In this episode, Gareth shares his passion for Ametuer Dramatics and talks about getting started in high school plays in South Africa. Richie and Gareth discuss history as Gareth gets into his pass time of reenacting the civil war. Cecil asks about the state of technology in South Africa. Cecil and Gareth get into a discussion about South African and Caribbean food. Sadly, our friend Richie is not a fan of the curry. Gareth discusses a few national delicacies, South African wine and also his special Chili. Richie gets educated on the mechanics of cricket. Our panel compares rugby with american football, and discuss the rise in USA soccer

Links

Tech Night at the Ballpark
Brian Lara
Bobotie Meat Pie
Boerewors Sausage
Cornmeal Porridge
Pinotage Grapes

Bio

Gareth_Swanepoel_BioGareth Swanepoel is a sysadmin-turned-SQL Server DBA. He has been working in the IT industry doing support and administration for over 20 years. He enjoys solving the complex problems that his clients encounter when deploying SQL Server in a data warehouse environment. He is an accomplished author and speaker. Current projects include contributing content for the SQL 2014 Extended Events book. He also currently serves as one of the PASS Regional Mentors for the US SouthEast region.

Dmitry introduces himself as a software developer and a gamer. He also describes his role in putting on the massive Build conference. Cecil asks Dmitry what’s it like working for the “new Microsoft”. Dmitry shares about what his position as a Product Manager is like and how he produces videos for Microsoft. Richie asks Dmitry what is the difference between a program manager and a product manager. Dmitry shares how he was able to keep evolving and progressing in his career. Richie asks Dmitry how Visual Studio Code came to be. The panel discuss video games and how playing games can be a communal activity.

Links

Tech Night at the Ballpark
Visual Studio 2015
Build Conference

Connect Event
Visual Studio YouTube
Visual Studio Code
Visual Studio Community Edition
Star Wars: The Old Republic

Bio

Dmitry_Lyanlin_BioDmitry Lyalin has been building software for 16+ years and has worked in various industries including payroll, education, banking, media and more recently Microsoft Consulting & Premier Support. Currently Dmitry works as a Product Manager for Visual Studio team out of Redmond, where he moved to from NYC a few years back. In his spare time Dmitry loves building mobile apps, cloud services and is a very dedicated PC gamer.

Kendall explains how he cooks for his user group every month. Kendal talks about how he got his pilot’s license at 15 years old. Cecil and Kendal talk about their experiences watching Space Shuttle launches. Richie talks about how awesome the Atlantis exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center. Richie and Kendal discuss the new Space Launch System (SLS). Kendal talks about his experience with the NASA Social program. Kendal gives some resources to learn more about space and space flight.

Links

NASA
NASA Socials
Spaceflight Now
Kennedy Space Center
The Year of Pluto – New Horizons Documentary

Bio

Kendal_Van_Dyke_BioKendal is a database strategist, community advocate, public speaker, & blogger. A practiced IT professional with over 15 years of SQL Server experience, Kendal excels at disaster recovery, high availability planning/implementation, & debugging/troubleshooting mission critical SQL Server environments. Kendal is a Principal Consultant at UpSearch SQL (http://www.upsearch.com), a Microsoft MVP, & President of MagicPASS (http://magicpass.sqlpass.org), the Orlando, FL based chapter of PASS.

Paola talks about modeling, acting, and why she decided to become a technologist. Cecil asks Paola why she decided to investigate WordPress. Paola talks about her desire to be a front end developer and how she’s looking into a formal program. Paola asks the guys how they got started in technology. Richie asks Paola what’s it like to be in a session where you have no background in the topic. Richie talks about the challenges of hiring young developers, his internship with Walt Disney World, and a new hire gone wrong. Paola talks about her desire to continue to model and code.

Links

Juan Night Stand Short Film
Meetup.com
WordCamp Miami
Code Academy

Bio

Paola_Valiente_BioPaola Valiente was born and raised in Corozal, Puerto Rico. As an actress she’s worked in commercials for Minute Maid and Puerto Rican Lottery. She co-starred with Braulio Castillo, Jr. in a short film called Juan Night Stand (2013) which got to the Short Film Corner of the Cannes Film Festival in France. Her experience in modeling includes national campaigns, fashion editorials, and runways. Paola now lives in Miami where she has taken a new adventure, learning to code. You can find her on Twitter at @PaoPaoDaily or on the web at https://thepaopao.wordpress.com/