POTD: 18 Dec 2006

Weather forecast for St Anton for the next few days.

POTD: 15 Dec 2006

Spent a great afternoon playing golf yesterday. We only managed 10 holes as we ran out of time and light, but the course was in great condition, and the playing conditions were magnificent after a highveld thunderstorm that delayed us by 45 minutes. Pictured here is the beautiful Par 3 15th at Parkview Golf Course.

Facelift

You may notice some subtle differences in the blog from today - thats because the folks at Blogger have been working on a new version of the blogger tool for a while now, and I decided that it was time to upgrade to the new version from today.
Some of the new features include:
- Labels: which allow me to tag each piece of content, so that you can view similiar content by clicking on the tag at the bottom of each post - or by using the "Tag" menu in the right hand toolbar.
- Email Posts: there is a little email icon at the end of each post - if you find an article that you think someone else would like to read, feel free to use this icon to email the post to them.
- Enhanced Archive: The use of expandable archive lists makes it easy to filter posts by month or year.
- Profile View: K leaves most of the posting to me. I'm not the only who noticed that - the Blogger guys also saw that I'm the active poster on this site, so they took the liberty of placing my profile up there. I could change it, but I won't. Maybe it'll get K to post something, just to see if her profile appears back up there :-)

There are a bunch of other features that I haven't activated yet. Maybe another day.

Lost...?

Check this out: www.lost.eu/f8d3

POTD: 14 Dec 2006

Couldn't resist this one. Was on my way to lunch yesterday, and just before I pulled onto the freeway, this motorcycle, with passenger, pulled up next to me. They were also turning left onto the freeway. The driver was wearing a proper helmut, as required by law, but the passenger was wearing a hard-hat. Obviously they only had one helmut, and knowing that it is illegal to drive a motorcyle without one, they had used the next best thing. Ten points for creativity, although I would hate to see how effective the hardhat would be in protecting this persons head in the event of a fall.

POTD: 13 Dec 2006

Some patching and undercoat work that is going into the complex at the moment in preparation for a new look. Not sure what the new colours are going to be yet, but anything has got to be better than pink right?

POTD: 12 Dec 2006

Screen-shot of the Arlberg webcam that I've been checking out over the past few weeks. It snowed this weekend, and the forecast for this coming weekend is about 20cm of new snow. Problem is that the temperatures are not consistently below zero yet, which means that any snow over the next few days is likely to melt, unless the mercury drops, and stays below zero. Hold thumbs.

POTD: 11 Dec 2006

Have not been feeling great lately - seems like some bug has caught up with me and is determined on seeing me spend some time on the couch. Which is exactly what I did yesterday. I didn't have the energy to walk upstairs and post the POTD, so that's why its here today, for yesterday. Feeling a little better this morning, after spending more than 30 hours horizontal. Don't know if I'm quite up for a round of golf today, but definitely tomorrow.

POTD: 10 Dec 2006

Finally got around to putting up the Christmas tree this weekend.

POTD: 09 Dec 2006

Fridge mag's...

POTD: 08 Dec 2006

We have an Italian friend who always gives us a Panettone cake at Christmas time.
What would Christmas be without Panettone cake?
Read about the history of this Italian tradition here.

Hot, Sticky and Frustrated...

Have spent most of my day today sorting out admin issues. Left for Pretoria at about 9am this morning to collect our passports from the Austrian Embassy. Missed the offramp so had to double back and find my way back into Brooklyn. Got there at about 10am and was greeted with a hot and sweaty queue out the door and down the stairs. Anyway, stood in the queue for and hour and a half before finally making my way to the counter to get the passports. Thankfully there were no problems in getting the visas. I put this down to the hours of preparation and effort that I put into getting everything perfect. It was cruel, but funny to see the number of people turned away because they had forms in the wrong order, or they had stapled their photos to the application form and had accidentally defaced the picture. They're a tough bunch of people those Austrians. Nevertheless, we're finally sorted.
I signed up with Hillside golf club a couple of weeks ago, so that I could get a handicap card and pay affiliate rates. Anyway, figured that whilst I was in Pretoria I would do the visas and collect my card at the same time - which would save me the courier fees for the golf card from Pretoria to Jhb. On my way out of Brooklyn and wanting to turn left to head north I figure out that there in no on-ramp heading north - only one heading south. Again, I have to take the southern route, double back onto the freeway heading north. Five minutes up the road, I come across an accident involving three vehicles - and only 3 of the four northern lanes are open. No worries, the accident just happened so I don't have to wait long. Off I go. Things back on track. Until...i turn the next bend on the freeway, and all four lanes are at a dead standstill. 702 announces that 2 army vehicles have overturned just past the Zambezi off-ramp. That's 5 kms up the road from where I am. I spend the next hour sitting in my car with the windows down, watching the people all around me getting out of their cars and sitting on the grass next to the freeway. We sit, without moving for about an hour and a half before the hundreds of sunburnt motorists climb back into their cars to start moving again. By the time I had collected my golf card and made the journey back home, 6 hours had passed. Sigh....

POTD: 07 Dec 2006

This guy has been hanging in our kitchen window for about 2 years now. K's sister made it for us a couple of seasons ago. Thought it appropriate since we're nearing that time of year.
Thanks Ang.

Free (open source) apps for Windows

Came across this great list of useful and free software applications for Windows. Having recently bought myself the Sony Vaio, I needed to install everything from scratch - this list certainly would have helped back then. It covers pretty much 90% of the software needs that the average user has - and the bonus is that its all open source, and free.
I have already downloaded and played with FreeMind, which is a great mind mapping tool that is very useful for brainstorming ideas. Have also tried out Sunbird, which is a calendaring tool - the only problem is that it does not handle meeting requests as well as Microsoft Outlook does (I've also been using Google Calendar for my meeting requests, and that seems to be quite effective). Another one to watch out for is Handbrake - although they don't have a fully working Windows version as yet - but it potentially could be a very useful tool that'll allow you to rip DVD's direct to your hard drive.
Anyway, check them all out here.
Of course, those who have been running Linux for a while now, will be saying to themselves that this post was a complete waste of time. They've had these apps for years now. Go on...say it.

POTD: 06 Dec 2006

Another picture that we have hanging in our loft. I do recall the artist in this case - its Didier Lourenco.

POTD: 05 Dec 2006

Getting into the silly season I thought it silly not to include a picture of my favourite cider. Besides, the effect of the flash through the bottle is pretty cool.

Praying for snow...

Came across this sad but interesting report on the snow situation in Europe. The long and the short of it, is that global warming is starting to seriously affect the weather patterns around the world - with this report focusing on Europe. Its says that Austria has experienced its warmest Autumn temperatures on record. The fear is that many of the low lying ski resorts in Europe will no longer have snow in 15 years time due to the temperature increase.
We're going to St Anton, which is an Austrian resort that borders Italy and Switzerland, and whose town is at around 1350m above sea level, with the highest lift at around 2800m. Luckily for us, there is snow on the higher peaks (see webcam here), and the weather forecast for this week says that there is some decent snow on the way. I'm pretty certain that we'll be alright, because this is quite a high lying resort, but still - there is always the fear that the weather does not play ball.

POTD: 04 Dec 2006

Been a warm day here today. Its Grant and Stuart's birthday today...so going to have dinner with them this evening, which should be nice.
Played a round of golf at Obs this morning - was inspired to shoot the lights out after watching the Pro's at Sun City yesterday. Went up with the family to watch the final round. The heat up at Sun city is something else though - draining.
Anyway, got home from golf and found this poor lavender bush struggling in the heat of the day. Nothing that a bucket of water can't sort out though.

POTD: 03 Dec 2006

Painting that K and I have hanging in our loft. Not too sure who the painter is, but we liked the picture when we bought it a few years ago. I'm pretty sure that we did ask who painted it when we bought it, but we've since forgotten. If you know, please let us know.

POTD: 2 Dec 2006

gtc's Famous Berry Shake!
(click image to enlarge)

1). Couple of Raspberries

2). Some Blackberries
3). Few Strawberries
4). Single banana
5). Chuck in a little bit of Soya milk
6). And some vanilla yoghurt
7). Half a scoop of protein powder
8). Couple of blocks of ice
9). Use the blender
10). To mix it all up
11). Pour
12). And Enjoy... :-)

POTD: 30 Nov 2006

OK, so as you can see, there is no photo for this day. Reason being is that camera's are NOT allowed onto the Gary Player course at Sun City - and probably with good reason. It would be a shame for some amateur photographer to forget to turn his flash off whilst Ernie is pitching over the ninth hole water hazard for a 1.6 million dollar first prize.
Seriously though - the day at Sun City was fantastic. Granted, I did overindulge somewhat, and the fact that we were bussed to the event and back home again probably helped the situation somewhat - still, it was a great day. Our position was perfect too. Anyone who has played the course will know that the par 5 ninth green is protected by a huge pond in front, and a water hazard at the back and left, with bunkers on the right. Due to this, most players play their tee shots, and then opt for the lay up (correction...most pro's take this option, as well as 99% of amateurs due to the fact that they don't have the distance to reach the green in two). Well, out of the 12 players on Thursday, seven went for the lay up, and five went for the green in 2. Not one player bogeyed this hole, and Sergio Garcia, after hitting his second within 10 meters of the pin, managed to sink his putt for an eagle. And all of this happened in front of us. We were positioned on the right of the fairway, about 15 meters from the waters edge - which meant that we could see all tee shots coming down the fairway...watch those that layed up, as well as those that went for the green - and then see all of them sink their putts.
So yes, like I was saying...no POTD, but I have something in mind for Saturday morning that should make up for it...

POTD: 29 Nov 2006

Magnificent Blue-gum tree on the left side of the fairway of hole number 12 at Observatory golf club. Had a decent round of golf today - shot a 92, which is not fantastic - it started off a bit pear shaped with 3 double bogeys. Anyway, the front nine finished strongly with a birdie on the ninth. Back nine also went reasonably well with a few more pars, but then finished the 18th with a double bogey. I have yet to par the 18th. Regardless of the result, I can definitely see that my iron play and putting has improved over the past 3 weeks. Its only a matter of time now before the score starts reflecting it.
Hooked up with Martin and Sagie. Martin is a member at Obs - he's a fifty something golfer who is on a "gap" year as he calls it, after a heart attack 9 nine months ago. He sold his printing business, and is now playing golf and taking it easy while he contemplates his next investment.
Sagie on the other hand is firmly in the mode of working - in fact, it sounds like he has quite a nice job - he's the commercial manager for Konkola Copper Mines in Zambia, and manages all the procurement of supplies in SA, for the mines in Zambia. We all exchanged contact details - and if anything, at least I have another two mid-week playing partners in future.

Golf...golf and golf.

Today I once again have the priviledge of spending part of my day on the golf course. I am scheduled to tee off at 8:15 this morning - the weather looks fine - no ominous rain clouds lurking about so it should be a good morning.
Further to this, I have the added honour of being invited to the Nedbank Golf Challenge tomorrow. Seeing as they are sponsoring my transport there and back, my comfortable seat in the sky box on the ninth, and my food and drink all day, I thought it only reasonable to give them a punt - I'm going with Motion - specialists in Office Automation.
Unfortunately no camera's or cellphones are allowed onto the course, so not quite sure how I'm going to get my photo of the day...will have to make a plan.

Starting a business...?

Came across this great resource today - its a manifesto / e-book written by Seth Godin, who has been labelled as one of the all-time information age entrepreneurs. Its about 100 pages in length, and is full of some great advice, and motivational tips for anyone wanting to start a business with very little start-up capital. Its called The Bootstrapper's Bible, and can be downloaded here, free of charge, until end Dec 2006.

POTD: 28 Nov 2006

Solitaire board that K and I bought in Madagascar last year.

POTD: 27 Nov 2006

Wooden puzzle - received this from Neil, who is still the only one that can put my wooden cube puzzle back together.

POTD: 25 Nov 2006

Played in the Sports Pool golf day yesterday - pictured here are Lawrence, gtc, Sean and Chris. We played at Randpark Golf club - Windsor course. First time I've played that course, and it definitely showed with a poor round of 93 carded. We then watched SA beat England at Twickenham, for the first time in 10 years. Lets just say that it made for a very festive evening at the golf club.
As for the credit card story - the saga continues. I eventually get my new credit card on Thursday last week. All fraudulent transactions have been reversed, so I'm chuffed that all the admin is behind me, when I realise that I'm short on cash after several rounds of drinks during the rugby and prize-giving. No problem I tell myself, I have my new credit card with me. I whip it out for the final round of drinks of the evening, tell the waiter to include a small tip for himself, and we continue with the festivities. I head off to the mens room, and return a couple of minutes later. Anyway, a couple of minutes later (read twenty) when everyone is finishing off their drinks and heading home, I realise that I still don't have my card. No problem, I remember the waiter, maybe he brought it whilst I was in the toilet and since I was not at the table at the time, he held onto it. Hmmm, big assumption that. He tells me that I was not around, so he got someone else to sign my slip, and gave them my card. Right! Call the manager please.
Anyway, long and the short of it is that there was no sign of my 3 day old card. On the humorous side though, when I called my bank 15 minutes later to cancel the card, the call center agent's response was quite good...it went something like this:
"But sir, according to our system, you reported your card missing a week ago".
"Yes, I know. That was for something different".
"Oh. So did you receive your new card sir".
"Yes I did. I picked it up on Thursday. Its gone".
"Oh. How did that happen sir?"
"Well....waiter...drinks...blah...blah...missing....blah...only 3 days.....blah....can you believe it?"
"Wow sir. I can't believe the waiter was so careless. Did you enjoy your meal at least sir?".

POTD: 24 Nov 2006

Managed to catch this bolt of lightning in a storm that we had here. This photo was taken looking east from our place, towards OR Tambo International Airport.

POTD: 23 Nov 2006

View of Jhb from the 7th tee box at Observatory. Played with a guy called Sam, and an old customer of mine, Eben. We only managed nine holes though, as the rain (and hail) started to come down whilst we were having lunch, and the lightening siren was sounded.

Christmas Video - Lights Display

In South Africa, it's common practice to put up a Christmas tree with flashing lights and decorations over the festive season. We don't really go big on lighting up the exterior of our homes. Maybe the odd tinsel and berries wreath on a front door - but nothing like this home. I take it that this must be a home in the States, as they're known for decorating the interior, as well as exterior of their homes. This is incredible...

Christmas Video - John Lennon

Came across this music video the other day (found it on the Christmas For All blog), and with Christmas just around the corner, I thought it appropriate to post here.
This is the music video recorded by John Lennon (with the help of Yoko Ono) at Record Plant Studios, New York City in late October 1971. The Harlem Community Choir children can be heard singing in the background. This is my all time favourite Christmas song, which gets played on Christmas morning each year. Enjoy.

POTD: 22 Nov 2006

Current Office :-)

POTD: 21 Nov 2006

This is one plant that is not going to recover with a bit of H2O.

POTD: 17 Nov 2006

Morning ducks (or Egyptian Geese)...

POTD: 16 Nov 2006

Essential MTB gear...my helmet, water bottle, gloves, and iPod.

Its on me...

Today (well yesterday to be precise), I became the victim of some pretty high tech credit card crime. Got a call at around 4pm from my bank, asking whether I had just used my credit card - the answer to which was no, why. "Well sir, when last did you use it?". Truth is that I last used in on Sunday 12th Nov, to buy some groceries. Holding the guy on the phone, I quickly logged into my bank account to pull a credit card statement, and sure enough, starting yesterday, there were five transactions, ranging in value from R75, to over R5000 - everything from Nando's Chicken burgers, to CD's and furniture - a total of over R10,000.
I'm not really annoyed at the amounts, as I know that the bank will refund the fraudulent transactions, but I am very irritated at the audacity of how it was done.
I suspect, and after talking to the credit card division at my bank, I'm fairly certain that my card was skimmed at a restaurant, and the details obtained from it were used to create a duplicate card. If the transactions were internet based, then this would not be the case, but because the card was used in store, there was definitely a duplicate card present at time of transaction.
So, looking further into it, I have narrowed it down to 4 possible restaurants - and I suspect that it was the one that K and I had lunch at last Saturday. Reason being, is that we know for sure that another restaurant in the complex has suffered the same fate, as they were investigated by a bank that a friend of ours used to work at.
If there's a lesson to be learnt, wherever possible, when paying for your meal make sure that the waitron brings a hand held point of sale to your table before handing over your card, or accompany them to the POS if there is no hand held available.

POTD: 15 Nov 2006

The view from the 6th hole at Observatory Golf Club, looking back towards the clubhouse. Not the greatest round that I've played to date, but still good to get out into the sunshine and fresh air. Notice the Jacaranda trees in the distance - the Kensington/Observatory area is full of them, in full bloom at the moment, blanketing the streets and lawns with their purple flowers.

POTD 14 Nov 2006

Interesting choice of name for your business.
I spotted this in Edenvale yesterday, Greenvale Road.

Another week down...

Well, I haven't exactly been able to play as much golf as I wanted to. Been rather busy with other 'stuff'. Have spent quite a bit of time swimming over the past week - bit of cycling too. Now that I have the time, I'm spending some of it in the gym - not that work should ever have been an excuse not to go to gym, but its just much easier now. Have also been running around sorting out the admin surrounding our trip to St Anton in December. Organising visa forms, collecting itineraries for application purposes - photos, train tickets...
Went and saw Frank's new place on Friday evening - he has a nice little place that he's recently moved into - with a massive communal garden - really nice.
Didn't really get up to much else this weekend - other than watch the Springboks lose to Ireland. Having said that though, I did take great pleasure in seeing Argentina pull off an historic victory over England. Lets hope SA can do the same this coming weekend.
Currently reading: The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. I've just started, so will give you an update once I get into it.
Plan for the day: Try and get a round of golf in, before I need to make my way across town for my squash game this evening.

POTD 13 Nov 2006

The view from the Westcliff, where K and I went for our anniversary dinner the other night.

POTD: 12 Nov 2006

The garden that I grew up in - during an early evening rain shower.

POTD: 11 Nov 2006

Night view from our balcony.

POTD: 10 Nov 2006

Storm on the way...?

POTD: 09 Nov 2006

Happy Anniversary. K and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary yesterday. For those of you that attended our wedding, this is the same candle that we lit 4 years ago.

On another celebratory note, this is my 100th post.
(he raises his bat in acknowledgment, as the stadium erupts into thundering applause)

Triba Launch

Went to the launch of Triba last night. What's Triba you ask? Well, the way I understand it - its a wellness centre for women - and women with young children in particular. I worked with the guy whose wife is starting this whole concept, and thats how we got invited to the launch.
The centre is located in Craighall Park, and is still under construction - but the launch party was pretty impressive, with the likes of the Royal Bafokeng family as honoured guests, the guys from Watershed, the 2005 Miss SA, and the Big Brother SA winner Ferdie Rabie.
The concept is pretty novel - mothers with new babies and young children get to use the centre to pamper themselves, get some relaxation and even do work from the centre if they like. The idea is that you take your child along, and the centre will look after them whilst you catch up on sleep, go for a facial, read a book in the library, or log on and do some work. They claim that it is a first of its kind - and in this day and age, I reckon they're onto something. Good luck to Anton and Dale.

POTD: 08 Nov 2006

Our three wise men...wooden ornaments that we have in our loft.

POTD: 07 Nov 2006

Close up of the herbs that we have growing on our balcony. All legal of course.
Pictured here - bit of mint, some parsley, and a some thyme.

POTD: 06 Nov 2006

Killer tuna pasta, made by yours truly. This was dinner on Monday evening, and let me tell you something, there was nothing left in the dish afterwards. Awesome. You can see I'm putting this free time to good use.

POTD: 05 Nov 2006

Crab, hiding under a rock, in one of the rock pools at Ballito.

POTD: 04 Nov 2006

Coastal Jungle - taken on the 'forest walk' at a tea garden called The Waterberry, in Ballito.

POTD: 03 Nov 2006

Rock pools at Ballito.

POTD: 02 Nov 2006

Gecko on the roof of the balcony.

POTD: 01 Nov 2006

On the way to the airport at around 5:45am, Wednesday 1 November.

Its tough being off...

Check the time out...after nine thirty in the evening. Yup, another busy day. Started off this morning with a round of golf at the Wanderers Golf Club - very nice. I played with some ex-colleagues of mine - guys I used to work for and with about 6 years ago. Was good catching up again. And I won the golf.
Then off to lunch with Grant - followed by a trip to the travel agent to organise our train tickets (for our Dec ski trip). Then off to the gym for a couple of laps in the new pool at Old Eds, followed by my weekly squash league game - which I lost.
As promised though, I'll be posting the first set of POTD pics after this.
Later...

Post Ballito Update

Whoa...its been a while I know. Its been a busy while though. As you know, I decided to leave my job at the beginning of October. Well, October flew by, and here we are in November already. And even though I'm not working anymore - its been a busy period indeed.
The last few weeks in October were spent wrapping up and handing over responsibility at work. I told myself that I would not get all nostalgic about my experiences over the past four years and nine months. In reality though, its very difficult not to look back at what you have achieved and where you have come from. Its been good - and I have no regrets, which is the important thing I guess.
K and I then flew down to Ballito during the last weekend of October, to join the rest of the family on our annual pilgrimage to the holiday flat that we have been going to for as long as I can remember. We had to fly back on Sunday 29th, as I wanted to work my last two days, and wrap things up properly before leaving for good.
The last two days were good - ending with a farewell drinks session that lasted around 10 hours at the Zoo Lake Moyo. We then flew back to Ballito for the remainder of the week, and came back last night.
As usual, a great time was had by all - the weather was really good to us this year - at times too nice as the temperatures rose to the upper thirties. Even snuck in a round of golf at Prince's Grant, where I shot an respectable 87 (2 birdies and 3 pars).
On a completely different note - I decided to take up the Photo of the day (POTD) challenge. I've started on 1 November, and will try to keep it up until 31st October 2007. I have the pics taken in Ballito on each of the days, and will have to "back-post" them as soon as I get a chance.
Watch this space.

Weekend in Review

Its was a pretty relaxing weekend, given the pretty busy weekends of late. Started off on Friday night with some drinks and pizza at Richard's house. Nothing too hectic, although we did only get home at around 1am. Saturday was a lazy day at home. Did a bit of reading...went through to the Apple shop in Sandton to get a sleeve for my laptop (BTW, bumped into John Smit, Springbok Captain, who was also at the Apple shop with wife and newborn baby in tow. He's a big boy...but not unusually so. I reckon if push came to shove...nah, just kidding :-). K and I went for some awesome Indian food on Saturday night. Sunday, we decided to wipe the cob webs off the mountain bikes, and took a ride to the gym. Swam a couple of lengths, then rode home and cooked a nice breakfast. Sunday afternoon was spent at my folks - had another swim (this time the pool was not heated), braai'd some meat, and watched Alonso take his second world championship.
Definitely starting to feel like life is slowing down to a more acceptable pace...

This coming week: Handing over and wrapping up a couple of unfinished tasks at work. Also having dinner club this week - Wednesday in fact. It'll be dinner club with a difference, as we're cooking.

This coming weekend: Annual pilgrimage down to Ballito for some sunshine and surf. Fly down on Friday evening.

Random Thought: In one of the articles I read recently, the author spoke about an idea called Project 365. The idea is that with the advent of digital cameras, camera phones etc, it would be quite cool for people to take a "Picture-a-day" for a year. The picture could be of anything (the outfit your wear each day...events/people/places you go to during your day, friends you hook up with, food you eat, cars that you fight for a piece of tarmac with each morning...whatever it is that captures your imagination). You'll then have an archive of these pictures to look back on after a year. In a way, its a form of PhotoBlog. Thoughts or experiences captured digitally. Its an interesting one - I'll sleep on it for a couple of days, and then decide on whether I'm up for this challenge.

Weekend in the lowveld

Just got back from a weekend away in the lowveld. We stayed at Sudwala Lodge - the site of the prehistoric caves just outside Nelspruit. K and I headed down on Friday evening, along with Frank, Gail and Trevor, Patrick, Joanna and Richard.
We took a walk up to the caves on Saturday morning - really impressive. I didn't realise how big the cavity was - there is a 6 hour cave walk that you can do, that includes walking, climbing, crawling and swimming...that should give you an idea of how big they actually are. This is an image of the oldest column inside the cave - it has been formed over the past 200 million years, and is still growing.

The place that we stayed in was more than adequate. Played some volleyball with the guys on Saturday afternoon - did a bit of swimming, and just generally chilled out as much as possible.

Oh, did I mention that we were surrounded by peacocks? As Patrick said, what nature gave them in terms of beauty, they were definitely short changed on their vocal ability. These things are noisy and loud...and just don't give up.

Leaping into uncertainty...

Its been a big week it has. For a while now, I have been contemplating a change in job. I've been with my current employer for the past 4 years, and its been an amazing ride for me. I've been part of some of the biggest web projects in the country, and have worked my way up from being part of one of the teams, to taking overall responsibility for all the web development teams. I've learnt to deal with a vast array of characters, and have gained some great management experience. I've been part of something that has given me hours of joy and a great sense of achievement.

But, I've reached the point now where there is not enough joy and sense of achievement. There is less passion for what I do than before. And that just doesn't sit well with me.

So, I took the leap (some would say 'brave'...others 'irresponsible' - it all depends on your outlook I guess) into the world of uncertainty this week. But that's the weird thing - I'm certain that I'm not wild about my job at the moment. I'm certain that I can find that passion again. I'm certain that I am mature and responsible enough to make good in whatever I do. I'm certain that between K and I, we're smart enough to put some changes in place that will result in us moving forward, and not backwards.

In terms of plans - I've been in discussions with my employer for the past 2 months about my move. I'll have things wrapped up by end October. After that - I start work on putting the plan together. It'll involve lots of thinking, and lots of golf for a couple of months at least.

Room 8: Acoustic

Its been an interesting evening it has. K's cousin Neil invited us to watch him string a few tunes together with his band. Having an appreciation for the guitar, we jumped at the opportunity. Took us a while to find the place, as it was not the type of place that we were expecting, but it was actually really well done. We thought we'd be looking for a place with a bit of a stage, couple of couches and a pub. What we found, was a room, two floors up from the Mugg and Bean in Melville. Its an "expression" room - pretty small and snug - nicely decorated in an arty/student kind of way. Essentially, the guy who runs the place has got a bit of funding together and he runs different theme evenings - so for example, Monday nights are 'Philosophy' evenings, Wednesdays are 'Poetry/Story' evenings, Thursday is 'Open Mic', Friday is 'Acoustic', Sat is 'Discussion' and Sunday afternoon is 'Film'. There's no charge - although you can donate if you find the content/evening inspiring - the idea is to get a group of people together to enjoy the arts. And what a great evening it was. Neil, and his mate Graeme are really talented, and we felt quite priviledged to have watched them playing. It was also refreshing to see a group of people getting together and having a great time, whilst appreciating art and talent.
So yeah, if you're interested, pop in a check it out: Room 8, The Court, 4th Ave Melville.

Summer League...

Hard to believe that it was almost a year ago that I was leaving Pirates squash club, and joining Chamber Exiles. Anyway, we started the Summer League this week. Basically, its a club tournament - there are 11 teams of six players, and each Tuesday evening for the next 10 weeks, we play each team in various formats (including doubles) to determine which team reigns. Had my first game last night, and am happy to report that I won 3-0. In fact, our team is leading the log at the moment. Lets hope we can keep it that way.

Golfing history is made...

Well, for me anyway. Yup its been a good day - shot my best round ever, and whilst the score is not that fantastic in golfing terms, its my best score in the 17 odd years that I have been playing the game. I can remember heading down to the Klipriver golf club on a Sunday afternoon with my dad and brothers, when I was about 13 years old, and hacking around for 9 holes, trying my best to break 50. The 9 holes quickly became 18 holes and the skill got progressively better. In fact, I recall scoring my first birdie on that course - something that Neil reminded me about the other day (he was there to witness it, which is hugely important when you are 16 years old - as nobody would have believed it otherwise). Anyway, today I shot a decent 86 - with 2 birdies (both on the par 3's - pitched within a metre of the cup) and four pars. Needless to say Neil and I cleaned up...and all Stuart and Dave could do, was ask "So, how much do we owe you guys".

30th Birthday memories...

So here we sit...its Sunday evening and K and I are sitting on our balcony, enjoying the sights and sounds of the early evening. Its been a pretty relaxing day - and to be honest, we're both very grateful for the public holiday tomorrow.
As for "the gathering" - turned out to be a fantastic evening. We decided about 5 weeks ago, that if we were going to have a 30th birthday bash at our place, there was no way we would be able to cater for 30 people without losing our sense of humour somewhere along the way. Enter "By Word of Mouth" catering. These people were fantastic - they send all the food with two very competant chef's - setup their production line in your kitchen, and then serve delicious snacks all night long. Along with the chef's come two waiters and a barman - so its pretty much a case of sit back, relax, mingle with your friends and family whilst all the food and drinks are taken care of...in the comfort of you own home. Money well spent.
I think that people had a good time - our fears of where everyone would fit were unfounded, as everyone managed to space themselves out quite nicely on the balcony. Ok, it probably was a little cramped at times - we like to think that it had a warm, intimate atmosphere about it.
Anyway - what follows are a couple of pics that were taken during the course of the evening...

Kitchen that looks like a bomb has hit it.

Rich, Frank and Grant

Friends: Jo, Trevor, Gail, Mandy, Neil, Richard and Simona

Gillian, K, Chris and G

Leigh, Dave, Brett and Grant

Battle of the baldies

The oldies...

And their wives...

Brett, Neil, Stuart, Mr A, Pat, G.

G and K