A new begining...

...a lot happened in this week. Had a fair amount of downs down downs, and then it started going up...

We've been home hunting, and in London (while doing a job) that's always fun. Add to this the fact that I cycle to work lately ( cause I want to, and you know what.. really glad I am doing so, I rest a heck of a lot better at night due to some 9km cycling from work to home), and you get a fairly interesting mix of trying to balance "viewings" with normal daily stuff.

Anyhoo.. me and Grieks went to see this one place of someone that found our profile (set up by Grieks on uk.easyroommate.co.uk.. I think), and has a flat in a 7th story apartment. We walked in after getting off from the DLR (just about 2 minutes walk from there to the flat),and it was a very very beautiful flat.

At the time we were looking at the main suite room in the flat ( with en-suite bathroom) and this was a bit above the max that I had put aside in budget to be looking at rent though. So we sat there, looked at the view and really started liking the whole place (comes with gym and saunna for the apartment as well, lanny.. stag flat comes to mind). Eventually we got up and walked out, thinking we'd love to, but just couldn't :(

Got to the DLR station and the owner of the flat phones us up to ask what we think, told her she has a beautiful flat, excellently furnished and in a prime location, but unfortunatly above our price range. Ellie ( the owner ) said she was very sorry to hear that as she thinks we would really make it a nice home for us ( good sales technique this lady has). Told her that I'd talk to Grieks about it and will email her back the following morning. Not much was discussed, we had both decided, above our budget, and so that was what I emailed to Ellie on the following morning (Tuesday).

Tuesday was spent looking through websites offering places to house and flatshare in the general area of Canary Wharf (we've gotten spoilt by living here and it's fairly central to everything), finding some that sounded inside of range, only to phone up and find out that they were not, due to them not including the bills and utilities in the weekly rent and thus adding another 50 - 60 pounds per person per month on the tab.. in some cases taking the rent for a couple up to £750 per month, and that's without food still.

So we found a few places, marked them for viewing and phoned up some people to find out if we could have a look see around.

Next in the viewing line was a place just across from the park from us. South African investors that own the property and basically rent out. Nothing new. Big place, nice room, 3rd floor, in Canary Wharf... rent including everything ( except food ofcourse, but with broadband and all utils), £175 per week.. so about 720 per month.. and have it been in house with only say 3 other people in it.. would have gone for it.. this one, we would have been numbers 8 and 9. Very kewl house, nice idea, but no thanx. We were 7 in here just before the others went home for holiday.. not keen on that kind of stuff.

Next place, later that evening in Stratford : Now this one was interesting. The ad was that there was en-suite bathroom, gym with pool and the likes ( in the ad), big double room and broadband and utils included.. all for 600 per month.. sounded like a deal, we would hav been a few minutes away from Fanus (SA buddy who's here in London as well), so had a lot of appeal.. before we went to have a look see.

Had all the problems of finding the place ( called the guy something like 6 times to find out the address, finally got it off him about 5 minutes before we left home to find it). Got there, rang the bell and waited... and so this pommie walks up, opens the gate. Friendly bloke, added a good check next to his name, walked up to the flat, walked in and the first room we saw was the tiny little washer room (with a dude in trying to do his washing), fair, they didn't expect viewings that day so they didn't know anyone would be there, looked kind of ok when we walked in.. but was starting to wonder about it all. Walked up one floor to view the actual room. Walk in and yes, it's a huge room.. has got cupboards and the like, double bed, no linens (not really an issue but something that the guy just skimmed over), and then the cracks started showing. I looked up, there was no lamp shade ( not that this normally phases me), more strikingly though, there was no bulb in the light socket either.. uhmm.. wonder where the door to the en-suite is.. uhmm.. well, it's the door that leads to the top floor where the shared bathroom ( without shower curtain) is. When walking down the stairs ( behind the dude ), one of the rentee's walked up and basically killed any chances of us taking it ( was there still any left ? ). "The washing machine still doesn't work" was her words to the landlord in that tone of voice that makes you know that it's been raised as an issue in the past, and nothing was done about it. Kinda killed it completely for us.

So we were close to Fanus, phoned him up to ask if he would mind us dropping in and saying hi, he said nope come have some coffee, and so on the walk down to his house I decided.. Ellie had offered us one of the other 2 rooms in the house and subsidising the utilities if we were to rent at £650 per month. At that moment ( Wednesday evening around 7 ) my day/week had been one big lump of stress and worry about things back in SA (long story), not knowing if my contract with ITV will be extended ( it has been, since Thursday the paperwork is being organised between the consulting firm and the recruitment agency [after Rob (my manager) has requested if I would enjoy a further 3 months with them... I hesitated for a full 3 nano seconds before saying yes :) ], and having to find a place to live on a fairly interesting budget planning. At that moment in time I had just had enough.. been up and down the whole week and one thing was certain, it is a great flat and a great place to put down roots and start living instead of just surviving. So I called up Ellie and said that if it was still available we would take the offer she had made. She said marvelous [t] :)

There's going to be a few things that will have to be done when we finally move in tomorrow, but will hopefully be online again in about a week or so. Getting paid on Tuesday so then the deposit and rent goes from my account to landlady.

All in all, hopefully the true experience of UK living will start next week ( tomorrow really). In another shout out, Grieks has started a 2 month contract on Friday doing reception in Moorgate, very proud of her, and very thankful that she's giving me the oppurunity to live and work here in the UK for a while. Hopefully soon we'll find something for her in her chosen field. To give her the same equal oppurtunity.

Hope my mom had a great day today, was/is her birthday. Gave her a call to find out how she was doing and if she was enjoying her day that side of the world. All seems to be well in Cape Town.

Well, until we get online in new place.. have a good one all :)
Greets
Z

Come on world..

.. my shoulders are wide enough. I can handle it all. Throw the accusations all my way, blame all failure on me, accuse me of not bringing my part to the team and playing 120%.

Do it all, in absence of the one that you accuse so vividly, so that there is no recourse and there is only others in agreement around.

I pumped countless hours,days and in some cases weeks into the possibility of something more. I received a fair salary, very little sleep, and very little thanks for completing the big projects as close to humanly possible to scheduled time. I dare say I lived the dream of the possibility more than some who own it.

I did bring my part, and in more abundance than those who accuse would like to see, and I did take one oppurtunity that was granted my way, because in life they are far and few between, and even that has only cost me money, time and personal sacrifice without any reward from it. All it has done is caused a loss, financially, time-wise and to the living I'm suppose to be having.

I am sorry to see that there are those who are so narrow minded as to forget what was accomplished, and to blame so much on others who gave more than their 120% when they were on the job.

It is a show of the kind of character of those who do so.

Z

Just don't wanna...

I bet I'm not the only one.. and would doubt that I'm the only one that gets these feelings.

Ever felt like you just don't want to ?
Don't want to get out of bed for work today.
Don't want to get ready to head out and go work.
Don't want to cycle to work ( might be a bit more select group for this one)
Eventually do get on bike and enjoy it and you don't want to go to work, want to turn off somewhere and go enjoy the day doing something else.
Don't want to hassle with everything that "has" to be done.
Don't want to help other people with pc problems, hosting problems.. bla bla, etc etc...
Don't want to think about anything just for one day.
Want to sit up high somewhere and stare into the distance, until all you can see is darkness, listen to soft slow guitar balad, until you get annoyed with the sound.. best would be something that doesn't have lyrics, just a tune.

Don't know what it is lately, I keep waking up around 5:30 am, an hour before my alarm is set to go off. This morning I was feeling fine and completely awake (which normally aint the case that time of the morning), but got highly annoyed at being awake an hour before "suppose-to-get-up" time.

Am a bit in a bla mood today. Up and down. I might just be annoyed in general today.

Just don't feel like doing anything other than sit and stare out a window, to look at people go by and stuff.

Tomorrow will be better.

Z

Life, the Universe and cycling...

Howdy all.

Well, it's been two days of taking the scenic route :) In previous posts I told of the buying of the bike, the setting up of the bike ( for a techie/geek like myself, half the fun in doing that and figuring out new uses for cable ties). Today will be a bit more about how to get lost in London :)

In all fairness, I should have listened to Kieran ( Irish Business Analyst, yip.. like Paul says... fear the combination), that is part of the team in which I am functioning, and just stuck to the river. But does Zodan ever really listen to anyone but his own little inner voices ? I tend to think that the wet socks in the washing basket says a big no for that one... snigger away...

And so, on the faithful morning of May the 8th (ag mei .. hehe) I decided that today will be the day that I take on the daunting task of conquering London... not by siege machine though ( which would have been a lot more of a better idea mind you), but by bicycle.

Got up nice and early ( as Grieks was getting up early to go to work as well) kind of semi packed everything on the morning of the trial, bad idea, I know.. I should pack in advance.. bla bla.. and then I was out into the big world with my instructions to myself about which roads to take ( taken from the beauty that roads in London are actually mapped and displayed in Google Earth [ unlike Cape Town] in my hand and the bicycle comp nicely ticking over the km[s])

I had my mask and helmet on and was ready ( I thought) for the scary traffic I had heard of that this place curses on all who wish to use roads to central London in the morn.

Things started out well cause I was following a route that I folllowed back to home on Sunday after riding next to Fanus after we watched the GP at our place this wkend.

Then I got into the A13 and things were still fairly shweet. I had mapped the route to be close on about 8 - 9 kms from home to work, roughly. About 5 kms in I was doing ok.. I was going down a long road that was clear to me and my breathing had settled into a nice rhythum so that I wasn't gasping for air. I was still somewhat "panicky" because of the volume of traffic around me, but that wasn't that bad...and then it happened..

What is England famed for ? Other than trying to conquer the world and being anal about how high and mighty it is ? Yup, it's fairly bad weather. The clouds saw me, and that was the end of that.. after about 7 kms in I was soaked, completely.. including the instruction set that I had for myself on how to go where... and just about when I needed it to. So here I am, can't see the work building ( cause I'm not next to the river as should have been.. London television is a fairly huge building as well)... and I have no idea where to go and the streets that I thought went one way were going the other way. All fun and games...

So stopped at a traffic light, and just plainly asked one of the courier motorcycle dudes next to me.. "Blackfriars bridge ? Which way ? "... to which he told me straight down the road I was going.. about 3 bridges later.. and there it was.. London television building, work and the likes.. bliss was to be had.. wasn't there yet, but it was the last oh 300 metres or so... after which the odo on the comp measured a nice 10.9 kms... in about 36 minutes or so... not bad, for a completely unfit guy like myself I thought it was fairly good.

Took a completely different route home yesterday as well.. and found the Thames path. Life is now hunkey dorry. This path was made for cyclists and pedestrians.. and the city planner of London, God Bless that man/woman's soul.. the sidewalks in London are about 2.5 metres wide.. can you say cycling heaven.. and the time of the morning when I'm out of bed and onto the road there aint nobody on the sidewalks... so this morning I was on the sidewalk and enjoying the trip.

Legs hurt like someone has decided they need to be chopped off, but I'm enjoying though.. think my saddle is a little low though.. not extending my leg all the way down.. which I heard is what you are suppose to be doing while cycling ( with the correct setup).. took the distance down to 9.32 kms, and took my time down to 33 minutes today (both ways,each).. the irony in all this.. it takes me about 10 minutes quicker to get to work with cycling than it does with the tube and walking. The bike will most likely only pay itself off in 2 months time, although half of it is already paid by this month's travel not having to be paid, but we'll see.. all in all.. I'm on the road to fitness..or something closer to that then I had been in the last 3 - 5 years... it's been that long...

Hope you all have a great week further.. tomorrow (today) is a day of thought.

Greets
Z

Cable Ties...

Welcome one and .. this is where the word all is suppose to appear, although I think it'll just stay at one and one :)

After having had all the possible hassles that I could have yesterday with HSBC to try and figure out who was charging a solid £170 to my debit account in "pending authorisations", I finally logged onto internet banking last night after Grieks spoilt me by sticking me for some serious caffeine at the StarBucks in Jubilee Place ( shopping mall that's part of Canary Wharf tube station)..

And to my surprise it seemed to have all been sorted out by the end of day, cause I had my money back again.. kewl.

So come Saturday morning, and because I'm going to be using the bike ( see previous post) to get to work now in these glorious summer month (of which today though was not as kewl), I needed to accessorize :) Yes, I have a mean shopping streak in me at times, all within planned budget ideas though.. ok, so here and there I splashed out a little..but what is life if you can't enjoy that which you worked for so hard once in a while...kind of part of the Zodan Ethos (there is very little else in it so I suspect I can't really call it an Ethos, oh who cares :).

So down to Decathlon, store found by friend of ours who's over here as well [Fanus], in Canada Water. This is very similar to Sportsman's Warehouse in South Africa (just across of Tygervalley), huge stores (they have two over in Canada Water, next to each other. The one being for all other gear and one specific to cycling).

And here the items are : We'll take it from the top left.
1. Cycling computer. I'm a geek, how can I not have a comp of some form on my bike, I mean come on ppl.. I need stats, how far, how long, average speed, max speed. This is however marked with a red sqaure and the reason for that is because it was one of the splash outs. This thing has 16 functions, can track two different bikes (if you share the comp with someone in the family and the likes).. very kewl.. and comparatively cheap to what the general prices of these babies used to be in SA.

2. Middle top we have the magnet tool-free extra connection set that I thought might be handy to have with the comp, little did I know that the comp came with it's own tool-free kit, but we'll get into that a little later in the post...

3. Heavy duty chain lock for keeping bike mine, and not having anyone else take the baby I've paid so much for.

4.Middle left : Helmet. Very light, very kewl, and fairly pricy, yet again can't recall what the prices used to be in SA.

5. Middle middle : Mask :) Yup, have always wanted to be ol'Darthy. This has a filter to take out all the car emissions that I'll be driving behind on my way to work and home. When I get my planned sunglasses (some of you know which it will be ) I'll take a photo of me with the mask, helmet and specs on :) Professional assassin in the making I tell you.

6. Middle right : General toolkit, they were on special. This includes a pump, fold-tool with all the general things required for the little changes here and there ( like the calibration of the disc brake pads). Also has handy things for repairs on the road.

7. Middle bottom : Reflective vest to wear on the way in and out of work, safety thing that I thought needed because of the huge amount of cars on the road and people not looking out for the large amount of cyclists on the road in London of late.

So yup, the red block stuff were that I splashed out on.

So got home today after only being out for a little while to go buy aforementioned [t]. And ofcourse the first thing out of the packaging was the cycling comp.. geek here, anything in the comp area always gets the glint in the eyes going :)

This thing was fairly interesting, although only after getting the manual out and reading how to set the language on it to English (Turkish is not a language I have any concept of). Figuring out what all the buttons did and such was a fairly short process of elimination. Press 1 , uhmm.. think it does this, no.. does that.. right.. remember that.. press 2, didn't know it even had that function :) You get the idea.

After that it was down to the bike to pump the wheels, install the comp and maybe get some test driving in. Figured out the pump, nope it is not your standard just press over the valve and suffer trying to get more air into it before you loose it all coming out when you disconnect the pump from the valve. This one ( I eventually figured out, no manual.. darn Brits) has a locking mechanism. So the correct procedure : Put over valve, solidly over valve as well, and then turn the middle section which locks and opens the inner valve systems ( not going to ask ), and then fairly easily pump up the bars [no pune there]. So did that.. and then the comp installation.

Now having seen other ppl's riggs for this little thing I thought, this is going to be a breeze... and so mistaken I was. Because I have the monster of all front suspension forks on the bicycle the frame and the spokes of the wheel that is located inside it ( and I think it's in part also to do with the disc brake though) is fairly far from each other.. and after almost installing everything I get to the manual bit that sense that the pickup sensor and the little metal click on the spoke should not be further than 5 mm from each other.

Exhibit A : How Zodan eventually ( and this was after an hour of doing a lot of other things, inclulding trying to make the cable with the sensor reach the back wheel, seeing that the extra kit I bought actually has a tracker that works not on the wheels but on the cadenca ( the part that the pedals of a bicycle connect to.. that arm thing) of the bicycle.. thinking I should install that.. then realising that I "free-wheel" a lot when I cycle and then going against that notion, so back to front fork installation and loads of thinking).

Yup, those small little things you see wrapped around the SIGMA sensor, next to the (looks like, but don't know if it is carbon) rim, and the blue piece of the front fork are ... wait for it... cable ties... and from there the title of the post as well.

The little thing on the spoke of the wheel ofcourse is the little metal jack that the sensor tries to pick up.

It turns out that the fork has these little holes in it where I could tie the sensor in place to get it close enough to the spokes of the wheel. (This the holes are for a standard V-type brake assembly, which luckily I don't have which allows me to use it for the sensor rigging.) Those cable ties are fairly securely in place as well ( although had to be trimmed for obvious reasons).

So hopefully later tomorrow I'll get to put the bike on the road for a little test drive, and be able to record how far it really is ( at the moment I have data using Google Earth, although that has proved in previous experience to be fairly accurate on a bit bigger scale we'll see how accurate it is on the smaller ( 1 - 10 km ) scale in due course.

Tomorrow is Grand Prix day, and we're having good ol' friend Fanus over to come and enjoy it here with me ( Grieks likes sharing GP, but in the way of falling asleep on the couch with me while it's happening over somewhere in a different country :).

Night all.. bed time for me.
Z

And so it arrives....

Yup, this is the baby which came in the "post" today. And yes, it looks just like this mugshot I "obtained" from the website where I ordered it online.

And it's the 1st bike I've bought for myself, ever. The story of how it got home though.. now that is a bit painful.

I decided (because a collegue [t] suggested it ) to have the bike delivered at work because I had thought no one would be at home to sign for it, and me taking off time from work to receive a delivery is not a good idea, every hour I aint slaving it, means I don't get paid for it.. the curse of the contractor, not complaining thought.. just saying.

So I fill in all the details on the online order form, and organise everything and then it was sit and wait. And so today was a stunning day out in London ( 26 degrees C, good warm weather), so much so that my boss (who has just gotten back from the Carribean) decided that it was time to go to the other pub that they've been talking about since I started there (almost 2 months ago).. Young's Founder Arms.. good place. Just (about 40 metres) outside the Tate modern, on the river side... very nice place to just hang out and have a pint or two on a great day outside like was today.

But I digress. So as we're about to leave to the mystery pub I get a call that there's a delivery for me down at the bottom of the building. This is a bit of a problem, cause there (I eventually found out) are three places that packages can be left... and this not helping cause I don't know where the pub is and the boss is keen on getting going.. eventually find out where it is, see the box, ask the guys when they close up for the day and he says around 17:30 is their clock out time.. so having seen that package is there ( and it be big, but we'll get to that).. we're off to a great pint of something new (my idea of going to the pub lately is to try a pint of something new everytime.. makes for interesting chit chat).

Eventually get back to the office around 15:00 (ya, was a good lunch), worked hard till 17:00 and packed up and down to the bike pick up. Got there, and it hits me.. this thing.. is big.. and that's just the one side of it, the other side.. it's heavy. Let not the alloy composite fool you, this baby, to carry.. is heavy.

So, being a complete twat as well, I start lugging the thing down to Southwark station, which is 5 minutes futher from me than Waterloo is. However, my thinking was that at one of the biggest hubs in London it would be somewhat more difficult to organise getting on a train than at a tiny little station which is a way more accessable [t]. And in all honesty, my thinking wasn't all off, what it was off about though was the walk down to Southwark.. it's far, especially carrying this thing.

Got a guy on the way though to help me carry it down to there. Get to the station, and the platform, and guess what.. train is empty enough to actually put the bike box inside without say sorry 16 times. Got to Canary Wharf, walked out with it, and got another guy offering to help carry it out of the station.. godsents the lot of them :) Walked across the road to the bus-stop, waited about 5 minutes, got onto the bus.. and a few stops later I got off, and walked another block home with big box.

All in all, it's been a while since I was that full of sweat from just carrying something. I did however set it all up, hooked in the front wheel, still need to adjust the disc brake on the front wheel though, but hopefully I'll do that 2morrow evening after getting a decent kit from Decathlon (sport megastore in Canada Water).

That however aint the only thing I've splashed out on for myself though. Me and Grieks went to Argos over the weekend (ja it seems lame, but is one of those things that had to be done, at least once :). And I got myself this number.

Yup, nice watch, bit big for my arm though.. going to have to take the beefing up fairly serious. But the exercise regime planned makes me think I'll be able to fill in a bit... maybe :)

Need to still organise a helmet and a few other things.. but I'll be posting about that over the weekend.. between the GP and other stuff happening.

Think this is a long enough post.

Hope all back home have a great weekend.

Greets to all
Z