2 me from me

'cause life's too short for bad [placeholder for whatever you enjoy in life!]


at last, member of the expensive coffee club!


important to mix the good things in life!

Brother-in-law 2b's 2nd batchelors

some of this is just plain nasty - its amazing what one will involutarily part take in for the sake of a "batchelors party" (and at what cost I might add!)

so it turns out that my only little sister is tying the knot and with that comes the responsibility of older brother to ensure that hubby-to-b is of acceptable quality. to this effect I've shared a physical address with the guy for more than a year now, ducked out of the 1st batchelors party (I assigned the required responsibilities to the other brother) to visit the US and then had to pull together for the final leg.

here's some evidence:

worrying... grown men, alchol, paint bullets, a pressurised gas canister & moving human targets

mr batchelor defending his life

being a sport comes at a price

this lovely lady couldn't corrupt him

some Jhb girls had rather profound msg's for him

lets just say the ladies were all over him

really ALL over him

and even over me to...

he outlasted his main event coordinator by a mile, didn't hurl & generally kept it together very well. as a result I fired off an sms to the batchelor-ette at around 02:30: "hey sus! eks by jou man 2b en hys 100%, ma effe getarra! vat hom nou huis toe. jy kan hom ma trou, hys goed genoeg vi jou!

can't say that this came at a small cost as physical recovery from the illness I've been fighting for the last month is pushed out a little further... all for a good cause!

Hindsight

Two weeks at Q, a day in Chicago, a weekend in Manhattan and half a day in Washington DC! What a trip! Jetlag is crap. Flying economy is crap. The US is a lot better than expected. Manhattan is awesome. DC's a bit of a dump. Chicago & upstate NY seems nice - at least in summer. Not so sure how I feel about being back in Joburg. Time for a trip to Cape Town to put things in perspective...




Q Center - home for 2 weeks... loads of m&m's, networking & good times


Built on an old golf estate... this is the 18th hole with fountain and the lot!

Suburbia - St.Charles


Housing construction St.Charles


Locals having fun in St.Charles

Now back to the graft - reality has it that I need a presentation on High Performance Finance organisations in 10hrs and given the jetlag 8 of those should go to sleep...

Washington DC

The President's digs

War memorial #1

War memorial #2

List of war memorials...

DC's littered with these...

What a legend

What international development? Read "Confessions of an EHM" by John Perkins

Georetown street scene - the nice-er part of DC

recovery

Its amazing how physically draining and simultaneously intellectually energising a two week trip can be! I fell asleep numerous times whilst on the 5A bus from Dulles Intl en route to downtown DC – quite amazing that I did get off at the right stop, found the metro and made my way to the Hilton Capitol in one piece.

My visit to DC came and gone in a flash. Mission for Friday night was to find a WholeFoods outlet and eat something healthy. Then took an explorative stroll on my way back to the hotel where I drugged up on melatonin and embarked on an epic 9 hr sleep! Saturday morning was going to be too short for everything I wanted to do… and getting off to a late start didn’t help. There was some shopping on the agenda and then also snapping the mandatory pics of DC – just to ensure I never have to go there again.

Realised that the Americans build a memorial for every war they were involved in! The result: a lot of statues of “noble warriors” on green (copper) horses! They litter every public open space and have circles (roundabouts) dedicated to their existence. Other than that the place has a rather strange sense of architecture and even stranger people – certainly not as worldly as NY.

The most fascinating thing about DC is the street layout: streets running east to west are numbered using the Roman alphabet. North-south streets are numbered numerically and diagonal streets have special names. There you go, now you’ll find you’re way around!

I ended up in Georgetown (the nicer part of town) for some retail therapy: Diesel, Abercrombie & Fitch, Polo Ralph Lauren etc.

Started my journey back to Dulles around 14:00 (DC time), glad to be out of there & tired as hell. Not looking forward to the 18+ hr flight ahead. Arrived in Johannesburg more than 24hrs later with less than 3hrs of sleep on the flight – yawn. Sadly I couldn’t get my laptop powered up in the flight, so I befriended some of the air hostesses instead. We had a great time and I scored a bottle of premium class Moet for good behaviour!

Back at work on Monday and truthfully, despite fairly good sleep Mon & Tues was a bit of a blur. And then at 02:00 this morning I wake up – bright and breezy… damn jet lag. Nursing a dry cough... the path to recovery continues!

the next leg

I've heard that its not over till its over - but its over. I'm outta heee! Next stop Washington DC for tonight, then a bit of sight c'ing tomorrow morning before the looooonnnnggg flight home.

Ranch

Its kind of like an institution - you go to Q, you go to "The Ranch". Been there, done that. What a great time!

Evidence


Only in St.Charles!

Retail Therapy

Tough week - its really hard to be as little as remotely interested and focussed at the task at hand when bored out of you're skull. And under conditions like these I tend to become a bit of a menace... needless to say I've given faculty as hard a time as I possibly could - just 'cause I can! A long time ago I mentioned that working for this firm is like a roller coaster ride and yet again that has proved to be true. Last week was close to the highlight of my career and this week is the most amazing anti-climax (especially after such a gr8 time in NY!). The only positive thing about the course is the cute Italian girl.


Today I felt a bit like a girl: emotional. Not even wearing my favourite pink shirt cheered me up. So after a long day of bad news, setbacks and frustrations I opted to substitute my run along the Fox River for a little bit of retail therapy! Sure the girls would be proud. The local outlet mall was really disappointing... Diesel had nothing but tights (size 31), Polo Ralph Lauren had no dress shirts other than Oxford collar, Armani suits don't fit me, Timberland had nothing interesting, I could have spent a $ or two at Nike but didn't, Jones New York only had femaly clothing and not the great suit I tried on in NY and so on. But: Gap offered a nice pink light weight number, Aldo allowed me to set a new personal record (bought a pair of dress shoes in 8 minutes) and Oakley offered a little surprise!

Time for a beer.

New York

Strat College was absolutely amazing! Exposure to the top minds shaping the strategy offering in the Firm. Built geat raport with a number of the top guys driving Corporate Strategy and M&A! In retrospect last week is a blur: feeling ill, jet lag, info packed, loads of networking, a little bit of party, some exercise and not much sleep doesn't support a feeling of being control - but what a ride!

Jetted off to New York straight after class on Friday. Arriving a tad early at O'Hare and traveling with carry on luggage only, I managed get a spot on an earlier flight as standby! 2nd time in a week - seems like the way to go in the States! Then the wait... as we taxied off the captain announced that nothing's taking off - some weather system on the horizon & we'd be re-routed via Canada! After 80 minutes on the runway we finally had lift off and headed for NY (LGA - Laguardia airport)! Upstate NY is beautiful and certainly a place I could live! Hundreds of yachts on the Hudson River. From the sky it looked like paradise.

In typical Hennie-style I opted of Joe-soap public transport and not some fancy (expensive) airport shuttle. $25 buys a 7 day unlimited NY MTA pass - get them at any Hudson News Stand. Took the M60 bus to Astoria Blvd and then into midtown on the yellow line metro to 57 St 7 Ave station. From there its a short walk to the Hilton New York on Ave of the Americas (6th Ave). Was delighted but annoyed only arriving at 20:00 after leaving Chicago 7 hrs earlier (plus another hour from Q-Center to O'Hare).

Times Sq was the mission for night #1 in NY! Wow, what a vibe! Around midnight I was spent walking around and headed for a recharge session.

I snapped more than 250 pics during my NY trip! Could labour on & share the whole lot... but why bore you? In short: I need to live on Manhattan Island! I'm madly in love with the place and am convinced that the worst part of the trip was leaving today. As I told a friend: NY is to America what Paris is to Europe - equal wow factor! Not quite sure how I'm supposed to focus on my course this week - my mind is elsewhere.


Some pics (selecting a sample of the total universe does an injustice to the rest):


Times Sq


Nasdaq booth


Brooklyn Bridge


Financial district from Brooklyn Bridge


World Trade Center site


It took me 30 yrs & a career change to finally make it to the NYSE!


Grand Central Station


NY Public Library - hard to avoid reading here!


And another pretty big building - oh wait, its the Empire State!


Great exploring-NY-weather!


Happy Father's Day Oubaas!


Typical NY scene - steaming gutter!


Well done to the Opperheimers for this spot on 5th Ave!


Chris & Steve - this is where the Mac goodies come from!


Park Ave on my Sunday morning run


Concert in the park anyone?


And that dear friends... is just about what there is time for in less than 48 hrs in NY! I'm going back for more!

USA on business

Dashed out of Jhb on Sat for a marathone flight to Washington DC via Dakar. Then on to Chicago. Managed to get an earlier connection thanks to going waitlisted. Travel to the US is a real breeze if you have hand luggage only! From landing till I passed customs & immigration: 35mins!

Spent Sun in Chicago. Nice. Did the non-typical tourist wanna-be local thing of not buying a sightseeing tour & just soaking up the city using normal cta public transport and walking. Amazing.

Some pics...


A swanky appartment block


Street scene on river bank


Sears tower


CBOT! Pitty theres no US flag... was Sunday



AT&T Plaza


I felt right at home


Street scene

Q-Center at St.Charles is great. Having a blast. I'm one of 289 participants from 30+ countries at Strategy College. Went for a gr8 little run along the Fox River bank this morning!