The storm pic at last!

Whoo-hoo! Pics are working for me again. :-)

Buggered Blogger

I wrote a little piece about my blogger experience over the last few weeks, and how I felt when I couldn't get to my blog...and even though those days seem to over now, I would still like to post it now for entertainment value (a for the sake of completeness of history).
...
It seems like Blogger is down for some much needed maintenance, repairs or exorcism? Anyway, apologies for not being able to meet my usual Sunday deadline - hopefully when you read this it will be Monday and not next Sunday (Gmf! Obviously this was when I was having a naive moment).

Rant: I have been able to compose just fine, but as soon as I try to Save or Publish the post all I get is a Big White Screen. Ever heard of the dreaded Blue Screen of Death? (I have just recently been introduced to this technical term so I might be using it in the wrong context), anyway...I shall call this new adventure in the wonderfull world of Blogging the White Screen of Frustration. It has the super-power of rendering any victims instantly aggravated and unable to find suitable help files. That is an awesome power to harness - well done Blogger.com! ;-) Marvel should make you your own movie...

Now I will breathe out all this negativity and try to focus on good news that comes my way, so that I may come here to RE-F-ING type it out ONE WORD AT A TIME and be unable to use pictures (which are apparently worth a thousand words so that probably explains it?).

Breathe in....Breathe out...Okay, I feel a bit better now. I really would like to post again on how you fixed it all and turned it around, so please don't dissapoint me.

A very long update...

This will be a very lenghty update since I now have TWO weeks worth of news to share with you.

I was going to upload a picture of the fantastic storm we had last week, but I still can't get images loading at the moment and I'm so happy about having text appear that I am willing to just give it a week or so before I start getting seriously annoyed by that.

Anyway, last week we had a great storm...40 mm in a few minutes in Johannesburg when the skies opened up. All the roads instantly turned into little fast-flowing rivers (I would have like to get a good photo of that but I needed both my hand to keep my boat - Toyota Tazz - floating in more or less my lane). * Note to self: get new wiper blades fitted ASAP!

Okay that was last week: this week Friday we had another very nice storm - 64 mm this time. :-)

Exam news: Last week and this week - both subjects feel okay-ish, but not as great as the first one. We'll have to wait and see. Next week will be another tough one so I will be very unavailable this next week. Nose in the books where it belongs...

Favourite quote of last week...

Okay, I've been consistently putting up 5 quotes a week since I started this blog. But if you check out the comments on my first attemp at "One of my babies..." you'll see that I now have to retype EVERYTHING I want to post - so now we will change this feature to my favourite only (yes...because I am lazy and prone to typos - not preferable when quoting)

So here goes: favourite quote of last week (thanks Adam!)

1. Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news which obeys it's own special laws. (Douglas Adams)

Okay...we'll just try this again

One of my babies becomes a song...

As you probably know by now I like to dabble with a bit of poetry now and then and I'm very excited to report that one of my babies will be coming out on a CD soon as a song! My cousing Melanie is busy with her recordings and she asked me on a previosu occasion if she could use this specific poem. There are still a few details to sort out, but if all goes well - My Blood Curse - will also be a gospel song by next year. (I've included it here in it's original form for your entertainment)

My Blood Curse

The sins of the fathers
are passed down the blood-line.
You may have left me this curse,
but I have made it all mine.

Depression, Addiction, Abuse,
Of my "gifts" these are just a few.
Madness, Anger and Violence,
Yes, those are within me too.

Today...I'm taking control
and braking the age-old spell.
I'm saying a prayer to set my soul free
My one-way ticket out of hell.

No more will this legacy plague me.
Behind me the pain and despair.
I'll never pass this on to one of my own
I'm the last of the blood-cursed heirs...

testing...

If you can see this - please tell me...because then and only then will I not spit every time I here the word Beta (or Blogger).

One of my babies becomes a song…

Braai (BBQ) at Mount Olympus

Well…yesterday was the 2^nd Birthday bash of my news group Kwaaiplaas and as I mentioned we decided to have a Greek Mythology party this year. Incidentally next year apparently we’re doing dress up like your favourite (or your own) zodiac sign. Now I have loooooaaaaads of time to come up with a costume that will make me look like a lion. I like to plan these things, what can I say?

I have to say that everyone climbed into this year’s theme with gusto! We had Madusa (me), Poseidon (Wanette), Cupid (Annelie), Zeus (Tiaan), Aphrodite (Marizca), Hercules (Jaco), and even –believe it or not- the Greek Easter Bunny (Melanie) who at some stage in the proceedings declared herself renamed to Rings of Saturn due to a extraordinary amount of glowstick bangles that she festooned her wrists and ankles with.

I’ve included a few picks from the day – hope you get a kick out of it!

This week’s favourite quotes…

This week we have a mixed bag. Mostly quotes by Adam (thanks again Adam!) and I’ve also thrown in one of my own. ;-)

1. You are remembered for the rules you break (Douglas MacArthur)
2. There are no original ideas. There are only origianl people (Barbara Grizzuti Harrison)
3. If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking (George S.Patton)
4. Wisdom outweighs any wealth (Sophocles)
5. Blood might be thicker than water, but not as thick as chocolate (Me) Context: The integrity and safety of my Belgian chocolate pusher (Vera) questioned and or threatened by a close relative (Melanie my cousin)!

EVI101-3 The Law of Evidence

I wrote my first exam for the semester this week (One down five to go!) and I am happy to report that it went great. I am really glad that I have so much time and head-space to focus on my studies now. I even knew case names – a previously inknown phenomena for me! I will be very surprised if I don’t get a distinction for this one, and that makes me very very happy since I’ve tried completing this module on a previous occasion (or 2) with dire results. This was exactly the mental boost that I desperately needed…from here on I believe that things will only get better and better. Yay!

Quotes of Note:

My friend Adam can always be trusted to provide me with something to mull over for the day. Every single day he sends a quote of the day as inspiration. Sometimes serious, sometimes funny – always appreciated. Here are my favourite quotes of the week, all of them provided by Adam (Thanks!).

1. Weather forecast for tonight: dark (George Carlin)
2. Confusion is always the most honest response (Marty Indik)
3. Always end the name of your child with a vowel, so that when you yell the name will carry (Bill Cosby)
4. About the time we can make the ends meet, somebody moves the ends (Herbert Hoover)
5. Oh just bear with it… (Adam Martin) - Original Oprah quote that caused this one was ommitted.

Pipe Cleaners save the day – an unlikely story of desperately needed support obtained from ex-smoking paraphernalia.

On the 14^th of October Kwaaiplaas (the news/chat group) is having it’s 2^nd Birthday party and the theme is supposed to be Greek Mythology. A certain wise-ass declared that she would be appearing as the one and only Madusa (you know the one with the full head of snakes…or having a very bad hair day?), and honestly I thought it would be really simple.

My plan was to strap some toy snakes to an alice-band and voila! Madusa as promised. But in not one single toy shop out of the 6 that I’ve visited have I been able to allocate a damn rubber snake that is suitable for this mission. Some of them are so big that if I had to strap only two onto my head I would also have to figure out what an Ancient Greek neck-brace looked like too, so as a plan B I decided to just add some coloured shiny ribbons and hope for the best. Unfortunately this did not even vaguely resemble snakes and I ended up looking more like the NixNax guy than Madusa.

Finally today I experienced a breakthrough! Yay! I was cleaning a corner of my room and discovered a bag full of old smoking stuff (4 pipes, 2 packets of pipe cleaners a big box of matches and about a kilo of flavoured tabacco). For in case you were wondering: I may have bordered on chain smoking but this was actually bought for a fundraising event at church – I’m just the custodian. Today is day 332 that I am clean of smoking, and still going strong. Anyway, back to Madusa… with the help of some pipe cleaners and red ribbon I now have a full head of snakes ready for next week. (Okay maybe half a head of snakes, but I ran out of pipe cleaners and frankly I think it will do).

See below – my snakes – expertly modeled by my lovely kettle together with a fetching black head scarf! I’ve grown quite attached to them already and can’t wait to show them off next week. ;-)

Bonsai!

I just thought I’d post something on here about how nicely my little trees are doing now that I’ve made an outside haven for them. I don’t have to waffle on about this: the pictures speak for themselves… (I’ve included a before and after shot of the corner and of an individual tree as well, sorry it’s a lot of photos for one week but I really wanted to share this with you).

Republish:
A job to die for…

Here is the open grave
of a woman whose filing
was always up to date,

whose children now
stand dry-eyed
and unattached
at her final resting place.

They never knew her anyway.
But at least her manager will miss her
timely reports and fondly remember her
stylish power point presentations?

Republish: September sees its ass.

Well, this week has been chaos from start to finish! My mom started on her soft diet on Monday (from tomorrow she is on a completely liquid diet for three weeks…one week in preperation of her major surgery on the 10th, and another two weeks after that for the wounds to heal internally). After the liquid diet phase she’ll spend another 4 weeks on a soft diet and then she’ll have to relearn how to eat solid food after that. I’m still not completely comfortable with the idea of the stomach bypass that she’s having done, but I have to admit that so far her discipline on the diet is good to see. Obviously she is really serious about this.


Thursday was also a big day for me, since I got inducted into the Lions Club. I first got involved with the organisation through my buddy Louelle and all the great projects she told me about. Warm fuzzy feelings about trying to help other people (I better delete this post later before someone realizes that I have a soft side?). Annelie decided to come and have a look this month as well and we ended up missing most of the meeting because the three of us were giggeling and writing notes the whole time – still had loads of fun though. (See pic of Annelie & Louelle at the Lions meeting)


The weekend was action packed! On Friday I kicked it off with “buckets” of red wine kindly provided by Phillip and Ivy, then I attended a ballroom dancing social (even though I can’t ballroom dance…more red wine involved here), after which myself Annelie and her dance instructor known as Mr. Nel ended up running into my brother at Partyhouse. I only got home at 3:00AM and my dad must have known that we all felt very fragile since he (LOUDLY) sang us awake Saturday morning at 06:37. If he wasn’t blood family I might have killed him.


Today we travelled to the crazy town of Pretoria for my cousin Melanie’s birthday…I made brownies…And they came out perfectly?! @#. It was a fun day, thanks cuzz. And I finally met Mias’ son Nathan – what a cute friendly baby! (See Pic of Nathan and Melanie attached)

As far as my studies are concerned: I’ve managed to work my way through most of the Law of Evidence this week , so I’m feeling very positive about that. I have to finish that up tomorrow and then get stuck into Advanced Law of Succession next.

So nothing outrageous happened this week, but keep watching it can’t be far off…

Republish: Huh…What happened?

A little bit of history is in order I guess? (Don’t panic – just a little bit). Until fairly recently I was a full-time employee (logistics manager for the factory) of Carrier SA whilst studying (also basically full-time) law through UNISA. In my spare time I also tried to save the world of course…For a couple of years it almost looked like I was going to make it (except for the saving the world bit), but in July this year I hit rock bottom. Burned out! Shame… Anyhoo, I got to a point where working and studying because mutually exclusive. So I had to choose: continue with the last 14 out of 40 subjects for my degree or carry on with my job.

And that is how I became a truly full-time student for the first time ever! (Talk about priorities). I am officially unemployed at the moment and remarkably calm about it. I figure I have a few (6 or 7) months worth of breathing space from my first cushion (the name I call my savings by: “here cushy-cussion!”) before I need to actively start panicking. Nonetheless I am tightening my belt a bit to keep with the times. For instance I only shop once a week now, and since I’ve limited that I only use a fraction of the petrol that I used to as well. See? It’s a win-win situation. No seriously – I’ve negotiated a very good deal at home in an effort to help. I rent a room from my parents and the new deal is that if I do the cooking I don’t have to pay rent. Since I’m here anyway (busy studying of course!) I might as well, and on the upside I now get to choose what I eat. Once a month I do a spreadsheet of my expenses for the food and get re-imbursed. How cool is that?!

Ryan and Tammy pointed out to me on Saturday that I am doing this totally backwards of course. Most people study, then work, then marry and live alone. Mine seems to be working exactly in the opposite direction… I hadn’t actually considered it from that angle to be honest, but I guess they’re spot-on. (This is what happens when you don’t like following the instructions, right?). I’m trying to figure out what’s supposed to come next in the sequence but currently a solid possibility still eludes me.

Well…there you are! Just a little bit of history from my side. So I guess what you might be expecting is a pretty boring blog by a burnt out full-time student/part-time cook but since things never tend to be that simple in my experience don’t be too startled if it turns out a bit more hair raising than that, okay? I hope to give you a once a week peak into my world from the mundane to the bizare, so let’s see how that goes…

First instalment due Sunday 1/10/2006. (I had this in on time by the way - but silly Beta blogger wouldn't show it)

Republished post: Everything seems to be working except the damn headers! (I'm to tired to get annoyed about this now) This post is supposed to be called: And so it begins...

Well, I've decided to try my hand at this blogging business. Seems like everyone's got one - so I was starting to feel a little left out! Not sure when I'll manage to update this in between my studies, my cooking and gardening and keeping up with a gazzilion news groups so it might end up only happening once every week or so?Oh well, here goes!;-)

Ek het my ander blog (stupidly) verander na 'n Beta version toe en nou is dit onmoontlik om enige ding op dit reg te kry! Ek kan nie prentjies laai nie, en my boodskappe kom net met die titel op.

So toe besluit ek om maar oor te begin en nooit weer 'n Beta version van enige iets te gebruik nie - DIT SUCK!!! Aan die postiewe kant het ek nou 'n nuwe browser...Firefox is baie vinniger as Internet Explorer.

Ek sal al my ander goed weer oor post hier, en nuwe links vir almal uitstuur. Jammer vir die verwarring.