Thinking in Orange

Day three ...

2007-05-28T21:03:00.000+02:00

The latest installment of our road trip is up, check out my new blog...

The Road Trip: Day Two

2007-05-15T21:13:00.000+02:00

Going Solo

2007-05-14T21:11:00.000+02:00

My Hunny got me my very own domain a little while back, but I've been slow to get started up there. This weekend I finally took the plunge.

Pay me a visit and get my first installment of the road trip saga.

Road trip!

2007-05-06T17:35:00.000+02:00

I apologise, it's been ages since I last posted, but I've got a good excuse ;-)

My Hunny loves maps, google earth or a good map book can keep him entertained for hours. So last Christmas I bought him a big laminated wall map on which he could plan and mark our bike trips. We put the first few pins in the map just after Christmas when we took the bikes out to Nelspruit. That was also my first proper trip on the Kawasaki ZZR 400 I got last October and also my first trip actually riding a bike, not as a passenger.

The Map is on a wall in our spare bedroom, the same room that I blow dry my hair in. It during this exercise one morning in February, filled with nostalgia from looking at the pins marking our Nelspruit trip, that I said to my Hunny: "Wouldn't it be nice to takes the bikes all the way down here?", pointing to the southern most tip of Africa, Cape Aghulas.

After a lot of planning and anticipation, last Tuesday morning the 24th of April, we set out on that trip.

On Wednesday the 2nd of May we pulled back into our garage after 4000 km's, stop overs in 7 different towns, 8 days of riding, one days rest, one accident, much junk food and traces of several thousand bugs our helmets.

It was a great trip despite some not wonderful weather. I kept a notebook, so over the next few days I'll write a more detailed account of the experience and post some pictures ...

Have a great week,
Alex

We need to talk about Cho Seung-Hui

2007-04-18T19:41:00.000+02:00

A while back, I read a book by Lionel Shriver called 'We need to talk about Kevin'. I think it's a brilliant book - go to the wikipedia link to get more detail on it if you haven't read it - but in brief it's a fictional work written from the point of view of a mother of a Columbine type killer. Not an actual Columbine killer, but a kid who took his crossbow to school and killed a bunch of his classmates. While not easy reading, it was a very thought provoking book, asking the question: Is it all bad parenting, or are some kids just born evil?

I'm not trying to jump on the bandwagon and just score extra page hits with this post, I'm just wondering if anyone else noticed one similarity between the book and the shootings at Virginia Tech that stood out for me: Kevin chained the doors of the gym where he staged his massacre; and the doors to Norris Hall were chained shut. I don't think it's been established if Cho Seung-Hui chained the doors, but this did give me something to think about.

Enough times in the media I have read about kids getting bad ideas from movies/music/video games and acting them out, but I've given little thought to those claims. I've blown most of that off, saying that if the kid was that way inclined, he could get his motivation from anywhere. How I have proved my point here, and with consequences that feel far more real to me than the initial argument ever did. If a prize-winning novel written to provoke thought could inspire an educated young adult to do something like this (I'm not saying it did, I'm just theorising), then we couldn't be safe for banning kid's from playing all the video games in the world!

This is not a new thought by any means. Some people reading this will think 'well duh!'. It's just that it hit me with force today, and I'm wondering what exactly we can do about this? Censorship and Gun control can only go so far. People who really want to wreak havoc will find a way.

"It's a mucked up world" a favorite preacher of mine likes to say, and boy do I agree with him today.

Doh!

2007-04-16T10:13:00.000+02:00

Well, I just read my post from Friday (after a suggestion from a friend) and well, I obviously didn't read it through before I posted it. Sorry folks, it spell-checked fine but what I need is an 'is this the correct word?' check. I could go and edit that post, but I think I'll leave it up as a reminder.

A little piece of happiness for Monday: I've been visiting Doug Savage's blog the last couple of weeks. Savage Chickens gives you cartoons on Sticky Notes, really funny stuff, go see for yourself.

Relief feels weird

2007-04-13T17:24:00.000+02:00

I'm always amazed how your body knows what's going on in your brain. I shouldn't be amazed anymore, I have one if the most communicative bodies out there, it never lets me get away with ignoring my worries. this morning though, I got a different communication... relief.

I can't at this stage go into too much detail, but a situation in my work has had me rather anxious for a little while now. My body's reaction has been to dry hurl every weekday morning. Not pleasant. What makes the situation unhappily messy is that it needs to be kept under wraps until certain things came about. I wasn't to comfortable about this because a fair amount of deceiving has been done. On party in particular I felt aught to know what was going on, and this week I got the go-ahead from my management to say I could let this party know.

I sent of one very carefully crated email this morning and immediately felt a burden lift off my shoulders. That wasn't the new experience though. When I received the response to me email this afternoon it was exactly the response I wanted & needed to the situation. I felt what must have been 4 weeks worth of held breath leave my lungs, I felt at least a little dizzy and my ears blocked up. Now that was weird.

It's not at the top of my list of best physical feelings ever but that had to be one of the most unusual. My left ear is still blocked.

Aaaaah! (a rant)

2007-04-10T18:50:00.000+02:00

I like consistency. It's not mandatory, but I do like it, especially with the small things. If my work Webmail is at a specific address, I like it to stay there. Don't move the link around while you apply 17 more layers of security to something that was working and securing just fine.

A couple of other things I expect: my outlook Webmail will remember and use the email signature that I created in my outlook desktop app. My outlook Webmail will allow me to change the font size and colour of the text in the email I have just created. And finally my outlook Webmail will allow me to paste text into my email without first asking me if it's okay to transfer data from the external program: clipboard. Of course I friggin want you to paste from the clipboard! I said paste didn't I?

Why do folks have to go and complicate stuff when the simple version worked just fine? I don't think I'm cut out for a life in technology... the small things bug me waaaaay to often these days...

The whole horse

2007-04-10T08:16:00.000+02:00

I have some issues posting pics of myself, I think it's a little like blowing your own trumpet, and especially in the action shots I tend to look like a real idiot. But I haven't posted in ages, and I needed to post something to break the blogger's block. As the horse-riding thing was what I spent most of my long weekend doing, I thought I'd give you some shots of my whole horse (I did the half a horse a short while back)

Dartmoor (my horse) is a bit of a nervous character and I love this photo of him because it really captures his nature and what I imagine is going through his mind at the time. Something along the lines of "Oh crap oh crap oh crap open space oh crap oh crap". If you you were wondering what he's looking at with such wide eyes in the picture, it's probably the photographer, he finds them quite suspicious.

This is another of my favourites. This is Dartmoor doing what he does best, and looking at least a little like he's enjoying it :-)

I'll post something a little more meaningful later...

A picture is worth a thousand words

2007-04-04T17:41:00.000+02:00

If you read my post about being an anti-supporter, you'll know I watch WWE wrestling, and I enjoy it. You will also know that I'm pretty specific about the people that I support. This dude (The Undertaker) is one of of the select few that always makes my list.

It made my day this morning when my Hunny sent me this pic with the text: "Taker is 15 - 0 at Wrestlemania"

Given that he's got this unbeaten record, he's probably a top-dog, right? But I don't care, I dig him... he has his wife's name tattooed across the front of his neck, who wouldn't respect that? ;-)

(and yes I know it's all rigged, but I'm living the moment anyways)

A great sense of humour

2007-04-01T20:35:00.000+02:00

Isn't it wonderful when such a big corporation still maintains a sense of humour. Check out two (first, second) classic April fools pranks Google pulled on the public over at my Hunny's blog...

It is finished

2007-04-01T19:55:00.001+02:00

March has come and gone. So here is the update on my March resolutions:
1. While last week I did not post 3 times, I did notch up 17 posts for the month of March. That averages more than 3 posts a week across the whole month, so I think I'll give myself a pass on that one.
2. 9 gym visits. Well, two of those visits (the last two) were more a swipe card and leave experience, but it's Discovery's scoreboard that counts, and according to their records, I have pulled off my nine visits. Yay! I vow never again to leave things like this to the last minute. Last week was busy enough as it was without having to show my face at gym 5 times!

With the passing of March do you realise we are now a quarter of the way through 2007? Time sure flies, but I'm not complaining. I'm holding out for 2008. Big changes planned for 2008, but nothing I dare reveal just yet.

I have a small printed calendar of the present month and the forthcoming month taped to my PC at work. I started this as a countdown to a holiday I took in 2004. I crossed off the days past en-route to the much anticipated vacation. When we got back from holiday, I just kept going with it. It's like I need to mark the passing of time, especially on bad days, to ensure myself that I'm not just reliving the same crappy day over and over again. It's a comfort then. It's a little more sad when anticipated days, vacations and events are crossed off. It makes it more final that yes, my birthday / anniversary / Christmas is gone for another year.

Either way, it's a comforting ritual for me when I get to work in the morning and I cross of the previous day. Mondays are a double bonus, if a little sad, as I get to cross off Friday, Saturday & Sunday in one go.

Ah well, no-one can accuse me of not noticing time passing. I think it's gonna be a blue Monday folks, but at least it's a 4 day work week - Enjoy!

Alex

Two visits in three days

2007-03-29T07:08:00.000+02:00

That's all I have left to do to keep my gym membership alive. I have now done 4 days of gymming in a row, that's probably a new record for me. And I haven't yet just swiped my card at the entrance, used the bathrooms and left. I've done at least 5 minutes on a random torture machine each time, sometimes as much as 20 minutes!

Alex the anti-supporter

2007-03-29T06:32:00.000+02:00

My Hunny and I watch wrestling. Not the proper amateur stuff were actual wrestling happens, but the WWE equivalent where the action is staged and the plots are ridiculous. I love the stuff, it appeals to the drama queen in me or something. And I'm easily sucked in to anything with a plot, no matter how bad.

So we were watching Smackdown last night, and I was getting all involved in the matches, making all the right sound effects with the punches and power bombs, when my Hunny called me "the biggest anti-supporter I've ever met". I tried to get outraged about that, but I quickly realised it's true. I have as many people that I intentionally don't support as I have people I do support, and I continue this trend through large portions of my life.

The best example is probably Michael Schumacher. I don't watch F1, and I don't really have a team or driver that I support (I sorta liked Renault until my commercial equivalent gave me so much trouble) but I am steadfast in my anti-support of Schumi. I'm not saying he isn't/wasn't a brilliant driver, but I do think he couldn't possibly be more of arrogant schmuck. So last season I supported anyone who had a chance of beating him, and by extension, Ferrari as well.

I'm also a great fan of the underdog. Underdog, not looser. You have to look like you have a chance, but a rather slim one, and then you're my man. And for me, supporting the underdog means anti-supporting the top dog, so I end up anti-popular. If everyone else likes you, I probably wont, and just for that reason. And to complete that circle, I'll probably like anyone that competes against you. I'm sure that says a lot about me as a person.

Anyways, herewith a list of 10 people / teams I anti-support
1. Michael Schumacher
2. Anyone Michael Schumacher drives for
3. Manchester United
4. USA at the Olympics - the dudes just dominate!
5. Australia at rugby, cricket and swimming
6. All ruling political parties anywhere
7. American films at the Oscars
8. U2 and Bob Dylan at the Grammies, the dudes are almost guaranteed an award just for producing an album
9. Women in competitive horse riding disciplines, specifically show-jumping, dressage and eventing. (As an aside, horse-riding is one of the few sports where women and men can and do compete against each other on an equal footing - it's a great sport to be in)
10. Wrestlers HHH when he has the title, Booker T anytime, Randy Orton, and anyone in a match against someone I like.

It's probably a cynical approach to take, but it makes spectating far more interesting :-)

4 more to go

2007-03-27T09:26:00.000+02:00

I have managed 5 gym visits so far, and I give myself a pat on the back for actually going yesterday evening. The traffic lights down the road were out, so it took me half an hour to get to gym, roughly 3 km's from work.

When I hit the change rooms I realised I'd forgotten my socks. Having had the crucial card swipe, I could have just walked out then and been okay, but I persisted and did 10 minutes on the step machine sockless. How dedicated am I?

I just have to pull off 4 more visits in what is turning out to be one of the busiest weeks of my working life. Aaaaah!

The half a horse

2007-03-25T20:11:00.000+02:00

For anyone who wondered how I could have one and a half horses, this is the half. Her full name is Fairwinds Piquant, Pip or Pix for short. She's now 3 months old and this is her on her birthday. Technically she's not mine until she's weaned from her mom and I pay for her, that's about 6 weeks away. Isn't she just too cute?

I've been bad ...

2007-03-25T19:51:00.000+02:00

I haven't been to gym as I promised (in my defense I did intend going on Saturday, but a genuine migraine robbed me of that opportunity)

I haven't posted 3 times this past week

And I'm just about to use my blog to vent and not keep the positive outlook that I said I would do in my first post on this blog. I just have a few short vents though, then I'll try not to do it again for another 3 months.

1. Area specialists: I'm noticing more and more estate agent billboards around our area, with estate agents advertising that they are "Area specialists". Who give you the right to call yourself a specialist in my area? I don't think you are an area specialist, you've just plonked your sign down and declared yourself one. You may have never sold a property in this area before. Stop cluttering up our street corners with your signs.

2. The dude who couldn't join the back of the queue of 6 cars to turn into Allandale road last Thursday. You had to travel up the straight lane, then push into the right turning while crossing the intersection. BMW driving scum.

3. Guys who lie blatantly on their C.V's. Don't tell me you can do X, Y and Z in your interview and on your CV when you can do no such thing. Go and find yourself a job which requires skills that you actually possess.

There. Got that out of my system, I feel better now.

Cheers,
Alex

Are you satisfied?

2007-03-21T16:53:00.000+02:00

I work in an office park just outside of a residential area in Rivonia, Johannesburg. Every morning (or evening, or whenever) when I drive to work I pass a Canoe and Kayak shop. It fascinates me. Nearly every time I drive past the place I think to myself: what a lucky guy, he gets up each day and for work, he does something that he's really passionate about.

Job satisfaction is something that continues to intrigue me. One study says that 75% of people are happy in their chosen careers, while another survey says that only 50% of Americans are content in their jobs, with only 14% classifying themselves as "very satisfied". As many as 25% of folks are simply "showing up to collect a paycheck". Who do you believe? I'd hazard a guess that 50% is probably more accurate, but what alarms me is the 14% statistic. I'm not an American, but I think that probably holds true here also. That means that if you have 13 buddies, about 2 of them really love what they do. The rest, they aren't so happy about what they have to do each day.

I don't hate my job, I get some satisfaction out of manipulating bits and bytes. It appeals to my slightly OCD control freak nature, and I think I'm good at what I do. But am I passionate about it? Hmmm ...

I wanted to be a vet when I was in school. Marks and circumstances vetoed that, but if I Had stuck with it would I make the 14% cut? I'm not sure. We had to call our vet out to a sick horse last night. Anna (the horse) started showing colic symptoms at 6:00 PM. Colic in horses is not as easily fixable as it is in babies, and it can be fatal, so when Anna was looking no better by 7:00 PM we called the vet. She said she'd be round soon, she's just leaving gym. Chatting to her later she confessed that some days she just hates horses. She didn't start out her career as an equine vet that way, but when she's been the vet on call for the past 2 weeks, and has not had a single night or weekend without an emergency visit, her job satisfaction stats are pretty low as well.

So how does one get into that exclusive 14%? You have to start of liking what you do. It has to be something that you have passion for/ It can't be for the money as so often is the case, especially in I.T. Then you need to have a positive outlook. There will be rough moments in most jobs, how you handle them will determine whether they become a big issue or not. Thirdly, I think you just need to be on a roll at the time of the survey. I don't think the 14% is static, it's a different 14% of people each time.

But one thing is certain, if you aren't doing something you are passionate about to start with, and you can't add to that with a positive attitude, that 14% will most likely never be you.

Another weekend gone

2007-03-18T20:38:00.000+02:00

It's Sunday night, I'm getting ready for a new week and thinking "where on earth did the last 48 hours go?"

I know I did a fair amount of stuff. I went out for dinner Friday night, had folks from my studying days and other assortments round on yesterday evening, I did some shopping and some work, I rode a couple of horses, attended the re-opening of our main church auditorium (plus brand new balcony so we can fit in some extra people) , visited the in-laws and did my bit for our Christianity explored course this evening. You would think getting so much done would make the weekend feel longer, but oddly enough it doesn't. And neither does the opposite. I've had a weekend or two recently where I've done precious little and those seemed to dissipate just as quickly on a Sunday evening.

Seems like I just don't know how to make time last. If you have any tips on this one please let me know!

This will be a good week though, if only because Wednesday is a public holiday. Human rights day. It is our right not to work on this day and that I'm willing to celebrate!

On the down side, another weekend has passed by without me attending gym! I now have 12 days to fit in 8 gym visits. Guess what I'm going to be doing in my lunch hour this week? Wish me luck, this isn't going to be easy for me!

Wishing you all a great week,
Alex

Thirteen things I love about my Hunny

2007-03-15T07:52:00.000+02:00

It's our second wedding anniversary today. We can't know the future, but it sure feels like we are off to a great start! In honour of this event. I thought I would share thirteen things that make me love my Hunny more as time goes by. Be warned, this is a really sappy sentimental post, so if you aren't into that sort of thing, come back tomorrow :-)

Thirteen Things I love about my Hunny

1. His enthusiasm and playfulness. Hunny tackles life with the enthusiasm of a Labrador puppy. He's always bouncing around, trying to tickle me or nuzzle my soft spots. I'm not always in the mood to join him, but love to watch him. He reminds me that I worry far to much.

2. His height. I've always been attracted to tall men. Hunny is 1.98m tall barefoot. Shoes often have him ducking under doorways. I'm 1.70m but next to him I feel small and waif like.

3. His eyebrows. When I first noticed Hunny, after his height, the next thing I noticed were his eyebrows. They are 'angry eyebrows' They are quite pointy and I found them scary at first, but when he smiles they smooth out they give me a warm fuzzy feeling inside.

4. His determination. What Hunny sets out to do, he does. If he has decided on something then he will follow through.

5. The small things he does. Two years on he still makes me tea and brings it to me in bed every morning.

6. His encouragement. He encourages me to do the things that I usually procrastinate about. He believes I can do things that I'm not sure about.

7. His thoughtfulness. He gets me something for Valentines day even tough he knows he doesn't have to. He'll bring me fudge when he spots some at the shops, even though he thinks it's bad for me.

8. His patience. He is patient with me when I spend ages deliberating a situation, even though I already know what needs to be done.

9. His handiness around the house. He surprised me a bit with that one. He had a lot to live up to: my dad is a builder. He also cooks really well and uses those skills often.

10. His self-assurance. He really doesn't worry about what other people think. It's great to be around someone like that.

11. His dedication. He comes with my to horse shows / competitions even though he knows it will bring on his hay-fever.

12. The security he offers. Not in the material way so much, but in knowing he's as committed to this marriage as I am, that he won't abandon it or put it in jeopardy.

13. I love the way we fit. Our strengths compensate for each others weaknesses, so when I'm with him I feel like I have no weaknesses. I think he was hand picked for me by God.

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Who's saying what. Right now.

2007-03-13T14:03:00.001+02:00

55 million blogs, some of them have to be good ...

I'm registering with Technorati in an effort to get more traffic on my site. To do so I need to add some code to a post for them to pick up and link to my Technorati Profile, so that's the reason for this post.

Go and check them Technorati here if you are interested.

Bat Country!

2007-03-12T20:59:00.000+02:00

There is some open land around us, but we'd be kidding ourselves if we didn't acknowledge that we live in a pretty standard townhouse complex. That's why it was so surprising last night when, while we were eating out boerewors & baked potatoes on the couch in front of the t.v, a bat flew into our lounge!

I like bats, I think they are cute. I think I read somewhere that we don't get vampire bats in South Africa ... I hope ... and not much fruit around here either, so this guy must have been the variety that feeds on insects. That's just fine by me. I don't really like insects much, with the exception the Praying Mantis.

However cute I think bats are, when they flapping around your head only the most hardcore folks would fail to duck down and cover their heads. Which is exactly what I did. Hunny, bless his soul, dropped to the floor and leopard crawled out the room. Hunny does not like bats that much.

I've handled a couple of bats before. My folks live on a 5 acre plot, and a couple of times bats ended up on the brickwork of the front porch. They will drink warm milk from a spoon, did you know that? And they have really cute squished up faces. And a good hunting cat will recognize a rescued bat as the rodent that it is and will kill it. Anyways, with my Hunny looking like he wanted not much to do with this, and the bat not looking like it would find it's own way out, I started trying to trap it under a dish cloth. From the lounge, down the passage, and eventually I got him in the study. Neatly scooped up in the dish cloth, I took him outside, and after a few moments of deliberation he decided dishcloths weren't for him and made his way back into the night. I don't think he'll be back. Hunny said something along the lines of "that's why I married you". Same thing he says when I take the frogs out of the house.

It warms my heart just a little though, to think that despite the way my old neighborhood is being built on and developed (my Hunny & I live not very far from the where I grew up), there is still a little bit of nature left out here. Bring on The Wild!

One down, Eight to go

2007-03-12T20:36:00.000+02:00

An update on my gym 9 times before the end of the month saga ...

On Sunday afternoon, around 1:30 pm, my Hunny hauled my tired and lazy arse into gym for the first time in around 5 months. I had agreed to go with my Hunny on Saturday morning, however after on goods nights sleep, and an 8:30 AM lie in, I was no longer inclined.

So on Sunday when Hunny had a craving for cardio I bit the bullet and joined him. On the way to gym I found that I did remember the combination to my padlock after all! Great stuff, cause it's a nifty turning mechanism, not one of those boring press button ones.

We started with the treadmills. It was pretty even at first, but then Hunny cranked his incline up to about 8. I was still on level ground at this stage. I countered by raising my incline to 2 and moving from a walk to a slow jog. Hunny dropped his incline a tad, and took off at a blistering sprint. I admitted defeat and resumed my fast walk. They announced over the speaker system that the gym would close at 2 PM. I breathed a big sigh of relief that I would not have to endure any other torture machines - Hunny had an abdominal workout planned. Final stats: I burnt around 100 calories, Hunny burnt around 350. He tells me that's the equivalent of 10 Romany creams. I traded my 3 Romany creams for a late afternoon pizza.

In my defense I had already endured quite a tiring morning before the gym saga. Dartmoor (my horse) and I had our first show-jumping competition of the year on Sunday morning. The competition was pretty tiring, but more tiring than that was trying to keep my breakfast down after the show nerves set it. Final stats: 13th place (out of around 60 horses) in our first class. Dartmoor knocked himself pretty hard in the practice arena while warming up for the second class, so we pulled out of that one. It's doesn't sound to impressive, but that's not a bad start for us, we're a bit slow to get back into competition. Also, my instructor was there to watch us, and she said we look about ready for the next grade. Whoohoo!

2007-03-08T08:25:00.000+02:00

I read this CNN breaking news alert this morning:
Truck driver from Georgia claims half of a record-breaking $390 million jackpot and says he's "going fishing".
Wow! what a plan. I may have done that as well, except I don't really fish, but I could think of thirteen other things to do ...

Thirteen Things I'd do with the money

1. Pay off our home loan, car loans, bike loans and pay up the credit cards.

2. Pay off my dad's debt, get my folks each a new vehicle and build my mom some brick stables (hers are wooden).

3. Offer to clear off one debt of their choosing for my sister & her husband, and my in-laws. (negotiable).

4. Buy my Hunny a coffee shop.

5. Pay for a holiday for my folks to go back to their respective homelands (Dad: Ireland, Mom: England).

6. Take my Hunny on holiday to the places he's always wanted to go to (Italy, China Russia, US - maybe not all in one go) .

7. Quit my job and enroll myself back in full time studies: Physiotherapy.

8. Pay off the bond on our church.

9. Buy meaningful gifts for all our friends .

10. Buy a plot of land. A big piece of land. We can build on it later.

11. Contribute to a self-sustaining charity, something likes the ones here

12. Get laser hair removal done, no more shaving or waxing!

13. Invest what's left (if anything! I don't really know how far that much money goes!) for our future children's futures.

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This was fun!

2007-03-07T15:10:00.000+02:00

I came across this questionnaire today. It's quick and fun. Fill it in and share it with your friends if you have the time. And post it in my comments maybe?

You can only answer with one word! Not as easy as you might think.

1. Where is your cell phone?
Drawer

2. Your boyfriend/girlfriend?
Married

3. Your hair?
Messy

4. Your mother?
English

5. Your father?
Irish

6. Your favorite thing?
Hunny

7. Your dream last night?
Disturbing

8. Your favorite drink?
Margarita

9. Your dream car?
Bike

10. The room you're in?
Office

11. Your ex?
Possessive

12. Your fear?
Retribution

13. What do you want to be in 10 years?
Content

14. Who did you hang out with last night?
Hunny

15. What you're not?
Tanned

16. Muffins?
Choc-chip

17. One of your wish list items?
Teleportation

19. The last thing you did?
Emailed

20. What are you wearing?
Beige

21. Your tv?
Hums

22. Your pet?
Several

23. Your computer?
Broken

24. Your life?
Full

25. Your mood?
Variable

28. Your car?
Truck

29. Your work?
Slow

30. Your summer?
Hot

31. Your relationship status?
Married

32.Your favorite color?
Lemon

33. When is the last time you laughed?
Today

34. Last time you cried?
Yesterday

9 times in one month!

2007-03-06T12:45:00.000+02:00

I got an email from my medical aid company recently. I belong to Discovery Health - a little overpriced, but they do deliver. For anyone who doesn't know Discovery (most South Africans would, it's by far the biggest Medical Insurer here) they have this rewards scheme where you can get discount prices at certain partners (and there are some good ones) if you do stuff to keep fit and healthy. Their motive behind that is if you are healthy, you will claim less.

One of the benefits of the reward scheme allows you to join a gym for a once off fee, and you never pay again as long as you swipe your membership card at a gym a minimum of 24 times in a rolling 12 month period.

I joined the gym around 18 months ago, when the requirement was 36 times in a twelve month period. I started out well, making it to gym roughly once a week (Hey, that's good for me. I have a serious time deficiency). Then I changes jobs and my regular gym was now in the opposite direction to home from work, so that didn't happen. The chain I belong to then opened up a gym down the road from my work, but by that stage I figured I was already too late. I was a few visits short of 36 once my first twelve months were up. I had no communication from the gym or the Medical Aid, but I just assumed that was tickets to my joining fee. I'd figured I'd pay it again some time in the future when I felt more determined to commit to my health and fitness

So back to the email. It informed me that the minimum attendance requirement was 24 times per 12 month period and also stated the following:

According to our records, your Vitality Virgin Active access could be cancelled as you've only been to the gym 15 times in the current 12-month assessment period. To prevent this from happening, you have to go 9 times before 31/03/2007. If your access is cancelled, you'll have to pay the activation fee again to join the gym and earn Vitality points.

9 times before 31/03/2007 !! Oh dear ...

Now I know that my membership has not been cancelled I feel the need to administer first aid and revive the sucker. I can't just let it die ...

My plan of action is simple. I will haul out the old gym bag and toss out the now mouldy towels and gym kit that are still in there. I will spend a little too much money on some fresh gear, and a will spend way to much time trying to remember the combination to my gym locker padlock before I ultimately go out and buy a new one. Then I may actually make it to the gym.

My pride does not allow me to just swipe in, use the restrooms and leave, so I will have to do some exercise. 20 minutes on a treadmill should work, but then I gotta ask myself why am I not running in the open air with my two Labradors for company.
I should really let the membership lapse, after all if I couldn't use it twice a month what's the point?Two things prevent me from doing this:
1. I am a hoarder. I am convinced that anything I throw away I will need the very next day
2. I am a real softy. I cannot let something die that is still alive die ... poor little membership. He must feel so neglected already ...

So I will drag myself back to gym because I feel sorry for my membership. Great logic hey? Ah well, that's me.

Alex - Amended Discovery Health's link - 2007/04/01

Did I cheat?

2007-03-05T07:19:00.000+02:00

I said three posts a week. I didn't specify that they should be across 3 different days. I still feel a little like I cheated last week though... I posted on Monday and twice on Thursday. Ah well, I'm sure I will get over it.

I have been reminded this weekend why I should eat smaller meals and more regularly. I seem to have some issues keeping my blood sugar up. Combine that with a strong sleep reflex, and you have a dinner guest who falls asleep at the table. Well, not at the table exactly, on the couch after dinner. Hunny & I went round to friends on Saturday evening for dinner. After dinner we were chatting in the lounge and I was leaning comfortably against my husband with a belly full of good food and whoops, off I went to dreamland. I woke a couple of minutes later (I hope it was minutes!) to laughing from all present. Quite embarrassing!

Nearly did a repeat performance on Sunday when we had my in-laws round for lunch. Doesn't make for great hostessing, but try it out yourself if you have guests who just won't leave. I've found it pretty effective then ;-)

Update on blogging tips

2007-03-01T19:13:00.000+02:00

You may have noticed a few new accessories on my blog (it was very bland before). The Mail & Guardian news in photo's jobbie was a project of a friend of ours, Vincent Maher, who has a really nifty site also. The news in photo's widget (I'm learning the terminology) has that professional look about it, so I was hoping it could lend my blog some credibility.

Peggy gave me some tips, her cool widgets are from Feedburner, and I'm checking out those in my spare time. You should see some fruits of that soon.

Thursday Thirteen v1.0

2007-03-01T10:15:00.000+02:00

This is my first attempt at a Thursday Thirteen post, so let me know if I've done something stupid? For someone who works in technology I can be quite stupid ...

Thirteen Things I have done that scare me

We've all heard that saying "Do one thing each day that scares you" I'm running a bit behind on that, but I'm sure I can muster up 13 things ...

1. I got married. I don't regret a single of of my (still short) married life, but it was a scary decision to make. But so worth it!

2. I jumped of an 18 metre cliff into the sea. Small fry for some folks, but I'm not especially fond of heights, and I swim sorta like a brick. But I battle to turn down a dare, so on a cold and windy day, egged on by an ex-boyfriend, I took that leap. I was not at all ready for how fast free fall actually is. I imagine I spent my entire decent clawing onto the air around me trying to slow myself down. It didn't help one bit, but it did mean that I hit the water with arms outstretched and bruised from my wrists to my armpits on both arms. It took a couple of weeks for the bruises to go away. And boy was that water cold! I thought I was gonna freeze into a Popsicle right there and bob up and down in the water till someone came to fetch me ...

3. I rode a motorcycle. After a few years of being the passenger, I plucked up the courage and booked myself on a beginners course. I can't remember the moment I first went solo on the riding school's bike, but I can remember my first solo moment on my own bike. Wow! a great workout for my little heart muscle.

4. I took a walk around my folks block. At 2 AM. It's a rural area, I was alone and 16 years old. I thought it'd be a good way to test my bravery. I took two dogs and off I went. After the first couple hundred meters I could no longer back out with my pride in tact, so I continued at a pace that I thought was suitably authoritative, and not too fast as to leave me with no energy to run away if needed. I made it home okay, but ultimately, a midnight jaunt without telling anyone on a 2km block with roughly 5 street lights, this was not a bright thing to do.

5. I jumped my horse 1.35meters. I have a horse, his name is Dartmoor, and I bought him off the race track 5 years ago. I've been retraining him as a show-jumper since then, not always with the greatest success. But he has great technique and lots of talent, so I persevere with him. I remember the day I put his jumps up 15 cm higher than usual and trusted him to actually go over them. It was a great feeling and such a sense of achievement. Now we just need to get around to doing that in competition.

6. I stayed at home alone. Not a biggie anymore, but the first night that my Hunny went away after we were married terrified me. I slept with the lights on.

7. I started a new job. I have started more than one job, and it still scares me every time. Probably because I have never just changed companies, I seem to change expertise also, and for me, not knowing what I am doing is a very scary thing

8. I bridge jumped. Also at night. It was on a camp I went on as a teenager, we had a night time adventure obstacle course. All the activities we did (crossing rivers, abseiling etc) were in the dark, but jumping of a bridge into a darkness was scariest. I was picturing myself swinging straight down into a tree or something.

9. I took my dad to hospital to have a tumour removed from his bladder. It was the first time I realised my dad is mortal. The role reversal was tough for both of us.

10. I was a table leader at our church Christianity Explored course. It's a course we run twice a year for people to come and find out and ask questions about Christianity and what it means to be a Christian. I felt totally out of my depth, I am by no means an expert on the Bible. I'm doing my third stint as table leader now, and it's easier, but still frightening. I just have to keep telling myself that it's not about me at all.

11. I let go of my horse. I hadn't fallen of a horse in quite a while, and the less often you fall, the scarier it becomes. I became unseated at a jump -I was hanging half under his tummy - and had to make the decision to fall off completely before my horse attempted the next jump that we were cantering towards. Gotta say that my fingers were a little slow on responding to the 'open' command.

12. I woke up behind the wheel driving up and embankment and towards a tree. This was not a conscious decision to scare myself, but it was a great lesson. I should never ever drive when I'm tired. I will fall asleep.

13. I started a blog. And posted some entries. I have put my thoughts on display to the world.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

Monday blues

2007-02-26T06:59:00.000+02:00

I respect stay at home moms. Really, I do. They have sacrificed weekends. I work full time, but as consolation I get that juicy concept of weekends to look forward to at the end of my 5 days of often mundane slogging. If you are a full time mom, I'd imagine that weekends no longer pack much punch. Your work is now 24/7, with little change in routine across the 7 days, except hopefully having your partner help you out on the weekends.

There is one aspect though, that I think stay at home moms loose that is a good thing. Along with weekends, the concept of Monday is also gone. I'm open for correction here, I am neither stay at home nor a mom, so it's possible I'm talking complete rubbish.

Mondays seldom bring me much joy and with my job in it's present situation I have approached this day with a dread that started on Sunday afternoon. What a waste of good weekend time.

And it was a good weekend. Yesterday I did my first real bike trip since my Hunny and I went out to Nelspruit in December. We rode roughly 350 km's yesterday. Not a lot for some, but quite a bit for me, and I shattered my previous 'personal land speed record on a bike' of 150 km/h by travelling nearly 170 km/h ... I'm quite proud of me for that. Not that I intend becoming a speed daemon and racing about the roads all the time, but it's good for me to push myself and do a couple of things that make me nervous.

The biggest nerve inducing moment of the day was when I popped out from behind a truck with the intention of overtaking, only to spot a car in the way. I remained remarkably calm I think. Applied brakes, moved closer to the truck, and closed my eyes when the car passed. Oh, and I stuck my left leg out. Not sure about that one, like what did I think I could do? put my foot down? at 100 km/h? Might have been a balance thing, I'm not sure, but I did think that was a strange way for my body to react to the oncoming danger.

I did learn an important lesson though, just because the biker in front of you just passed the truck doesn't mean it's still clear for you to do so. I'm glad I learnt it in such a non harmful way.

So here's my Monday post, 1 down and 2 more due for the week. I'm feeling strong!

New Month resolution

2007-02-23T08:00:00.000+02:00

So I missed the new year. And February. But my resolution for March is to post at least 3 blog entries a week.
Those who know me well will agree that I am someone who does most things out of necessity, not out of routine. Routine and me, we were never good friends. I washed clothes when there were no more clean ones (until we got a maid in once a week), cut my hair when it's really out of shape and annoying me, and before I married my strong-on-routine husband, serviced my car when it started making a funny noise.
So blogging on routine will not be something that I will find easy, but it's gotta be done. Since discovering this blogging thing, I've grown addicted to reading a couple of blogs. My two favorites are Peggy, as she is and Blog that Mommy! , both regular bloggers, especially Neila at Blog that Mommy, who runs a minimum of one post a day.
Now my blog has few readers so far (I got my first comment (from Peggy) that wasn't my hubby on my last post, you'd think that would inspire me), but the anguish I feel when I go to my favourite blogs and there are no updates is acute, and I'd hate to do that to my regular readers, assuming I got any. So I really have to up my game here.
Plus, I'm never gonna get any regular readers if there is nothing to read, am I?

I also need to do something about the lack of gadgets on my blog. Anyone know a site / blog that gives tips on improving your blog? I now get some of my blogs by email. I gotta figure out how to do that to my blog!

To get a heard start in on March, I'll post my next entry by Monday. I put it in writing so I'd better stick to it.

Cheers!

Three things I learnt in traffic this morning

2007-02-23T07:48:00.000+02:00

1. Asshole road users do not respect Toyota Corolla's (hubby's car which I was driving this morning) as much as they do my Mitsubishi Colt double cab
2. All BMW drivers are still assholes
3. It's possible for a woman driver to stall an Audi 5 times in succession across 2 light changes.

Actually, I felt quite bad for her, the more people hooted, the more uptight she got, the more she stalled. I almost got out my car, taped on her window and said "Make sure it's actually in first gear", but the BMW eejit had aggravated me enough that I just wanted to get to work and forget about traffic.

Sometimes you just have to wonder ...

2007-02-01T09:40:00.000+02:00

Roadblocks are not that common in and around joburg where I live. But when the metro (traffic) police get off their arses and do something, boy do they go all out! About half of the staff at the company where I work took over an hour longer than usual to get to the office. Makes for a bad day all round.

And the reason? A roadblock. Closing two of the three lanes of road directly off a major national highway offramp. The purpose? Catching some folk who haven't paid their traffic fines, and pulling of a couple of unroadworthy taxis ... Now the taxi's I can understand, but not in peak hour traffic at one of the busiest offramps in the province!

I wish someone would hurry up that commercial teleporting technology! Would make for many much happier employees.

It's been a while

2007-01-25T09:53:00.000+02:00

New blog, new year and already I'm slacking, *sigh*

I've been thinking for a week or so now that I aught to post another entry, but my subject matter is lacking. I find that I can only come up with decent material to blog about right after I've posted an entry. the next day it's all gone again ... Now I know I should right those 'same day' topics down, but that's just not very spontaneous, is it?

The new truck.
Well, the week after spending my savings serviceing my Renault, I traded it in on a double cab Diesel truck. Smart move to by the truck, dumb move to service the Renault before selling. I learnt an important lesson there: you don't get more cash on a trade for having just serviced the vehicle. Another important lesson learnt: concider weather you will sell your car that week before filling up it's petrol tank.

But enought about the Renault. I'm really enjoying riding around in my new truck. I've got an extra half metre at least in hieght on all cars on the road, and with my extra bright spotlights, bull bar and tinted windows I can take on anyone. Well almost. And I can just about squeeze it into the garage at home, bonus!

It did it's first real work as a tow vehicle last weekend, taking 2 horses to a show, and coped admirably. Better than than my horse did at the show. If a refusal on a cross country course is defined as "the ceasing of foward motion after the rider has presented the jump to the horse" I wonder what the jump judge made of my attempts to walk my horse backwards down the hill to his next jump after he had refused to allow me to present said jump to him.

The fuel tank gave me quite a surprise though. 75 litres later, and it wasn't fully empty when I started! We've done 300km's since then and are not halfway down the fuel gauge yet. I'll keep you posted as to how it fairs.

So now I'm part of the "You're killing the ozone with your emmisions" club. But I think it's an improvement on the "Ha ha, you're a sucker who bought a Renault" club any day ...

Bracing myself

2007-01-09T14:12:00.000+02:00

Sending my Renault Clio in for a service is usually a dicey affair. In the two years I've had this car, it have never escaped the dealership with just the intended work done. There is always something else. Also, it has never lasted from one service interval to another without additional visits being required.

So to prepare myself for it's 90 000 km service this morning, I decided on a reasonable figure for work that needed doing and some extras. I then added a grand onto that figure and that's what I budgeted on.

Well, so much for that idea ... despite my best efforts to outdo the dealership, they still came in 32 bucks over the budgeted figure.

Which gets me to thinking: Do these guys assess you when you drop of your car, determine what they think you would spend, add a few hundred bucks onto that, and that's what they charge?

I'm not sure I've ever been pleasantly surprised at the cost of something relating to a motor vehicle. Every purchase, service, bit or bob is just a bit more than I expected. Doesn't matter if I pad my budgeted figure, or what I pad it by, I'm always a little under the eventual cost.

I think it's a global sales conspiracy. There isn't a salesman out there who will give you exactly what you want. They'll all push your budget to it's limit. "What are you willing to spend on that sir?, R100? well we have this really great one for R120"

Our problem is that we allow it. Perhaps because we think that that extra little bit of quality compensates for being a little more out of pocket. Or, like my Renault, there is no other option if I want to keep my warranty intact.

So what's with the name

2007-01-06T15:04:00.000+02:00

Post One: Saturday 6 January 3:05 PM CAT

When I clicked on the create blog link and it asked me for a name, I was momentary flummoxed. I thought to myself 'what really clever name could I give to this blog, something that will still be relevant and funny in a few years time?'

But that all seemed like to much of a decision. The people who share my genetics have trouble making decisions, especially about naming things ... Careful, thorough consideration and usually a couple of months go into naming any new pets. To demonstrate that point, I have a 10 year old cat still called PussyCat, because we couldn't find a nice name that suited her. She's not a bright, bold, playful, active or catlike cat. The most fitting name for this pretty but ineffective and timid creature was Barbie, and we just couldn't do that to her, so PussyCat she stayed.

So back to naming the blog. I leaned back in my chair, stared around the room and the first thing you'll notice about our study is the bright orange wall. Hence Thoughts in Orange was formed. It's a bright cheery colour, I'm hoping to set the tone for the new year ...

My plans for this page are to publish the thoughts I have swirling around my head that I think are worth sharing, but that just never seemed to fit well into my everyday conversations. I find that I often think up clever things to say when there is no one or no occasion to share them. So I try and store them in the untidy mess that is my brain until the conversation crops up that they would fit into. This often doesn't happen, and if it does, I usually can't fetch the thought in time, and it remain gets unceremoniously plonked in a few minutes to late, or returns to storage for another attempt.

I have attempted a blog before, but that one was abandoned after it's first entry. I will try and do better this time.

Cheers,
Alex