kicking it old skool

Summer is Go Part 4

2010-06-02T09:45:00.000+01:00

I finally got over my denial: my work horse flash is definitely faulty. The problem is that it stops firing intermittently, even at full charge ready to go, and registering on the camera. A little experimentation revealed that if I rattle off a few shots with it mounted on the body, and gently pull it back towards me it starts firing again. So I’m willing to bet £50 (postage and packaging excluded) that it’s the hot shoe seating mechanism that needsa replacin’. Better than the £200 “send it to Canon” option. My theory is actually that heavy light modifiers like the ring flash or the Lumiquest Softbox I’m very fond of may have added to the situation. But shit, I’m still going to use those, so, whatever.

Where was I? Oh yes:

Saturday morning, after meeting up with David Hobby and the other guys at the Crosse, I got all my gear together and headed down to the Brunswick Gallery, located near Russell Square. BEEEEEuatiful day outside, just epic. Had to remember to water my plants before I left the house (I kicked off a planting project on my balcony a few weeks back, and they are growing fast and thick).

The day at the seminar was spent covering the basics of lighting, getting everyone up to speed with ambient and added light balance and techniques to do so. We then got into some of Dave’s more famous pictures and he walked us through the thinking process, fielding questions as he went. And this was my main attraction to the event: getting inside his head, how he approaches a job and gets the shot. The key to his process is layering light. I know about this a bit, but he’s changed up his thinking of late. Whereas previously he was solely focused on what the key light was doing, now he’s switched it round, to instead focus on the ambient fill, creating a safety net, as it where (your image will never be darker than this) and then adding layers of light on top of that. Really great technique and one I want to play with at home. (did I mention I was sat next to Drew Gardner, Award Winning UK photographer? Oh, well, I was!)

We had a lunch break in between and the entire Brunswick centre sprang to life while we where in the basement Gallery: food stalls and people EVERYWHERE, sun out in full force, smells mingling with sounds, just so cool! I grabbed me an Argentinean Steak sandwich and walked on over to where Dave and some folks where getting Thai. I then had the privilege of having a “real” discussion with the man, about the chances of him heading to Cape Town sometime since he has a big fan base there, why there aren’t more world class photographers from South Africa (“what’s stopping you?”, I was asked…) and just other random bits of cool conversation, just me and him, like we where old buddies catching up. Odd to think that I would be able to carry a conversation like that. I would not have been able to do so a few months ago…

Back in class for the second session and we got our hands dirty with practical. Dave did 3 shoots, different techniques and created portraits. I volunteered to be in one of them (not that he asked for volunteers! I insisted! Again, wasn’t gonna sit on my ass and let this moment go by!) We finished off the day with a quick review and a very touching speech from Dave on what his vision is for a project he is heading up in his home town.

I gave my thanks, shook hands and got my picture taken with him before I headed to the nearest bar for an Extra Cold Guinness.

The day was far from over though. Kwok, a neighbour I met at our on-site gym invited me the week before to his BBQ so I decided to look into that. Lot’s of folks there, good food (I have made an official threat to raid his recipe book!) and interesting people. One of which was Selina Lo, who casually says “I’m an actor” when asked the “so what do you do?” question. Turns out she’s done a few things, one of which is a Disney movie called The Prince & Me: The Elephant Adventure. She’s been doing martial arts all her life and her vision is to be the world’s greatest female action star. I’ve been checking out her work online and she’s been getting rave reviews, mostly because she is hot! But also because… well, she kicks ass! Best of all, she’s just a really cool chick, with a dark sense of humour to boot and really cool to hang out with.

Spent the rest of the evening with these guys and eventually hit a few bars in the area. Came home at 04:00 and decided: that’s it! Today, I’m doing NOTHING. And that’s exactly what I did. Slept in a bit, watered my plants, cleaned the apartment and heading down to Regents Park and just chilled, read, slept, whatever.

With so much to process and so many cool things back to back, I think it was the best thing I could have done. A little voice was protesting in the far back recesses of my mind that I haven’t achieved anything this weekend. Crazy talk, of course! I just smiled, nodded my head, and slept more on the soft, fluffy grass under a tree.

Another week beckoned.

Bring it on.

[G], out

The moment it clicks

Summer is Go part 3

2010-06-01T11:22:00.000+01:00

The very best thing about my recent exposure to the world class seminars and speakers is that I have become far more confident and relaxed around strangers. It’s a big deal for me to be so chilled out, but it’s not something that I would say came naturally at first. I had to literally train myself to do so. My theme for this year as such is discipline. Coupled with this is the Japanese tradition of Kaizen. Kaizen is the essence of continual improvement and it is a beautiful philosophy. I’ve heard it used before, may have been a Toyota ad actually, but now it’s part of my being. It’s the same “little (lil’) action” approach I’ve been working hard to stick to the last few weeks. The most important application of Kaizen for me though was first realising what it was that I intended to focus on and improve. Because applying Kaizen to video games or watching TV is generally a waste of energy. I read a study that the average American watches 8 hours of TV a day. Not hard to extrapolate that to other regions, and when you start throwing Facebook and Youtube into the mix, you’d get pretty close to that. It’s all mental masturbation, isn’t it?

Discipline, applied focus and continual improvement: my bumper sticker for 2010.

So I’m still not done with my wacky summer adventures. On with the show…

After the Lansdowne shoot, I managed to get home by 03:00 in the morning. Which was great, since that meant I could squeeze at least 4 hours sleep in before I had to get up once more and head out all the way to Earl’s Court for a Free internet marketing seminar! Meh.

Now this is the bit where “free” almost always means “not worth my while” or “I can just sleep in today and catch it next time”. “Next time”… the enemy of taking action. Good thing I’m not that guy anymore because boy oh boy, the content delivered by these guys was so damn valuable it’s staggering that they delivered it for nothing!

The line up was Julian Treasure, James Schramko and Andrew McCauly. Julian specialises in using sound in branding, media and environments to influence mood, and his presentation was so seamless he probably could have built the pyramids. I have tracked down his TED talk as well, and it is very VERY much worth a look. It’s a little rushed, since he only had 5 minutes, but at the seminar he flowed into a great many other concepts and took his time.

Schramko owns a fair spot in the internet marketing space, making a cool living from it and bumming on the beach for the rest of the time! Andrew made a great many “aha” statements and definitely some stuff that I can use as part of my own growing marketing arsenal. Made quite a few good contacts whom already operate in this arena, and hopefully something will come of it!

The Sunday I kicked back and got my photo editing on. I wanted to remain true to my quick turn around promise and did so with finesse.

The rest of the week I spent studying my notes from the weekend’s course and nailing as many concepts as I could down in my head. Annelie came home for a few days between courses so we did a lot of catching up. We both had so much to tell and it was weird since it felt like I haven’t seen her in a year. On the Thursday I “won” tickets from SA Promo (thanks JC!) to go see the South African National Comedy Team Bafunny Bafunny at the very glorious Royal Albert Hall in Kensington. The last time we where here we saw Cirque de Soleil’s Varekai; we where in the main floor seats this time round though. The line up featured 8 of S.A’s greats: “The Cousin” Barry Hilton, John Vlismas , Kagiso Lediga, Trevor Noah, Marc Lottering and a few I haven’t seen, such as Lotiso Gola, nice Rabinowitz and Trevor Noah. Very funny, good ol’ home grown humour, when Barry walked on stage to roaring applause and just said “My cousins” I got goose bumps! Pity that JC forgot to phone me, he needed a photographer for the event!! Grrrr, gonna have to have a word with him. He DID apologise for the oversight though, but SA Promo run events all the time…

Back home and I helped Annelie pack for another week long course and said my good byes. Myself, the weekend promised an interesting course hosted by Strobist’s David Hobby, a legend and someone I have long followed. I mean, this is the man that got me into doing REAL photography; as such I am a natural big-huge fan.

And here is where I have to mention how cool my new smart phone is. HTC Desire, my very first smartphone, never got into the whole iPhone BS, browsing my “Friend stream”, which is a HTC widget that shows your twitter and FB statuses all in one place and LO Dave will be at the Crosse Keys pub for a little social action! My plans changed mighty fast at this point and I decided to divert to there after work. The setting was very chilled, Dave was there along with world class and veteran photographer Neil Turner, kicking back, telling dirty jokes and entertaining us with stories from the trenches (although, I’m not sure I can publish those!). It was fun chipping in and asking them questions, making damn sure I at least engage in this conversation! I wasn’t just gonna sit there, no sirree.

Stars in my eyes, I was ready and willing for another cooking weekend. If only I’d known….

[G], out

I’m totally blogging this!

Summer is go, Part 2

2010-05-26T09:50:00.002+01:00

I ordered a shed ton of books from Amazon the other day and they arrived in good time, all Adwords and Website usability related. Actually, it was cool that we kept missing the delivery, since the guy down the hall took delivery for me and I had a cool opportunity to catch up with them. I’ve met him and his partner before but this was the first time I was invited in. Well, I invited myself: he mentioned that I should excuse the packaging and mess, but they got a new coffee machine, and I was like “OH can I see it?!” PS: drinking espresso at 21:00 is a bad idea. Cool folks, scheduled a dinner for sometime in June (yes, my calendar is that full).

Since the good weather has rolled in more and more folks have come to use the on-site gym (Annelie and I use it very often) so it’s a good meeting place for the neighbours. It’s always been a peeve of mine on how you life in a block of flats with hundreds of people but never get to meet anyone.

It’s one of these encounters that brought be to the BBQ (ok, it was a braai, but let’s keep it simple) where I met the action star… but more on that later.

I alluded to another event I shot for in my last post. The history of how it came to be is a little quirky, since the events manager already had a photo type person lined up, but they cancelled on her one week before the event. She then offered to job to a friend of mine, who in turn offered it to me, since he “didn’t have the nerves for it”. I thought, ok, odd, what’s the big deal? The big deal was that is was a job shooting for the Lansdowne Club in Mayfair, a very upper class, well established private members club (and, heh heh, just around the corner from the Ritz!). It was a black tie event and a doozy: they where celebrating their 75th Anniversary.

When the “big deal” bit sank in, I have to admit, I was very ready to reply “er, no, I already have plans”. That vice grip on your heart feeling, like when you haven’t studied for an exam, or you just backed your car into a very new, very expensive automobile of the prancing horse variety.

I decided to sleep on it; didn’t no outright, though I was tempted. A quick Google into the club revealed that yeah, they where kind of a big deal… and my pictures will be logged as part of they’re history. Forever. Maybe even longer than that.

On Saturday morning, 1st thing and without thinking and before my morning coffee I replied “yes, I’d be happy to help” and fought my right hand until I hit “send” (little voice in my head screaming NOOOOOOOOOO). Too late now, Bucko, you’d said you’ll do it. That’s something I don’t back out of, my word is my word. Oddly, it’s my biggest selling point. Maybe not odd, but you’d be very surprised what a powerful asset that is and how many photographer gigs I get simply because the other guy didn’t pitch. Are people really this undependable? Yes, is the short answer, and I cash in on that shit. Woody Allan said it best that half of being a success is just showing up. I take that to heart.

So Friday morning, put on my best suit, grabbed all my gear and headed to the day job. After work I made my way to Green Park station (Hello Ritz!) and walked over to the club. They where already way ahead of the preparations with bright balloon archways and delivery people setting up everything from ice sculptures to microphones. I met with Danielle, the event coordinator for the club and had a quick tour of the establishment. Wow! What a beautiful place. The impression of history was palpable; I’d say the Ball Room was most impressive.

With my timings in hand I took my leave to setup and get some quick ideas on how I’m going to shoot this puppy (that sounds wrong!). Group staff picture outside, various artists from a contortionist, singing waiters, an door lady on stilts, big band singers to a Chinese Dragon(!); cutting of the cake, main speech, dancing… got to make sure I hit all the high notes.

First up was taking a picture of the conservatory, filled with plants and a piano at the end. This will be published in the Mayfair Times as an “after” pic, to go with the “before” picture, which was taken 75 years ago. They wanted to create the same era effect, and I think they did so wonderfully. (No pressure Gerry…)

Of course, the theme was the swinging 30’s and most of the guests came out in full force, which made for excellent frames and a lot of fun. In the one room a few studio lighting guys setup a photo booth with what looks like a swarm of paparazzi as a backdrop. Guests would then stand in front of this and have their picture taken which was then worked up into an “OK!” magazine front cover and printed. The contortionist chick raised a few eyebrows, and chasing the Dragon (heh heh heh) through the throng of guests and snapping the interactions was entertaining. Very clever, and the crowd had a lot of fun with it

Having cut my teeth on the Ritz event, I was rocking it out with all sorts of off camera lighting and experimental techniques, rubbing shoulders with upper class society and making friends. Everything was flowing smoothly. The food, the entertainment, the drink, the cake (delicious!), I’d say the whole event was a roaring success.

After I clocked off at 23:00, I had a sit down and finally enjoyed a nice cold glass of Champagne and a hookah pipe (melon flavoured molasses, goes well with the bubbly). I was a good setup, since some guests decided to join me and have a chat. And then this Goth chick, dressed all in black joined me and we ended up chatting till 02:00 in the morning. She was incognito, since she wasn’t really a member but a guest of the hotel (they had a hotel here??) and decided to crash the party. She’s from Pittsburgh PA, and amongst her many talents (fire breathing being one!) she’s also a model. I was invited to her room where she bestowed upon me a mint, 1st edition “Inferno” by Grimms Fairytales comic where she is on the back cover, now signed “to Gerhard, love Cy”. Geeks at comic cons go ape shit for this stuff, and here I just get handed one for free. How cool is that? I had to excuse myself though, since, you know, married... but it was a great evening all said and done, a fitting end.

As always, did a quick turn around on the pics, went out for a drink with Cy and her Pops, a very prominent business man and said my goodbyes.

I was rewarded just last week with a STELLAR testimonial from the club and booked outright for their November Ball (would I need a tux??). Oh, and my pictures will be published in the June issue of the Mayfair times. I’ve also spun a few extra gigs for parties and other events off the back of this, up selling pictures and the like.

The next big thing I really need to get done is my freakin website. There are so many pictures in my portfolio that I can use to massive effect, not just from the last two events, mind. Seems a shame that I don’t use them, and with my new internet marketing chops I think it would be a great sandpit.

Next instalment: information assimilation! Movie Stars! Comedy shows! Beers with David Hobby!

[G], out

Super green

Summer is go

2010-05-24T11:11:00.003+01:00

Well, this post has morphed and changed so many times over the last few weeks. I’ve actually had a lot to talk about but it’s almost always contextual, so it’s kind of like reading an old newspaper at this point. I’m chopping it up into bite sized chunks to be published throughout the week.

I’ve mostly been left to my own devices since Annelie has been working (or “crewing”) at various self-improvement seminars, mostly NLP based stuff. She’s done the courses proper already but this is always an opportunity for her to refresh and brush up on her skills. What that means though is that for about 23 days out of the month, she’s somewhere else, living out of a suitcase at a guest house. So I have a lot of time to myself… dangerous, to be sure.

This weekend was very sunny, and I have so much to tell! Went to the Strobist lighting seminar (DAVID HOBBY!!), met and hung out with real life Kung Fu Action star (SELINA LO!), had a braai, chilled in the park and picked up random chicks at a bar (technically, THEY picked ME up... no, nothing happened... yes, I did tell my wife).

I’m going to just ramble a bit here, try and catch up for my own benefit the “stuff” I’ve been filling my hours with. It’s a really good thing that I’ve taken up Perry Marshall’s “60 seconds” trick: take 60 seconds everyday and just log ONE good thing you’ve done the previous day. It’s extremely simple, very elegant and helps you keep perspective. It’s used primarily to counter that “oh, I’m useless, I haven’t achieved anything” feeling that I deal with often. Reading down this list I can’t help feeling inspired by my own lil’ actions (some of which are really, really BIG actions, in actuality). It’s also a great “mini-blog”.

So here we go, for the Month of May:

In the beginning of the month I got a gig to photograph Sappi’s Excellence in Technology Innovation annual event, held in the very lush, very decadent Music Room at the Ritz hotel. I’d love to stick a very appropriate metaphor in here, but I’m a bit dof. Just know that this is beyond a doubt the most luxurious place I have ever been allowed to enter. And even then, I needed to first get a security badge and sign in and whatnot, and be “escorted” through the hotel. They take security very seriously. I was also advised not to take pictures anywhere else than in the “designated area”.

The event itself went fantastically well: all the heads of the different global regions where there, along with CEO Ralph Boettger delivering the opening speech. The event recognised new technology developed by the teams across the globe to deliver more cost effective processes for the company. It’s almost like an “X-Factor for Paper” kind of deal: the finalists are all there and then the winners for the various categories are announced and given awards.

Seriously though, some of this stuff was mega-science! DNA fingerprinting… for trees?! Paper processing workflow taken from 8 steps and a menagerie of materials down to TWO and a handful of raw stock? I didn’t pretend to understand any of it. I was kind of focused on the people though, so I took one of the booklets for further study at home.

Canapé’s where served and I’ve never quite had anything like it. Not that I expected anything less from the Ritz. In between a musician from the Royal London Music Academy entertained with singing and piano playing (had a very Sinatra thing going for him), and after the ceremony we where entertained by magician Ben Williams, from the Magic Circle in London. He did this one trick, where a guy was holding a card between his palms, facing the trickster. Magician taps a wine glass on top of the card holder’s hand, card turned into a solid glass cube…. Unbelievable magic (in fact, that’s his website too). What’s even scarier is that I was watching him, ALL the time, through my lens, and I still couldn’t catch that method. Well done sir, well done.

I managed to get the photos all packaged up and digitally delivered by Monday evening and the feedback I have received was very positive. I have to slyly admit though that I don’t think I did very well. My go-to flash decided that it was a most excellent opportunity to stop working so I was shooting with one of my backups. Plus, if I could do it again, I’d shoot ALL the kit I brought along, not leave it in the bag. By “All the kit” I mean rock out with some off camera flashes, positioned in the room, discreetly of course. I guess I was a little intimidated by the glitz of the joint. This will not happen again. But I see it as a positive learning and it was taken aboard.

Because as it so happens, I shot another very big, very prestigious event just the next week…

But more on that later :)

[G, out]

I wanna wake up in a city that never sleeps

Lil action

2010-04-26T11:58:00.001+01:00

Well, wow… Turn of events played themselves out and ultimately we spent the week at home instead. And you know what, I’m actually so glad we did. I managed to get a ton of learning done! The weather also played a big part and just strolling around town during “school hours” was really refreshing. I updated my wardrobe, planted new seeds in the variety of flower pots and containers on my balcony, practiced Qi Gong, learnt about Dreamweaver and CSS, exercised, studied marketing and sales, helped out Morne with his business, managed a lively facebook social group.. wow, just a lot of cool stuff.

I’ve also learnt a few very crucial things about myself and taking time to explore these traits has been very rewarding.

My vision going forward (and working my way to that £10 Squillion mark) is to become an internet marketing specialist, more specifically South Africa’s leading expert. No small feat, but I am geared to do it! Being a consultant is already up my alley and what I’ve already discovered but only now internalised is that I love teaching. I also love streamlining things, tinkering, fixing or engineering solutions, putting processes in place. I used to think this was because I was lazy, as in I’d rather have everything scripted than have to do work manually. But this is not so: I actually derive great joy and purpose from it! It’s all very congruent.

I’ve been immersing myself in this knowledge and learning and for the first time in what must be a decade I feel inspired again. It’s great that Annelie is on the same wave length. I’m also surrounding myself with people that are passionate about change and getting things done.

Just surfing the wave man, just surfing the wave :)

Stuff I learnt, in a nutshell:

Don’t shy away from competition, embrace it. Playing powerful opponents is a shortcut to hyper-learning
Take little actions to achieve your goals.
Observe ego reactions and addictions to repetitive thought patterns and extreme emotions
Observe the latter from a non-egotistical viewpoint (this is so much fun to do :) )
Listen to your heart
Exercise Discipline in my endeavors
Your perception and intentions can influence probability
Make friends with yourself, fall in love with who you are all over again (not to be confused with ego…)

Here’s to the future.

[G, out],

Trust me, on the sunscreen

Release the Kraken!

2010-04-17T14:30:00.000+01:00

Not every day that you hear this on the tubes “you should check your flight before you travel as UK airspace has been closed for 24 hours”. My head went into the following skit: “And of course this will all go down when we’re booked to actually FLY on Monday… I’m gonna have to raise a ticket with the support desk; you need to plug that bitch right now, severity 1!! And would somebody please get hold of god?! He’s supposed to be on call! Fuckit, I want to escalate; who’s his manager?? ...Oh… I see… ok, well, is Cory Doctorow available? “

Reports are murky (no pun intended) but they reckon the cloud could hang around for long as 6 months. Not good for already recession pounded airliners. I see the stock market has already voted with their wallets. Not that I give 2 fucking shits about airlines, or stock brokers for that matter. The practice of flying is an abomination; I believe I’ve ranted about it before. Maybe it’s only because we fly coach.

Other than that, saw Clash of the Titans in 3d the other day. It was ok-ish, I guess. It’s a retelling of an old movie that was a retelling of Greek (or Roman) bedtime stories that was a telling of some cool stuff some dudes did to piss off the gods. But entertainment value was high! My new favourite saying is “Release the Kraken!” Bad service at the M&S? RELEASE THE KRAKEN! Getting stuck in the tube tunnel in an overcrowded train? RELEASE THE KRAKEN! Mayo on your sandwich when you EXPLICITLY said NO mayo? RELEASE THE GOD DAMNED KRAKEN! You have to see the flick, I guess…

So Friday, got a lot on this weekend. The marketing and business seminar last weekend was mid expanding, still downloading bits and pieces (my mental torrent queue is extremely buffered up!) and this weekend we are doing a Power to Create course. I wanted to do it since it’ll help maintain the momentum from the last course and I think I have pin pointed a few items I want to get rid that don’t serve me anymore. Besides that I’ve met some truly interesting folks, lively bunch of people.

[G, out]

Plum chutney do-see-do

Detox Redux

2010-04-08T15:06:00.001+01:00

I have had a few moments to really think about the last week after our detox exercise. Annelie and I spent the weekend basically destroying ourselves with junk food, sugar and caffeine, ribs, Dim Sum, not to mention way too much alcohol on Saturday night, even mildly poisoning ourselves in the process! I continued this trend over the next few days, meeting up with the old LSE guys for a round of Ale’s at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese in Fleet Street on Tuesday. To say this is an “old” pub is a complete understatement. They were swiggin’ ales in this joint long before the Cape of Good Hope was even on the map.

I digress. The point is we have now swung to the other extreme of the scale and have finally normalised into a healthier (even more than before!) “normal” diet. I still stick to the warm water and fruit in the morning, but switch in a high protein diet for lunch (chicken / tuna). I’ve started hitting the gym again pretty hard which means that I am also substituting the lunch-meats with a protein shake. I figured since I actually have abs now (how cool is that??) I may as well maintain them.

Oddly enough, I have not immediately picked up my Java habit again. I had ONE cup again this morning and it totally screwed me up! Heart palpitations, dizziness, sweats, the whole caboodle. Annelie commented that she is glad I now know what it feels like whenever she drinks coffee. I’ve not had a hankering for it either, so I dunno… I think I may need to tweak my intake anyways, clearly drinking a whole cup in one go is out of order.

Sugar!! Holy crap, sugar messes me up! Sweets, chocolate, you can “feel” it rushing through your body. Maybe most people can? I don’t know, other than I had never experienced these phenomena before.

What I am getting to is the bit about how I think all in all this whole idea of detoxing is not half bad. I will tell anyone though that you’d better have your big-boy pants on, because if you are a detox virgin, you are going to KAK the first few days. But stick with that and it gets easier. My results came through yesterday (nice PowerPoint presentation with all my stats and scans) and well, Morne was less than subtle by saying my results look the way they look because I deviated too much from the plan. Which is fair enough; full disclosure has always been to try and hack the recipe book. Physically though, there is no denying that it works as both a weight loss and a cleansing program. I’d go as far to say that mentally, a few dip switches get reset also.

Anecdote: Elixir Wellbeing will be offering a 12 week (YES! 3 MONTHS!!) Uber-Cleanse program soon. It’s all Vegan, all hardcore and delights include having nothing but water for 2 days, yoga and colonic irrigation. I am thoroughly confident that should you stick through such an ordeal you will be bench pressing X-Wings in the swamps of Dagobah with your MIND without breaking a sweat!

I still feel very energetic and upbeat and keen to start eating well again, married with a constructive gym routine. I would highly recommend the program to anyone; the hardest thing is not going up to someone who I can see who would benefit immensely from it and suggesting they sign up! I fear that “are you saying I’m fat?” discussion. But man, I can see huge potential and benefit from doing it!

Anyways, I’m still processing and will no doubt fall back on this train of thought a few more times.

This weekend: Annelie and I are attending Kerwin Rae’s marketing seminar, where I wish to learn Kung-Fu. I actually have no clear idea how I will apply said Fu, only that I am willing to learn. Adwords, web marketing, joint ventures, all that good stuff. I’ve even taken off work tomorrow since it starts then till Sunday evening late. I’ve made a pledge to make £10m in cold hard cash so any tools I can use to achieve that goal is most welcome.

PS: never read Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich”. It’ll only inspire and frustrate you to be someone you’d never thought you could be.

[G, out]

Reality squared

Detox day 26: 27...28!

2010-04-02T13:42:00.000+01:00

Friday is here, at long last :). We slept in till around noon, woke up, had our fruits and warm lemon juice water while cleaning the flat and basically willing time away till we could have our final treatment at 16:30. Because afterwards, we were planning on giving “Good Friday” a WHOLE new definition!!

It was quite chilled, the city not it’s usual buzzing self since most of the rabble were out of town, so we took our time getting to Morne’s place. Our treatment went very well and we had our final measurements and scans done. After that, we shot out of there like we where on rails and headed to our favourite pizzeria place, La Porchetta (again, strangely appropriate. We had our pig-out hats on…)

On the menu was a very tall glass of ice cold coke, some champagne with cordial in it and 2 large, freshly made Calzone’s with extra pineapple. For the most part, the meal was had in silence, punctuated with “mmmm, mhow mhy goawd” (phonetic spelling, cus our mouths were full) and other, random moans of delight. It was spiritual and shit.

Once I got over the orgy going on in my mouth, I started to notice a few choice other things. For a start, my tongue went practically numb! This was from the salt content in the pepperoni and more so in the pizza dough. I was also astonished how much flavour I could discern: even the taste of the mozzarella, traditionally a very bland, tasteless cheese (and one I don’t care for, because of it). But not this time; I could taste the subtle texture and creaminess of it. I mentioned this to Annelie, who knowingly bobbed her head (again, mouth full of grub) eventually saying that that’s exactly how she always experiences food. I remember her saying many times how something is too salty or over spiced. It also explains her aversion to strong chillis. So I was a little disappointed and delighted at the same time.

Once we got home we tucked into the 1KG Easter bunnies that have been mocking us for the last few days. It took about 5 minutes just to soften the chocolate enough to get a grip on them! We looked like new born bunnies suckling on teats…

The rest of the day was spent chilling, watching flicks / TV (YES! I finally managed to wrestle Tversity into submission, and now all forms of media format is my bitch) and planning our eating schedule. Ribs, on list, check. Pizza, already checked. Dim sum, oh yeah! Drinking, better believe it! Bacon? Phewft! Silly question…

Once the euphoria settles down, I’ll update with my thoughts about this entire detox exercise. I have a few things I’d like to put down.

[G, out]

No place I’d rather be

Detox day 25: Fools-Thursday

2010-04-01T20:15:00.000+01:00

Happy April Fools day. Altough we were so preoccupied with the Schengen-Shuffle this morning we hardly took notice. And Annelie is still feeling wretched. Shame man, she was not having fun in the least.

I managed to dart up to my accountants offices to make a few last minute copies of bank statements and visas (SOOOO glad I did!!). Turns out they were kinda serious about having both the originals and the copies prepared!

Anyhoo, got that out of the way so hopefully we’ll have 2 shiny new visas in time for our Verbier tour. Be a great excuse to use them to check out Paris, Spain and Germany in the short 3 months we have them (couldn’t get 6… since my Limited Leave to remain ends in September… bummer).

Food! Yes, food wise, it was quick hot lemon juice and fruit on the run (did I mention we overslept!?). And then I had to dash for work, post off an ebay item and try and look like I add value (I do not).

Got home, and we made some chicken breast with roast veggies and yes, rice.

Home stretch baby, only a few more hours to go!

[G,out]

simples!

Detox day 24: War-Dance Wednesday

2010-03-31T22:36:00.000+01:00

Slept off the headache ok. Annelie only came in late last night and looking pretty rough. She decided to stay in bed today to recover.

Not much in the way of fruit in the house this morning, since usually Annelie would take care of the shopping. And since she was feeling wretched, well, yeah. Clearly things fall apart when she’s not there to make it happen! So I grabbed one very lonely looking apple and chugged down some warm lemon nectar. I was horribly late as it was already for work. London underground cemented that fact by virtue of adding multiple signal failures and obnoxious fellow passengers.

Good thing I have a stash of fruit in my desk, and because my commute was extended I was ravenous by the time I place butt in chair. Two bananas paid the ultimate price.

Lunch was the carrot-o-hummus affair again. I don’t mind it so much, it keeps me going. I spiced it up with the tomato variety.

My penultimate electro disco treatment after work went as expected, i.e. lying on my back and chilling… as much as one can chill while being electrocuted. I took it much slower on the digital overload today so I was in better shape than 24 hours ago.

This evening’s meal was salmon and this weird risotto affair, which tasting quite nice with Tamari. It went down very well, while we stared at the two 1KG Lindt chocolate bunnies I bought us for the weekend :)

[G, out]

Super Grass

Detox day 23: Tricky Tuesday

2010-03-30T22:01:00.000+01:00

Heh, yeah, I’m into alliteration this week. Lamo, I know…

First words Annelie spoke to me this morning were “baby, I’m sick”. Not ideal, I know her throat has been scratching and she had mild sniffles, but now it’s full blown. Crappy timing really, considering we’ve signed up for the Great Big Eat of April 2010 (not to be confused with the Great Big Eat of Xmas 1999, and subsequent xmas’ss(s) )

It’s lamb cutlets tonight. I marinated them in a mix of rosemary, thyme, garlic and olive oil and stuck them in the fridge last night already. I have said this before, but there are a few recipes on this list of stuff we can eat that I will absolutely carry over to our “normal” eating habits. This is one of them! They are truly delicious when prepared this way. Pity lamb is so expensive here though. We have a very nice butcher just across the road, which works out better. But per KG it’s still very expensive, which is weird since I’d expect that kind of meat to be much cheaper here in England.

Annelie was out working at an event so I pretty much had the place to myself. I was suffering from a weird headache though; I think it was a digital-hangover. It happens whenever I gorge on news and useless info through out the day, coupled with the strangely non-people centric lighting they have at the office. My eyes go “fuzzy” and I think what happens is my brain tries to compensate and focus regardless, which makes my head feel like a railway spike was driven through it. All the lights on the dashboard go on, but I choose to ignore it and “feed” on some more useless interweb crap (and work, of course. Work is pretty useless too…)

I counter this sometimes by unplugging on the way home. That means no reading, no iPod, no anything. Just calming down and clearing my head, defragging as it were. It helped a little bit, but late this evening I paid for the day’s over-indulgence with a mean hangover.

The delicious lamb chops made the world a better place though :)

[G, out]

Negative sir, I am full joy!

Detox day 22: Meaty Monday

2010-03-29T20:54:00.001+01:00

We’re back on meat for dinner. Hoorah Hoorah! I made us a very nice roast chicken (all legal, as in, using food stuff on the list) to celebrate the fact. This wend well with the roast potatoes and veggies.

So basically I bought a large organic chicken, stuffed it with fresh thyme, rosemary (from a shaker, it’s all I had) and a few bay leaves. Chopped garlic and placed it all in the chickens cavity, sealing it off with a fresh, pierced lemon. Rubbed it all in olive oil and sprayed some Braggs on it (amino based sauce, tastes a bit like marmite, but it lends a nice bbq flavour to the meat). All this I perched right on top of the bed of veggies. Delicious!!

Went for another treatment again and my scans are showing full recovery, after I cut back on the almonds. Annelie’s scan is almost entirely blue! Good times.

So just a few more to go. I’m going to keep reminding myself of that fact. As much as I enjoyed this exercise (not always, but I did some days) I just can’t get over the fact that I dearly miss a few choice items in my “old” diet. Cheese keeps coming up, for some reason. And coffee and bacon is a no brainer!

[G, out]

Put your hands up

Detox day 21: The last Sunday

2010-03-28T23:05:00.000+01:00

That’s right man, this will be the very last Sunday of the detox! I decided long ago that come Easter weekend, I will be done, like disco. Morne has already tried to talk me out of it, I just said sorry Hombre, you have a choice: get all my details and measurements on Friday, or wait till Monday and get rubbish, tainted results. Cus ima gonna EAT. And drink. And be merry.

Friday is a public holiday too, so I am making a slight concession. I’ve organised that Annelie and I have our sessions in the morning though, soon as possible. After than, we can go ape shit. I think we’re probably going to make ourselves a bit sick. Can it be good for the body, to bum rush it with fats and sugars and alcohol after it’s been running clean? I am very keen to find out though. My first coffee in 26 days… man, it’s going to be heaven. I’m going to take my time, grind the beans slow like, touch the cup in delicate ways, bath in the aroma. It’s going to be x-rated action in my kitchen, come Friday afternoon.

Focusing on the task still at hand though, we had pineapple and a melody of fruits through out the day. Unfortunately Annelie didn’t clean the pineapple well enough, and our mouths suffered the slight chemical burns of… well, whatever those weird things in pineapples are!

Dinner was rice and veggies (SURPRISE!)

Loved the F1, I really dig the new presenter (the young dude). He seems to get on with the drivers a bit better; I love the McLaren segment they did on the factory in Woking. I need to make a trip down there some day, just to check it out.

I was a bit sad for Sebastian AGAIN! Damnit man, the boy has what it takes and a fast damn car, but it’s not reliable! Over all, the rest of the race was just freakin fantastic.

Anyways. This weekend is done and dusted. We are now in the final stretch, ladies and gentlemen.

[G, out]

Take it out on me

Detox day 20: Saturday

2010-03-27T20:10:00.000Z

I was up and going by 09:00, logged in and getting the pesky work related stuff out of the way. Enjoyed it over a nice warm brew of lemon water. The rest of the day I had more fruit and left over veggies. Also knocked back the leftovers we sliced up for the sushi the other night. Basically just cleaned out the fridge of any salads and whatnot that’s on its way out.

I hit my treatment in the evening and my scans looked a little, well, black in spots here and there. Turns out that I shouldn’t eat so many almonds through out the day. I will admit, I was pigging out on them yesterday and today, so I guess that’s why. No matter, I’ll cut down on those and see what we can see next week.

Dinner was Sushi again, cus we love it.

Oh, and I finished Drakes Fortune! Epic game man, EEEEPIC.

[G, out]

Like an oompa loompa on crack

Detox day 19: Light at the end...

2010-03-26T22:59:00.000Z

I think I’ve been quite good today, I forgot to bring soup to work so I had to munch salads. Harder than it sounds, since the bulk you have to eat to be filled is quite a bunch! I am a salad eating fiend at the moment.

Dinner was veggies and rice (SURPRISE!).

This weekend is not so busy, we have a few things to do, I’m working from home on Saturday, which means have the laptop logged into the network, do 30 minutes worth of work and play video games in between. Barring any major cock ups, of course.

I want to also spend some time setting up my new media centre; I’m upgrading it from the duct-tape and bubblegum setup I have now. I wanna get some on the fly decoding setup so I don’t have to recode or switch between devices just to watch one particular thing.

Oh, and F1 is on! Australia this time, practice was interesting to watch. It’s 05:00 in the morning though, so I’ll have to catch the recorded version. Can’t wait to sit down, relax, get a nice coffee, some crispy bacon, eggs (scrambled) and 2 pieces of brown toast…

or not.

[G, out]

Smile for the birdie

Detox day 18: Almost Friday

2010-03-25T21:15:00.000Z

And the end of another week! Almost. Busy day at work today, lots to do and I had to work after hours (at least from home).

Breakfast and lunch was more of the same but for dinner we tried something new: we made sushi!

Since seaweed is on the list and we have all the gear to make the rolls anyway we decided to make California rolls, using the (approved) brown basmati rice, carrots, avo, spring onions and cucumber. The trick was making the rice sticky, and that was archived with overwatering it a bit. We did get some wasabi from a restaurant, but fuck it you know. It’s just horse radish, which is a derivative of mustard, which is on the list.

All in all, it was a most fantastic break on what is a truly freaking mind-numbingly boring recipe list of dishes we can eat. We almost wept for joy! On that note I’m going to scour through the ingredients again and see what other potential dishes jump out at me. There must be more to life than stuff peppers and rice.

[G, out]

it belongs to them

Detox day 17: Jedi Focus

2010-03-24T22:36:00.000Z

Slept quite well, I think my energy levels are optimal at the moment. Had my glass-o-juice and knocked back my favourite tropical fruit (banana) before heading off the work. They have some sort of fire alert at Canary Wharf, so it was PACKED but got to work eventually…

Lunch was my custom soup with a little too much green chilli. But the burn kept my stomach from demanding more food later in the day. I filled the rest of the afternoon with a few almonds. It’s the final stretch for this week, I can’t wait to eat meat again!

Dinner was roast potatoes (ala-Annelie and I think I like her roast potatoes better than mine!). They where quite fantastic, the key was that she took my suggestion of brushing the potatoes with a little olive oil and then crushing garlic and thyme together (just with the palm of your hand) and chucking it all in the oven. She also made “chips” from the skins, again adding some thyme and garlic, which adds remarkable flavour. This all went very well with the roast veggies (aka lazy mans dinner).

She was feeling better from this morning; her neck seems to have loosened up a bit. She went for a “body talk” session (I don’t know the exact name of it) and mentioned that quite a few “stuff” came out and she now felt “lighter”. Hey man, I’m just stoked she felt better!

Played some more Drakes Fortune 2 tonight and I are(sic) really digging it. My thoughts on the PS3 so far is that is feels more “grown up”, from the menu to the controller, everything feels more evolved somehow. You cannot argue to intense graphics of the game in question, and the voice acting and expressions are absolutely fantastic. I have to keep reminding myself I’m actually playing a video game. Incredible.

Oh, and we have been invited to Verbier to stay at one of Annelie’s client’s chalets for a week. So we are scrambling around to get the flights, shengens and some clothes together (Switzerland is like, frozen and stuff this time of year). I look forward to getting my ski on, even though from past water-ski experience I know that I suck the big fat one. Meh, whatever. Should be good for pictures and a laugh.

[G, out]

Taking my time

Detox day 16: recycling skins

2010-03-23T20:47:00.000Z

Nothing especially new to report today, other than I won’t be making my regular appointments for das machinika since I’ve been roped into working every single evening of this week. I’ll catch a treatment on Saturday instead.

Speaking of toys, my Playstation 3 arrived today! So stoked, been wanting to buy one for ages. Got a good deal, playing Drakes Fortune 2 and it is simply astounding how good it is. Also discovered that a mate has a huge back catalogue of gamage I can tuck into, so.. win!

Annelie’s neck seems worse. I tried massaging and applying heat but she’s still in a good deal of pain.

Made some more soup and dinner was stuffed peppers, with a pseudo-risotto stuffing. Quite tasty, with the tamari.

Oh, and the other night I made a little snack out of potato skins! I kept the peelings after I made roast potatoes and drenched them in a little olive oil and crushed garlic, with thyme thrown in for good measure. Into the oven for about 20 mins, presto! Crunchy and healthy.

That’s it for now. Off to bed.

[G, out]

I like the way you move

Detox day 15: Strong emotional response

2010-03-22T23:10:00.000Z

It would seem that both Annelie and I are experiencing a strange phenomenon. I had a moment on Friday and she had hers last night. It’s a weird point where you feel like this whole thing is BS and you don’t want to do it anymore, and you rage against it. But for no perceived reason whatsoever. When you calm down, and think logically about it, you’re not angry at all. Your not craving anything, you’re not really tired… of anything. So what, then, triggers this tantrum?

Morne said that every single one of them had the exact same thing happen to them! I remember him telling me this a while back too…

About half way through, everyone’s “stuff” would pop up. And every time when analysed it was found that it’s not the diet that’s pissing them off but other deeply rooted personal issues. Very tree hugger, I know, but maybe there is something in this. He did warn me at the beginning that the detox process is not just about food. There are trains of thought that we store a lot of emotions and memories right in our very cells. Could these be coming out in bouts of anger and frustration?

Again, I need to stress this point: I was in no means uncomfortable, hungry or craving anything. But everything was just wrong with the world! Annelie broke down crying and as of this evening still has no idea why. But she too was perfectly fine… physically.

Anyway, it’s an interesting train of thought none the less.

To mix it up a bit, I’ve made my own special soup, using the left over veggie stock, miso paste and fresh vegetables. I really like it, and it’s a nice change from the pumpkin soup I’ve been scoffing none stop!

[G, out]

RPG heroes are jerks

Detox day 14: HCR Duex

2010-03-21T22:14:00.001Z

Sunday, at last! Annelie joined me again at the HCR, as opposed to running a marathon which she was signed up to do. She decided to attend the event instead since there was a lot of access to some very influential and knowledgeable people here and she wouldn’t want to miss her chance to ask some pressing questions.

There where only two talks, a lively open panel discussion and then of course Aaron Mokoena’s inspirational talk. What a gentlemen he is! Not sure where he got the fantastic suit he was wearing but I need the number of his tailor. He worked the room with grace and I’m happy to say he is very photogenic. It was also kind of cool being “the press” that had full access to him and follow him around snapping pictures, vuvuzela’s in full blare all round. I had to be careful not to trip over everyone else, no less than 5 other very expensive video cameras and attached crews. And having Annelie there was very cool, she could help me out with a few off camera lighting shots and generally just be around for some chat.

Before we leave I manage to at least get an autograph and a few business cards. I’ve already been recommended and signed up for a shoot for Sappi’s event in May, at the Hilton in Piccadilly. I’m hoping to secure a few more shoots off the back of that.

Food wise, same as yesterday. Same boring chow, same temptations!

Got home and feeling properly shattered. We jumped straight into making dinner so that we can kick back and relax and I can get to photo editing a storm through a couple thousand pics.

Overall, I feel quite happy with my performance and made some good contacts. I’m going to sleep like a baby tonight.

[G, out]

Rock and roll

Detox day 13: HCR

2010-03-20T23:04:00.000Z

Wow, what a long day!! I’m making this a quick one, since I’m knackered from being on my feet for hours on end. Annelie and I headed to the seminar; I got a nice sexy press pass and settled in. I first did a recon of the area and the auditorium and was shocked at how bad the lighting was! Tracked down the “sound guy” and he plugged in some sexy stage lights for both me and the videographers. Win!

The event itself was a great success, very interesting guest speakers from business and education. There where moments that I had to choke back a few tears… heck I wanted to hop on a plane and head home right there and then.

I think I managed to put a few good pics in the can and time and post processing will tell. I had to shoot at ridiculous ISO, but hey, at least I got the shots.

Eating wise we planned for the day quite well: apples, bananas, soup, almonds and we never went hungry. But MAN, was there foot long boerewors rolls (egte WORS!) they had on offer not tempting! My god, this is torture…

Adding boerewors to the list of stuff I’m going to gorge on come Easter weekend.

Other delights where Wilson toffees and those white Easter eggs, with the chocolate in the middle you can’t seem to find anywhere else than in S.A. We bought 4 boxes… for safe keeping, of course.

Ok, off to bed. Tomorrow is a big day. I’m going to meet the 2010 sports ambassador after all.

[G, out]

Such lovely sausage.

Detox day 12: TGIF (not)

2010-03-19T23:00:00.000Z

Well, it’s Friday again and just like the last, the looming weekend are promised to be hard on the diet. Not so much hard on the diet, just hard to stick to it.

Breakfast was the usual, lunch was the usual, dinner was a lazy mans dinner, which is chopping up veggies, chucking it in the oven and scoffing it down with rice and some Tamari.

Also went for my session with the Elecrolizor 3000 and happen to tell Morne that I’m thinking of quitting. We had a chat about it some more, and while I was lying on my back I reconsidered and thought that it may be better just to stick it out, since Annelie will also be going through with it. It’s much easier to do as a couple, and this is something I’d suggest they say to all their potential clients.

So I guess I’m in it for the long haul. Yay me… /sarcasm

Tomorrow is the kick off of the Homecoming Revolution Seminar at the Kensington Olympia. Lot’s of interesting speakers, stalls and even the captain of Bafana-Bafana on Sunday to see! I’m doing the photocog thing so I’m holding thumbs that I don’t screw it up too badly.

[G, out]

And it’s coming closer

Detox day 11:

2010-03-18T22:58:00.002Z

Aaaargh. Overslept today. Don’t know what it is with my cell phone, I’m pretty darned sure my alarm didn’t go off… Had weird dreams man, featuring a rather interesting conversation with birds.

Anyways, had time for some lemon water and a banana, but in my haste I forgot to slice up some watermelon for todays nibbles. I did remember to pack some of my wife’s very delightful pumpkin soup… which I really should have stuck through the blender to frappe the bejeezus out of it. As such, it kind of looks more like a pumpkin stew than anything else, since she prefers it in this form. And if I actually did this last night, that would have been fantastic! But alas, no, I was playing Counterstrike and Starcraft over Hamachi till 00:00.

Well, at least these evening frag fests haven’t been affected by a few weeks of detox!

More fruit and another big-huge salad, heavy on the chillies before tucking into some pumpkin stew, that I hacked into a pulp with a very dull spoon.

For dinner I slapped some veggies in the oven, served with brown rice. I tried making my own hummus and it was a dreadful failure. It’s not that bad, I guess you could eat it. But I think I’m missing a trick, it doesn’t taste like I know it should.

[G, out]

(instrumental)

Detox day 10:

2010-03-17T23:48:00.000Z

I was running a tad late for work this morning so I only had 2 bananas and skipped the lemon water.

For lunch I decided to spice up the salad idea a bit and added some fat chillies, little mini-corns and cooked beetroot. Beetroot is a helluva thing, since cooked it’s really sweet and adds a lot of nice flavour to what would have been a boring salad. So I made a whole plate of the stuff and I was well satiated till late the afternoon. I reckon If I can keep eating this much in one go it will go a long way to sustaining a workable diet.

Before my session this evening, Morne mentioned that there is this dude. This photography dude, to be precise, that setup what he calls a “mobile studio” in one of the empty spaces just up the road from the flat. What it is, is that over the last few years this photographer, Jason Wilde sets up these temporary photo shoots for 3 days at a time all over the country and invites people to just walk in and have photos taken for free. The idea is to document a wide variety of everyday folk and from this body of work he publishes a book.

The “theme” so to speak is to just stand there, no smiles, and in any pose you like. They pop about 9 shots of various, no smile poses and then the last 3 you can do whatever you like. These will then be sent to you free of charge as a black and white print, as thanks for you time. Pretty cool, huh?

Since I had time to kill till my session, I poked my head in and had a few shots taken. The gallery they had setup was quite cool to see also. I could see what he meant, by when people don’t smile; you get a peek at their true character. And boy, there where some funky characters mingled with every day folk. Even a few pirates…

The session went well and I took the opportunity to ask about the foods that where not included on the approved list. I’m happy to report that it seems to have been nothing but an oversight! Which is great, since it means there are a few things in there I’d rather eat. Even though I intend to finish up this week, I’ve been thinking on how I can integrate some of the learnings (god, talk about management speak!) into “normal” life. I’ve thought about this and you know, the diet isn’t all that bad. It’s more the idea of not being able to eat a solid lunch that gets me down. I was never a huge salad fan (Annelie is always very surprised when I do eat it) and I miss my little vices, such as coffee, cheese and bread. But fruit for breakfast? Yeah, I can do that. Maybe mix it up with cereal through out the week. And the dinner dishes are generally very nice, but I would like I mentioned before add a bit more spice to things. I also miss baking stuff, like pies or confectionery.

Again, Annelie and I are already IMHO at the top range of eating well and healthy. It wouldn’t take much to tweak our existing habits.

So this evening it was going to be spinach surprise or something like that but I opted we have the baked potato with ratatouille again. So close to being a nice dish, I would sprinkle some mild smoked paprika over there and a small dash of salt.

PS: Sea Salt, I discovered in my Google quest, is alkaline… but that doesn’t mean you should chow down too much of it. All the usual rules apply, with regards to RDA’s etc.

Weight loss wise, it is clearly working, and the machine has given me some banging new abs! Annelie seems to approve too...

And, I can feel the detox working. It’s gross, but here goes: I can “smell” myself. What I mean is that I’m sweating out some truly vile reeking stuff… smells like I’ve been clubbing all night. Eueew. Also breaking out in spots here and there, and I KNOW it’s not from eating fatty foods, drinking coffee, scoffing chocolate and the like. So clearly, there is evidence of some funk getting evicted.

And on that bright note, I bid good night!

[G, out]

You gotta gitup an dance!

Detox Day 9: it is the spice...

2010-03-16T23:06:00.000Z

I struggled a bit today, mostly because I ran out of food midway through the afternoon. My energy levels feel a bit down also, I reckon this is due to the strictly vegetarian diet.

I’m beginning to question the logic of this exercise (well, I’ve questioned it many times!). Annelie kind of put it best, by saying that it’s a scary insight into what it must be like for over-obsessive eaters. Because our entire lives revolve around eating at the moment, so much so that it impacts other areas of our lives. For instance, I dearly wanted to take my wife out to a movie tonight. But the idea that we would miss dinner (because it will take to long to cook) was the deal breaker. More so, what about the usual staple of popcorn and slurpees? Can’t have those, it’s pure sugar and aerated salt.

I’m also still trying to poke holes in this diet as often as possible, since the essence of this exercise is to have an 80% alkaline diet. So how come there are so many foods omitted from our approved foods list? Pineapple, hummus, hard boiled eggs, Almonds and yogurt for example are all alkaline foods. I’ll ask Morne about this, but I suspect he’ll say it’s because of the detox requirement. The way I figure it at the moment is that there are multiple aspects at work:

If you purely want to lose weight, it stands to reason to EAT LESS. That’s a “duh” moment. Obviously, the next point is to not only eat less, but eat quality foods. So the “eat less” bit does not equal “stuff less food in your mouth”. It’s around calorie intake. It has been found that an average person needs around 2500 calories a day to keep going and be considered healthy. If you’re an athlete, that number skyrockets, but that’s cool, cuss your body can absorb and expend that energy more efficiently. So the “duh” moment is, is that if you take in 5000 calories a day and only expend 2500, you store that as fat.

On this diet we are on, Annelie has calculated that we barely touch 2000 calories a day. So it’s obvious that we will lose weight, as common knowledge is proven accurate. You don’t need a machine, or fancy slogans to do this. It can be done by anybody.

The next aspect is the detox bit. Lot’s of trains of thought out there, but ok, let’s stick to this plan. The idea is to pump your body full of natural foods to get it to an almost starved state, where detoxification happens on a cellular level. This will burn out whatever fat stores you have along with the toxins contained within.

The machine, in my humble opinion, is just a substitute for going to gym. Any personal trainer can help you focus training on the "problem areas" coupled with a good diet. But working out is far more pressing than lying on your back and having mild shock treatment.

My question is thus, why only the specific foods on our list? And what scientific evidence can be presented that I can, for instance, not just swop out any old alkaline food? Will it really make that big a difference, or is this a losing case of diminishing returns? In other words, I will get great joy from being allowed pineapple, cottage cheese and eggs, for example, but it won’t hamper my progress that much.

Examples:

Cottage cheese with smoked salmon!? Bring it on!!

Pineapple with ANY salad will make the hurt stop

Two hardboiled eggs, again with salad, heck, even as a stand alone meal!

Almonds to scoff on between meals.

Yeah… a long rant. But I’m wired to ask questions and hack the shit out of any authoritative program or instruction. And I will be fair, this is the first batch of folks they’re putting through this. It’s a beta run, right? You will always trip over the details. I hope I can at least provide enough constructive criticism to help them along. Ultimately, I just want some more variety in what is still, in week two, a damn hard thing to do.

[G, out]

Roll for perception check

Detox Day 8: routine

2010-03-15T20:10:00.000Z

Everything is more or less like routine now, with the waking up, drinking the water, having a banana, heading to work and scoffing down more fruit till lunch.

Annelie has recovered quite a bit from last week; she was feeling very down and less than energetic. So that’s a good thing. After work I went over for my regular Monday shock treatment. It was also “measurement day”. Turns out I’ve lost 19 cm’s overall (no, I’m not shorter; it’s around my guy and legs etc). Had a delicious sampling of vegetable soup! It actually tasted edible. Clearly I need to tweak my recipes a bit more, because the soup I had at his place I can eat all day.

After the measurements, the other thing Morne checks for is, well, hard to explain. I don’t actually know what it’s called, but it’s this heat sensitive contraption, mounted on a bracket with a digital camera, that he presses against your stomach, with a black backing, kind of looks like film for an x-ray machine. What happens next is it reacts to your body heat, the black turning various shades from black to yellow and orange and red to blue. From what I gather, this shows how well your body can move food around your gut; the aim is to be blue all the way through. When we started last week I was already in the oranges and reds, with tinges of blue. Annelie was BLACK. Tonight I was showing more signs of blue popping through, so a dramatic difference. I saw Annelie’s and she too was progressing nicely, but not a quickly as I was. All that means is that she will have to see the course through to the end to get the kind of results she needs. She is hoping to flush out all the junk and potential toxins left over from the Africa trip, with all that amoeba nonsense. I was thinking, since I’ve made such good progress, that I may just call it a day after this week. But we’ll see. There’s a 2.5KG chocolate Easter egg down at M&S that has my name on it.

Dinner was ratatouille with baked patatos, a really nice dish! I tried making some overn baked crisps, but that experiment failed. I need to figure out a way so that they don't stick to the bottom of the tray.

This weekend, I’m getting my head around the Homecoming Revolution at the London Olympia. I will be taking pics of the event again, and as before I’m a little unnerved about being in the company of so many esteemed guests and speakers. But I nailed it on the head last year, so it should be fine.

[G, out]

Something bad in the cellar

Detox Day 7: week one done

2010-03-14T23:02:00.000Z

Breakfast was a quick one, as I was due to take some profile pics of a few trainers down in Gymbox. It was a very good session; I managed to get all 8 of them done and dusted within an hour. Also managed to get quite a good contact for future work, for actor profiles. I’ll be sure to follow this up, the dude was very friendly and accommodating, for a 120KG Muay-thai kick boxer!!

Note to self: never make this man angry.

The rest of the morning it was more fruit, a delicious salad and some home made tomato soup (not so great, I should have used ripe tomato’s…), while watching the F1 boys going wheel-to-wheel. Just looking at it on TV made me think about our trip to Turkey to go see the formula race there, and it.was.HOOOT!! I spared a thought for my brother looking at the people in the stands under the baking desert sun.

The rest of the day we kind of just lazed about, looking forward yet again to dinner. On my way back from the gym photo shoot I picked us up 30 cleaned King Prawns for this evenings feast. This we made with ginger, garlic, chilli and a dash of olive oil and lemon juice, served on brown rice with some Tamari (a soy sauce kind of substitute).

It was freakin awesome! I’d give it a 9 out of 10, just because there wasn’t more of it. I should have bought 60 prawns.

We kicked back, watched a flick or two: The taking of Pelham 123, which was SHIT and I convinced her to watch Ninja Assassin, which I’ve seen before, and which is FUCKING awesome!! She even enjoyed it.

Wasted the dregs of Sunday evening on some gamage and them bedtime.

Tomorrow we start with a no meat, no fish sector of the program. Not sure how I feel about that. Actually, I kind of do. But maybe its best left unsaid… :)

[G, out]

tickity boo

Detox Day 6: my kingdom for bacon

2010-03-13T22:28:00.002Z

Saturday morning and the first thing to pass my lips is… Lemon Water. Hot, steaming, lemon water. Not a delicious blend of dark roasted, freshly ground, perfectly brewed Mocha Java, or something Peruvian. No no: Lemon water.

And for breakfast? Watermelon. Lots and lots of watermelon, like there was a plague and all that was left edible was this weird fruit. I think if there was one day in the week that would hit me hardest throughout this journey, Saturday would be it.

My morning ritual on a Saturday involves getting up at around 09:15 and tip-toeing out the room, closing the door behind me. I then make my way (like Ninja!) to the kitchen where I hand pick from a selection of fresh coffee beans to make my own little blend for the day. I then stealthily grind these to a fine, aromatic powder taking care to not spill one ounce as I scoop this Heavenly, God sent mixture into my Aeropress, filter locked and loaded.

Using water that’s just under boiling, filtered through a Brita filter to remove any impurities; the water as clear as if I siphoned it off a fresh mountain stream, I gently pour it in, before stirring it for 10 seconds, no more, no less.

Applying gentle pressure on the plunger, I force the nectar from the ground into a cup containing just enough preheated milk, the flavours enveloping the whole kitchen. Stir in one half spoon of sugar, lest we ruin the glorious texture and flavour, stir and enjoy.

I get to have another hour or so of “me” time. Before long my phone will buzz gently with a SMS, message simply “koffee” from the room next door. I smile, stand up and repeat the ritual with the same love and careful attention to detail. She deserves nothing less.

We lay in bed for another hour talking about… stuff. Catching up, discussing any plans for the weekend and so on. The topic will eventually turn to breakfast: Bacon and eggs, the latter I enjoy medium, the former crispy. This is paired with fresh whole-wheat toast, a dash of rock salt, freshly grated Cathedral Mild Cheddar, fried bananas and a side of ketchup and Reggae-Reggae sauce (spicy, savoury brown sauce. Goes very, very well with all of the above!). By 13:00, we are ready to face the day.

All this is of course moot, when one is on a detox diet.

So, while enjoying the ludicrously fast machines racing in a far off desert in Bahrain, clocking faster and faster lap times as they vie for pole position, I was severely let down by my full plate of sliced watermelon. I felt like a dog trying to chew water coming out of a garden hose, that is to say, chomping down on nothing substantial.

The evening we went to go visit friends, trekking our meal with us: chicken casserole… something. We made at their place while they scoffed down fresh biltong followed by what looked to be a very hearty spaghetti bolognaise with mince. Our meal was cardboard by comparison.

At least we got to see them before they left for a little S.A. holiday. And we got to see their little boy again, my goodness he has grown! He’s like, crawling and stuff, and totally his own little person.

Here’s to another successful detox day.

[G, out]

It’s really all there is

Detox Day 5: TGIF

2010-03-13T00:09:00.001Z

Slept like a baby, didn’t wake up so often last night. Had my glass of “Exotic Lime water”, and apples for breakfast. And apples for the rest of the morning. In fact, Apples is all I’m supposed to east for the first half of my morning for the next 2 days!

APPLES!!

My biceps feel quite sore still from the “Machine” the other night. I may ask M to reduce the power a bit for the Guns this evening, see how it goes.

The butternut soup that Annelie cooked up yesterday with our hard earned vegetable stock rocks! So that went down quite well for lunch and subsequent meals. It at least made up for the horrible entre of spinach and rocket leaves, with some watercress for flavour. Ate that throughout the afternoon, as I got hungry again later.

In non detox related news, the Formula one season kicks off again this weekend! Super stoked, all the new rules, new teams and team parings, the return of ol’ Mikey S… its going to be one of the best seasons yet. Very jealous of my brother! Him and the wife are over in Bahrain as we speak, soaking up rays and enjoying the atmosphere. He has a buddy that arranges events out there, so I’m sure he’s being well looked after.

Evening meal was chicken stir fry and rice. What initially looked like a bland, dry mix turned out to be quite tasty and very filling. Just add a dash of chilli :)

[G,out]

(instrumental)

Detox Day 4: chilli's rock!

2010-03-11T22:00:00.000Z

One thing I’ve been noticing lately is that I keep waking up about 2-3 hours before my alarm. At that moment, I actually feel like I’ve slept enough and could easily rise and begin my day, but choose to tuck in and go back to sleep. I would wake up again and again, in half hour intervals and then still manage to blow out my snooze button. I wonder if this is a side effect of this whole detox thing? I can’t say I feel more energetic, but I don’t feel lethargic either. It’s weird, but I’m kind of in limbo, like a Calvin Klein ad. I’m just… there. Just “be”.

Anyways, chugged down a glass of warm lemon juice water, I kind of getting used to the taste now. I imagine it’s a very exotic herbal tea or something, since it’s likely the only time you’d drink something this vile and pretend to like it is when you’re trying to be cultured and pretend to enjoy exotic teas.

I was reminded a bit too late that for today, we are only to eat apples. Having scoffed down a banana, a handful of black berries and strawberries already, I guess I’ll have to do that tomorrow instead. The idea with the apples is that it flushes your digestive system, which is good, I guess.

On a side note, I think I may have found my “why” for this journey. You know, the “why the hell are you doing it?” For most folks this system is for weight loss and of course, being the lean bad-ass athlete I already am, I hardly qualify. But Annelie mentioned something that I thought made an excellent why for me: detoxing, if done right, is the only way to rid you of any residual metals and toxins from chemotherapy. It was 5 years ago though, but who knows what’s still sloshing away in there?

Carrot salad for lunch today… but with a twist! I added a whole red chilli, which I sliced up in bits and ate along with the rest. Knocked my socks off, but it’s good to have some flavour with the food for a change. Good thing chilli’s is on the approved foods list, I think I may add it to more things.

The evening meal of chicken kebabs was really nice, added some garlic mushrooms to it. Overall, I’d give it a 7, just because it could use have more spices (just a tad). The grilled peppers semi made up for it.

I found out today that next weeks menu doesn’t have meat on it AT ALL!!

Madness… MADNESS!!

[G, out]

Mad I tell you!

Detox Day 3: pumpkins are weird

2010-03-10T23:14:00.001Z

Well, good news: I woke up this morning headache free!! So happy about that; it’s amazing what a huge difference it makes to my demeanour. I actually managed to chug down one whole glass of warm water with lemon juice, heating filtered water instead of tap. The lime scale in the tap water was way to rough. For breakfast I had a banana and packed some blackberries and peaches for the rest of the morning. Even packed the soup I didn’t want to touch yesterday and thought I’d give it another go.

Unfortunately, while I was having my fit yesterday, I never put the soup in the fridge. When it came out of the microwave, it was bubbling. A quick sniff and taste confirmed what I thought: it had fermented. Straight to the bin, then.

Managed to survive on nothing but fruits and carrots, spinach leaves and lots of water.

Our plan is to try and make a different soup but for that we need to make vegetable stock, which involves over cooking a bunch of veggies in water then draining this off to use as a base for a variety of soups. We’re thinking that the pumpkin (isn’t pumpkin a funny ass word??) soup. Not for the last time I’m sure, I had to go seek out veggies that I never knew existed, such as a swede and a turnip. If there is a difference in looks between these two, I don’t see it. Oh, and a Blue Pumpkin, which is probably healthier than you’re average, under achieving orange pumpkins (heh heh… “pumpkin”)

I spent the rest of the afternoon dreaming of the evening’s meal: lamb cutlets! To speed up the process of delivering such delight to my gaping maw, I phoned Annelie to ask her to marinade and store the lamb cutlets to enable quick cooking turn over and capitalisation to arrest interest and quantify sustainable growth.

Or something like that, I was clearly delirious with hunger.

Good thing I wasn’t disappointed, the lamb was simply delicious!! I wolfed it down in small bites, chewed slowly just like you’re supposed to. Savoured it. The one bonus I would say from this exercise is that we get to eat something different each night, other than the “usual” quick and dirty meals you’d make for dinner. So far, the lamb was then best, salmon second (albeit a bit bland to my liking) and the rainbow trout can go to hell. All those bones man, just, horrible.

After dinner, I was off to Morne’s to get hooked up to the Machine-o-dooooooom. I asked that he crank that sucker up to 60% (we need morrr powerrr!) and ya, I kakked a bit. Lets just say some of the pulses where more pleasant than others, but I could feel I was gonna hurt tomorrow. It’s very much a sensation of tightening your muscles for 45 minutes at a stretch.

At home by 21:30 and Annelie was miserable. I think we go in and out in phases, and so far it’s been good that I am in a good mood when she’s in a bad one, and vice versa. Guess I married the right woman after all.

Spent the rest of the evening cuddling her and trying to cheer her up. Her big gripe is that she missed her morning oats (as in porridge, not THAT kind of oats) of all things, and the idea of waking up every morning and not having it, and being subsequently satiated is a drag.

We finish making the soup stock, somewhat. It seems like a big waste, since you have to over cook a ton of veggies to get what, about a litre of stock?? I figured we can just cook some of the veggies again and try and extract some more, so that’s an experiment for tomorrow.

[G, out]

Rumble rumble rumble

Detox Day 2: pain

2010-03-09T22:05:00.001Z

Slept well enough, still have a mild headache. Didn’t quite have the 2 glasses with lemon juice, the thought of it was reviling. In the kitchen I had a little note waiting for Annelie

I ate as well as I could this morning, but the thought of scoffing more veggies and fruit non stop really isn’t that appealing. Got to work and started chugging water, thought maybe I was dehydrated, but no. Headache has moved to the back of my scalp and I feel a little sensitive to light.

Tried some carrot salad but couldn’t finish it. I went a little ape shit on the dressing, and it’s very strong! Whoops… As of lunch time, I was giving the soup I enjoyed so much yesterday a wide berth. Rather, I continued to snack on apples till the evening.

The whole day I was really cranky and miserable and it’s absolutely due to the headaches. It also affected my appetite and made me nauseous, since I felt motion sick to boot. Over lunch time, I snuck off to a quiet spot and had a hour power nap to try and alleviate some pressure… no dice. Drank more water, massaged my noggin… no change. Had a little freak out late afternoon, saying
that I can’t eat this crap anymore… got quite a few alternative suggestions, none of which I liked.

The evening’s dish was rainbow trout cooked in the oven, with some herb and so forth, carrots and onions and brown rice. It was quite good, just a LOT of bones and in my cranky state it was pissing me off. I must have swallowed half a fish ribcage by the time I was done, but at least I was full now and could lay on my couch and chill.

Spent the rest of the evening just reading, which is weird, since it actually helped my headache somewhat. Or maybe it’s just that I could chill and close my eyes at intervals.

Lets see what tomorrow brings.

[G, out]

ow

Detox Day 1: so much fruit

2010-03-08T11:06:00.002Z

Well, as I’ve alluded to in the previous post, it is in fact true. We’ve signed up for a 28 day detoxification exercise, courtesy of my friend Morne and his Elixir cleansing and weight loss program.

Last night, after our weekend of pleasure and gluttony we scrambled down to the organic food store before they closed at 21:00 to pick up ingredients. He sent us a comprehensive eating guide, with recipes, approved foods and diet suggestions.

Here the blurb:

“The purpose of this program is to improve cell and enzyme function, assist the liver and kidneys with detoxification, and to decrease the body’s fat stores. As this is a detoxification program, any food or drink that typically causes sensitivities or increases toxicity has been eliximated(sic) from the program. Over the next 4 weeks or more weeks you will increase your energy and your cellular vitality.”

And along with the diet, they combine it with a machine that does Electrolipolysis, which in a nutshell heats up and melts away your body fat. You then piss it all out, along with the toxins stored in the fat. Of course, your liver and kidneys need to be in good shape to deal with this… hence the diet. It’s an elegant solution.

I have my first machine session this evening, although I don’t need to lose any more weight to be sure, but after shifting between “not the hell” and “yeah, why not” I eventually settled on the latter, since Annelie wanted to check it out also, and it would be a good exercise for both of us. That, or we never make year 2 of our wedding anniversary!

So this morning, I kicked off the day with 2 glasses of warm water with lemon juice in it... which was… disgusting! I kid with Morne later on that I now understand why people lose so much weight on this program, since we all kick off our day with a light bout of bulimia, after chugging down warm water!

Last night we made Elixir Detox soup™ (the preferred soup for the first week of detox and made for champions!), and I have to say I quite like it. Apart from the fact that it contains stuff I didn’t know existed up until about 20:48 last evening, it’s tasty. For breakfast, it was chopped fruit (no citrus, so oranges et al are out) but at least you can eat as much as you want. You then snack on fruits until just before lunch, when you swop over to a salad with spinach before you hit the soup. The salad gets your enzymes working (apparently). The guide is to never stop eating: if you go hungry, you’re doing it wrong!

At around 12o’clock though my body sat me down and started asking some serious questions. Like “dude, what the eff??” and “where is my coffee? Why don’t I have my coffee yet, bitch??!” It then decided to punish me for this oversight, by smacking itself in the brain and treating me to a world class caffeine hang over. It followed up that display of power with clear instructions to my stomach that it will not, under any circumstances, report “we are full” until this situation with me scoffing nothing but organic fruit and soup is rectified.

Every time I open my drawer, a life sized, earless Lindt white chocolate bunny (ears chewed off on Friday…) stares back at me, pleading that I finish the job. Instead, I reach for an apple, and start chewing again. My stomach still stubbornly refuses to listen to reason and like a really old laptop battery it's reporting 0% charge, even though it’s been on the mains power all freakin morning.

I spent a good portion of my free time trying to buck the system, arguing with Morne that low GI, gluten free bread is really very healthy and I should have some, or that chick peas are just the same as any old green pea, and hummus would be really grand with these bland carrots. I could only stand being called derivates of female genitalia for so long though and gave up that fight. I will have to get creative with what’s on this very limited “approved foods” list.

All in good time.

In the evening I went over to get hooked up to the "machine". It's an interesting electrical device, with 32 nodes that attach to gel pads, which in turn are stuck to your lymph nodes and a few other areas around your torso, with 4 on your biceps respectfully. Our session started with a little Q&A, measurements and general health checks before the machine was switched on. The experience is like having a mild electric current pumped into you at intervals, which shifts every few minutes, from always-on to pulse and so forth. Overall, it wasn't unpleasant, and I appreciated being able to lie down for a change, since by the evening I was feeling very sorry for myself. I was dealing with a mild headache and feeling very anxious and ratty. I don't think this was due to being hungry, since I went home first and ate a very good meal of Salmon and rice with some broccoli.

Session done, I headed home. On the bus I started feeling like crap again, light headed and dizzy, motion sick and still ratty as hell. Got home and passed out on the couch, after drinking a litre of water.

I would say that Annelie has been really helpful with making the food and getting things together for us. I'm glad we're at least doing this together.

[G, out]

something something something dark side

I still do…

2010-03-07T22:16:00.000Z

Annelie and I spent the weekend celebrating our one year wedding anniversary in style. Yes, it has been one whole year since that very windy day in March and to make up for the horrific wind on the day proper, mother nature gave us a whole weekend of cloudless sky and sun (it was however still fucking cold… but whatever). Point is, we’re still going very strong and I can’t believe how happy we are! It should really be illegal to have it this good…

Originally we where thinking of heading out to Spain or Morocco or somewhere sunny and warm to celebrate, but after looking at the tickets and considering the pain of getting visas and so forth we decided against it. I also wanted to make sure that we just keep things tidy until we have our indefinite leave to remain application sorted out.

As such, I wasn’t privy to all the plans for the weekend, save for the spa day which
she organised on the Sunday. For the rest, I was simply told not to make any plans. On Saturday morning I received my marching instructions and was told to pack my unmentionables, swimming trunks and “something sexy to wear out” on the evening.

First thing on Saturday morning was writing our Living in the UK test. Don’t know why we thought this would be a good idea, to schedule it on the day of our weekend “out”. We have been studying for it on and off for the last few weeks, and that was accelerated on the Thursday and Friday evenings. I forgot how horrifically tests agree with Annelie (or perhaps vice-versa). She was a mini-wreck! I guess me goading her on how I will have to ship her home if she fails didn’t help. Whatever the case may be, we piled into the testing centre just up the road and along with 2 halls full of other hopefuls wrote the short test. It was a bit harder than what I thought it would be, but we passed none the less. One less thing to worry about!

After that, we headed back home where Annelie had a drink and passed out for about an hour (did I mention tests don’t agree with her?)

Back to her old self, we finished packing, locked up and were on our way. It was nice to not have to work over the weekend for a change and surprisingly so to just get out of the flat for a change. Under the pretence of swinging by a friend to pick something up, we rolled into the Park Plaza hotel in Waterloo and settled in the bar for a Mojito. Leandra greeted us there with a big smile and curious about what our plans where. Annelie took her off to a corner an animatedly explained… something. I continued to sip my drink and help myself to the complementary bar nuts. The Park Plaza in Waterloo is a very impressive structure and they recently completed its sister hotel across the way: all glass and steel. The interior of this 4 star hotel is very smartly decorated with the restaurant and bar area placed in an “open air” space. The “open air” bit is in quotes because the top is covered in a glass ceiling, but it certainly creates an impressive area.

Before we leave for wherever it was I was being kidnapped to, Leandra mentions that I should come up to the 14th floor and check out the view with my camera. We’ve spoken about this before so I was very keen to and didn’t even give it a second thought! Not before stealing the rest of the bar nuts, we piled into the all glass elevator and headed to the top floor. Very cool experience, reminded me of the glass bubble elevators they used to have at Tygervalley… only this one goes all the way up to the 14th floor.

Up until this point, I was still under the impression we where going somewhere and this is just a detour. Silly me. As I step into room 1407 everything becomes quite clear. I’m not sure if all the rose petals arranged in the shape of a heart was my first clue, nor perhaps the chocolate covered strawberries or the Brut Champagne on ice. At that moment I felt like a dumbass, but in a good way.

I won’t go into more detail on how we spent our time in the room until dinner. But we did pop the bubbly on the balcony of our 14th floor suite in the nude, overlooking a stunning view of the London Eye, Westminster, the most of the embankment and a beautiful skyline of London. I’m sure the patrons of the ‘Eye got more than they bargained for at 14:50ish on a Saturday afternoon. It was a liberating experience. Like a fucking rock star.

Hit the sauna downstairs after polishing off all the chocolate strawberries and so forth, then back to the room to dress up for dinner. I decided to try the 28 day English 8oz rib eye steak with creamy mash potatoes, buttered young carrots and a Madeira sauce. Annelie opted for the Pan cooked sea bream, lemon rösti, watercress and dill lemon cream. We shared a starter of Smoked duck and chicken terrine with a citrus mustard dressing, polishing it all off with a nice full bodied Red wine, vintage 2004 (I forget the name). And finally, Espresso crème brûlée with Amaretto biscuit and a (properly made!!) cappacino.

Leandra checked in from time to time to make sure everything was still in order and to make clear that everything was on the house, including the room. WoW! Blown away, we couldn’t thank her enough! I did however explain that my young wife needs to be naked in the next 10 minutes and we took our leave.

The next morning we had breakfast (room service, of course) next to that fantastic view and lazed around till check out time at 12:00. We headed down to Carnaby Street near Oxford circus for our spa treatment at Sanook, nestled under The Great Marlborough Street Magistrate’s Court, now renovated and called the Hilton Courthouse Hotel. The whole hotel is a wonder! When they renovated they kept the original courthouse and made it into a restaurant. The detention hall now serves as a bar, with the holding cells converted to private booths. We where a little early, so we kicked back in the area and had more Mojitos.

Before our treatments we spent time in the indoor swimming pool and sauna. I can’t really describe the treatment other than to say it was a sticky exfoliation of some sort! A quick rinse and back in the room for creams and scalp massages. All in a daze, we moved back onto the bright, sunny (but still very cold!) street and passed the Cape Town fish market. Feeling hungry yet again, we thought why not, let’s actually give it a try. We’ve heard mixed reviews but thought we’re see for ourselves, and though it never came close to the real CTFM back home the food was very, very good. I’ve not had calamari that great in London EVER, the sushi was fresh and the Savannah’s cold. We ate like royalty.

After yet another wonderful meal of the weekend, we strolled to the nearest bus stop and headed for home. The rest of the Sunday was mostly spent lazing around and planning… planning for Monday.

Because on Monday we start with Detox 2010!

…to be continued

[G, out]

you think as I do

Sorry

2010-03-03T14:20:00.001Z

Words are funny things. They have such power over our emotions and lines of thinking. I quite like Eckhart Tolle’s take on it that we have managed to distil the wonderful wide world to a few groupings of vowels and consonants, stripping these wonders of their mystique.

Today’s word that puzzles me to no end is “sorry”. It puzzles me because it’s the one word I hear often and to my mind it is beyond abused. Along with its ugly cousins, “how are you” and “fine thanks” I notice its use so often that I construct little games and snarky responses around its invocation.

For example, as of the afternoon, I have been told “sorry” no less that 35 times. I’ve even been told “sorry” while someone was coming out of the bathroom, opening the door FOR me, but just slightly blocking my way. “sorry…”, whispered softly, as if saying it loudly will just piss me off even more (or something). “Sorry” sprouts from almost every other body that almost walks into me in the hallway, and by almost a mean a good 3m. “Sorry”, said to me standing behind someone at the coffee machine, just minding my own business, waiting my turn, no biggie. But a “sorry” seemed like the right thing to say, lest I be offended for having to wait my turn. I can go on, about how it’s thoroughly abused on the tubes, but has a nasty edge to it, as in “I’m saying ‘sorry’ cus its suppose to be nice, but I fucking hate all your guts now, because the tube is cramped, and I’m in a rush as always and I’m never a bad person in real life, just on the tube and bus, honest!”. Yeah right.

I’m not entirely sure what to do about it, other than play my little games of counting the ways people have apologised for being in my awesome presence (what other conclusion can I draw??). I do enjoy responding: “as you should be!” in a loud affirmative voice and watch them shocked out of their reverie, then perplexed and confused about what I mean… further proving that they’re on auto pilot and NOT really sorry in the least.

I read a “scientific study” on how people tend to be more courteous and less selfish if when, on a sinking ship they have more time to evacuate (the example they used was the Titanic vs. the Lusitania). Apart from the fact that this can only be called a “no shit” conclusion, I felt great that their data corresponded perfectly with my findings that people in general are all in it for themselves, and that we have been lulled into little nonsense social niceties.

Sorry if that offends you…

[G], out

slice like a ninja, cut like a razor blade

re:invent

2010-02-18T12:30:00.001Z

Lot’s of exciting things on the horizon!

But first, happy birthday to me! Heh heh, had a great many congrats come through the wire, thank you all. I quite like the “enjoy the dirty-thirty” ones. My response is simply: “oh, I fully intend to!”. To say my birthday party(s) was fun would be a severe understatement.

And it’s a helluva way to kick off 2010 (which only really started on the 14th of February, by the way). I recently found a new vein of purpose, feeling as elated as a lowly prospector who finally struck gold after so very long. I must confess that I haven’t really felt a purpose to anything the last few months. And it’s easy to say you get stuck in the daily routine et al, but no, in this case it was entirely intentional. This week I finally realised why I did it and the answer is so damn simple: I had no goals. No vision, nothing to aim for, no prize.

While growing, up I always had a clear picture of what I wanted. After school (heck, DURING) I knew what I wanted to be and how to get there. The essence of that desire was financial freedom, to not have to pander to the bank, a boss or do anything you didn’t really want to do. The problem was that when I envisioned that goal and desire it was based on my very limited vision. I have never re-adjusted my goal and doing what I do here in London, I have easily achieved it. This has been the cause of my stagnation. I needed to ask the question again: “What is it that I want?”. So damn simple, yet I got so distracted with all the toys and the drudge of daily routine! The question became ever more important, since this time I won’t be asking it for my sake alone: there is a significant other that would need to be onboard for the ride.

You know what I want? You really wanna know?

I want 10 MILLION POUNDS! STERLING!

There. I said it!! Fucking wear it! I have no clue how the hell I’m going to do it. But I want it. I want, and I am going to get. Try and stop me!

On the to-do list: kick off the education process again. This covers a gruelling semester of investing 102, marketing 101, photography and Photoshop 10…whatever, business management, SQL 2008 and everything in-between. What will I be in 5 years? Should I focus all my energy into my estranged lover, photography, again? Or should I pimp my DBA mad-skillz, perhaps add on business management - a good idea regardless, since it can only help with any endeavour.

I’m booked in for an internet marketing seminar in April, hosted by Kerwin Rae, a veritable marketing force and all round good guy. I like his straight talking, no holds barred approach and it’s exactly the kind of guy I can see having a conversation with. I hope to come away from this course imbued with the dark magicks that is the art. Like a good student, I am doing some prep work and if you’re in the market for learning something funky, do grab the (now free) pdf of Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow rich”. I’ve only read the preface and the first chapter and it’s already paid dividends, if nothing else than to shake me from my self induced cryo stasis.

I’ve also offered my services to my darling wife, who is also working hard to get her business off the ground and raise more awareness of what she does. To this effect, she’s been doing video blogs, setup a new website and getting all the bits together for its launch. Where I come in is the word smithing… I don’t pretend to always have what it takes to write a damn fine article but I can say with confidence that I can do it better than she can! This is not due to any lack of talent; she simply doesn’t think in words-on-paper. She can convey thoughts in the spoken word, but even then struggles to find the right ones! Since I speak “Annelie” fluently, I reckon I’m best suited for the post. I did set the parameters clearly though: she has to get going with the vblogs and Dictaphone action, and I in turn offer my pen for 2 hours each week. That’s it.

I feel confident that we will make it work.

Another little side project I’m tackling is to get my travel blog published! Looking at what is required; there are a few places that offer on the fly publishing. I intend to create a coffee table style book with my diary entries and little extra handwritten notes (to make it extra special and add value in owning a physical copy), a healthy dash of photos all round, GPS maps, anecdotes and so on. From this I will in turn create an eBook version which will no doubt sell like hotcakes! I need to build the ordering and payment framework as well, should be simply. And to spice it up, I’ll revamp the current travel blog with all the little tips and tricks I picked up in the April marketing seminar. I may need to migrate to my own site, I’m not sure. But man, I am fucking pumped! It will be most rewarding to see something I pulled from the ether manifested in real life. If it goes well, I’ll use the knowledge of this process to start putting out photography books too, heck, start offering my services for other photographers who want to do the same!

Big leaps forward. No baby steps. Git’r done!

[G], out

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee

Getting things done

2010-01-29T16:27:00.001Z

The recent week has been on the busy side. I’ve stuck, for the most part, to my new schedule. I have done my utmost not to get home and just sit in front of my PC or TV. Instead, I’ve spent time doing dome much wanted DIYing, going to the gym, working on my suppleness (stretching etc, I’m the least flexible person I know) and spend time studying for our Living in the UK test. I even picked up the guitar… once. And not to just move it from one room to the next! I actually… played it!

The last few weekends were busy. Apart from working from home, we had two parties to attend, one 30^th and one going away. In between this mix I also had to ensure, as a favour to a friend, that a lone sole arriving at Stansted airport at 17:00 has a place to sleep on Saturday night. It all went smoothly, surprisingly so. I paid for it on Sunday though, having come in at 05:00 in the morning and up again at 09:00. More work, followed by a tour down to Brentwood where said guest will stay in aforementioned friends flat. In fact, the same flat we lived in when we arrived back in London.

I rewarded myself handsomely with a tub of caramel crispys and a pack of (very bad for you) all-butter chocolate chip cookies, and vegged on my very, very comfy sofa.

This week we took a friend out to a little meal at our favourite Mexican joint, Café Pacifico in Covent Garden. Ended up going to sleep at 03:00!! On a school night as well. But it was totally worth it :)

This weekend I’m looking forward to a one-night only visit! Paul, life-long buddy and all round good guy is coming to stay tonight and I’m hoping to make the best of it. Wanna go show him a few worthwhile sites before ducking into a pub for some drink. Should be a good night.

My lovely wife has been very busy nailing down the celebration details for my up and coming 30^th birthday. I’m looking at organising some food and drink for 6^th of February, which will free me up to do more depraved partying on the 14^th proper (my REAL birthday).

Gosh. 30…

Anyways, other activities include a few photo gigs here and there and getting everyone psyched for summer and subsequent camping. No mean feat and a noble cause I may add, since it’s nearing the depth of winter here. We’ve seen some spectacular snow storms for a few weeks non stop. Britain just grinds to a halt during this kind of beating. I can’t complain, it was great to work from home!

Mass Effect 2 has been released today (woohoo!) but I fear I won’t get to play it anytime soon. I really enjoyed the 1^st one, the story arc is epic. I already prepped Annelie for it; she knows I’m going to have my head stuck in that universe for the next few weeks. I’ll try to keep up with the resolutions as best I can though; I’ll make playing games a reward for good effort.

Speaking of my lovely wife, she has been going non stop, exploring new business avenues and applications for her new kung-fu. I think it’s going well, the cash just isn’t there as of yet. But in benchmarking January, I would say that she has covered a lot of ground. I’m holding out that we’ll see some good results in February.

[G], out

I find your figures tragic

Back in the room

2010-01-06T15:46:00.002Z

What's up, space cadet? :)

This is my post-coital, new-deal, happy 2010 check in, tapping the fishbowl, wondering if there's life behind all that algae.

I'm doing very well by all counts. I think New Year was just the thing I needed to kick me under my ass again. Are we preconditioned to go into a sombre, soul searching mode around the end of the year? Between the haze of xmas jungles in stores, pre-arranged gift giving and mad-dog rushes of shopping centre sales? Thinking about it, I find that quite peculiar, since time doesn’t really exist. And besides, why the end of the year, and not the end of the tax year, for instance? Why not all the time, for that matter…

I guess my point is I've been a bit lost lately, wasting a lot of time of electronic tom-foolery and new-fangled widgets, spending hardly any time just "thinking" and "talking". Gasp, shock, horror! It wasn’t like this at all during our journey on the old continent. I knew instinctively that a part of me would have to be “silent” here in the big city. I’d have to go into London mode, head down, full throttle forward, rush rush rush. I also suffered a sever case of FOMO (or “fear of missing out”); I simply had to have all the games, movies, tv shows, news reels, tweets, FB status updates EVERYTHING I had missed.

more more more. But man…. so fucking empty.

So I’m going on a digital diet. It’s not my own idea, just one I, ironically, picked up during my sweep of the intertoobs for interesting stuff. The idea is simple enough: slow down. Stop with the status updates, the squatting on Facebook, the insistent and constant flow of “stuff” into your consciousness. Just… slow down. Take your time, breath things in, experience stuff.

I will confess, I have been listening to lank S.A music (on www.last.fm, nogal!!) and missing my peoples something stoopid. That made me question the quality of my relationships and how little time I actually spend maintaining them. I take them for granted, in fact.

Another salient point: I’m turning 30 in a little over a month. Yeaaaah…introspection much.

But fear not! I have drawn up a battle plan (organic, work in progress, to be sure) of what I want to achieve for the next 5 and 10 years. Everything from finance to love, I’m ready for the next coupla rounds.

[G], out

we are satellites

It's Aliiive, ALIVE!!

2009-06-13T00:14:00.002+01:00

Hey hey

So ok, times up! Getting all saddled up and ready to boogie down to Africa. I have launched a sister site over at mammaAfrika.blogspot.com. Totally check her out, she's hot!

I will be keeping memoirs of the entire experience, as well as taking a shed load of pictures. All of which will be queued up and fired up to the intertoobs as soon as my Tacticle Mobile Command Centre(tm) even gets a whiff of internet access. If not, well, just keep your bedroom window open at night. I have pigeons... legions of pigeons ready to carry my word and whims on the wind to your eager hearts. Rejoice!

Thats it.

[G], out (for now :) )

*instrumental*

Unroot

2009-06-01T14:31:00.002+01:00

I’ve spent the better half of the weekend packing. The first order of business was ridding myself of all the accumulated knick-knacks I thought may come in handy some day. I doubt that day will come before the 13th, so away they go.

I had fun taking my media centre apart and wrapping everything in bubbles. Got a bit nostalgic through out the whole process, but then what kind of person would you be if you didn’t? An unsentimental one, I guess. I’m not that guy. I’ll miss you, Grade-A HDMI cable! And you, my trusted Xbox controller. I’ve loved you the most!

Other highlights include a birthday party, fantastic weather (mostly enjoyed indoors… packing…) and I got to feed a baby! Not from the teat, my nipples are way too sensitive for that. But man, have I ever felt THAT uncomfortable!? Photos where taken and the consternation and abject fear was totally apparent. Too many moving parts. Just like squirrels. I think he likes me though; we shared a moment, while I was burping him, and he was coughing fluid all over me. Baby spew… good times.

So it’s almost my last week here at work. I’m scrambling to try and grab as much of my personal documents as I can. I’ve been building a sort of Intellectual Time Capsule (Patent Pending) filled with best practice docs, useful templates I’ve created, SQL scripts, mimes, memes, strips of bacon and other useful pieces of magic. Doesn’t seem complete yet though. Needs more cowbell.

It’s the wife’s birthday tomorrow! Always a tough cookie to buy something for, especially now that we are explicitly tying to get rid of as many things as possible. I'm ebaying the DS Lite I bought her 2 xmasesess ago, since I discovered it holding up a table while clearing out the room. So tech is totally lost on her. And she hates flowers. And chocolates make her fat (what?! I'm married now, I get to say shit like that). May just do a dinner thing with friends. She likes food. I like food. It’s a win-win. But only if she has a salad.

[G], out

dazed by careless words

Homecoming

2009-05-11T17:13:00.009+01:00

Monday again. I am actually now at a stage where I kind of look forward to the start of the week, simply because it means I get to chill out! All the weekend activity is self inflicted though and I've analysed that I may be suffering from Fear of Missing Out syndrome. I'm sure this is perfectly normal for most. My heightened susceptibility to this condition has been amplified I think, due to this "running out of time" feeling. We have about one month and 2 days left before we fly out for our Africa tour and we still have so very much to do.

One could argue that every day should be lived like I've been living my weekends, which is to paraphrase "balls to the wall". Just like every day should be appreciation day and so on. But man, I think I may be getting old.

So, this weekend I was out for a few birthday drinks, which will always spawn into more drinks and even more drinks. Which made Saturday a bit of a strain: I had a photo gig at an amazing venue in London, called Altitude 360. It's in the Millbank tower on the 29th floor and apart from the London eye it has to be the best view in town! I was shooting for SA Promo magazine and we where covering the Homecoming Revolution seminar.

It’s a drive sponsored by FNB to promote South Africa and all the wonderful opportunities it has to offer, especially to expats. It encourages saffas (gaaawd I hate that term) to consider making their home in S.A. again, to bring their skills and ideas back to the economy. In the room you had a collection of some of the most influential and powerful business and policy decision makers of SA.

The main focus of the event was on entrepreneurship and why now more than ever was a good time to start up your own business in SA. They of course provide resources and information to assist you in this, but everything comes with fair warning: its hard work!

The speakers included the CEO FirstRand Group Paul Harris, Director of the Gordon Institute of Business Sciences Nick Binnedel and my favourite of the day Kevin Vermaak, Founder of the Cape Epic (yeah, the mountain bike race). It's was humbling to hear these guys speak and I had to constantly remind myself that I was there to do a job! :)

The most stressful bit of the day would have had to be when I had to organise the group shot. No pressure, only, you know, DONT FUCK IT UP. And these guys are very much accustomed to having their pictures taken.

After the gig I went for one more "just one drink" and ended up passed out in someone else's house... again. Which was not ideal, because I was shooting a house full of models on the Sunday. It was for a friend of a friend who happens to be a make-up artist... with hot and willing friends. She wanted a few shots for her portfolio and I gladly obliged. So Sunday was another full and photo filled day.

I now have in the can:

1 x wedding (from last weekend)
1 x portfolio shots for actor
1 x Homecoming Revolution gig
1 x Super-Sexy-Fun-Time models wearing make-up

Non of which I have delivered to the clients!

So. I should stop blogging and get my ass in the dark room (well, Photoshop. But I light a little red light outside the door anyway. Cus I'm cool like dat.)

[G], out

why do we always send the poor?

May

2009-05-04T08:04:00.002+01:00

May is appreciation month. Appreciation and gratitude, for all the bits we totally take for granted every second of our privileged, micro waved, pre-packaged, always-on, instant gratification, spoilt little lives.

To be clear, EVERY day should be appreciation day. Just like everyday should be Valentines, and Mothers, and Fathers and brothers and sisters day.

We do get stuck though, don’t we? In out own little spheres of thought and perceived influence. I say perceived, because if we where to actively realise how little control we exert on the universe, we would probably go insane. Or, enlightened.

I’m kicking off with being thankful for my wonderful family. This includes my chosen family of friends. These fellow classmates are the ones that I choose (and have chosen me) to share this wonderful game of life with. Together we learn, we play, we fight, we disagree, we agree, we kiss, we make up, we laugh and we grow. Everything I do, everything I have would be utterly and totally meaningless to me, where it not for these Giant-friends (a term I readily borrow from just such a kind of friend).

Then I'm also thankful for "little" things. Like clean, running water (from a tap!) ...( ok, it has tons of lime scale in it, but it's drinkable non the less). Food, warm bed, clothes. Health!! NOT catching swine flu (or previous mainstream media-over hyped hysteria illness of the week). Electricity, and all the comforts that go with it. Running sewage. Waste removal. Convenience, of strolling down a non war torn city street, going down an escalator (because actually walking up and down stairs is a drag) and having the option of an entire store filled with delights from all over the world. ...and then still be picky over what I want to eat.

Cellphones. Facebook. Twitter. Google. The Internet. Mass communications, as available or disposable as you please.

We are truly, well and abso-fucking-lutely blessed.

Be thankful. Be grateful. Pay it forward.

[G], out

clutch it like a cornerstone

a bugs life

2009-04-22T08:37:00.001+01:00

I'm such a maroon. This whole time I've been so focused on the big problems. The Hyena's, the Lions, Raptors (they CAN. NOT. BE. TRUSTED!! WHEN WILL YOU PEOPLE LISTEN!?), Zombies, I had all of them covered for the safari. All the while, the real enemy was silently biding it's time: Bugs man. BUGS! Africa has a shit-ton of em!! Some the size of a monkeys fist!

How could I have missed it? Oh sure, yeah, I had mosquitoes covered, obviously, since malaria is kind of a big deal in those parts. But last night it occurred to me that my laptop screen will effectively act like a giant "Eat at Joe's" sign for the greater part of the Savannah.

I've been having a few revelations like this during the last week. Simple things like getting up in the middle of the night to take a leak. Simple, if your bathroom is down the hall. NOT so simple, if all that's separating you from say, the pack of Hyenas (and a legion of BUGS!) outside the tent, is 3mm of khaki tarp. Or mauve tarp, I haven't decided yet. Mauve seems less conspicuous, the colour of a giant dinosaur turd. THAT will keep the beasties away.

I must return to my research. There is much to do.

[G], out

one is the magic number

"Bullshit! You can be MY wingman!"

2009-04-17T14:45:00.004+01:00

Well, another week had come and gone.

The Newquay adventure was quite fun, even though we went camping with (mostly) complete strangers, the finally tally was 12 people. I think that Cornwall as a region is very beautiful and would love to head back up there in summer. Oh, and I had a Cornish pie… FROM CORNWALL!. That’s cool man! PS: yes, it was everything a pie should be and it was delicious.

The town had this weird, almost carnival vibe about it. And on queue, there where more hen and stag parties than you can shake a gerbil at. The most memorable was a crowd of about 15 guys, all dressed in banana suits (god, I want a banana suit). Didn’t take a picture, since my hands where full of Cod and Chips (Cod, battered to death, grease streaking down your chin).

It too, was delicious.

The drive up there was entertaining in its own right. Initially was very concerned that 10 people in 2 cars WITH camping gear would never make it. I present this to the contrary

Scary shit, and totally illegal I’m sure. It rained quite a bit while we where on the road too, so everything was soaked. The rest of the time we had clear skies, lots of sun and a small hint of wind. When the sun set though, all bets where off! It was quite common to defrost the zips and clear ice off your tent before you could exit.

Still on the car thing: As much as I’m surprised that I had a good weekend, it doesn’t even come close to my surprise that my tent and other gear actually got there!

At the first rest stop we made, my attempt to buy three of the cheesiest, nastiest CD's at the garage shop where quickly dashed, since all I could find was a CD rack of mostly GOOD CD’s!! No “I have a big farming implement” by the Buttfucksville brothers, no “100 Pan Flute melodies to cut yourself to” but stuff I’d actually consider buying. We ended up with “100 of the best…” 90’s, rock and Funky house albums.

The highlight had to be track 2, cd2 of the Rock album, “Danger Zone” (yeah, from the movie Top Gun) performed by Kenny Loggins. This is because earlier I insisted that the driver and I (I was riding shotgun) have call signs for the trip (4 hours there, and about 8 hours drive back!!). So when track 2 dropped, Goose and Maverick went fucking ape-shit! The whole crew spent the next hour quoting homo-erotic lines from the movie and laughing our asses off. Honestly, can’t imagine a better way to get to know people :) It set a nice tone for the rest of the weekend.

This week has been hard graft for me though. As it turned out, 2 members of my team was off on holiday, and one dreadfully ill… so guess who was left holding the can? Yeah… ALL of it. I’ve been working 12 hour days since, today is the first day where I’d actually be pulling a “regular” 8 hour day. I could use a time out.

Plans for the weekend is to head down to Hyde park and air out our (still) wet, muddy and covered in gull guano tent (Newquay is next to the ocean, remember. Don’t know WHAT exactly these gulls eat, but I suspect they’re diet must surely include whole sheep). Which is a nice opportunity to have “Newquay in the Park 2009” and get the whole crew together again for Pimms in the sun.

Oh, and get this: A while back I received this pretty letter, printed on heavy stock matte off white paper, with gold inlays and the whole shooting match. It was from “Who’s Who” publications, to inform me that I have been invited to appear in they’re annual “Who’s Who of Britain’s Youngest Directors 2009”. I thought it would be rude not to accept :) I ordered my copy and a certificate of inclusion is en-route

You can check out the requirements here.

Feeling pretty good about that :)

[G], out

You are not trespassing, if you cross your own boundaries .

30 Days

2009-04-08T10:38:00.001+01:00

We celebrated our very first month of marriage yesterday. :)

I'm not so weirded out by the concept as I am by the concept of time. A Month! A whole month has gone by. Dipping into my very deep bag of clichés, it feels like yesterday. I have actively tried to recall every minute detail of the event, to keep it fresh. So far so good.

Our official wedding pictures arrived last week… well… I'm in two minds still if they're any good. The wind was a big hassle, of course. And there seems to be quite a few moments "missing". I'll need to chat to the photographer to see what's up. I am of course critical. But this shit is important!

Project Afrika is picking up steam this week. We need to get as much done as possible in the next few weeks to make sure all the equipment we'll need will be loaded in Cape Town, since we will only be joining the tour in Livingston. Also Visas, driving licenses, inoculation shots, malaria drugs (or alternatives) are all on the table.

My new laptop arrived and I finally took the plunge into Vista land. I have to grudgingly admit… I am quite impressed. Blasphemy, I know, since I have been advocating my distaste for it. But I tracked down a very verbose document on how to install and tweak it PROPERLY, and it's been very fast and very stable. As an added bonus, my Wacom tablet works so much better! Overall, Vista plays very well, like your younger, more open minded sister. Ol' Bessy (aka "the Wolverine", aka "The Beast", aka "My Desktop Workstation) is looking a little pale all of a sudden. Extreme makeover time!

Other toys I've been looking into is a good set of binoculars, a multi tool and trying to figure out how best to power the mobile command centre. With tactical strike capability. And shiny, spinning rims. I'm trying my best not to over-geek the whole thing (yeah, right). My goal is to keep things simple, light and mobile, and I think I'm managing that so far.

Speaking of camping, we are heading down to Newquay (heh heh heh "nookie") this Easter weekend. It's on the West Coast of the Island, the British equivalent of white sandy beaches, hot surf spots and beach parties. The pictures look quite good, but it's the weather that would need to play along to match the azure blue utopias they depict. We shall see. There is also this little thing called the Eden Project, on route. I'm hoping we can stop by on the way back to London.

Right! That's it. Gonna go grab some Aeropress(ed) coffee goodness and try and look productive.

[G], out

painting faces, building places i can't reach

Email test, part Duex

2009-04-02T09:10:00.001+01:00

This is yet another email test, this time with narrow formatting. Gmail seems to stuff up the layout.

[G], out

The natives are restless

2009-04-01T17:48:00.001+01:00

Man, had quite a good weekend! Unusually good, in that I wasn't really expecting it to be good. For a start I didn't need to work on Saturday, which is always nice. Seems like every weekend from now till pretty much the day I retire has been booked out / reserved for some activity. I guess I shouldn't complain, because I'm either getting paid or mingling in the social circle.

Did a boat party on the Thames on Sunday, which co-incided with the annual Oxford – Cambridge boat race. So as far as 1^st row seats go, you can't go too wrong. I blew it though, trying to take nice pics. I was downstairs at the bar when the 1^st race started (they said only at 15:40!!). And when the second started (at 15:40) I got mediocre exposures at best. Oh well. There's always next year.

I wasn't really keen on doing the photogig to start off with, mostly because I get quite sea-sick. And we went to go see Metallica at the O2 the night before. And I was Lazy. But the day turned out to be lovely, the people up for it and, having now finally processed and published the pictures, I am quite stoked with the results. I went a little arty with my post-processing this time. Hopefully I will be able to hide the horrible pics that I took behind a veil of pseudo artistic acumen. There where "other" "official" photographers there too, and albeit nice guys, I always feel like it's a competition. And I have to win. I'm not above throwing people over board to achieve victory.

This week has been an interesting one, with all the G20 commotion. The real protests actually kicked off today, and escalated in some areas. They've smashed windows at one of Royal Bank of Scotland's branches, and the police where getting quite antsy. But most of it seems to be quite good natured, almost carnival atmosphere. We've been in lock down since yesterday, really. They don't seem to be too keen on getting up too early. On my way to work at around 07:00, the streets where DEAD quiet. Hippies need their beauty sleep too, I guess.

Lol, and what was quite amusing to see, is the line of hippies at the starbucks! How you likin' that Capitalist brew, eh? Hard to hate a big corporate who now sells fair trade coffee. REAL hippies would grow / grind / brew their own.

Light weights.

[G], out

Side by side, hand in hand

So, this is an email posting

2009-03-26T13:44:00.004Z

Surprise Surprise, it actually works!

And now, a picture of my monkey:

[G], out

Deep… deep and dark. And disconnected

2009-03-26T13:06:00.001Z

Africa, that is.

But before I go there, I should just mention that I have now been (rather successfully) married for all of 18 days and 21 hours (give or take). I think I deserve my own program, like Sky News following Obama around for his first 100 days in office. Wouldn’t be as gripping though. to be sure. It’ll go probably go something like this. But being hitched doesn’t feel any different. I chalk that up to having a fantastically healthy and fulfilling relationship to start with.

So, Africa. A while back my wife mentioned that the now parents in-law wanted to embark on a 4 month tour of Africa. This would involve a couple of 4x4’s, lots of camping, out doorsy shit and wide open spaces. So while we where down in CT for the wedding we had a sit down with the organiser and decided that we would indeed love to go on this epic adventure!

That means quite a bit. From a planning perspective, it is a logistical exercise of at least 2 factors of magnitude to anything I’ve had to plan before. This includes the wedding, which we organise remotely, from London. What to take / what to leave behind for everything from food to shelter to tech and toys. It’s extreme camping and I don’t say that lightly. Just add a few terrorists to this package, and you have quite a bit to think about.

On the first-world side of that equation, we need to let go of our apartment, basically sell, store of give away the bulk of our possessions, pack what ever is left and fly out into the unknown. Ok, the “unknown” bit is a bit dramatic: we know EXACTLY where we’ll eventually end up. But I was on a roll there…

On the positive thinking side, it’s an incredibly exciting prospect! And I truly do feel it’s a once in a lifetime kind of opportunity. Personally, I’m approaching it as a photo documentary project. And I’m told the photo opportunities are infinite.

My dream was to setup this site in a way that would make posting easier. I’m going to play around with the email posting feature a bit more. It would be interesting to see how it handles the formatting and say a few pictures. At present, I always have to reformat my posts once it’s been cut and paste from word.

Along with this I dearly want to do Geo-tagging! I think it would be a rotten shame not to. I’m in two minds about posting these locations live though. This is for total paranoia and security reasons! I watch too much TV. Won’t matter much, since internet access isn’t really an option in some areas so we will be long gone by the time the emails finally get though.

Anyways, lots of work to do. So far I have not had a single weekend to myself. I’ve been catching up with the day job, and then have quite a few photo gigs lined up, first one this Sunday. It’s a boat party down the Thames, just in time to catch the races! I will need to heavily sedate myself though, since I get seasick. Should make for interesting angles and weird pictures though…

[G], out

You’re still my sunshine

B.Y.O.B

2009-02-23T14:29:00.002Z

So, flying home tomorrow.

I’ve been oscillating between various states of calm and apprehension, like a very laid back Capetonian sine wave. This is probably one of the last few blog entries I will be making as a free man. Not that I wish to make it sound like I’m about to stand in front of the gun squad, gagging on the cigarette hanging loosely from my mouth (since, you know, I don’t smoke. But the cigarette seems appropriate). I’m quite calm about the prospect of getting married. I think I feel more apprehensive about the packing and traveling bit, just because it’s so important not to forget anything. The traveling bit is quite alright, I enjoy traveling with Annelie.

All these last minute things… It should also be mentioned that we have well and truly blown the budget for this shindig. Oh well, I’d like to say “it’ll only happen once.”

Our friends here in London gave us a really nice send off over the weekend. It’s a shame that none of them can actually make the wedding, but I totally understand.

A few other things I want to get out of this trip is to try (really try) to slow things down a bit. Be more present. I always have this intention before we go back, and almost always it’s over before I know it. I’d also like to take a few family portraits. Again, my intention is always to do this… never get to it. Or rather: never MAKE time for it.

The other thing that’s been bugging me, around the aforementioned “family issues” has finally been resolved. I’ve come to a few realisations and my perception of certain realities have proven false. I think some tensions will still remain, but that’s due to OTHER peoples realities being false. If (or hopefully, when) they finally break through that barrier is totally up to them. In the meantime, I can only control my own reality. Just the way I like it :)

So I guess that’s it. It’s my last day in the office, took the day off tomorrow to engage in the Strategic Packing Initiative (or SPI, cus acronyms rock). It’s strategic, cus we have waaahaaay too much shit that we need to pack, and in the cheap-seats we can only lug 20KG’s each. Yeah, who the hell only packs 20KG’s when flying long-haul?? Heck, my camera gear probably weighs close to that.

Fuck.

Guess I’ll be wearing every piece of clothing I own onto the plane. Again.

[G], out

Everybody’s gonna have a real good time

Seether, bird flu and stuff

2009-02-12T14:22:00.001Z

So the Seether concert happened, I finally DID get a press pass. The management of the venue was quite draconian though, and I could only take pictures during the 1st 3 songs. Which is damn hard to do, since none of the lights even came on till about halfway through the 1st song!! I managed to wrangle a few publishable pictures though, along with the obligatory crowd shots, so all good.

My U.K bachelor’s party was about 2 weeks ago. It was quite a laugh, although I wish my best man could have actually invited the people I put on the list! So half the folks who weren’t invited think me a tool for it. Not cool.

Tell you what else was not cool, the bird-flu I picked up on the Saturday, which lasted for a whole week! I still have this stupid little cough. I’ve not been that ill in 10 years, let alone in bed for a whole week. Not even with the whole cancer thing did I take that much strain. Cold sweats, delirious dreams, non stop coughing, the whole works. Picked a good week for it, I guess, since the UK saw some of the biggest snowfall in years. Our balcony was covered in the stuff. I did snap a few half-hearted pics from the bedroom window. But I was coughing up bits of lung at the time, so I guess I couldn’t really appreciate it as much as I should have.

It’s weird though, the British. They can’t handle heat, wet or cold! Everything breaks down, transport is non existent, people fall over or drown, they’re so fucking useless. And in summer, you have the “gas chambers” (otherwise known as London Underground). Fun.

Also dealing with some family BS at the moment, which is not ideal so close to the wedding. I’m hoping everyone will remain as civil as possible. I just wish people would get over themselves sometimes, I kind of try my utmost to see the best in people. But my goodness, it’s hard sometimes.

So I’m kind of stoked that we’re flying home in less than 2 weeks, and I’m kind of “whatever”. I’m going to try and break out of this frame of mind.

On a positive note, it’s been about a month and a bit now and I’m getting the hang of playing the guitar. I’m practising Hootie and the Blowfish’s “Let her cry”. And I’m quite happy with my progress, and still having fun with it.

I’m also doing another photo gig tomorrow night, a 1920’s themed Valentine’s ball. Should be a laugh. Oh, and of course my birthday is coming up, so that’s a good thing, right?

Twenty-nine. Weird concept.

[G], out

Let her be

Got my first real six string

2009-01-07T15:26:00.001Z

First off, happy new year! Yeah, I know, we’re like one week deep already but I’m a late bloomer.

To further re-enforce this fact, I’ve taken up the guitar again. She arrived the day after new years day, she is midnight black and she is beautiful. Been playing it every night so far, getting my chromatic scales and G and C chords on. Also banging out some A’s and D’s. Swtiching between them, well, that’s another story. But my fingers are callusing up quite nicely and I’m going at “Leaving on a Jet plane” with fervour (“simple” C to G repetition.)

And still on the late bloom theme, I’ve decided that I want to try and get a few of the folks here into some D&D action. I’ve only ever played it like, twice, but enjoyed it emmensly on both occasions. The 4^th edition rulebooks arrived yesterday and I’ve been combing over the DM guide like a man possessed.

Had a pretty good new years, nothing over the top really. It was quite chilled, headed up to a cottage with 12 other folks. I go through phases though, one NY it’s chilled the next is rock out with the cock out. I feel this year we should go hunt down a good party.

In other news, I’m getting married in 2 months, to the day. I reckon around this time I should have just finished a light lunch while contemplating the quickest route to the nearest airport. It’s never too late…

I’ve also been getting back up to speed with the event management folks on what’s plotting for 09, where my photographic services will be required. So far it looks like I’m going to be doing a band promo shoot in 2 weeks time, should be interesting. Heck, I may even get paid! But that’s wishful thinking :)

[G], out

All I'd want is you to be my sweet honey bee

autumn

2008-12-01T15:51:00.003Z

What a busy month. Now that it’s all over, I think I should take a sec to jot down a few items…

First and foremost, I have come to the realisation that I absolutely love autumn. I don’t ever recall loving it so much in S.A though, but I may have been too self-absorbed or distracted. I know I love summers there, beach, sun, surf. Can’t be beat. But the British autumn holds something very special. I actually did do my tour of Holland Park, as planned and was rewarded with many beautiful and memorable shots. I’m very happy that I dragged my fiancée along. Well, I say dragged, but she was very keen to join me :) She calls it her “office” since she personal trains most of her more affluent clientele there.

Apart from the full gamut of colours and shades of the season I love the energy of the place. Everyone is dressed warm, although the air isn’t that cold or warm. It’s just right. Light breezes send leaves cascading everywhere and I’ve caught myself more than a few times just stopping and staring, wide grin on my face.

Movember was on again, that charity for prostate cancer where gentlemen are encouraged to grow a killer 'tache and rake in some sponsorshops. The 'tache's where glorious!

My adventures in photography have found many new avenues of play too. It all kicked off with Halloween, which is technically the start of November, all the way through to last Saturday. I’ve been shooting bands and parties non stop the whole month. Met so many interesting folks in the industry, rubbed elbows with various bands and groupies and just had an absolute blast. I’m getting really good at post processing and quick turn around for clients too, which is an art form in itself. And in between backing everything up to DVD (gotta have backups!) and my “day job” I’ve not spent enough time with updating my photo site and getting some of these pics out to the contacts I’ve made. It’s on the to-do list for December.

There are some very nice opportunities on the horizon also. I’ve had an offer to be the official photographer for one of the event management companies. This will include a week trip to Ibiza, of course. And I mean, who can say no to that? There’s also a rumour of a press pass up for grabs for the Seether concert in January… and I would pretty much give my first born for it. Holding thumbs.

I try not to dwell on these things. I kinda feel like Wile-e Coyote after he runs off a cliff, hanging in mid air. He’s perfectly fine until he actually looks down… and then, you know, bad things happen. Things are just flowing really well right now; I don’t want to break the momentum.

I’m doing my best to not look down.

I’ve also met an interesting fellow who specialises in studio photography. This is one of the areas where my skills are seriously lacking. It’s the directing of a model that still mystifies me; what to say etc. I guess it helps if you know what you want. Which I don’t, come to think of it. I’ve made a note to meet up with him for a bit of knowledge transfer.

Work, or “the day job” has been just dandy, even amid the financial crises and so forth. I’m still very happy where I am and look forward to being here for a while.

Games wise, I’ve coped as best I could. Finished up Dead Space, getting into Fallout 3, although it crashes every 15 minutes. Quite Annoying. I’m holding out till after Xmas to buy anything for the 360. Not too fussed, I actually reckon I’ll play most of the games on my (very long) list after they’ve been reduced i.e. bargain binned. That’s because I’ve been reading the most gripping sci-fi novel to date, Hyperion. It’s a, um, “Quantilogy” (spell checker doesn’t reckon that word exists). I’m on the 4th book already. I’m hoping I’ll finish it soon so that I can know the ending and finally be released from its vice-like grip on my time.

Ah, another thing: my friends are pregnant. I’m gonna be an uncle. That’s really cool! Can’t wait to do a baby photo shoot :)

That’s it. In keeping with the Looney tunes reference, I present to you the venerable Porky Pig: “Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-Thats all folks!”

[G], out

what if I say that i'll never surrender

The secret of my success

2008-10-24T13:26:00.003+01:00

I’m a millionaire. Officially. Before 30.

This concept is so bizarre (and very much recent). So much so, that the spell checker keeps correcting me on “millionaire”. I don’t even know how to spell the word.

I guess everybody can be a millionaire nowadays. In my instance, I can join the club in South African Rands. The exchange rate took a major beating (in Sterling’s favour) the last week. So yesterday I checked www.x-rates.com , punched in my loose cash I have lying around and presto! R1, 002, 019.87. Today though, it’s more like R980,987.66. But still, for a day, I was part of the club.

You could always go Pound to Zim dollars, and be a Squintillion-Quadrillionaire. But that’s purely academic. What made it a big deal for me is that I have achieved exactly the goal I wanted to achieve in coming to London. That being: to be able to buy a house in Cape Town… cash.

When you grow up it’s a big deal to be a millionaire. It is society’s accepted yardstick for wealth. I have matured enough to know that this is silly. By that same yardstick, I may be considered “rich”. But I am much wealthier in other terms, friends, family, opportunities, health. I could go on.

I’ve been pondering my financial success and today it dawned on me. I have one person to thank my successful financial mind set, a very old friend of mine. My dad, obviously will also be on top of that list. But my mate had the inside track, a very hands on lesson learnt every Saturday, at Tygervalley shopping centre, in Durbanville.

Back in its heyday, they had the Mississippi (another spell checker freak out on that one…) Detour, a river boat themed food court. They had half this massive boat stuck out of the wall, with working water wheels and all. The top floors had slot machines (where us kids couldn’t go) and art galleries (where us kids wouldn’t want to go). The star of the show at the food court though was Wonderland, a huge games arcade (by 1992 –ish standards) . Next to that, on the very lowest level of “the boat” was Milky Lane. It’s still there today, though they’ve done away with the New Orleans theme and redecorated. Wonderland now includes a bowling alley.

At any rate, we pretty much grew up there, nagging our folks to give us a lift to Tygervalley and of course bank roll our addictions (the folks would take turns taking to and picking up from the centre). We mostly used our pocket money, hard earned for doing chores around the house and what not.

So we’d be in there for 3, maybe 4 hours every Saturday, playing games till our little paws where red. The other treat of the day was getting a dipped ice cream cone from Milky Lane. My favourite was caramel dipped, with a flake (how luxurious!) and sprinkled nuts. No sugar cone. That was for REALLY special occasions. It would set you back a whole R4, which in game token terms was a lot! But it was worth it.

And here’s where it happened: my friend would almost always, no matter what, save up for one of these cones. The simplicity and simultaneous inherent complexity of this train of thought hit me between the eyes today. Even though you’re still spending your money, it was money earned (most of the time) and the concept of blowing it all away on quick, cheap thrills vs. saving some of it for something you really want… well, it goes against everything a 11 year old should be thinking. I always took into account that I couldn’t just spend spend spend, because I needed to keep some money left for next time (for in case I don’t do my chores) and a little for that damned ice cream!

Fast forward 17 years, and I’m still saving up for that ice cream, knowing deep down the sacrifices I make now will pay delicious dividends in the end.

So me thinks I shall be giving him a call today, and thank him wholeheartedly for the money lessons learnt on a Steam boat cruising down the Mississippi with caramel and ice cream dripping all over my jeans.

[G], out

And the cats in the cradle and the silver spoon
little boy blue and the man on the moon.

all the leaves are brown

2008-10-22T16:49:00.004+01:00

Autumn is here

I’ve been watching this tree outside our kitchen window going through its seasonal change. It’s a bit of an overachiever though, since none of the other tress are following suit. It reminded me that I wanted to trek to a view parks around LondonHolland Park is looking good; they have the most amazing Japanese garden. and try and capture some of the magnificent colours of autumn.

Speaking of photography, I’ve had a steady influx of freelance work the last few months. Not exactly getting paid though, in monetary terms. But the opportunity and experience is, in itself, payment. It’s helping me build a good portfolio and feeds the photoblog website. I have yet another batch of portrait shots to do on Saturday, another gig on Thursday evening, followed by a Halloween party on Friday. And then, again on Saturday, I’m heading over to a friend’s place for “Photoshoot!” a little thing he’s trying to get of the ground. Basically, it involves a bunch of folks who enjoy photography coming together, having a few drinks and making portraits. A little idea sharing session, which is great I think. Lately I’ve had a bit of a lull though, kind of like a need a new muse. I have many pictures that I could work on, get prepped up for the site and so on. But my hearts not in it at the moment. I think the next 2 weeks of exposure (please pardon the pun) will re-invigorate me.

I guess it’s also that feeling that, hey, it’s already the end of the year! Damn Xmas commercials are already in full swing. Giving the state of the economy, I doubt it’ll be a merry one, for the commercially inclined. I digress, the point is that I feel I’ve done a fair share of activities and grown a bunch this year. Maybe a part of me just wants to kick back, play some games and enjoy some friends.

Been giving gym a skip this week, my right wrist is showing signs of carpal tunnel again. Well, probably not CP, but it feels sprained. I think I have too many intense, late night Starcraft sessions to thank for that! Got a few friends loaded up on my private hamachi network and it’s proving very addictive. Can’t wait for SCII.

Speaking of which, the fall line-up of new game releases is staggering! Fallout 3 and Dead Space, to name but two. I’ve already completed the shopping list for my new rig. Don’t think I’ll commit just yet, with the new Intel chipsets inbound (yes, I’m going Quad Core. I have relented) the prices should come down quite a tad. Also going to invest in a “real” monitor, one that will go a long way with the photo editing. It’s a careful balancing act between getting married next year and the tech budget though.

Now. Where did I put the batteries for my flash guns…

[G], out.

and the sky is grey

of photoblogging, facebook and growing up

2008-10-14T15:01:00.001+01:00

I know I haven’t blogged for a while, in so many words. I’ve been on a kind of a sabbatical. And, for a while, I guess I ran out of interesting things to say.

That’s not to say that I haven’t been actively posting things to the internet, far from it.

After the Facebook honeymoon has worn off, and bandages from the plastic surgery where removed, I’ve kind of not spent as much time as I (almost obsessively) used to. For one, I guess it’s because I find the new interface (said plastic surgery) counter intuitive and crowded. For another, I guess I’m not too fussed to hear how “so and so is sooooo hung over from that all nighter!!!11oneoneone”. Seriously, who cares?

I resolved to use the platform almost exclusively for uploading pictures. This enabled me to share my work / happy snaps / fine art (guffaw) with the “minions” and I will admit I really appreciate the comments. 2008 was the year in which I learnt to deal with criticism. I guess it’s natural, considering all the effort I put into it, only to be (potentially) shot down. What a silly notion!

But even that wasn’t enough. I wanted my own platform where I could publish my work, still gather feedback (good or bad. More bad, I’d prefer more insights into areas I could improve). More importantly, I wanted a space that was MINE. Not something where I need to sign a 200 page EULA to do anything.

And so, www.gerhardnel.com was born. It’s still a modest step, Great lessons are still being learnt. But if I where to remain true to anything, it is this: this blog has always served as a journal, of sorts. One that chronicles my growth, thought patterns and deviations.

I think I’m ready to start recording again.

[G], out

Here lies one whose name was writ in water

I get it

2008-05-14T17:01:00.002+01:00

Witnessed an amazing thing a few minutes ago. I think for the first time I truly witnessed the insanity that is the “human condition”.

I was on the bus, on the way home. There was this chick spewing Italian into her mobile phone, in what is obviously a heated discussion. Pretty soon though, it became worse, swapping between Italian and English as she’s quoting things this “other” person said. Got so bad that she had to get off the bus at the very next stop, since everyone was turning around and looking at her. Next, the bus driver starts driving aggressively, and at the next stop a bunch of people climb off, 3 of which from the top floor (of the 2 level bus) are having a argument, the chick actually punching the guy. Not sure if it was a “real” fight, but she was pretty upset.

The bus leaves the stop and waits for the light to go green. Next thing a guy on the sidewalk starts chirping the driver, asking him to open up. Now, busses don’t stop at any other place than a bus stop, but the bus stop is sorta close. Obviously, the driver ignores him, which doesn’t impress the dude on the sidewalk. Explosion ensues.

I guess these things are like, everyday occurrences. Only here, in London, it seems to happen a lot. Virtually every night, when in bed, I can hear people screaming at the top of their lungs at each other out in the street. And I don’t even live in a rough neighbourhood.

Why I reckon I’m really “seeing” it for the first time is because I’ve been quite contend and calm. Or in other words, not so into myself. People are really crazy. And they perpetuate the madness, not letting go of issues and allowing things to simmer.

I’ve also been very open to messages.

Case in point: friends birthday party, go over to his flat, meet all the folks, start chatting, turns out one of the lady’s there recognises my fiancé’. They chat and within 2 seconds realise that way way back, my fiancé worked for a pharmacy as a driver and this lady was a medical rep that used to come in there.

Now, in all the world, what are the chances of that? Even our friend, who was the common link here, was a chance meeting a year or so ago.

Where the message part comes in: she’s talking to other folks, I think the conversation was about careers, she’s saying how she’s like 40 and how she’s been overwhelmed by choices. One day it’s a vet, next a doctor, teacher, pilot… and so on. She completes the sentence with “in the end, I just did nothing.”

“in the end, I just did nothing”

That, is exactly my problem. I overwhelm myself, because I have way way way too many interests. I rarely follow through all the way. As a result, I never accomplish anything, so I feel like it’s a waste of time, and give up (or go on to the next thing).

Of course, that’s not entirely true. I DO accomplish things. The metrics for what I deem a success are too high. I’m too hard on myself. I want to be perfect, off the cuff. Over achiever are us.

So instead, and I’ve been doing this since the beginning of the year (with moderate success) is to set mini-goals. Do ONE photo, every day, and publish it. Just go to gym twice a week, for 45 minutes. Practice Tai-chi at your leisure, not in a race to perfect the posture cus you have to do 10 other things. What she said, and when she said it had a profound impact on me though. And thats the really cool thing, it brought it home and for the first time I made it my own.

Relax. You have lots of time. Enjoy. Be present.

This little entry is really for my future self, when I get bogged down in the details again.

Relax.

And enjoy. :)

[G], out

silence is not the way

2008-05-03T22:22:00.000+01:00

Got back from Ct (again) on Tuesday. As usual, I was pretty stoked to be back. Something about my own spot, my own PC, my own couch always appeals to me.

But like I tell anyone that asks, it wasn't really a "holiday", as such. It was more like a scouting expedition. We realised quite soon after we got engaged that trying to organise a while wedding from Base London would have been an impossible task. How can we possibly get a feel for a venue, if we've never been there? So that's what we did, hitting up to 9 venues in a day! Fortune was with us though, since we managed to find what, as far as we're concerned, the perfect spot. Well prices, beautiful setting and the lady that runs the whole show is a peach! Very details oriented and super accomadating. And, as an added bonus, the "wife" found a wedding dress she likes! Well, half a wedding dress. More specifically, the bottom half. At least she has a good feel for the direction she's going, and in my mind that's 2 for 3 so far. "3" of course being the photographer, but I got one or two good leads on that too.

The biggest thing I've been struggling with is getting back into my flow. I had some crazy inspiration before the trip, for my photography and getting a decent website going, to my learning's and readings and what not. Dunno what's with me, I'm writing it off as jetlag J I reckon I need some inspiration again, it's all. What got me going a few weeks back (I think) was the awesome snowfall we had, enough to actually photograph and play with. It's a rare site in Central London, and I'm still working through all the pics.

On the pics front, I've really upped my game on Photoshop and bought a Wacom tablet (one of those pen-mouse things.). Granted, it's like the "Bamboo Fun" (yeah, weird weird product naming), but it's great and I love using it. Takes a lot to get used to though, but once I'm going, my productivity goes through the roof.

Got my copy of GTA IV (loving it) and gonna go see Iron Man tonight (will probably love it too). Looking forward to see Robert Downing Jr. back on screen. He's always been one of my favourite actors and I'm glad he got his shit together again, with rehab and all.

And besides, nothing like a good hero movie to get the creative cogs going again.

[G], out

Take it out on me

The trip, part 2

2008-03-01T13:52:00.002Z

So of course getting engaged was the highlight of my trip. But to be fair, the other activities where pretty cool too.

Can't say too much about the bachelors party, since what happened there should probably stay there. The man of the hour did look very slinky in that pink and black, frilly cabaret dress.

The wedding proper was really beautiful. It was in Stellenbosch at a very nice estate called Blauwklippen, for the service and the reception.. It's always an interesting one, trying to look all dignified and together, suited up, in 36 degree heat. A sweat-fest of note. Amazingly, and a testament to the brides utmost style and composure, I didn't even notice one bead of sweat, not one hair out of place when she walked into the chapel. No darting eyes, absolutely no hint of butterflies.

Perfect.

After the "I Do's" and the kissing, we lined up for the photographers. To say that I was paying keen attention to the latter would be an understatement. What toys they where using, what they required from their assistants, how they built rapport. And being the total geek I am, I was nitpicking on everything. I did the exact same thing at my brothers wedding. Of course, I got my own camera out later and managed to coax quite a few good shots.

I didn't have to do much by ways of "best-manning", since we where a gang of three. The MC had it totally under control and it was nice to sit back and enjoy the proceedings for once, and not have to think about schedules and timings and special requests and SPEECHES and and and…

Talking about speeches: I had no idea, till that very minute, how insanely passionate the newly weds where about each other. I mean, I've know DubiaBob for like ever, but man. He's speech choked my shit up.

I left at about 23:00 (respectable time to leave, its been a long day!), fiancé in tow. We hadn't really spent any time together since I popped the question, so it was nice to finally have some time to ourselves.

Got home, pulled the mattress and all the covers into the lounge and made a big Christmas bed. This was 4 tens romantic and 6 tens practical, since the lounge has an aircon unit, and it was still 30 degrees!!

Love that African sun.

Next post: roti's, saddle sores and boere-tans!

[G], out

supersonic

Three cheers

2008-02-19T21:28:00.003Z

Back at work today for the first time in 3 weeks. Had a fantastic trip down to Cape Town, although as per usual I didn't get to do or see as much as I would have liked. It was a little different this time round, being February and all. Everyone was in work mode, and the "still paying for December" syndrome of January has just worn off (I'm hoping!). Have a boat load of pics to work through too, as usual.

The big activities on the cards where of course DubaiBobs wedding and my birthday. The third, super secret one was for me alone. *grin*

For the last 4.5 months or so I've been emailing and sms'ing between London and Cape Town with a very good friend of mine. He's a graphics designer / artist / demi-god by trade, and I asked him to start throwing some ideas around for an engagement ring. I know what my GF likes, and since he designed her tattoo I could think of no better man for the job. He graciously accepted the project, even though, he'd later admit, it was the most stressful, difficult and rewarding he's ever done!

The big night was on Friday, the 8^th of the 2^nd of the 8^th (080208). For some reason, I quite liked this date, plus it meant we could spend another week or so together before I had to get back to London. Of course, it didn't go exactly as I had originally planned! But all things being fair. The restaurant I wanted to use, the very sexy Antique and Butterfly bar on the 31^st floor of the ABSA building had closed down, I only SAW the ring for the first time the Friday afternoon, at 16:00 and so on and so forth. But It really did turn out to be a fantastic moment in history for me. It was never really about location anyways: I wanted as many of my chosen family around us as possible.

So Theo's in Mouille point played host to about 17 of us. I invited more, but sadly some couldn't make it (and I wasn't about to tell them exactly WHY it was important they did).

Why Theo's? Best steak in the Western Cape, PERIOD! And I loves me some good eaten'. Heck, even the weather played along, although with the spectacular view of the Atlantic ocean that Theo's offers, it would didn't need to.

After supper and too much wine, everyone was outside on the veranda, having a smoke etc. I silenced everyone, did a quick speech about how we are lucky to have such good friends, and how we missed them all terribly while in London. And then I said "but that's not WHY I wanted to make a speech" followed by "Annelie…". Everyone kind of went "wooaaaow!" and Annelie was pretty much rendered speechless (which continued for another 25 minutes after the proposal, btw. Well, speechless, laughing and crying, pretty much). The proposal part I have on video, as someone had the sanity of mind to press "record" on their cell phones. It's weird, watching it again! I'm sure as time goes by, it'll become even more special to me.

So, did the run up, told her how much I loved her and how I want to grow old with her, went down on one knee and so on. "And the crowd went wild", I guess you could say. :)

I ordered a round of 5 bottles of "Sparkling Wine" and, after settling the tab, headed to Cubana in Green point for the after party, as it where. We needed to get out of there soon after though, as I was pulling best man duties a few hours later.

So, there it is. My super secret project, 4.5 months worth of secret messages and cross-country collaboration and trying my best to play down ANY talk of marriage and weddings et al. I'm amazed how all the conspirators involved managed to keep it a secret too, and I'd like to thank them from the bottom of my heart.

Next post: the rest of the trip!

[G], out

I've got a confession to make

Suck on this

2008-01-21T19:08:00.000Z

Had a damn good weekend. Didn't do much, to be honest (by my standards). Mostly parked on our (new, leather) (ps: yeah baby) couches, played Xbox (Mass Effect) (ps: God, I love this game!). Also did a mini photo shoot for a friend's t-shirt business, which involved a big Afro wig, lollipops and lots of cleavage and bondage tape. I'll let your imagination roam free on that one for a while…

Hit a friends place on Saturday evening, for a night of drinking, pizza and board games. Played "30 Seconds" again for the first time in 2 years, what a blast! So it was girls vs. boys, the boys winning out, of course. Not due to superior knowledge, but to "loaded dice", if you believe the girl camp.

Some gems:

"the opposite of Coke?" – HERION! (answer : Pepsi)

"something you suck on to relieve a hangover?" – PENIS! (the boys cried, in unison. The answer the girl was looking for was "Ginger". I'm sticking with penis…)

"Filthy people that don't bath?" – HOLLAND! followed by PORTUGAL! ("Portuguese Shower" was the answer. This was funny, because we had representatives from both countries present, the one from Holland yelling out HOLLAND!)

My secret little project had a major breakthrough today!! The designs are finalised and costing will be completed by Wednesday. I'm so super fucking stoked I can hardly contain myself. The hardest part of this is keeping it under wraps for another 3 weeks. Just. three. more. weeks.

The suspense is killing me!

[G], out

I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower

The Justification threshold

2008-01-09T19:38:00.000Z

I have this thing, which I think is totally due to some serious cultural conditioning / how I was raised. It's the moment when the half-life of buyer's remorse falls off enough that I can finally justify the cost of buying something. Or rather, "it" justified being bought. I apply this thought process to everything, from loo rolls to high end stereo equipment. Clothes often become the focus of this process. In fact the very awareness it came to me on Monday, while I was getting ready for work.

Within the first week of arriving in London I bought myself, at the low low (then high high) price of £20, a long black trench coat. Not sure if it's wool, cotton or other wise. I am sure though that it's damn comfy. I've even slept in it numerous times, using it as a blanket during that first fledging month as the house we lived in in Stratford was little more than a shack: absolutely zero insulation. Not cool for a warm blooded, "vars-van-die-boot-af" Kaap Stad laaitjie in the middle of U.K winter.

It struck me, 2 years on, that I still wear it to work, out to pub / clubs or whatever, and that the justification for needing it has proven sound. It's probably the least stylish coat anyone can wear, but I love it, and it's in perfect nick. I dug out this sleeveless jersey I bought about 9 years ago, when I started working (back in '99), and I've been wearing that on the really cold days. It still fits, amazingly (think it's stretched a bit) and is fashionable again (go figure). In fact, I've received quite a few compliments.

No, it's not that I'm cheap. I just enjoy getting full value for my money, and the tree hugger in me tries to keep things simple.

But the justification process also has a more sinister side, since I rarely throw things away. I have t-shirts in my cupboard I brought over from home that are well over 5 years old. I defend them valiantly against the forces of extradition (read: my girlfriend), claiming that they're still good for "gym shirts". This seems to work, but for how long I don't know.

I just can't justify buying new ones…

[G], out

scar tissue that I wish you saw

Happy Happy

2008-01-02T18:19:00.000Z

So, 2008. Funny thing, New years eve. It's all about timing, isn't it? Don't want to kick off too early, because come 00:00 you probably won't remember a damn thing. Got to get the mood right, get everybody flowing in the right direction. It's just another night out, technically. But obviously, it's supposed to be this big thing. Maybe I'm getting fucking old!

We did it in style though, regardless (as we do). Went to a 70's themed party, even though we where probably the only ones making an effort. But that's how these things go, people are funny sometimes.

Got a few things on the to do list this year, but for '08 I'm going to aim to do less in one month and more over the year, if you get what I mean. Looking forward to a trip back home for a few weeks come Feb. Looking forward to getting back into shape, reading (even) more, making some career decisions. But most of all having a good time doing it, not sweating the small stuff. There's also a super-secret project I'm working on... but I'll share the good news once the time is right :)

[G], out

four to the floor

Catch up

2007-09-13T23:56:00.000+01:00

As mentioned in the previous post, I’ve “been busy”.

All self inflicted, for the most part. I’ve been going to quite a few seminars and talks over the last month which are pretty much equivalent to brain marathons. They as much drain your mental acuity as they lift you up spiritually. It’s a fair trade.

I had the opportunity to attend one of Eckhart Tolle’s talks in the Methodist Central hall in Westminster. The architecture of this building is astounding, and like Eckart quipped “it’s not so much the space you see, but the empty space you don’t see” , I could truly appreciate all of its aspects.

It’s also ironic that the spot he was sitting in (centre stage, on a chair, dead upright) is right in the middle of the “old world”, in a sense, with Parliament and Westminster Abbey and all these historical sites that have been the anchor for western society for centauries. It seems like an appropriate spot for the new human consciousness to develop. In his own words, he didn’t choose the venue… “that’s just how it happened”. It was a wonderful chat, a whole hall of about 2000+ people all tuning into one, single frequency. Spooky.

On the living arrangements front, they where toying with the idée of moving. (note: they) Now, if travelling is a cluster fuck, moving has to be the grand-daddy of cluster fucks! The first step of course is actually finding a place worthy of my awesomeness, with enough room for a dungeon, place to hang the toys and little GIMP-sized doors for the minions. Not that they’re allowed outside, in any case…

All while stalling the current landlord while you do so. Oh, and August and September is the absolute worst time to look for a place, since all the rat-bastard students are jumping at any open spot, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease. And don’t even get me started on real estate agents. I have lots of stories to tell, none of them good.

As an added service: NEVER, EVER deal with Foxtons! They are the devil, dishonesty personified and weasely, saddle sniffing mother fuckers.

/end rant.

In the end, we decided we ain’t going nowhere. The ingrates also found new appreciation for our current apartment (moving was never my idea, I did emphasize “they”). This is what you get when you humour fools.

In between the rush-for-an-apartment-two-step every weekend was full of activities, ranging from birthdays to sports. If you’re not living under a rock you’d know that the Rugby World Cup has started, so life is exceptionally good. Last weekend was pretty much sporting bliss in my opinion, what with a whole weekend of back to back rugby AND F1. This weekend promises more of the same, looking forward to it. SA is playing England (losers) and I simply cannot wait for the amount of hurt we’re going to bring them. The media over here is so freaking biased it should be illegal. I guess it’s like that for each country, but in England’s case, they have a supreme disconnect with reality.

Oh, and in other news, I’m going to France from about the 11^th of October through to the 24^th. My dad and a few buddies are touring France, checking out the wine farms and war memorials (in a Winnebago, no less!) and of course the Semi- and Final rugby games. It was very last minute for me, I literally decided 2 weeks ago that I’ll join them. My intention was to only go along for the touring part, watching the rugby in a pub or whatnot. Turns out: I HAVE TICKETS!! FOR BOTH THE SEMI AND THE FINAL!!

“Holy shit Batman, how cool is that?!”

Very cool. Very very cool. Awesome… as it where.

And, if the ecstasy of the above scenario wasn’t enough, I also have this bad, baaaaad boy incoming: Touch me!

The answer to your question is: Yes, it is good to be the king.

[G], out

Stir it up, little darling

Destination: Turkey

2007-09-12T18:51:00.000+01:00

So a few weeks back (about 3) me and the gang headed out to Istanbul for the Turkish Grand Prix. I’m only getting time to write about it now (well, actually I’m shit bored at work and as such thought I’d at least appear to be productive).

Truth be told though, I have been really really amazingly busy, and not in the sense when you ask someone “how are you” and they say “oh, I’ve been really busy” and what they actually mean is that they have zero time management skills, hence have to spend too much time at the office doing work which could have been done in no time flat. I’m generalising, to be sure. I guess I simply can’t comprehend why people can’t all be awesome… like me.

But that’s for another post and I now hereby, henceforth and forth worthy firmly digress.

As per usual, I get like a gerbil in Richard Gere’s house the closer we get to the flight. “Did I pack my passport? Yeah, ok, check, there it is. 5 minutes later, OH SHIT! Where’s my passport?! Ah ok, there it is. Damn I have to pack still, where are the tickets? What did I forget to bring? Oh man, what if the luggage is too heavy! Fuck, I knew I should have remembered to buy a scale. OH SHIT, WHERE’S MY PASSPORT!”

Ad infinitum.

I have no idea why I do this. It’s obviously a piece of obsolete neurological circuitry that switches on around this time. I have mentioned before that my opinion on flying (especially long haul) is that it’s designed to make your life a misery. I succinctly summed it up as a “cluster fuck”.

Anyhoo, on to the flight (which went smoothly, thanks for asking). Arrived at Attaturk Airport to a sweltering Istanbul. It was like that pretty much for the whole trip; I was always covered by a layer of damp, heavy sweat. Charming.

The hotel was pretty good, Hotel Atlantis (the Cape colored in me loved this name!). At least they had aircon… which broke exactly one day later... due to a power outage of the entire block. Which, of course, wasn’t fixed till 3 days later, or, almost exactly the time we where due to check out.

Digressing. We chose to bunk down in the touristy part of town, Sultanahmet for our trip. It’s in the “Mosque District”, which has Mosques. Seriously. I know, I know, a bit misleading in the naming of the district. But trust me, we where tripping over the things. You can also tell it’s the touristy part due to the fact that most of the items for sale (even milk) don’t have price tags on them. This facilitates the opportunity to “ask” what the price of the item, which gives the proprietor the foot in the door to the ass-rape your wallet. This is when the “haggle” will occur, a feeble attempt (for our part) to try and “lube up” the transaction. We thought we where quite clever, having read fully 3 pages on haggling in our “Lonely Planet: Turkey” guide on the plane. I can sadly report though that we where totally outclassed. These fellas have been haggling since the day they where born and nothing you picked up on your short 4 hour flight would ever match their cunning.

Multiply the rapage by at least 4, when applying said process to taxis. A gang rape, if you will. With a smile and a shrug, and a promise to call you in the morning.

I’d like to think by the end of our trip there was a time when we got the hang of it, but I only think that to try and sooth the inflamed asshole in my wallet.

Digressing.

Other than the sweltering heat (which the chicks obviously loved) and the occasional run on the wallet, Turkey is a fantastic country. Beautiful architecture, very very warm and friendly people, a real sense of community. It was especially apparent coming from London, which had this really foreboding, dense energy about it. We got to and from the track at Istanbul park without much hassle, preferring the official bus service (airconned, thank God!) to the taxis, since they where also the cheapest. The qualifying and race itself was nothing short of spectacular, even though my team, Maclaren finished 3^rd and 5^th (Hamilton FTW!).

I think the defining moment, where it all sank in, was sitting on the stand, the Porsche cup qualifying finishing up and the F1 safety car doing the parade lap to check all is well. Next, you hear the distinct sound and a low humming melody of a perfectly engineered, loving crafted and expertly tuned F1 engine coming from the pit garages.

The first car (a Spyker) lines up on the pit exit, go light amber, waiting for its signal to tear this shit up. Then GREEN! And it flies down the pit exit, wailing like a banshee with PMS, the crowd erupting to cheers and cat calls! God. Fucking. DAMN! I have goose bumps and tears in my eyes right now!!

And then, like they where following the orders of Russell Crow in Gladiator: “on my signal, release Hell”, they bring the noise.

The race itself was full of anticipation and action. Honestly, I cannot think of a better way to spend the afternoon: at a live F1 race, surrounded by fans of all sorts and nationalities, the wailing of engines and the company of friends. Oh, and Beer!! Cold, cold beer. Well worth every penny and effort to get there. Standing on the start/ finish line afterwards, soaking it all up, was almost spiritual. I lie, it was spirtitual!

After the race we could finally have some holiday, as it where. We kept quite busy, but never felt obligated to DO anything. Everything just flowed. Around our hotel are numerous little side streets lined with cafes and restaurants, old timers playing back gammon, carpet merchants etc. We made friends with this one restaurant owner and spent every evening at his place, drinking, smoking sheesha pipes and playing cards, and forcing my money on him since he wanted to keep giving us free shit! We taught him how to play king and asshole (the game of choice for the trip) and he kicked our collective asses more than a few times! Crafty Turks. He promised to take us to a bar on our last evening there, a promise he made good on and it was the perfect end to a perfect trip.

Oh, we did other things too: we took a ferry (hey! I didn’t get seasick!!) to the islands, accidentally disembarked on the WRONG one we intended to visit but we made the best of it. Our intention was to hit one of the beaches but we ended up swimming at a resort, played more cards and hanging out. The island doesn’t have any public transport. Well, they do, but in the form of horse buggies! The only 2 cars I saw where police cars. On the way back, we decided to rent bicycles (the place is riddled with bike hire companies) and did a “tour de island”, which was only about 16 km. Headed back around sunset, decided not to take the ferry back, instead opting dinner and gambling on the last ferry off the island at 21:45. We miss that one, we’re pretty much fucked!

But the last paragraph basically embodies the spirit of the whole trip. Very much a go-with-the-flow way of thinking, save for getting to the race and back. Which made every moment an adventure. J

I’m probably missing a bucket load of things: little things like our theme song for the trip (Destination unknown, this saxophone dance tune thing they played to death at the F1) or the fact that the reigning King from the last round of K&A could make you do whatever he / she pleased (I feel so dirty and used…). These and other things made it one of the best trips of my life, but I would have to relegate them to the “you simply had to be there” category and leave it at that.

Sure wish you where J

PS: pics on Facebook, when I get round to it…

[G], out

Bah-pom-pom-pom Bah-pom-pom-pom-pom!

Perpetual winter

2007-07-24T18:07:00.000+01:00

I was joking a few weeks back that summer was cancelled. It was predominantly to freak my girlfriend out. She’s showing signs of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) so naturally in my own twisted way I thought it would be funny. I do stupid things like that. Turns out my prediction was pretty much bang on the money. I’m expecting huge recognition of my brilliance any day now. The down side to the prolonged spurts of torrential rain is of course widespread flooding and bedlam. Last time I check, pretty much all of the Midlands are 6 feet under water. And rising. They reckon the Thames could overflow at any minute and we should run for the hills. Good thing we live on the third floor. I suspect our apartment will soon become one of many sought after riverside properties. Well, maybe not. But when movies about a 21^st century man building an ark start doing the rounds at the local cineplex (comedy or not), I start to wonder.

I find myself becoming quite homesick of late. The bad weather and some such never really bothers me, it’s just lately I find myself thinking about home quite a bit. Which is silly, since it’s ALSO winter at home! But somehow I can tolerate it more there.

Anyhoo, no biggie. I’m sure it’ll be over any day now. If being homesick is the most of my worries, I know I’ve got it good.

Oh, and I’d like to apologise to this man:

…for calling him London’s biggest wannabe.

He obviously had the inside track all along.

[G], out

i like... birds

June!

2007-07-02T21:22:00.000+01:00

Deals where made, and broken. Goals where set and met. No prisoners where taken.

Highlights: SQL 2005 upgrade project; the Download festival; birthdays birthdays birthdays; the Three Peaks challenge; discovering (and pushing beyond) my own physical, spiritual and mental limits; reconciliation of old fears, thoughts and perceptions; burying of ye olde hatchet; making new lifelong friends.

Lowlights: realizing, yet again, I’m only human (meh); trying too damn hard to “fix” things; unleashing my ego and letting it run rampant(!); wanting things that I cannot possibly have; subjecting myself to control dramas I should have spotted a mile away (had I not been running after afore mentioned ego).

Bad puppy…sit, heel.

So yes, June was, without a doubt, one of the most amazing, hectic and fun months I’ve had since we’ve been here. Heck, maybe even for as long as I can remember! I was initially going to blog about each thing we did but instead I feel that the whole experience rather than the microcosm of each event means so much more for me.

One write up I feel is worth mentioning is around the Three Peaks Challenge, and since many folks have asked “WTF”, I’m going to shamelessly copy and paste it here. This was written by our fearless leader, who pretty much set everything up, organized the routes, navigated and was just an all round super-fucking-hero. If it came down to a fight, I’d want him having my back:

"We set out from our Hotel in Betws-y-Coed, Wales at 06:30am on Saturday with heavy rain and thunder forecast across the UK. Snowdon passed without major incident providing us with cool, dry conditions. The summit lay in cloud from 600m, so we missed out on the spectacular views during the climb. We were overtaken by several competing teams on the way to the summit who were running to complete the mountain stage of their event before a 20km cycle and canoe race to finish. We didn't envy the competitors trying to reach the top in less than an hour and a half! We completed the first of our peaks in a time of three hours and forty minutes, bringing us 20 minutes ahead of schedule. Having stocked up with a hot meal, we set off for the Lake District in our 17 seater minibus with a speed limiter to 60Mph! A traffic jam on the A55 cost us 35 minutes of valuable time, but the journey on the M6 gave us no further delays.

Arriving at Scafell around early evening, the team seemed focused and determined to make it back to level ground before nightfall. Conditions remained dry but we were slowed by the slippery conditions and poor visibility. Upon hearing the words 'Marshall's at the top', Mike mistakenly heard 'Marshmallow's at the top' and was off like a greyhound out of a trap disappearing into the cloud. Finally catching up with Mike & Steve Harland, we were persuaded to take the 'right fork'. Half an hour later, we found ourselves scrambling up a steep rocky climb, with some anxious faces around. A quick check of the map & compass then we were back on track towards the summit. Reaching the summit just before 20:00, we paused for a quick photo before our mission to get back before nightfall. Scafell Pike: Three hours and twenty minutes.

We reached Ben Nevis at around 04:30. By this stage, we were all very tired and bleary eyed and stumbled out of the bus. Most of us had been rudely awoken earlier by a near miss with a stag (the animal, not a drunken Scottish groom) in the road through the Highlands! A quick breakfast & we were off. Someone must have told Mike that there were cakes waiting at the top as once again, Mike & Steve disappeared off into the cloud. In our haste to begin the last climb, we had turned off too early and realized that we had parked at the Visitor Centre and not the Glen Nevis YHA as planned. This set us back about 20 minutes, but the team remained undeterred and determined to make up some lost time. A couple of injuries and sheer fatigue saw a couple of the team head back to the bus early for a mug of tea and a snooze. Climbing Ben Nevis was certainly the toughest of the three, and the climb with poor visibility seemed to last forever. Reaching the final section revealing snow and a brief glimpse of sunshine, we received confirmation that Mike, Steve, Gerhard & Vinny had reached the summit just after 07:30.. With 20 minutes to spare for our 24 hour challenge! Seeing the end in sight the remaining members pushed on to the summit. A quick photo & we were on our way back. Ben Nevis: Five hours, five minutes. “

So there you have it. Epic cannot even begin to describe the experience. In total, we raised well over £4000 for the NRAS! So, pretty stoked about that.

On reconciliation: I really, well and truly feel like another chapter in my life has been closed and a new one has started. And the exact moment it happened was about 3 weeks ago. Beefcake and I went to go see Pirates of the Caribbean and while strolling home we just started chatting. And chatting. And then a pint, and more chatting. More pint, etc.

It was the last piece in the puzzle for me. The final checkbox on some weird list of things I needed to get off my chest (and vice versa). After that night, everything has been different. Why it’s relevant is because we’ve known each other for going on 20 years. We’ve seen some shit! And what was funny, is how after all this time, we can still totally misunderstand each other! But it’s all in the mix of the lessons we had to learn.

And learn them we did.

So what’s next? In the near future, we’re gonna go check out Turkey, maybe for a Formula 1 race. I’ve started hitting the gym again, after a 6 month leave of absence. I look forward to a pepperoni pizza at my favorite Italian joint.

What’s next?

Don’t rightly know. But I’m gonna just let it happen.

[G], out

the love of the loveless

Lorem ipsum

2007-05-31T20:55:00.000+01:00

I recently came across this passage again, strangely enough on a corporate web wiki. In case you didn’t know, Lorem ipsum has been used for centuries as place holder text, to test layouts and different font styles. It’s been proven to be more effective than actually putting eligible text, as the proof reader would almost always get distracted by attempted to read the text instead of focusing on layout.

The roots of its use can be traced back all the way to the 16^th Century (that’s the 1500’s, not the 1600’s, for the slow class). The full text reads as follows:

"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

At vero eos et accusamus et iusto odio dignissimos ducimus qui blanditiis praesentium voluptatum deleniti atque corrupti quos dolores et quas molestias excepturi sint occaecati cupiditate non provident, similique sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollitia animi, id est laborum et dolorum fuga. Et harum quidem rerum facilis est et expedita distinctio. Nam libero tempore, cum soluta nobis est eligendi optio cumque nihil impedit quo minus id quod maxime placeat facere possimus, omnis voluptas assumenda est, omnis dolor repellendus. Temporibus autem quibusdam et aut officiis debitis aut rerum necessitatibus saepe eveniet ut et voluptates repudiandae sint et molestiae non recusandae. Itaque earum rerum hic tenetur a sapiente delectus, ut aut reiciendis voluptatibus maiores alias consequatur aut perferendis doloribus asperiores repellat."

Contrary to popular belief, this is not some random piece of text. And if you guessed that it’s Latin, you get a gold star. What I found most fascinating is what the text means. A latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia researched the passage, focusing on the more obscure words and traced it back to it’s unmistakable source: "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum" (The Extremes of Good and Evil) by Cicero, written in 45 BC.

Translated, it reads:

"But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?

On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammelled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains."

Pretty cool huh?

Fascinating, how a 2000 year piece of text can still be so relevant today. I like to think of it another way: “It’s the price we pay for the choices we make”.

So, do you, in a moment of weakness, taste the fruits of a most forbidden nature, risking pain at a later stage? Or do you abstain from such decadent pleasure, and endure pain of a different nature, right now? Can you have your cake and eat it?

The ego is a most beautiful monster,

[G], out

all I ask is that you don’t stop when I say when

Catch up

2007-05-13T18:31:00.000+01:00

Well gosh darnit, wouldn’t you know... I’ve been spending so much time playing with my Facebook profile that I don gone all about forget to update this blog!

Yeah, Facebook. All the cool kids are doing it nowadays. Usually I wouldn’t fall for such fads (well, not technically a fad, facebook has been around for a while now). Myspace leaves a bad taste in my mouth, never used it. I have a login to it, but that’s only used when I’m forced at GUNPOINT to “look at my profile”. That, and if the chick is, like, super hot. Gotta love those slide shows of you and your girlfriends…

Been up to much lately. Had a wicked trip to Bath over easter weekend, checked out the Gumball 3000 about 2 weekends ago. Other than that, I’ve just been working working working. Been pulling long hours, and it ain’t gonna get any better. June is especially tight. In between all of this I’m trying to get as “walking” fit as I possible can, for the Three Peaks Challenge. Yeah, I know, WTF was I thinking, right? I figured it’s just like with the Argus Cycle tour, a few years back. Seemed like this big, frightening thing initially, but if you dedicate (at least some) time to training and mentally gear up for it, it’s do-able.

In other news, I found out that DubaiBob (you remember him?) is getting hitched. I spent the remainder of the Sunday evening drenching my sorrows with Margarita (the drink, not the girl). It’s always sad when one of the wing-men gets shot down. But I shall raise my cup and drink deep, for he was a hellu-va fighter, superb squad leader and close friend!

Mnmnm, lets see, what else? Oh, finally got my shit together with the SQL 2005 project. Bought (yes BOUGHT?!) some Learnkey goodness. Of course, I haven’t had the time to actually even INSTALL it, but I plan on making time this weekend.

The ID theft thing is ongoing, still. What a palava, they still think I’m involved. Last thing I’ve had to do was go all the way home from work (from WORK!!) to accommodate the fucking meathead arriving (un-announcent and un-invited) at my front door, demanding I see him or else he just gives it over to the courts and random bad things ensue. Fuck sakes. Stop the madness, stop it.

Not letting that BS get me down though, I’ve done nothing wrong and the sooner they realise I’m the victim in this (and what ever happened to “innocent until proven guilty”?!), the better.

[G], out.

e-Viva e-Spania

And now… identity theft

2007-04-02T18:35:00.000+01:00

Yep, true. Nope, not April fool. Read on...

Got home today, check mail and BEHOLD! a curious envelope with my name on it. I say curious, for there is no stamp nor RTS address. So I open it up (not thinking it may be anthrax or worse) and HARKEN! a letter from a very pissed off repossession agent jumps at me! After all the blah di blah legaleeze, the hand written scrawl stated in no uncertain terms that next time Mr. Friendly collection agent iz bringin' the Po-Po fo shizzle, in the event that I (concerned, confused and down right bewildered citizen) don’t contact him immediately.

Before I jump on the horn though, I re-read all the juicy parts and under the “Details of which are below” section it lists, categorically, that I am the proud owner of a Renault Kangoo.

Now, before I start, let’s add a visual aid, shall we:

Just in case you may be wondering “mmmm, maybe it looks better from a different angle”, I wish to point you to here.

…that’s right…take it all in...

Got it?

Ladies and Gents, pimps and debutants, I am a 27 year old warm blooded South African male. In the event that I never ever (ever ever ever) want to get laid again, then yes, this motor vehicle would be my weapon of choice.

Since I would never do such a crazy thing (I loves me some laydees) I would not never be seen driving this vehicle nor would I be caught riding shot-gun. You would have to hogtie, gag and beat me 2 inches from death to get me into this thing, and then it'll have to be in the back (where there aint no windows). And EVEN THEN, I'd rather chew through my own wrists than risk the slightest remote possibility of being caught in this thing, dead or otherwise.

But, I digress. So I phone up said kind sir of the letter and of course, he doesn't believe a word I'm saying (at which point, I re-label him an uncompromising-fuckwit, unable to process logic or reason. Obviously a perfect candidate for middle management…)

I explain to UFW that I am not contesting said ownership of name and address but that I wouldn't be caught DEAD driving a Kangoo let alone owning one (see above). So anyhoo, after some back to fro we at least establish that:

a) it aint April fools day
b) I have become a statistic

It would be funny, if it wasn't so tragically inconvenient. Oh well, I'll sort it out tomorrow when the (hopefully) more approachable office clerks are around so we can sort this shit out. UFW mentioned that it’s not uncommon that this has to go to court first, which I really really wouldn’t enjoy. I’d have to wear a tie. I hate wearing ties.

In the meantime, I hope I’ve kept the big burly men at bay and no attempt to rob me of my toys will be made as of yet. At the very least they should understand the risks, catch up on some National Geographic. Everyone knows that it’s most unwise to corner a frightened Techie. Especially one that watched 300 last night! You’d be surprised how much damage a trapped geek yelling "TONIGHT WE DINE IN HELL!", swinging a Blackberry can do…

[G], out

this. is. SPARTAAaaaaaaAaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!11oneone

plickety-pic

2007-03-28T22:32:00.001+01:00

Some random pictures. I'm working though my collection (I now have over 20 000 pics!). I'm not saying they're all good pics, but I am discovering a few gems here and there.

Enjoy.

above and then left to right: screwing around with taking portraits of myself, puppy at Exmouth Market, my very sexy girlfriend looking all the part of a sun goddess, ancient tree in Newforest, endearing graffiti on wall near my house (there's a bricked up hole where an ATM used to be), a very psychedelic dragon fly at the 2006 / 07 NY Vortex party (ps: LEGEND!)

[G], out

liquid dreams

My eyes

2007-03-14T18:48:00.000Z

Wake up from a deep deep sleep (been having those lately), blink, caress the little shiny nipple on my Nokia, snooze ensues. Alarm again, fondle Nokia, snooze again. Snooze, like clockwork, between 07:15 and 07:35. Every 5 minutes. Every day. Well, every week day.

Get up, do some warm ups and Tai Chi… which is tough to do straight out of bed. Difficult to become still and focussed, even though you would assume it should be easy. 08:00, hop in shower, damn!, no towel, hop out of shower, almost slip on floor, grab towel, back in shower. Wash. Scrub. Rinse. Gargle. Stand under hot water for another 2 minutes, feeling guilty about wasting water. Some vices are hard to give up.

Dry off, Hop out of shower, deo, get half dressed (pant), put baby powder in socks, put on socks, put on shoes, run water into basin (only a quarter full, waste not want not), squirt a spot of Gillette M3 Turbo (sheesh, can these guys be any more cliché?!) shaving gel onto hand, lather on stubble (goes a long way. Must be why it’s “Turbo”), hit the switch on the Gillette M3 Power Nitro (tm, tm, tm) shaver, go go gadget-shaver (tm tm tm), start to vibrate, shave, wonder if should get a Gillette Fusion Power Phantom (tm tm tm), since it’s the “new” closest shave, even though they promised the M3 Turbo was the closest shave just a few months ago, fantasise about bringing slow and agonising death to all marketing people.

Rinse, pat dry, put on shirt, cufflinks, belt, slap Nivea cream on (nobody likes a spotty twat), style hair, burns, smile, wink, who’s your daddy?

Grab cereal, do pre-work gmail check, eat, load up ipod, grab ipod, brush teeth, rinse, dry, grab coat, grab scarf, grab bag, kiss sleeping girlfriend goodbye, tuck her in, go to kitchen, grab bananna, apple, left overs, head out.

Walk up road to bus stop, listen to ipod (Eckhart Tolle, power of now), see same guy sitting in same chair in same position, smoking cigarette, drinking coffee, reading paper, come rain, snow or shine, sitting outside corner organic food store. Smile. Pass moms and nannies taking kids to school, dodge the cyclers, taxi’s, cars, get to bus stop. Wait. Bus arrives, full. Wait.. Wait. Bus arrives, squeeze in. Look for seat, none. Next stop, seat opens up, take it. Observe my surroundings, people, cars, trees, sun (wonderful sun), close eyes, bask, smile, go far far away to home, beaches, soft sand, laughter, open eyes, Stop. Stop. Stop. Still smiling. Stop, get off bus, walk to office.

Enter building, greet security card, push bag against reader, bleep, go through turnstile. Climb stairs to 3^rd floor, push bag against reader, bleep. Take off bag, coat, scarf, greet minions. Take access card out of bag, clip to belt. Do morning checks, log into gmail, msn, load up webcomics (dilbert, pearls, penny arcade), load up digg, engadget, sql server performance, etc. Scan a bit, Push card against reader, bleep, grab hit “80” on the vending machine (cappuccino, strong, with sugar). Smile, love free vending.

Back to desk, work work work, read article on performance counters in SQL 2005, work work coffee, perv over next tech purchase, ask universe for it, work, eat apple, take call from girlfriend, work, lunch (read book… modern man is a wimp), work, break for tai chi, go to my “secret spot”, be still, be calm, centre, do slight warm up, step into tai chi forms, bow, back to desk, work work, phone girlfriend, talk shit, coffee, work work, eat banana, work work. 17:30, grab coat scarf, bag, say good byes, hit card against reader, bleep, take elevator to Ground floor, pull out ipod, hit card against turnstile reader, beep, exit building, walk to bus stop.

Wait.

Get on bus, grab seat, stop, stop, think about dinner, stop, stop, stop, get off bus. Walk home, admire church I pass everyday, how light falls over it, and how the graveyard looks especially eerie this time of night, Fumble with keys, open door to building, check mail, elevator broken, take stairs, promise to water plant by the window, open door to flat, grab a glass, fill with water, go back outside, water plant, talk to plant, caress plant, wish plant was better conversation, head back to flat, take off bag, coat, scarf, take out frozen chicken.

Grab glass of water, kick off shoes, log into pc, check daily downloads, post work gmail check, take off cuff links, relax. Go to room, take off work clothes, put on jean-pant / t-shirt. Scratch my nuts. Back to Pc, chill, play game, girlfriend arrives home, kiss, Beefcake arrives home, no kiss. Beefcake starts dinner. Talk shit to everyone, watch tv, eat, drink, play another game. Retire to bedroom, strip down to tighty-whities, hop into bed, read (modern man is a wimp). 23:33, lights out, kiss girlfriend goodnight.

And sleep.

Deep, deep sleep.

[G], out

i know a secret

Stepping up

2007-03-08T20:47:00.000Z

Attended another one of them new-fangled NLP seminars over the weekend. Mnmnmn, didn’t have the same level of euphoric epiphanies and ground breaking realisations, sprinkled with a touch cinnamon. But that’s to be expected. The best way I thought about it was that I already spring cleaned my house the last time round, got rid of that god-awful kitchen, refitted the bathrooms, painted, dusted and sanded down all the woodwork. This time round I simply restocked the beer fridge (yes, in my house I have an entire fridge dedicated to beer), mowed the lawn (for a change) and re-arranged the lounge somewhat (the feng-shui was misaligned and the TV was catching a bit of sun in the late afternoon).

Not to say I didn’t get any return on my time invested. I feel lighter, more confident, less pissed off (yeah, no idea why, been a grumpy SOB lately) and more clear headed. I picked up some bad stuff over December and only now managed to totally rid myself of it.

I feel especially happy today because I finally got a birdie on the golf game on my cell phone! Stoked about that, I reckon I should go pro. Everything I touch turns to gold.

On the Tai chi side of things, I’ve completed up to step 6 of the 24 step form. Super stoked about that as well. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s a lot harder than it looks and, being the perfectionist I am, I absolutely strive to get every single step right. Of course, it’s not all about that, because on top of the “body” aspect, you have to bring in the “mind” and “soul” parts, all working in unison. And I can confirm, the very few times I manage to harmonise these three, the experience is quite rewarding. :)

On the C# side, things have ground to a halt (somewhat). Ive gotten about as far as I was last time round, in that I have everything locked and loaded on my PC, all frameworks installed and a ton of video and ebooks tutorials. I’ve worked through a few videos but I want to step up my game (no pun intended).

On the Photography side, I met this dude who has his own photography business at the NLP seminar. I mentioned to him that I have this “all the gear no idea” feeling about my pictures, in that they’re not as good as they can be / I WANT them to be (by the way, this could be a total misconception on my part, being a perfectionist and all). At any rate, I asked if he would mentor me somewhat and he was cool with it. This is another area I really want to start showing up.

Couple of exciting things coming down the pipeline. It’s almost summer again, so we all know what that means: CAMPING! We may even kick off a bit early this year, take a trip out somewhere over the Easter weekend. Not sure where yet, but that’s part of the fun.

[G], out

help yourself to guns and ammo

Happy Birthday to ME!!

2007-02-14T12:30:00.000Z

Hellz yeah! 27 Big ones.

Decided to give myself the day off, so I've been eating and drinking, chilling, playing games, doing whatever the hell I want. It's great! Taking the missus on the London Eye tonight with 2 bottles of Champagne, hopefully the weather holds up. Neither of us have been on this epic landmark ride, so I'm looking forward to it. Going out for Margeritas first, to get the festivities going.

Oh, and Happy Valentines day! It's always been a bit of a juggle, between birthday and Valentines day. I just think it's double the fun. *grin*

Here's to getting your freak on!

[G], out

let me entertain you

And now, the new year

2007-02-06T22:54:00.000Z

Well, the dust has settled, the credit card and various other bills have arrived and the December holiday-honeymoon is well and truly over.

I have the distinct impression that I enjoyed it (the holiday) very very much. Even though it didn’t quite feel like a holiday, with all the goings on. Even putting all of that into words proved too much of a mission. Too big a risk of driveling on. I feel the collage and condensed blurb sums it up quite nicely.

Now that that’s out of the way, this is what I’ve been up to the month of Jan:

Went to go see Cirque du Soleil on Friday, more specifically Alegria (pronounced: Alle-grea) and it was breath taking! It was as the Royal Albert Hall, which is in itself a massive and lyrical structure. Just sitting in the gallery was an experience. I was especially chuffed because I’ve been wanting to see this travelling phenomenon for the last 3 years now. I’ve got most of their performances on DVD or Divx, but nothing beats being there.

Let’s be clear here: this ain’t you’re average garden variety, “Boswell Wilkie” circus we’re talking about. It’s a whole event, with live music and singing, the acts themselves and load upon loads of “off-screen” things happening all the time all around. From the eerie ringmaster (which looked like a gross between Gollum and the hunch back of Notre Dame) hobbling around the arena to little imp-like stage hands fumbling with props and bickering with each other, chances are you’re always going to miss something somewhere.

All this back ground action doesn’t detract from the main acts though and I got more than a few goose bumps along the way. I would highly recommend it to anyone, don’t miss your chance to see this!

Finished off the evening with a big-ass, well matured Argentinean steak. Quality!

On Saturday we went Ice Skating at one of the many outdoor ice rinks. It was pretty cool, didn’t fall once (on purpose) and it was a nice warm up for the rest of the evening. That night we went to this “Private Club, members only” type deal. Do yourself a favor and check it out here. Of course, in those pics in the “rooms” area is all well lit and all, but come night fall it takes on this dark presence, with suitable music to boot. Felt like I was in a movie, a cross between Blade and Interview with a Vampire. Spooky… but chicks dig it.

Sunday was spent being suitable hung over and baking (rusks. Cus I like rusks).

My birthday is coming up, in about a week. The big two-seven. Not sure how I feel about that yet.

And otherwise, Tai Chi is going great. I’m 5 steps into the 24 steps of the Short form, and I’m absolutely loving it! It gives me something to do over lunch times or when I need to take a break. Calms my mind and re-energizes me, which I believe is the point. Plus, my girlfriend thinks it’s hot, so that’s an added bonus.

[G], out

white crane spreads it's wings