Steve Irwin / Africa

Africa. I watched impalas leap majestically across the golden plain, listened to a hundred types of birds, laughed at the money hiding in the grass, spied on the ostrich guarding its nest, and so much more.

And Steve Irwin has died and I feel like I have lost a friend.

It was his voice, of course, that I spoofed when creating my famous ant-training video. And when I travelled to Australia in 2004, it was right at the top of my list to visit his Australian Zoo just north of Brisbane, where I watched his show and even shot video of him behind the scenes.

I never met him, but I felt like I knew him, because I understood his passion.

My website is down today, and I'm getting only a trickle of email, so it looks like I won't be able to send out my newsletter. But I will post some Steve Irwin photos and video when I can - I have published the photos before, on my site (link not working at the moment) and I've never posted the video.

I am in Bloemfontein, in the Free State. I have an all-day workshop tomorrow, and a keynote on Wednesday.

I had planned to talk about this in my newsletter, but here's the plan (and please pass the word around if you read this, since most people don't read this).

I've talked with the people here and it looks like I'll be able to pull off a Skypecast. I am going to test the system tomorrow afternoon - I plan to officially start it at 2 pm (that is at 9 am Atlantic time, am Eastern time (I believe I'm in GMT+2 right now but check that).

If it works (and I'm sure it will) I will Skypecast my keynote on Wednesday - I think we're looking 9:30 a.m. here, which means it will be tough to see in North America (but prime-time for Australia and New Zealand). I will keep you posted here, even if I can't get my website up.

So I hope to chat with you tomorrow and - since (to my knowledge) the Wednesday event will be the first ever Skypecast keynote address, I hope to make history with you the day after.

Now I'm off to dinner. Until tomorrow...