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