their website, so here's a quick scan for you.

Don't Forget: www.acehaid.org

gotta love them. I am always SO happy it's them flying the plane and not me. I am terrified of flying and every bump and jiggle the plane makes turns me a little paler. I have learned to remind myself that these guys and gals know what they are doing and I don't need to be so afraid. .Yesterday was a windy day. We didn't get the tornadoes that were further south but it was still wicked up here. Landing in D.C. was a little unnerving, but the flight in a smaller plane between D.C. to Burlington was worse. As we descended through the two cloud layers towards the Burlington Airport we found ourselves in very gusty winds. I know up at our house it was anywhere from 30 - 50mph. The plane was bouncing around a lot. I could barely contain myself when the pilot had to bank the plane a few times to circle around and line up with the runway. Even as we were merely hovering over the runway, about to touch down, the plane was still bouncing a little - side to side. That was really scary. Poor Rich sitting next to me. I was clinging to his pant leg pretty tightly (...he said I didn't hurt him). But even with all of that, they landed the plane with no problems (and I made note of the fact that there were no fire trucks and ambulances waiting on the runway  so it was really just business as usual.. )

This is what they are trained to do! It is just *me* that doesn't know how to fly a plane in turbulence. You should have seen me on the overnight flight from Frankfurt to Johannesburg. It was a really bumpy ride. I was in a cushy business class seat with Kate Gregory sleeping peacefully in the seat next to me, but I coulnd't sleep. Eventually I dozed off but was startled awake by a big bounce and then spent a good hour or so wondering how I was going to get back on the plane again to come home. Such a worrier. But I'm still here to talk about it! Yay for pilots.

Don't Forget: www.acehaid.org

Angel's Landing at Zion National Park is at the tip of this mountain:

and begins with this warning:

I am terrified of heights and have Vertigo, but up we went.

After a while of normal switchbacks and through a canyon, we hit the famous Walter's Wiggles - a series of very tight switchbacks that are built up for support.

Sometimes, there is no edge on Walter's Wiggles:

Eventually, we reached Scout Lookout to be greeted by these happy little one-holers...

 

and another warning...

but on we went... to this

 

I went up a ways, but eventually was pretty scared and knew that going down would be harder. So I turned around and Rich went on. Here are a few pictures to his journey over this hump, up the next...

 

then across this narrow precipice (with a 1500' drop!!!)

and on to the glory of Angel's Landing and this view.

Then he had to come all the way back to where he left me still recovering from my few feet on the rocks. Yay Rich!

Last night at about 5:30 we were headed out of Zion and there was a spectacular sunset. Because of the clouds in the sky, the red rocks were glowing red from the reflection of the sun off of the clouds. We pulled over in a spot near the entrance where there were a lot of people taking photos. I went to the bridge to try to take a picture but my camera battery was dead. Uggh. Anyway, I was standing next to some people who were all set up with the tripod etc taking pictures. I took a double take at one of the men - could that be Robert Redford? But of course - how could it be - just some man who was beautiful in the same way that Redford is (and just keeps getting better and better ). Today we realized that there is a film festival in Zion (www.ziffutah.com), so just maybe....

Posted from BLInk!

Last year, prior to the fall DevConnections conference in Las Vegas, I spent a few days in Zion National Park with Kathleen Dollard. I loved it so much that I promised myself that if I was invited back to Las Vegas, I would return to Zion and bring my husband with me. So, here I am in Zion where we have had a few great days already. One thing that I really wanted to do this time was hike up the Zion Narrows - the canyon river. So this morning we rented the proper gear and did it. What a great experience!

Here are two photos from the Narrows.

 

Very coincidentally, there is an art exhibit by Vermont artist, Sally Linder, from her visit to South Africa in 2002 that is on display through the end of this week. I read about it in Seven Days and  went to see it a few days ago. We passed by some of the tin house shantytowns at 60+ miles per hour as we went from the bustle of the airport to the fantasy of Sun City (with it's not so fantastic past). Sally Linder went to South Africa and straight to the shanty towns as part of the Ark of Hope project. She visited the well-known Soweto and two other towns, Zandspruit and Diepsloot where she met and painted portraits of the residents and their life there. Although I am very excited by the potential of what I saw at TechEd, what she shares in her paintings and words reflecting her experience there is a reminder of how far there is to go. My hope is that the impact of the developer community in South Africa benefits all of South Africa's citizens and this only builds on my desire to work more closely with the SA Developer community, which began while I was there.

Don't Forget: www.acehaid.org

One of the places I plan to checkout while at DevConnections next week is Lucille's BBQ.

Lucille's has 6 California locations and one just south of Vegas in Henderson, NV.

It is BBQ & live blues (on Fri & Sat nights) - and is owned by a couple who owns some of my parents' newfies.

Don't Forget: www.acehaid.org

Kate and I went on an incredible 3 hour game drive today with our guide Humbu. We saw so many animals and took gobs of pictures. Kate has blogged some here. Here are a few of mine but I must get focused on my afternoon session - ADO.NET 2.0 & SQL Server 2005 Integration.

These are wildebeest. They are a strange looking animal and are said to have been created with leftover parts of other animals.

These are impalas. We saw them frequently on the drive ...

...but not nearly as many as the zillions of zebras we saw. These are a variety that also has a faint brown stripe. The type with only black and white are not in Pilanesberg.

This was our 2nd elephant siting of the morning. The first was in the distance behind the "vacation club" where we were staying. Our eagle eye tour guide spotted them as we were headed to the park. This one, he saw from a distance and drew up a road to show us. Unfortunately, it was a road to a private lodge ("for princes and presidents" as Kate says) and he got yelled at by an employee of the lodge who was also headed up the road. She was very unreasonable and we wondered if her treatment of Humbu was reminiscent of previous relations in South Africa.