This that and the other...

Been a while I know.
Here's the news:
- Bought a house with K. Its in Bedfordview - close to where we stay at the moment. Didn't intend to buy it - put in a stupid offer that was accepted, got a bit of buyers remorse and tried to back out of it, but in the end, we decided that it was a good step in the right direction. There goes that ski trip next year...
- K's mom dropped in for a surprise visit two weeks ago. Was good seeing her again. She's in London at the moment visiting with K's aunt before stopping back in SA for a couple of days on her way back to Aus. Speaking of Aus - shame, being a rugby fan must be kak at the moment :-)
- Went to Moyo Melrose Arch this evening with K, her boss and some potential clients. Reason for the trip is that they are negotiating an oil and gas contract in Tanzania at the moment. Sean and Aron seemed like nice guys - hopefully K gets the contract.
- Squash is going well - killed my opponent in the summer league match on Tuesday, 9-3; 9-7; 9-1. Have my club champs match tomorrow against Keith. From past experience, I should take it comfortably. Although, that's what the All Black's thought I guess.
- Played 2 rounds of golf this past weekend. It was tough. I mean, a round of golf on the weekend is a treat, but two rounds! Managed some half decent scores of 88 and 85. Be careful Sean Morgan - this weekend is going to be deadly for you.
- On the work front - all good. Has been a bit slow for my liking over the past few weeks, but some nice ideas floating around, and some killer projects on the horizon.
- Oh, went to the AV/Sony Expo last week. Lusting over the Sony HD DV Cam's. Some great equipment on show. Pity about the purchase procedure though - what a shambles. If you buy anything, including the HDMI cable that I got from the Ellies stand for like 80 bucks, you fill out a form, go to the exit, pay for your goods and then wait for them to be delivered to the till at the exit. You do that for every purchase. I understand the security concerns, but what a joke!
- Finally, will be wearing my Bok golf shirt with pride tomorrow. Ole, Ole Ole Ole.

Boklash...

I thought that some of my English family and friends would like to see the changes made to the English rugby jersey. Its been awfully quiet from that side of the world since the start of the RWC.

Whirlwind update

So its been a while since my last past - and I'm starting to feel the guilt. Thought now would be as good a time as any to post a whirlwind update.

The Tour:
Its over - and life has returned to normal again. No more dominance over the remote control - K is free to change channels if she wants to. So what was up with the Tour de Farce anyway? Things were looking so good at the start of the third week - I thought we were in for a cracking final couple of stages - and then it all fell apart, and continues to push out a daily sport headline revealing some new scandal. On a lighter note, there has been talk amongst one or two mates of putting a "Tour holiday" together for the 2009 season.

Graft:
On the work front, things have been pretty hectic. We're busy with the development of the web, mobile and other interactive elements for the three reality shows that are about to be launched. Interesting times - exciting projects to be involved in.

Golf:
Haven't put in as many rounds as I would have liked this month - although I did manage a round with Tweedie at Obs 2 weeks ago. Had a dogdy start, but came back strongly. Also managed a round at Irene, and shot a respectable (for me) 87.

Travel:
Had the pleasure of being able to spend a couple of days in Dullstroom this past weekend. K and I went down to a place called Millstream - its a trout farm about 4 km's before the town of Dullstroom. Old style stone cottages with fire places - was really nice. We ventured out on our mountain bikes on Friday morning for a ride down to Highland Gate estate. They are busy laying the fairways and greens at the moment, and its looks like its going to be a magnificent course (and housing estate) once complete. Riding the 22km back to Millstream into gale force winds proved a little too challenging for K and I though - we hitched a ride back through the farm roads on the back of a tractor after battling for about 12 of the 22km's back. In fact, the winds were so serious, that on Monday morning, we heard that fires (aided by the strong winds) were responsible for the deaths of two people in Lydenburg, and a number of runaway fires in Dullstroom. Luckily for us though, Millstream wasn't affected.
The fishing wasn't that great either - although I did manage to land a sizable brown trout. I blame the wind for the lack of success :-)

Social:
Off to dinner club tonight - its the "cheap and cheerful" round for the next four dinner clubs. No take out, no franchise restaurants - cheapest total bill out of the four couples wins this round. We're up tonight and will be going to a place in Emmarentia called Lapa Fo. Should be good.

Hunter takes first place in Stage 11

Robbie Hunter has become the first South African cyclist to win a stage on the TDF. Hunter has threatened several times in this year's tour, and today was his day.
The wild card Barloworld team are proving their worth in this years tour, with a 9th Stage win for Juan Mauricio Soler Hernandez, and today's 11th stage victory for Hunter.
Tom Boonen, the leader in the green jersey classification crashed out on a sweeping right turn, with 600m to go - it would have been interesting to see the lunge for the line between Boonen and Hunter. Robbie admitted in the post race interview that Boonen is a stronger rider than himself, saying that he would try his best for as many sprint points as possible, but that chances are that Boonen would always be in front of him.
If you missed the race this afternoon, make sure you catch the delayed feed this evening - this is South African cycling history in the making...

TDF Crashes

Seeing as its that time of year, and in reference to my previous post, I thought I'd find some footage on TDF crashes. This clip isn't very comprehensive, but it has a couple of classics, like Ullrich's wipe out on wet roads during the 2005 individual time trial stage.

Vive le Tour

Right, so the TDF is back, and my evenings are once again being planned around the delayed feed and highlights packages of the days racing.
Its weird - every time I mention to non-TDF junkies just how exciting a race it actually is to watch, I get this blank Icouldn'tthinkofanythingmoreboringthanwatchingcycling stare. I've given up trying to convince people now, and resorted to changing channels in the office at around 2:30pm each afternoon, with a gentle nudge on the volume control as the afternoon progresses and the peloton winds its way through some of the most magnificent fields, forests, hills and mountains, into the streets of the town that the race will finish in.

As for picking a winner this year - well its pretty wide open at this stage. Alexander Vinokourov has been labelled the favourite, and to be honest, if I had to back a rider this year, he would be the guy. He's the one who was so aggressive in the mountains during Armstrong's last three Tours, and was denied participation in last years tour due to his team pulling out at the last minute because half its riders (excluding Vino) were part of the doping scandal. After todays stage though, it'll be a tough task for him - he was involved in a nasty fall about 30km from the finish, and rode superbly to limit the damage but still ended up losing over 80 seconds. Will make things interesting in the days to come, as team mate Kloden now appears to be the best positioned rider in Vino's team (second place overall), and may take over leadership as a result. Watch Vino in the mountains though - he'll be deadly.

Yes folks, its mid-July, the evenings are long and cold, but one thing's for sure - the voices of Paul Sherwen and Phil Liggett are a familiar comfort at this time of year and the sights and sounds out of France are an exciting end to each day. Vive le tour!

Blues Room Tonight...

K and I are off to the Blues Room tonight to celebrate Pat's birthday with him. Looking forward to it too. Among the lineup posted on the Blues Room site is a guy called Dean Meldau - haven't heard of him before, but looks like it could be interesting.

As for the rugga this afternoon - what a disappointment. I'm not going to go on about it, as there are hundreds more qualified blogs that could give you a breakdown of what went wrong, so all I'll say is that it was a good match to watch - lots of aggression, lots of excitement, but you have to feel like we threw it away in the last 15 minutes. My simple take on it, is that in a game of that intensity and pace, you can't bring on 4 or 5 replacements all at the same time. It takes them a couple of minutes to get a feel for the pace and the tempo of the game, and to bring 5 on at the same time, you're weakening your side for at least 5-10 minutes. That's where we lost it in my opinion.

Hole-In-One

I have been playing the game of golf for about 15 years now, on and off. Today I join the Hole-In-One society for my efforts at Killarney Golf Club.
Didn't have the best start to my round, but the Par 3 sixth hole will remain one of the sweetest golfing memories I have to date.
My caddy told me that we had 165 meters to the pin, into a slight breeze. In my books, that's a six iron. Anyway, struck the ball well, starting it out on the right hand side of the green, high approach shot that drew nicely towards the hole in the center of the green.
I didn't actually see it roll into the cup, and there was doubt on my part, but the caddies in our four-ball were quietly confident that it had gone in.
Sure enough, as we made our way to the green, my ball was not on the green, but in the cup.
What a sweet feeling.

Bit of this and that...

Here's a quick update on the happenings of the week:

Squash league has started, and although I have not won a game yet (two matches played), I captained the side last week, and the team managed a victory, despite my lack of contribution. I played a really strong (new to league) player from Wendywood. The guy was worse than a Jack Russel - just would not let anything go. Anyway, we have a team practice on Monday night, and a bye on Wednesday, so I have a good 10 days to get my game right.

As for K, she's been working quite hard getting her budgets ready for the upcoming year. Her team went away last weekend for a management conference to discuss the budgets and plans for the upcoming year. With the planning now finished, she can get back into her routine and hopefully a little less stress. She flies up to Nigeria and Ghana in May to meet the teams there and share the plans for the upcoming year with them - not a trip I'd like her to be doing, but there is a small group of her management team going, so it should be quite safe.
Went out for a couple of drinks and something to eat with Kerryn, Liam and Lauren last night. Kerryn and Liam are out for the UK for a couple of weeks - was good catching up with her again, and meeting Liam for the first time.

Am currently listening to Derek the Bandit's latest podcast - some wicked trance sounds permeating the air at the moment - awesome.

Oh, on the book front, have just finished a Dean Koontz fictional drama - Brother Odd. Was a pretty, I hate to say it - odd book. Basically about a guy who can see the dead, who moves to a monastery to save a group of monks and disabled children from impending death. He meets the ghost of Elvis and a ghost dog named Boo along the way, and helps them to cross over from this world to the next. Out of ten - i'd give it no more than about a four-and-a-half. Am about to start a new one titled The Family by Kitty Kelley. Its about the Bush Family - the story of their dynasty and its power. I hope its not another Michael Moore wannabee. Will keep you posted.

That's about it for the time being - other tnan to note that the winter seems to have arrived. Wind chill is down to about 8 degrees Celcius. Plenty of sunshine, but a (very) fresh breeze outside.

POTD: 25 April 2007

Semi-Final 2: How not to play a game. Once again, the SA team have progressed to a semi-final in a world cup, and exited in bizarre circumstances. This time it wasn't rain, but like the last time this happened, an element of panic crept up on the team, and managed to overcome them. A complete joke of a performance by the SA team. Australia have played consistently brilliant cricket, and deserve to go through and win the world cup.

POTD: 24 April 2007

Semi-Final 1: A decent game by both sides. Entertaining to watch, professional in the way in which it was played out - pity there had to be a loser, as both were worthy of progressing to the next round.

POTD: 02 April 2007

The strings on my squash racquet - in need of replacement.

Heading in the right direction...

Ok, so all the golfing time that I have put in over the past few months is finally starting to pay off. Checked my handicap today, and I've dropped from a 17, to a 14. Still not single figures yet, which is where I wanted to be in the first quarter of this year, but its heading in the right direction. The trick is to now try and keep up the regular rounds, even though I'm working again, so that the handicap doesn't suddenly start heading in the opposite direction.

POTD: 01 April 2007

The 18th fairway at Germiston Golf Club. First time I have played at Germiston - the course is in good condition, which is surprising considering the lack of rain. I wondered whether they watered from the lake, but apparently not. I guess boreholes on this course are pretty full though, considering all the water close by.

POTD: 25 March 2007

A sad week for sport - not only did the Sharks lose to the Brumbies, and SA to Australia in their world cup match, but the whole Bob Woolmer murder just goes to show how sport has become more about money and wealth, than passion and camaraderie.

POTD: 13 March 2007

Opening game of the Cricket World Cup - Pakistan vs West Indies. West Indies won the match.

POTD: 27 Feb 2007

Sun setting over the west rand - driving home from my second round in the pre-league tournament. Lost by a narrow margin 2-3 (9-7 in the fifth).

POTD: 23 Feb 2007

The exciting Pro 20 Series match between the Highveld Lions and Cape Cobras. The Lions needed one run from the last ball of the match, and it was given to them courtesy of Alan Dawson's wide. Apparently this match was the highest score in a Pro 20 cricket match - over 180 runs sscored by both teams in their 20 overs.

POTD: 15 Feb 2007

Started with the pre-league tournament last night. Its the seeding tournament for the club's league teams - basically it ranks all the league players so that teams can be finalised for the year. Off to a decent start, as I won my game last night. The pre-league goes on for three weeks, after which the teams will be finalised.

POTD: 14 Feb 2007

Went to the South Africa vs Pakistan ODI yesterday. It was the final of the series, played at Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg. Not the greatest match - SA bowled Pakistan out for just over 150 runs, with 10 overs to spare. We only lost Graeme Smith's (surprise surprise) wicket during the chase. Was good to go and watch though.