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.