33.15S 18.075E

Thursday, March 29, 2007

P-A-R-T-Y Time

Guys & Girls

Do we need a reason to P-A-R-T-Y? Definitely NOT! However, tomorrow is FRIDAY and THAT could support us in our endeavours (if we needed any support that is - TGIF!).

Here’s the setting & the scoop:
Your’s truly finally managed to secure an address here in Jozi and we need to celebrate that! Best part is: I’m still short furniture hence we can’t break much. Be prepared: we’re gonna rough it… so you’ll get paper cups (the real reason for this is that Makro is out of stock on dishwashers, and I’m NOT washing your glasses on the morning after the night before!). And for heaven's sake remember to bring something (preferably liquid fit for human consumption) to put in the paper cups!

So please raise your (full) paper cup to the occasion and pitch at my place around 20:00 on Friday 30.03.07!

And now for the treat: tomorrow is National Cleavage Day! Yippeee! TG4W! So ladies, please arrive aptly dressed for the occasion. Gents, it’s a gentlemanlike thing not to look shabby if she’s all dashing & daring – step up to the plate man!

We’ll enjoy a celebratory drink at my place where after we’ll relieve my neighbours of our noise and move ourselves to Billy the BUMS, Fourways. Why? Because Wonderbra is sponsoring the event! And donating R2 from each of the Fabulous Four National Cleavage Day Cocktails to the Sunflower Fund – I’ll drink to that! They’ll also be dishing out goodies! Yeah, yeah, yeah – be prepared to show some cleavage!

If you don’t believe me, go to: http://www.wonderbra.co.za/nationalcleavageday.aspx

Cheers
Hennie

Ps: If I've invited you to read this blog, you're welcome to pitch!

Sunday, March 25, 2007

rough week

Another day another week… its all the same here in Jozi. At least this week we had a “break” bang in the middle! Heard on Monday that I’m now officially assigned to a project at work and will be charging officially from 26.03.07 – we used the week to ramp up to the project, which involved a fair amount of graft. Phase one will keep us out of mischief for 4 weeks and if all goes well we’ll spend another 3 months thereafter thrashing out implementation of the developed strategy.

Spent the public holiday at the Pretoria Zoo with a bunch of friends! There’s lots of animals, really. But it was rather hot and dusty out there. We retreated to Shaun & Dom’s place only to discover that there is an opportunity to quickly plant some grass. 30 Mins later we were sipping beer – job done.

Finally managed to move into the flat we rented on Thursday. Its a humble bachelors’ pad just off Rivonia Dr. Centrally located, about 2 kms from the Planet Fitness where I gym and 3.5 kms from the office, however will be traveling to the Bank as from Monday morning as we work at the client. 2 Bed, 2 bath open plan kitchen / dining area plus balcony on the 2nd floor, north facing. Myself and Hendrik (sister Louise’s boyfriend, also recently relocated to Jhb) will share. Been sleeping on the floor since the bed I bought will only be delivered on Tuesday.

Saturday was dedicated to “buying the house”. We started at 09:35 and by 17:00 we had bought everything we’ll need to live the good life! Hectic shopping session!

Today I banked a quiet one, just recovering from a hectic two weeks! Nice. Updating via gprs out “in the sticks” – will post pics soon.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Chris’ Bachelors Party

The animals all came through for the bachelor and given the benefit of hindsight’s 20/20 vision it was a roaring success. We enjoyed a huge kuier, however very civilised.













High and Dry

(written whilst on board Mango flight JE178)

What a week, what w-end. Work hard, play harder. SDF (10 day training course at work) finally came to an end on Friday. TGIwF. TGIwF. We ducked early and banked a little bit of personal admin and then some descent relaxation time next to the pool prior to packing for Cpt! Mango decided to delay our departure with 35mins for zero reason and then to top it all the clown at the check-in desk issued me with the seat in front of emergency… not gr8. Tip: when flying Mango always ask for seats in rows 1, 15 or 16 – all their planes are the same Boeing B737-800s and have the same 186 seat config. Row 1 is always the best – as close to business class on Mango as you’d get (currently enjoying one on the return flight to Jhb) and 15 & 16 is the over-wing emergency exits.

This was quite an eventful week. I survived 1 month in Jhb (really loving it), managed to (finally) get a place to stay, organised a bachelor’s party, banked my first w-end trip to Cpt since arriving in Jhb , managed to gym every day prior to work (yip that’s 5 days in a row) and finished compulsory training required to be sent to Chicago for training later in the year! Now just need to catch up on some sleep sometime.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

you gotta do what you gotta do

What a week! I've survived, no LOVED, 4 weeks in Jhb. So much news (kind of) but lets cut to the chase... why on earth am I posting on a Saturday night? Well, I boarded my first Mango.com flight last night and jetted (not really, takeoff delayed by more than 30 mins) to Cpt! First time back since I left for the big bad Jhb a month ago. The reason? Well, my only brother is getting married over Easter and he needed a bachelors party! Yip, you guessed - I'm the best man had to do what I had to do! Hence the post: just to put the next post into context - will update on "life in Jhb" enroute to Jhb on Sunday.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

house warming & jol

A reason to P-A-R-T-Y: someone moves into a new spot and instantly just gotta! Well done to a gr8 show - don't worry, some pics will NEVER see the web. As soon as the local contestants started showing signs of fatigue we moved to Billy's (the) Bum(s) in 4Ways! Some of us were a bit oppelas after a rough week of little sleep and lots of work - thus managed to finally gather the troups around 02:00 - an awesome night out.

This morning I embarked on my 2nd gym session in 2 weeks - thats why they sell you 4yrs worth upfront (they know you're NOT going to crowd the spot)! Gr8 & felt a lot better after that. Also proved to be pretty good prep for a marathon shop-till-you-drop session somewhere in the West. At least I found some attire (but only in the end)for Chris' wedding and also bumped into some choice W-collection stuff (that I paid full price for recently) at the Woolies sale in Cresta! Always a good feeling - Naggghhhttt. Well now we know where they (Woolies) send all the Cpt extra kit to for the sale... Jhb!

Arb info: Also made some progress on the house-hunt 2day!  Time to push some z's.

4 Ianni

These oaks were desperate - only top-to-bottoms


Dam pics

Eish, its a pitty that Tigers don't rig themselves!
















We're on double trap having a blast and those desperate suckers upwind of us didn't stay there very long!
















Gusty as hell. There was nothing we could do - was a lekke swim!
















A good start with a bit of Goodyear on our tail!















The vista from the chalet lounge - ditto for view from bedroom!


















Thursday, March 08, 2007

w-end came & gone

I was told that today is Thurs - oops, missed that. What happened to the likes of Mon - Wed? Been VERY quiet due to work and a serious lack of sleep. Lets just put it this way: last night I banked more sleep than the two preceding nights combined. And this is due to work & not jol.

Quick recap of the w-end... jnr had the GPS out and frantically navigated the surrounds of Harrismith in a desperate attempt to find Die Dam (ons is immers nou in die Vrystaat en skielik dink mens aan die lirieke "by-die-dam, by-die-dam"). If it wasn't for the roadworks I'd have driven straight to the gate but nothing wrong with a minor detour out in the sticks! Mark was kind enough to switch to his w-end phone without giving me the alternative number, hence no way to get hold of him! The little drissle and touch of breeze upon arrival was rather welcome given the heat in Jhb. We promptly proceded to quaff a bottle of What!Shiraz with Mark (affectionately known as "Koepel"), the skipper for the w-end!

Saturday 07:00 there wasn't any breeze. Nothing. Nil. Zero. Niks. Just flat water. Was gr8 to open the curtains and be 25m from the water! By 08:30 we had some breeze from the NW! Semi-decent stuff, white caps & the lot! Soon we were out there and race 1 got underway. We managed to break the boat, well just the snuffer mouth in the breeze. Oops. A little spoeg and plak was all it too to get us back on the water. Races 2 & 3 we took line honors and by race 4 the wind had dropped off significantly, resulting in a 3rd placing.

Sunday started off promising with a lekke swim in the dam around 06:30, but it got nasty quite quickly and soon we were out there (inside the club house) enjoying plenty of thunder and rain. It abated and some lunatic race organiser (who doesn't know that there's no wind after rain) sent us out drifting. After 35mins they called if off and we were back on dry land de-rigging the toy.

Mon - Wed sped past as a blur, thanks to work, work and lots of more work. Manged less than 7hrs sleep in 2 days - not good for the health. Now partly back on track and enjoying 8 days of mindless training required for our Chicago trip later in the year!

TGIF, in T+2hrs!

pics of w-end to follow

Friday, March 02, 2007

its w-end!

I’m off to Sterkfontein dam for the weekend (ducked work at 16:00 - lekke not being tied to the market) to crew for Mark Kopel – yip he’s got a spare spot on the Tiger. Checked out http://www.windfinder.com/forecast/van_reenen to get Harrismith’s weather... Its improved over the last day or so – beginning of the week we were only in for about 4kts all weekend. Now we’re hoping for 5-7! Yippeeee – can’t wait! At least I’ll return to the West Coast as a light wind specialist.

I paid some entrepreneur at work R20 today – they’ve been begging me for two weeks to wash my chariot. And now I’m sitting on the N3 South in the first thunderstorm since I’ve arrived here – so much for the washing. I’ve been on the road for 45 mins and have covered the amazing total distance of 13kms! Thank you & Welcome to Joburg. The sound of rain drops on the roof is so loud that I can hardly hear James – Getting Away With It… Live in the background despite the VW Gamma being cranked up substantially. Oi, this is gonna be a long trip – all 300+kms of it. The Dam is so remote that the Garmin decided it can’t locate the spot and as a result Auto-routing isn’t working (yet) – will adda new waypoint close to Harrismith now.

Thought I’d take a photo to show you what this suffering is about, but that’s a bit much for in-ride entertainment!

Have a lekke weekend!

Oh, and congrats to Simon for being promoted to Exco member! (now he's the big big boss)

Thursday, March 01, 2007

reflections

HdeV reflecting on 2x weeks and thinking out loud…

As I signed in this morning (yip, I still don’t have an access card) the entry before me was a new recruit starting today. The next batch is here and you know what… I’m not the Newbie any more!

A wise snr exec said during orientation: “At Acc, ask if help is needed, help if asked”. These are true words spoken by a wise man. What he was referring to was the importance of your support system and network at work. Getting to know your colleagues should be a bigger priority for me.

Another wise Acc employee (seems like there’s a lot of them here!) reminded me that Acc employed us because of the state we were in at the interview, ie. because of your personality (and obviously your EQ & IQ) and the way you portrayed yourself at the time. (remember that this is all they knew about you at the time) Her instruction was NOT to change in WHO you are. Obviously you’ll develop and mature here (we hope), but remember that working here shouldn’t deter you from following your passions in life. Don’t throw your personal dreams out the window and become so work focused that you become unhappy because your house is no longer in order. That’ll change WHO you are and they might not like the “NEW” you. This is a (maybe universal) truth.