POTD: 24 Dec 2006

Christmas Eve dinner at the Pfeffermuehle Hotel in St Jakob. Whilst Christmas day is the holiday in Austria, its Christmas Eve that is celebrated.

POTD: 23 Dec 2006

The family, waiting at Innsbruck Main Station for the "Maria Teresia" - our train to St Anton.

POTD: 22 Dec 2006

Waiting at O.R. Tambo International Airport - in eager anticipation of our trip to Austria.

Home Again...

Arrived back home this morning from PE, and a week down on the Garden Route. Its been a tiring 2 and a half weeks for K and I, and we're happy to see our home, and our own beds again. I'll be posting pictures from both trips within the next day or so, as well as selected POTD pictures. Right now though, its time to catch up on some well deserved sleep - seeing as the journey back from PE saw us getting up at 4:30am this morning to make the early flight home. Aaaahhhh....home....bed....sleep!

Hello 2007!

First post of the new year, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. 2006 ended off pretty spectacularly for me, so I'm a bit uneasy about being back home, and into 2007 already. I was just starting to kick back, take in the wonderful scenery in St Anton, and then, like the giant slalom, it all flashed by and here I am again. Back at my PC. In Jhb.
If you're wondering what happened to the posts in between weather report and landing back in SA - Telkom. They're the reason. Two days before we left, our line was faulty. Probably as a result of the violent electric storms we had that week. But don't fear, I have all the memories on flash disk, ready to be edited and posted right here. May take a while to do properly, but there are some real gems.
Lastly, thanks to all our friends and family who have sent us text messages and Christmas cards over the past week. We both wish you and your families a very prosperous 2007, and look forward to sharing some good times with you during this year. We're not very good at sending Christmas cards, so we'll keep blogging about our lives and times during the year, and you'll get all our news and pics right here.

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.