Last spring when I was at the DevSummit conference in Stockholm, I scheduled an extra day to be a tourist in this incredible city. I walked everywhere. As I walked around, I kept seeing a tram go by that had a big coffee cup on the top of it. (Here's a photo I snagged from the official web site ) After...

I thought I would add my 2 cents about the new Aloft hotels since I just stayed in one. Aloft is like a mini-W hotel ...part of the Starwood chain and specifically a spin-off of W. I'm more of a Westin/Sheraton type of girl. I checked out Aloft since I just needed a quick overnight for getting an early...

I don't have time for a real blog post but this ( Bialowieski National Park ) is where I went today with Michal Chaniewski and Mirek Praglowski and our wonderful guide, Asia . The forest has been untouched for hundreds of years and therefore thrives in a very natural state. Even the Elms are safe from...

Today Michael Foord and his wife Delia came into London to do the tourist thing with me. We wandered over to Buckingham Palace and I took the requisite photo of one of the guards. I loved these fat pelicans (?) in the park near the palace. After lunch we headed over to the Tate Modern for a special treat...

At the Girl Geek Dinner on Thursday night I was surprised to see Peter DeBetta there! He is in London working on a contract and had been told about the GGD by our mutual friend, Rachel Hawley from Red Gate. I had plans to spend the day with Dave Sussman the next day (now yesterday) and Peter and Dave...

No, not *that* one (the oh-my-god-I-gotta-have-a-baby-before-it's-too-late, clock ...that stopped ticking years ago). My flight to Orlando for TechEd was a 6am flight. The concept of me getting up on time for that, much less even being awake at 6am makes my husband laugh his butt off. I got to bed last...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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....

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...