Notes from the Cape

I have just got back from spending a few days at the Microsoft Tech-Ed conference at Sun City (thanks Woolworths!). The conference had some great educational sessions, ranging from very technical “how to do cool stuff” sessions, to more simple how to integrate new Office features into your application.

The conference started with a bit of a painful note for me, on account of somebody slamming my thumb into a door on the first evening (which was a bit painful). This resulted in me spending Monday morning at the doctor, and a thumb that looks like a golf ball at the moment (they actually have a 24 clinic at Sun City, and a doctor on call).

The highlight of the conference was the fireworks display that they put on at the closing party at the Valley of the Waves. The Valley of the Waves is basically an artificial beach in the middle of the desert – quite amazing.

I was put up as the Palace, which is the top of the four hotels at Sun City, which was really great. I had a huge room with all the extras. The architecture shows an incredible amount of attention to detail (once you get over the fact that the building is not ancient, and is really quite new). The one downside is that everything at the Palace is expensive – my two beers at the bar were R75 – and they were local!

There is a lot of wildlife at Sun City – including tons of monkeys. I got a huge fright when a monkey jumped out of a tree and landed at my feet.

It was great to go to the conference, meet some new people, and to catch up with some old friends and colleagues (and of course to spend a few days away from work).

The photos are on Flickr