Time Space Bliss

The lust....

2009-06-17T21:39:00.000+02:00

... to do something significant.

In those 6 words I've effectively summed up my feelings of the last few months, I'd say probably about the last 3 - 4 months of this year.

Last year until November, the IT department of VMP [MySchool] consisted of 4 people. That was one IT manager, one IT support lady, one "developer" who was writing custom queries against the database to get information out of the collective 68GB beast that is the VMP database, and one php developer.

That changed in November when the data guy left the company and the desicion was made that he did not have to be replaced.. at the very least not immediately. At that time I was / still kinda am the php dev at the company. In short, I haven't written any decent php code, or any decent amount of code for that matter, for the last almost 3 months now.... in short that means I haven't been building or upgrading any systems to make the work of others easier and thus I feel like I'm not doing anything worth the salary I'm being paid for.. at the mo I'm a glorified report manager, in the SQL 2005 / 2008 way, not the manager with a BMW type... altough I am driving my dad's old BMW 1991 3 Series boxie at the moment, because the Suzuki is still leaking oil... but my dad and I are working on that one.. slowly but surely, but we are working on that.. I have pictures to prove...

In a week's time we're going on holiday, and I can't begin to explain how both of us need this. Grieks needs because she's been working like a wild person for the last 6 months, she's been a working demon and not been letting up at all, she's deserved her holiday. I feel unlike myself. I need this holiday to break my mood... to get my head back into the right gear, to look at things different again a little.. to sort my shit out in my own head.

Sat in the car this evening on the way home, and I was wondering how awesome it must be for some people to work in a job they love every day.... and it hit me.. writing code, making a difference in the way people work, making things easier for them.. that's my ideal job.. that's what I love doing..

I'm an odd kind of developer. I know this because I've had friends tell me a lot that I'm odd.. so I'm extrapulating to say I'm a odd / weird kind of dev :o) I've worked in the enviroment where we did a project in two weeks. Anything from ecomm sites to NGO work and the likes in a month... informational websites to active and very intensely used online reservation system for a travel agent company.. all that at one company here in Woodstock, Cape Town.. to working in corporate enviroment for the first year of two we were in London.. upgrading internal systems to better fasilitate people's everyday functions.. and that there.. that's what I love doing..

After I've written a system or helped in writing such a system and I see people doing something that used to take them ages to do a mere few moments I'm a happy man.. sure.. my work, especially in the ever changing and fast paced world of web dev, won't last forever... but that's another post all on it's own that I've been tinkering in my head with.. but for the time that it runs, runs well and true I'd dare say I'm happy then.

I'm missing that... I feel I go to work as a drone.. I log into the IT ticket help system in the morning, then start to pick the requests I'd like to do, and like most people I pick the easy ones.. the ones I know that marketing requires accurate data for, otherwise money is going to be spent that shouldn't have been. Lately I'm looking through the list of requests for the really tough ones.. so that I feel some challenge.

All that's set to change when we return from Mozambique though. We've found another dev to work with us... something which I believe our designer hopes will "push" me up the ladder of "wanting" to work.. I dare say it's not a lack of wanting to work, but it's a lack of doing the kind of work that I love.. the kind that makes a difference.. the kind of work where I get to learn new things on a regular basis and have to learn it quickly because it needs to be used.. I've worked with our designer before, and although I think she has some understanding of how I and other development / engineering people work / think, I firmly believe that she thinks the driving forces that drive her is the same for everyone else..

Apologies for anyone trying to make sense out of this post, I think it's just been an outlet where I could throw what's in my head space out onto a place where I can read it again back to myself to try and sort it out and figure out what to do with it all.

I have to make some choices.. some decisions, but I feel it might be best to let those wait until I'm on a warm, sandy, white beach... enjoying the weather and great company that's going with.. including my brother who's returning to the motherland in a week's time.. I've missed him, massively and I hope to spend some hours just chatting and going on walks with him and my g/f to go take photos and play cards or board games..

To everyone out there, who might be reading this.. please do yourself justice in this world, do something you really love, because as the proverb goes : "If you love what you do everyday, you'll never work a day in your life".

[Z, out]

Gym, Carpel Tunnel,lens probs.. and deserving...

2009-05-08T16:58:00.000+02:00

It has been a long time since I've posted anything here.. and rightfully so it's an interesting title that I throw up as well..

Let me break it down.

Gym : We [myself, Grea and Rudi], have been hitting the gym at least 3 times a week for the last almost 3 months now.. and I have to admit I am a much happier guy for it. Granted, getting up @ 5am is something to get used to.. especially if you're not really a morning person like either of us, but it's either that, or getting home in the evening and not being keen to go at all, after a day's work and the likes.. weird thing, although we have been hitting the squash court and the swimming pool fairly hard (I'm far more fit than I was in the beginning of the year), I haven't really lost weight through it..

Saying that losing weight is not part of my ultimate plan, would sound like sour grapes, but in truth all I ever wanted to do was increase my down time for diving with the Wessels family by dropping into the pool 2 - 3 times a week in the Planet Fitness in Claremont, and that we've achieved. I can now play a full 60 minute game of squash against Rudi and 5 minutes after leaving the court be back to normal breathing.. with the swimming it's getting there eventually, but the 30 minutes I did on Tuesday was a good indicator that I'm on the right track, something that puts a little gold star in my own mind next to me.

Carpel Tunnel : Well, that's the inevitable pain of being a developer who decided to bring his personal notebook to work when he was doing contract work for the company I'm now permanently employed by. It's not as serious as it sounds, but it has been causing trouble with doing photography, especially in portrait orientation with the 40D as I am yet to get a vertical grip for that [ in the process of dealing with Jacs about that though].

Lens probs : Ja eina.. this one is going to hurt. Around August 2007 I decided to get myself and Grea a decent walk around lens each... this was back in the London days... that said, also in the good London days.. I've been reading and hearing things lately.. anyways. I bought two 17-85mm EF-S IS USM lenses. Took one for myself and gave the other one to Grea.. all sorted.. or so I thought.. fast forward about a year... and my 400D starts acting up and giving me Err 01 problems.. I take it to ORMS in Cape Town who send it up to JHB [ as there is apparently no one in Cape Town area that's Canon certified to perform maintanence and repair on Canon bodies.. great].. Camera returns two weeks later... and about 40 minutes after I get home with it and put in a CF card, it starts giving me the same error.

Now, I'm not an unreasonable man... most of the time not... but this pushed my blood pressure way past the norm of 120 / 80 [ I wish that was mine ], and had me back in ORMS the next morning as they opened the doors before I even went to work... great guys that they are, send it back up to JHB [courier service now being free.. thanks again guys ], and the camera returns a week later.. with a completely new PC board inside.. yup.. they replaced the whole brain of my camera, and the shutter mechanism which had been faulty originally... and because they didn't detect it on the first go, they didn't charge me for the additional repair.. VERY nice of them.

Righto... so when I start getting Err 01 messages on my 40D about a month or so ago you all can understand my worry.. my intense worry... as a 40D is a lot more expensive and let's just say there is really no money at the mo for expensive camera repair... but I was getting the error only with the one lens, all my other lenses were working perfectly fine on either of the bodies I have.. uhm...

To complete the story...spoke to someone this week who told me of a camera repair shop in Durbanville, that specialise in lens repair.. I get the number from my contact, phone them up and the heavy American accent at the other end of the line asks me which lens it is, how old the lens is.. and what the problem is.. I explain and after a bief moment of comtemplative silence he utters that it is a common problem with the 17-85 that their aperture circuit packs up and cracks.. leaving the lens unable to step down so as to focus especially from the wider angles... the fix.. he has to order a circuit from JHB [ normally takes 3 - 4 working days to get here] and then "rebuild" the lens with the new circuit.. essentially servicing the lens in the meanwhile as well..

TCTM [total cost to ME] : in the order of R2000. For the moment being my 17-85 is living it's quiet days on my bedside table at the moment.. sitting next to the lamp waiting to go to the "doctor"... just for a little while longer still....until payday.

Deserving : Feels like the one that doesn't fit in sequence.. [you know the tests : apple, pear, tomato, bananna.. which doesn't fit]...

A giant friend in London has been in the photography game for a while now, not as per say pro but he's been doing a lot of stuff with his work and is starting to feel the rewards as he's starting to get some paying clients.. whoop whoop.. and deservingly so. He twisted my world view a little in the last 3 weeks or so.. and the effect of that has had me thinking for a while now, about a lot of things, to many to mention here.. I digress.

He sent me his radio triggers that he's been using for a while, and that I showed an interest into when we last saw them in London, which was at our leaving lunch on Guy Fawkes day in 2007, and then continuted to say that he couldn't think of anyone more deserving to send them to.. Yeah, I'm making way to much out of this, but it struck a chord (who wouldn't like hearing that though)... am I really ? I don't think so. Sure, my pics are ok, and in some occasions I'm lucky to get the odd really good capture, but not deserving :o)

Mr G-Unit, thanks for the radios. I'm going to have to build a Faraday cage around our bedroom though in the flat, as I never knew the amount of radio noise that's present in there. Two laptops, my Archos, the wireless N-draft router in the living room (very close to the wall), 2 mobiles and apparently a plethora of other devices emmiting something radio like.. ( I really have to stop playing with plutonium and uranium 238).

With something that seems like such a small gesture you've altered a mindset, know that much.

Greets to all

[Z, out]

Creative genius...

2009-02-23T10:26:00.002+02:00

Found this through Chase Jarvis this morning in Facebook..

Elizabeth Gilbert on Genius

She got me thinking for sure.. I'm going to have to get me a good genius.. lately my pics suck ;o)

Z [out]

Silence...

2009-02-13T12:07:00.001+02:00

due to lack of time management on my own part.

Have always had trouble with that "making time" for something concept. I suspect I'm just lazy.

I hope to have something a little more informative in a short while.

[Z], out .

It's time...

2008-08-10T23:00:00.002+02:00

to get a move on :)

It's been 3 months since my last entry here, and before that it took almost 6 months to write that entry. The reason : We've all been busy.

I'm also going to try and be more coherent here in my ramblings. [It was pointed out to me by my-almost-one-day-sister-in-law, that my posts tend to make people think I'm on something... herbal perhaps ? ].

So the year is 8 months old (if you want to be technical, not truly 8, but for a change I'm not being the technical irritant I used to be. I bet Dave won't believe that yet.) and a lot of things have happened.

Grea and myself are 3 months short of being back in SA for a full year now, something which makes one think, and in my case a lot. After having had a good week of holiday up north in the country ( thanks again to my-almost-on-day-sister-in-law for all the lifts and having us in her nice and warm flat over the two wkends we were there ), we've both come back to Cape Town rested and ready for the other half of the year. Work has had me hitting the road running, but I'm glad to say that this time I am scaling things back a bit and giving myself more time and hoping to learn from my mistakes. [all that being in regards to setting time lines]. I believe I might have found a strategy that will work for me, the project managers and owners and my direct boss and possibly the MD.

On a personal front : I'm going to be investing a lot more time and effort into helping my parents out a bit.

29 years they've stood by me, trying to educate me on family values and trying to make the most of a very rebelious son ( I'm very very stubborn I am) and they have both given the three of us ( myself, my brother and sister ) the best years of their lives.

They've worked really hard at making sure we never wanted for the important things in life. We never went to bed hungry or cold, were never short on clothes and the odd pocket money here and there to go have some fun, and have always felt loved.

I've decided to put my Saturdays for the rest of the year ( where possible, like when we aren't at weddings and the likes ) towards being at my parents place, helping out, first to get the bakkie up and running again ( which, if I'm honest, I don't think should take longer than a month or so of Saturdays), and then starting to help fix up my parents place.

It's not going to be a quick project, and I'm hoping that this also helps me to learn how to take on longer projects, where the outcome might only be seen in a few months time, rather than the mad rush I'm used to, in always trying to finish everything in a week or two. I want to start taking the long view, pick up my head a little and look further into the future, I think it's important to look at it that way. Hopefully that will also help me to see the enormous potential South Africa still has, even amid the vast amount of people who are leaving our country, and to find a niche in that to prosper in, (the potential that is, not the people leaving), so that I too can become part of the solution, rather than the big mouth on the sideline about all the problems we have.

I hope all is well out there.
I hope to write some more over the coming months, for the moment I'm setting a goal of one post a month, hopefully fortnightly.

[Z] out.

Forever contemplation ?

2008-05-01T23:45:00.003+02:00

A long time it has been since additional words have been placed on this blog, many a thing or two have happened in the meantime. I believe a few highlights are in order.

Last post was in December when I was still living back with the parentals ( after coming back to SA from the UK as you all well know, or didn't (as it turns out a lot of people thought we were still in the UK.. happened even recently that someone asked me if we were back yet ? Uhmm.. righto.. ppl, all my contact details on here and in Facebook has changed back to SA contact details.. duh !), and was wondering what to do with my time other than try and sort out furniture quotes and varnishing the book cases we received from Rudi's buddies : Marissa and Enrico ( again guys, thanks for all the free stuff, I still owe you that Forries lunch / dinner, perhaps next wkend ? )

Right, back to highlights ( we'll get to the topic at hand way later in this post I presume ).

Few days before Xmas Grieks came down with family back to Cape Town, we went to Kleinbaai ( Groenewald ocean sanctuary) for Xmas and boxing day, enjoyed it thoroughly and then Grieks, myself and my sis flew up to JHB for an almost 3 week holiday up North. This was my little sis' first flight and we made sure she was well nervous before and during boarding of the plane, and then just before take off as well, oh and landing was good fun as well :)

We spent New Year's with Grieks' family in Kroonstad and then departed for Durban on the 2nd of Jan ( dates are a bit vague now, I stand to be corrected) for Ed and Tarryn's wedding on the 4th of Jan in Ballito ( just north of Durban ). The wedding was a great success and the week spent after that in St Lucia ( Ed and Tarryn decided they'll have their week off after the wedding there as well, the honeymoon is/was going to belated, going to Aus [so so jealous] ).

Great times were had getting soaked while trying to go fishing, and driving in the game reserve close by :D Saw my first rhino in years and a few other animals I had never seen in the wild before either. Ed showed he had impeccable skill as a wild life tracker ( new career there sir ? ) and everyone took some great shots with the cameras we had in the car at the time as well.

From there we went back to Kroonstad and then flew back to Cape Town after a great Jan spent up north.

Mid Jan saw us hunting and getting a flat in less than a week. We started moving in so that Grieks would be settled before varisty started for her around beginning of Feb, but as it turns out I was the first one to start hectic work things when I was asked by MySchool ( www.myschool.co.za ) to finish their migration system that their IT manager had been working on since November last year. I accepted and in true Zodan style decided to rewrite the whole thing rather than just finish it and make the db interactions work..

You would have thought that experience would have kicked in, but alas I believe absolute stubbornness in believing I could do a better interface and make it more intuitive with AJAX prevailed... ie I didn't sleep much for the 10 odd days that I had to have it working from the 25th of Jan until the 4th of Feb that it was suppose to go live as the data capturers piled in to start their work.

I delivered, all be it two days late, the system that I wanted to write and had a happy MD and IT manager for it. There were many things ( and there still are ) that will have to get looked at in that system, but will be a module in a much bigger rewrite of the current internal systems that MySchool employs. The initial contract between myself and MySchool was to be only until the end of March, as they had not budgeted for another developer in their company for a year and I was perfectly fine with that.

Grieks started her M.Sc Marine Biology in Feb and have since been working hard, but enjoying her course immensely. I continued working under the premise that I'd only be with MySchool for another month ( after Feb ) and was pleasantly surprised when I was asked if I would like to stay on until end of June. I accepted.

In short that's basically been the highlights, E+T's wedding, holiday up north, found flat ( in very nice area), moved into flat, very happy with flat actually :) Grieks started her course and I'm gainfully employed again :)

The topic at the top of page needs some explaining I suppose : It's just been one of those weeks. Been thinking a lot. I started playing with HDR'ing ( there aint really such a term ) some of my old (although can one call a year old pic old ? ) pictures, any there have been some people who really like it. More and more wondering about taking up the camera more serious, not because I don't love what I do at the minute ( I really do love coding ), but merely because photography has been something I've always wanted to get into though..

There's been a lot of talk of the big 3 - 0 with friends lately, and a multitude of other things that have put me back to sit and evaluate things.. life.. just in general. I should really sit down and just think some things through decently.

Anyhoo, thought I'd let the world get an update on things. If anyone has time please post your view on this set of HDR's I've done to just try it out : HDR set link

Z [out]

Silliness

2007-12-09T04:13:00.000+02:00

Hola all.

It's been 4 weeks (almost to the day) that we've been back in SA, and tonight is truthfully the first time I have coded since we've been back. The silly part of this being that currently at 4:13am I am still sitting in front of my notebook and coding on something (which admittedly I only started on around 3:30am) that I have lost the original VB6 code for ages ago. It might be somewhere on the old Quantum hdd that I have in a drawer here somewhere, but at the moment I can't be bothered to put that into a system to check.

Just thought I'd share that with all, think the Cape Town heat is getting to me.

Z [out]

Time ticks on.. never stopping for anyone..

2007-10-28T06:29:00.000+02:00

It has been a long long while since I've done a decent post. Yet again this one is done very late at night ( time of the day it seems I like to just be sitting and listen to the wind outside, howling around corners and into little nooks and crannies).

So much has happened since last post. Life at work continued roughly the same as before. We went on holiday to the red sea, and I have to say it was an eye opener, in many ways. Red sea pictures here.

After a week of great diving, me doing my advanced diving course as well and us having a great time it came to an end way to quickly and we left Hurghada much more enriched, and with some more friends (habit we have, go on holiday, meet people, make friends.. most of the time with the crew :)... Got back to a wet UK, went back to work and I can't believe that's been just over a month ago.

2 days later we were back in the routine, as if we'd never been on holiday, but the pictures and all the memories are still there to show for it...

Back at work things we're going to change rather drastically after being back for a week or so, being that I was contractor it didn't affect me, but it did everyone else around me, and that I believe influenced productivity in the general sense. I got to grips a lot more with .NET and with Sitecore ( the CMS that the company now uses)... and learned a lot from a really friendly Danish developer called Kern.

The last week has been filled with leaving do's and drinks. Tuesday past was mine at IMG, then I played photographer at Grea's leaving drinks on Wednesday evening ( see pics here) , and on Thursday evening I met up with the crew of ITV (Central Business Systems) who I used to work with until Feb/Mar this year ( 2007 ). Friday evening we went to visit Pamela so that we could say goodbye to her as well, she'll be off to Algeria soon and won't be returning before we leave for Cape Town.

Those last few words haven't completely sunk in yet, "before we leave for Cape Town".
Loads of people have asked me if I'm not excited yet by the prospect of going home... and I can't answer them. It's not that I don't want to answer them, it is literally I can't answer them.. I don't know.. there are so many weigh ups on that one that somehow I dread going "home". I think I now understand why Micon was in such a weird way when he returned from the UK. He had been out under parental rule, he had made his own rules about coming in, what he ate, what he did, when he was out of the house, when he wanted to be back in the house.. and having done that myself, now more than once as it were, it's weird thinking of going back to living with my parents ( even if just for a short while ).

Comfort zone shifts : They are always.. challenging. Something which is not always a bad thing, just something which is nagging ? As I think about the next month or so it's of going back to what we had when we came to the UK. We moved in with family, so I had familiar people to associate with, roughly speaking that is, but there was a fair amount of stress in those first 3 months, uncertainty is in most cases the biggest stress point... not just here but in any new place I suppose, and although I know a lot of places in Cape Town, and how to get to them, I find myself... looking at pictures of home and missing it dearly, but also uncertain.

Did I accomplish the goals I set out to reach when we came.. the important ones I dare say I did. What does the future hold ? Much promise is what I believe it holds. Hopefully a lot of our friends we've met here in London and Glasgow coming to visit over the next 2 years ( while we build up a little reserve to be able to go visit them again). I know that Cassie, Adrian, Katie, Pamela and Jo have all said they are going to come visit, and they better, we've got their email addresses and we know where most of them live.. beware if ye don't come visit ;). Finding a nice place to live as well, close to campus for Grieks to have good access, getting a kitten ( flats don't handle dogs all that well) and having Micon move in with us so he's close to campus as well ( hopefully he'll get some more sleep in then).

I hope to take my photography to a few new levels ( thanks to G-man for the Strobist link, it looks like an awesome place for ideas / quests and updates on new techniques to learn), and I will be at two weddings in the next 3 months as well, not playing the main photographer fiddle however, just taking pics and hoping to put a different perspective on things. There might even be a nice business idea I got yesterday that I want to try... without adventure one has no idea of what's possible hey ? :) I also hope to get through the material for a MCTS qualification in the time that I have to myself during the next two months. That in part being taken on so that I don't go cold from development and also to cement my past 2 years experience with a formal developer's qualification ( touching a lot of wood ). Also maybe doing some freelance for a few old clients, but we'll see how time handles itself.

My dad has a few days of my time as well planned in helping him with a business idea he has.

All in all I am looking forward to going home, I am excited about everything I want to accomplish in the next 3 - 4 months as well, and there is a lot to be done, my only reservations are getting use to home again. Things back home have changed ( of course they have, life doesn't stand still and wait for you to return) and I look forward to seeing how we'll fit back into it again.

Hope all is well with everyone out there.

Z [out],

New Facebook Album

2007-08-30T23:15:00.000+02:00

Another album added to the Facebook pletora.

New album here

Le Blogging.. and all that kind of stuff...

2007-08-18T04:27:00.000+02:00

It's the wee hours of what promises to be a nice relaxing Saturday morning. I should most likely be in bed at this time of morning, but I find myself wanting to write... not anything particularly profound or mind boggling, just write something.. to be creative in a somewhat different way than what I normally go for.

As weird as my mind works ( I'm not always certain myself that it does work, but a few people have parted opinion to me that it must be working still, as I'm still in a job in London, all be it with IMG, and whether that's intellegent or not is debatable), I find myself thinking that true developers, not just coders, actual developers have some of the most fun. We get to use creativity (solution finding is very creative at times), structure and methodology to create an answer to a problem that didn't exist 20 years ago. It is my personal view that developers have been wrongfully branded as people who like to work with numbers the whole time, and thus are highly right brained ( please correct me on this one if I'm wrong, it's been ages since I've picked up my psych books, although they might even be out of date in trying to explain brain function as location based for certain functions involving creativity, math calculation and reasoning), and thus lacking that creative flair that our designer buddies all receive credit for. Sidenote : Interesting how designer/creative artist sometimes highly correlates with excentricity (typo anyone ?)

Don't get me wrong however, this is no smack out towards the creatively superior ( I use the word very loosely here) among us. I aspire to some day have a different look at all things myself, and did music, choir and a very very little bit of drama during highschool myself. Had I not wanted to express my creative side myself I would not have bought myself a nice camera either (note to all, and I know most of the photographers here know this, it aint the camera that breaks the bank.. oooh no... it be the lenses I tell you.. ) I just find it interesting that those labels were given.

Like I said.. just writing in general tonight, I don't even believe the paragraphs make sense.

Little catch up would be in order I believe. After the long long nights and days of working on the Manchester United Multilingual websites ( launched for their tour in Asia in Jun-July) and the subsequent fixing of things that were glossed over in the mad rush at the end ( is that new to anyone that's in web development ?) I had a week or two of just feeling completely burned out.

I had a week (not to long ago) of feeling so drained ( even with enough sleep I rush to add) that my productivity either halted completely or got very very near to that. A lot of people would go that's normal and to be expected after working 3 weeks at near full pace for 16 - 20 hour days.. but there is an inherent problem in Groenewald thinking. We have this thing that if we're not doing something constructive the whole time ( and that includes burnout time) then we (or rather I personally) feel very guilty for not being able to maintian said productivity level afterwards.

So it happened that IMG gave me a day off and paid for my day leave last week Monday. To briefly explain, I am on contract which means that any day that I'm not in the office working I'm not allowed to add that day to my timesheet that gets signed off by IMG and then sent to a whole heap of companies that invoice each other (to cause red tape) and eventually pay me for that day. So if I aint in the office I don't get paid for it. So I would like to thank Karina ( lead dev) and Matt (VP Head of Techonology) for affording me the day off, and I believe it was just the thing I needed. Grieks had taken the Monday off as well from the aquarium and so we made a nice long weekend with a lot of stuff happening, but most of all.. no work happening, none at all.. and I think that migth have been a sneaky plan by me brother and Grieks to keep me away from my notebook, and almost all the time glued to my camera. A very big thank you to them as well, if that was the intention, if not.. thanks anyways :)

It completely recharged me, gave me that feeling of wanting to develop again and rekindled the feeling of wanting to learn something new. Last week after that was a good week, and this week past I feel I moved a mountain or two, little ones perhaps, but moved them no less.

Monday we start with a new project that has what seems like a very tight deadline, although I've been assured by the lead that they have worked this out very well ( differently than how the previous project was done) and that there is a very definite project plan that will be followed ( yeah we all know those are guidelines anyways) for this one. And the initial documentation that we went through on Friday and in the kickoff meeting on Friday seems to verify that this one has less work meat around the bone, and more case study fat around it.. which for a change might be a nice change. I've been told my involvement in this one will keep me busy until the 18th of Sept, which is excellent, as we'll (me and Grieks) be heading to the red sea for a live-aboard holiday on the 21st of Sept until the 28th.

After playing around a little on Facebook just now I think it's time to head to bed.

Maybe another day I'll blog again. So much admin, so little time.

Z [out]

Stonehenge

2007-08-14T00:14:00.000+02:00

Just thought I put the link up.. we went to the place where klippies and cola was born..

Click here to see the birth place of klippies and cola

Z [out]

CONGRATS !!!

2007-08-09T14:46:00.001+02:00

A quick shout out to Grea, whom I very proud of, just to say congrats on getting the job from the Aquarium of London :)

Baie trots op jou my liefste.
Z [out]

June / July

2007-07-21T22:28:00.000+02:00

To the few that keep track of this blog, it's been a while, sorry about that, I've been doing what I seem to do best this time of the year, overwork myself.

It's been a long two months at the office of late nights, deliverance food delivery and late night mini cab rides home to London City Airport, which seems to be a non-favourite destination for the cab companies in West London ( being that we're all the way out in the East side ).

Me and Grieks did enjoy a really nice sunny day out in Brighton ( south of England) at the beach last Sunday, photos are to be located here and here [Grea's pictures].

Other than that Pamela went to Zimbabwe for some work, Jaco's still looking around for a job ( although he's sorting an interview soon [this week, but I'll let him update you on that one]).

As most would have seen July has also been a sad month for the Groenewald family (and assortment of other people) who knew little Cledan, she's gone to the big kennel in the sky. We're all missing her something bad, but also remembering the great times with her around the house, out to Kleinbaai and going for walks.

Things to look forward in the next few months :
August is fairly quiet, but that's just the quiet before the storm.In September Grea's parents are coming to visit in London for about 10 days from the 10th to the 19th of Sept, after which we ( myself and Grea) will be leaving for the Red Sea to go scuba diving, we'll be living onboard this boat for 6 days and nights, can't wait. It's all been paid for and the only things we'd need to sort out is visas when we arrive in Egypt and possibly getting shorty wetsuites for myself and Grea.

Things with work are starting to normalise ( in regards to leaving the office at around 17:30 or so), and I have accepted a month extention on my contract, with good possibility for extention beyond that to the end of October.

There hasn't been much time for deep contemplation lately, which might be a good or bad thing, hopefully in the weeks to come there'll be some reflective time.

Hoping to visit Stonehenge in the near future, as it should be a nice photo oppurtunity. Next weekend is the London leg of the Red Bull Air Races, happening literally outside our flat (with London City Airport as base) and the O2 (ex Millenium) dome as the center focus of the races. I've won qualifying tickets for the Saturday so we'll be heading out there on Sat with the cameras and possibly go stand on the foot bridge on Sunday to see the contestants whooosh past on their way to the course.

Greets to all
Z [over and out]

London City Airport Fun Day

2007-07-08T03:38:00.000+02:00

New London City Airport Airshow Facebook Album

A tribute to Cledan [my puppy for nearly 6 years]

2007-07-04T11:25:00.000+02:00

To the puppy who gave everyone in our family so much love and fun. Cared for us by being around and always wanting to go for a walk. We're all going to miss you dearly my pups. I feel huge regret for not being home, when you left us behind.

We all miss you so so much. Jou speel en ongelooflike geaardheid en liefde sal nooit vergeet word nie my woef.

Z[out]

Very bad generalisation

2007-06-29T16:30:00.000+02:00

Afrikaans South Africans ( cause it's really the only framework I can speak of personally,experience wise) lack the will to say no to a superior ( I feel a rather large liability in our upbringing), however I believe our biggest asset is our adaptability (to almost anything).

Comments more than welcome.
Z [out]

Something to think about

2007-06-19T13:33:00.001+02:00

Words that a friend of mine had as his MSN title today.

Your mind is a garden.
Your thoughts are the seeds.
Your harvest will either be flowers or weeds.

Thank you sensei

Z[out]

Biggin Hill Airshow

2007-06-04T10:39:00.000+02:00

Hi all.

Quick link for my dad to go have a look at the airshow I was at on Sunday ( 3rd of June). Biggin Hill (the commentators said) is considered the heart of both where the Spitfire and the Red Arrows started in the UK. This was an awesome show, hopefully the pics are ok for all to see.. the originals are a heck of a lot better though :)

Biggin Hill Album 1

Biggin Hill Red Arrows Album 1

Biggin Hill Red Arrows Album 2

Biggin Hill Album 2

Biggin Hill International Air Fair 2007 [3]

Biggin Hill International Air Fair 2007 [Croppings]

Still very much in the process of going through the 1080 pictures that I took and quick processing them to be able to put them on the web, trying to narrow them down to good shots however, there are loads that aren't really all that good, but I find it difficult to delete pictures of planes.

This post will be updated during the week with new links to new albums.

Greets
Z [out]

Facebook update

2007-06-01T09:00:00.000+02:00

Another quick link to a new facebook album that was created yesterday :

Click here for new Album

Need to get back to posting a little more frequently. Now that freelance is finally finished ( final approval is being done in the next few days and then invoice will be going to SA company in next week). I'll have a little more time on my hands.. perhaps.

Z [over]

Long time ...

2007-04-29T19:12:00.000+02:00

it has been since I've done a decent post.

I contemplated explaining why it's been so long since there's been a decent peep out of me, but I feel it might just become a soppy story of note and rather than dwell on it I'd just like to put it behind me.

Needless to say it's been two weeks of.. hell would probably be the wrong word, but it's a close approximation of how it's felt.I'm been spending near on 14hrs per day at work, through weekends as well, to finish a project that was completely misquoted and wrongfully judged by other people to be a quick and easy little roll out. It has not been, and it's cost me a lot more than just long hours.

The above mentioned long hours has stripped me of my creative side a bit.. I lack some inspiration to even go take pictures with the camera... something I've always loved to just pick up and take some shots with. Hopefully I'll get the bite again to pick it up and do something nice and creative.

In the meantime the news is positive. My brother will be heading over to the UK on the 26/27th of May and we'll be heading out to pick the man up at Heathrow (all be it with the tube...) so that we can confuse the life out of him when we start switching lines and zones as we head home to the East side... really look forward to him coming over, haven't lived with my brother for a while and it's always a nice experience when I've had to be at home in Cape Town between traveling and the likes..

More than that there's not much else to say really. I have learned a lot from the last 4 weeks at IMG media, but I'm not entirely sure at what cost yet. Soon I get onto a new project however, where Adam might be able to help me a lot, as it's supposedly going to be a project with ASP and Java involved with each other.... not sure yet myself.. sounds interesting. In the meantime I have to finish up some freelance, which I haven't been able to get to on account of leaving the house at 7:20am every morning and getting back home at 2am the next morning, to get up again at 6:30 so that I can leave at 7:20 again.

Hope all is well in the outside world.

Peace out [Z]

Facebook

2007-04-15T16:30:00.000+02:00

Hi to all.

Have been setting up Facebook profile over the last few weeks.

Here are a few links to Albums I've uploaded to there (merely because they have a really good Java Applet to upload multiple pictures at the same times).

Favourite Pictures [1]
Favourite Pictures [2]
Holiday : December 2006 : Boskoppie
Holiday : Jan 2007 : Kleinbaai

Be warned, there are a lot of pics in here :)

Greets to all
[Z, out]

Fulfillment

2007-04-13T12:36:00.000+02:00

" In life we can choose to fill our bank accounts and worry, or fill our minds,hearts,family and friends with memories together..." - some arb bloke behind a computer in London.

Micon's notebook

2007-03-26T00:52:00.000+02:00

This is just a pic to show Micon his new baby. She is currently being loaded with all the needs that a good notebook needs ( loads and loads of games). Before hopefully by the middle of April she'll be transported to SA for his enjoyment.

A few pics [part 1]

2007-02-17T21:48:00.000+02:00

Started going through the pics of the holiday that we had in South Africa (now almost 3 weeks ago, can't believe it's been that quick) and found some ones I thought I'd like to share, just because I like them.

I believe all of these were taken during our time with Grea's parents in various places from Kroonstad (their home town) to Sodwana ( the yearly diving spot 300km odd North of Durban if I remember correctly) and St Lucia ( which is about an hour's drive south from Sodwana)..

Above : [From left to right] :
1] Grea's mom, dad and brother (at Sodwana's lodge)
2] Looking at the moon from the deck at Sodwana Coral Diver's lodge. The roofed area is where
diving gear is hanged up after it's been rinsed in fresh water
3] Looking back at the lodge from the pool deck. Not the best picture I took of it, but shows the
little lights they had nicely

Above :
4] Refreshments after a day's diving is always important, here a little mix of Mountain Dew and
the old time poker favourite, Apple Sours.... stuff they don't sell here.. *sigh*
5] My current wallpaper on my desktop. This was taken outside the cabin (in the left of the picture) where Grea and I slept. The exposure was 8 seconds long, and I couldn't have done it without the tripod which Grea's dad brought with.. unfortunately I had made a rookie photography mistake in setting the ISO all the way up to 1600, bad bad move, but the one's I have of ISO 100 aren't as nice as this one.. they are a lot clearer though.
6] Yup, that's me, diving on 9-mile reef in Sodwana. This was the 1st of two dives we did while being in Sodwana ( having reached Sodwana apparently a day after weather which had caused all dives to be cancelled for near on 2 weeks). The mask, my fins ( not in picture) and a really nice snorkel had been a gift from Grea and her family to get me going on getting diving gear of my own..if you look closely though you'll notice that it looks as if the wetsuite is on backwards, it is.. to the amusement of all on the boat I had discovered this about 5 minutes before launch. I was however really not keen on trying to get out and back into it again, and then showing off the pink front of it.. next time, I'll take the 10 minutes to turn it around, not a comfy dive from that point of view, kept feeling as if I was being strangled.. but there won't be a next time pink suite, that I have vowed to myself.

Those are all Sodwana pics, so I think I'll add some more ( trying to make them in categories) tomorrow, there's just a fair amount to sort through :)

[Z out]

Goals 2007

2007-01-30T16:30:00.000+02:00

Howdy all.

So at the risk of sounding like another person ranting off his New Year's resolutions I've decided to write down and document ( this is a bit public I have to admit ) the goals that I have for the year.

There has already been some good news. I was under the (wrong) impression that I only had 2.5 months left on my visa to work in the UK, and that I would have to fork out the odd £1800 for a highly skilled migrant visa in order to work out the year here in the UK.

As it turns out, most of this came to my attention the Friday ( around 23:30 when we got back from hanging out with Grea's friends ) night before we were to depart to SA for a one month holiday. I had received a letter from Gabem informing that they wouldn't be able to manage my work related affairs as my visa was about to expire, which was completely false information. At the time I didn't have the energy or the time to think it through, so left it until we were in SA for a while and worked through it, sending emails to consulting firm asking why they were handed incorrect information. Everything was sorted out nicely, however I didn't fully read all the emails that came back, and was thus under the impression that 2.5 months was all I had left.

So yesterday I phoned up the consulting firm to ask what's going on and they explain ( as they had before in an email) that according to everyone's records I've only done 190.5 days ( works on hours) worth of work in the UK last year... sooo.. 12 months = 365 days.... 365-190 ( for ease of use ) = 175 days left. So, taking that there's about 22 working days in a month.. that is roughly about 8 months worth of working that I have left on my tab here in the UK.. excellent news, as that's about as much as I'd like to have left here :)

So.. that then sorted here follows the list of goals.

They are, to my knowledge, all achievable ( and most of the financial ones are based on the year past ).

1. Enjoy the next 9 or so months that myself and Grea is going to be spending here
2. Take one weekend out of each month and go visit a place with Grea
3. Hope to send a large sum of money ( pounds ) back to RSA every month (aiming for the 24th of each month)
4. Make enough to both no.2 and no.3 while staying in the flat that we currently call home
5. Buy another Canon EOS 400D (so that the black one becomes Grea's underwater tool)
6. Buy an underwater casing for Grea's Canon (will most likely have to sort out some strobes as well)
7. Try and figure out what I want to be doing (work wise) in about 5 years time, so that I can start making the moves to get there from now on
8. Take my morning and evening appointment with our personal little gym (the rowing machine) very seriously :)
9. Learn how to take nice composition pictures before I buy the 2nd Canon
10. Make a point of chilling out more this year ( Oct inspired that one)
11. Do very little ( where I can help it ) as possible freelance work, it's just not worth it really.
12. Learn how to play again.. pc games, the guitar, with life a little, just how to become a kid again :)
13. Spend good times with friends, as was done on the last holiday, and make loads of new ones.. like I did in Cape Town International with two Englishmen :)

Well, there we go. Those are the broad goals for the year, I might come back during the year and put ticks next to the ones I've reached, and question marks next to the ones I haven't yet.

Bookmarking this post.

Z, out.

Safe and sound

2007-01-28T02:15:00.000+02:00

This is a quick thank you shout out to one and all in SA.

After an 11 hour flight from Cape Town International to Heathrow ( which was fairly uneventful, compared to the Virgin flight we had back to Jo'burg) we moved through passport control and baggage claim within 20 minutes after landing and were on the tube towards home within an hour after landing, all in all it went painless.

To everyone who enjoyed the 4 weeks of bliss and sunshine in South Africa with us, who moved their schedules around to accommodate us, who sometimes on very short notice said yes to a quick impromptu meet, we really appreciate all the effort and time that everyone gave us while in SA. We truly have some great friends to return to at the end of 2007 when we finally come back to SA for good.

To Grieks' and my families : Thank you for all the love, attention, time and effort of having us around for the last 4 weeks. We hope that we've given you just a glimpse back of what you gave us.

Thank you for a great holiday all.

Time to head to bed to catch up on some more sleep.

Z, out

Holiday times...

2007-01-21T01:13:00.000+02:00

It's been three weeks of holiday-ing, and it's still to continue for a while.

We've been to some great places and have some really nice pictures of our travels and doings. There will be loads of them resized ( the Canon makes them a tad to big [size wise] to easily publish here), and uploaded to the blog when we return to the UK at the end of January 2007.

This is a quick and non-select shout out to all friends and family that we've been able to spend time with so far, we would really just like to thank all of you for some really outstanding times... from going to Sodwana with Grieks' family to just hanging out in and around Cape Town.

There had been loads of plans and things to do, however it would seem that the Cape Town holiday is getting a bit to me and Grieks.. we're both fairly exhausted as is, and that we seem to have to require a holiday when we return to the UK soon, just to recoupe from the Cape Town hollies.

Here's hoping Mr G unit is having a blast as well, but his blog did have a little post like this one saying it's good times for them as well, hope to hook up with them when we get back to London as well, as well as catching Fanus just before he and Hermien goes to Cape Town as well.

Hope all is well and that everyone had a great Xmas and a wonderful, bright, challenging new year.

Z, over and out [ for now ]

Sometimes....

2006-12-19T16:31:00.000+02:00

... you just don't want to anymore...

You know how you look forward to something so badly that you can't think of anything else..well, I'm that way about going home now.. it's been in the back of my mind for a long while still, and this week it's near touchable... however it is Tuesday and I still have to go through Wednesday, Thursday ( when the boss aint here though ) and then Friday to get to that.

I had hoped to take these two weeks off, but had jumped at doing the extention of contract merely for financial reasons... and wanting to finish stuff off.

Currently though the reports that I have to convert from what they were to what they're suppose to be is creating a real sense of not wanting to be around.. how I could have been at home organising things like what needs to be packed, sorting out all the finances and the likes and making sure everything is planned like it should be.. sorting out the freelance that is still in the wings as well, and possibly catch up on some gaming skillz.

I know that in March I'll probably be very happy that I did the extention, and that I worked through it all, but at the moment I just can't be doing with all this pressure about this and that having to be done by this and that date... annoying... ah well.. only 3.5 more days... then it's airborne time and some red wine on the plane and wait for morning to come around.

Greets to all
Z

Quick jab in between SQL queries....

2006-12-06T13:13:00.000+02:00

It's a nice sunny ( don't mistake that for warm though ) day in the Capital today ( at the moment, Oct and Micon would tell you it switches here almost on the hour [the weather that is]).
And while running queries that is updating the catalogue database of one of (if not the biggest) distribution houses in the world ( fun I tell you, no pressure ) I've blink while looking out the wall windows we have here at work, and realised I came here for the wrong reasons.. but, the plans to rectify that is already in place though.. so come the 27th of Jan 2007, we'll start the implimentation of that then ...

That said as well, we've had some great news : Adam is possibly coming to live with us in our London flat... legend !! :) He's flying to Manchester on the 28th of Jan and then flying down to London most likely on the 29th of Jan (to London City Airport which is like 1km away from where we live), and then he'll hopefully be picking up an engineering job over here, don't want to let to much out of the bag yet.. but if it all pans out... there might be a gaming console on the way for the house in the near next year... choices choices choices :)

Z over and out.. l8r.. today is going to be loooooonggggg...

(Zodan.fortnight.nolife=="Y")

2006-12-04T17:33:00.000+02:00

But that is entirely been my choice. I have loads of freelance to finish off, and start as well, as the UK freelance has kind of fired up again. That said as well, I have accepted the contract extention that my boss at ITV has offered me to keep me coming into the city until the 22nd ( the day before we fly home for a month's worth of holiday). So those little things I had thought I'd be able to catch up on.. things like sleeping late every morning and playing games the whole day, will have to wait until we set feet in South Africa, and there I doubt that our time will be spent sitting around doing nothing either.

Plans for Cape Town seem to be falling into place nicely and that means a busy busy time of seeing friends and hanging out.

Well, just a short update on Z's life post.

L8r
Z

Late night thinkings...

2006-12-04T02:48:00.000+02:00

....these are things I love very much. Listening to the wind howl around the corners of the flat we live in, at 2am in the morning, very little light in the flat, and a nice cuppa in my hands.. normally accompanied with some soft thought provoking music, Snow Patrol is good for that...

The time of day/night when most of the people around are suppose to be solidly asleep, though I was told by Micon and Octavo alike that there tends to be more people out in London after 22:00 at night then during the day. I have learnt why as well in the last 9 months of working in this city.. coming from CT to here is a fairly large pace shock, not something I didn't anticipate, but even my anticipation was overwhelmed by how fast everything "has" to happen here.

Lately been wondering what the really NB things in life are. (At the very least to me). After having been able to buy almost all the gadgets and material things which I had thought I'd like to get ( short on the PDA though, but really haven't found what I was looking for, and the one that does exist on the market is far to large, maybe in a year or so there'll be some development there. Anyways, after being able to buy those things, the notebook, the camera, the TV (that was a huge splash out on myself and something I stuggled with for a while after actually buying it).. after all those things... I've realised they are dead and worthless compared to the memories that were created with friends.

Here I would like to add a special thank you to Grea. Every guy who gets into a new relationship has one particular fear (among many others), and that is that either "the guys" aren't going to like the new girlfriend, or/and the new girlfriend won't like "the guys" and not want to hang out with them.

Grea's introduction to my two best friends was even more difficult as she was being introduced to them in the true geek form that we all used/still am had entertained ourselves back then.
Oct had his parents' place for the weekend, and we had thought it a great chance to work on our CS movie that had been in the planning for a while... so it was going to be a classic weekend for us of games, risk, loads of talking, junk food and just lounging around.

My fears were very shortly sliced into tiny little pieces when Grieks started playing Risk with us and relaxing ( at the very least on the outside ) around this group of geeks who were enjoying playing games and trying to sort out some footage for a game movie with a story line...

Things got even better when we started hanging out in and around Cape Town where Oct would take us to pick Grieks up and we'd let loose on Corner house and the Shack.. who remembers the coke dude in the Shack that challenged everyone to a game of pool and came back from the toilet heavily sniffing ? :)

The thank you goes to Grieks, thank you my love for making every effort to make "the guys" feel safe around you, and to letting us spend as much, if not even more, time together as "the guys" and joining in on the fun, you are one in a million, and I will forever cherish that :)

Just a few more days, then we'll be on our way to JHB for a 2 week holiday with Grea's parents in the north of South Africa, after which we'll be in CT for 16 days. For anyone wanting to catch up in Jan while we're in CT please refer to the dates post here ( think it's either 3 or 4 posts back), and let us know when you'd like to hook up :) We won't be easy to contact for the 1st few days in Cape Town, but after the 15th things should be a lot easier.

Z [10-4]
PS : rktFuel is one mean driver in NFSU2, but he still kills anyone in StarCraft.
That reminds me.. there'll be some emails going out to friends in SA to ask if they'd like to become part of a VPN based on Hamachi (http://www.hamachi.cc/download/list.php) for the playing of StarCraft Broodwar games. Concept is that we'll be having a LAN (as we used to set up at the school computer room.. hehehe.... and those many locations in the last 8 - 10 years) over the net. DSL subscription should be more than ample for the usage of the VPN, and no money is required to join the VPN, neither to download the software and install it. But details will be mailed out in the next 3 - 4 days to all concerned and invited parties.

The good ol' days ?

2006-12-02T21:21:00.000+02:00

Wa'd up ya'll ?

I wanted to,don't really know why.. just thought I'd do the Parow thing, being that me and Grieks used to live in the "hood" as it was termed by both housemates and other friends.

And it is with the last word in above paragraph in which I'd like to write about.

There are memories edged into my mind, not out of pain, but out of pure fun and laughter and 1st time experience ( as Craig would say), of some really good times in the last 7 - 8 years.
London has been a great experience this year, we've made friends here that we will have for life because they are great people, and we've even put in place some prelim plans to show them the beauties of Cape Town when they come visit just after we hopefully return to CT for good at the end of Nov 2007.

Having found some friends of a little further back in history ( more friends of Jaco [my brother] than mine, but people who I got to know a lot more when I worked [G-unit] with (even if it was at St. Elmos :), and went to varisty with for 4 years as part of a lift club, who had also come to London and had dropped into London within 2 weeks after myself and Grieks braved the weather of this place.

It is great to have historic (in the sense that we knew them before we got here), but one of the tough things of being this far from "home" is the lack of having my good mates Micon and Octavo here in London. Lately memories of Dustbowl ( of which I still owe Oct money for the evenings that we booked into the hotel for), Milnerton LAN's, especially having 2 stunt kites flying on the hockey fields in the middle of the night, one of which (mine) is absolutely black... sounds daft but it was great fun. Weekends of lanning and playing Risk, getting into debates about all kinds of things, dropping off to McD's on Saturday after having a long Friday night worth of gaming, and then not listening to the good advise of all parents around the world to let your food settle before having a dip in the pool at Oct's parents' place.

Going out to Stones to go get cigars and play some games of pool.. even becoming regulars at the Durbanville Stones, with the sweet bar lady who used to serve us there. She even kept our favourite table for us after the 1st week of us showing up almost every evening for 3 weeks. Yet more debt I have to settle with Oct for that as well (having been a student at that time).

Going to Kleinbaai to get away from the hectic life of CT, playing risk until all the girls were possibly bored out of their skull with us, then sitting up with coffee and just listening to either the wind howl outside of the break of the ocean on the rock just across the road from the house, many many a great memory there, even once making the mistake to take pc's to Kleinbaai.. bad idea.Munchies, Jelly Tots, shot glasses and always trusty Grieks' pack of cards.. later on the nice warmth from the wood "kaggel" in Hennie's corner.

We've really enjoyed London the last 9 - 10 month's that we've gotten settled (very subjective there) here, but the things I mentioned above here are the things I sincerely miss. Sitting in Oct's "flat" at the back of his parents' place and just listening how Oct and Micon thought through things. Going out to Corner House ( in the good ol' days before it became a techno dance house, but was a rock house) with Grieks and the guys, a finer Friday has not yet presented itself since, there have been a few really good ones since, but nothing like being told to assume the position for tequila swirls at Cantina Tequila in the Waterfront, after which we made the rounds out to Corner House and a little later on to that famous used-to-be 24 hour eating place in Rondebosch (which I'm not going to try and spell as normally at that time of the evening we were more interested in getting something to eat than trying to remember the spelling on the door :) ), now converted ( last time I saw it) into a tourist office / booking operator. After which the drive home as always interesting... and then walking from Oct's place ( sometimes after some coffee) around the corner and up to home in the middle of the morning.

There were a few of those mornings where it was so surreal to be walking that little stretch that early in the morning. Brackenfell that time of the morning was / probably still is, completely silent, even as the N1 highway only passes about 150metres from there it has this beautiful quiet about it.

I miss it to sit and listen to the chat and banter of my two great friends talking about planets, thoughts, ideas and the future.

Z

Time space and... internal struggles ?

2006-12-01T01:53:00.000+02:00

I think it can be fair to say that I never liked choosing between two things... I'm one of those guys that never says no to something merely to keep it open as an option.

Never said no to scuba and to be honest that was one of the best option open keepers ever ( thanks Grieks for opening a somewhat scared of the idea-guy's eyes to the magical world under da sea )...

I don't know who reads this blog, and in all honesty it shouldn't stop me from voicing my opinion on things, things that concern me so deeply, but is essentially none of my business.. [is this vague enough ?.. hopefully it is].

Things from the Bible that lately make a lot of sense : You can not serve two masters equally.That's more about work than personal sense, it's not easy to do freelance work and do a full time job, sometimes it's needed to be done that way, still however doesn't make it easy.

I do not like choosing ( you have to hear the kind of conversations me and Grieks has about what we're doing for dinner... all in good fun though :) ).

Maybe for a while longer I can debate what it means to be a true friend.

Here's hoping my neck feels back to normal again tomorrow evening, then I'd be able to get back to some rowing again, heck knows my mind and spirit needs the exercise, not to mention this pair of love handles I've been harbouring.

Check out some of the rugby pics we took on the 18th of Nov test between SA and England at
Sharky's Blog like the pano that Grieks built from three monochrome pics... was playing a bit with the camera's preset settings for light settings.

Friends care about each other's happiness.
[z,out]

l33t Husky

2006-11-26T03:08:00.000+02:00

Pirta was keen on doing some Photoshop on some of the pics we took at Twickenham last week with the rugby, so I gave him some tunes and my notebook to play with for a while.

(Hard working Husky)

Dates

2006-11-13T23:46:00.000+02:00

for those who can't remember or those who did not know, here follows the travel dates.

Leaving London : 23rd of December (around 18:00 or somewhere close to that).
Arrive in JHB : (touch wood) 24th of December around 8:00am (add about 3 hours for customs and then some other stuff then we might be out the airport around 12:00 or so)

Leaving JHB for CT : 10th of January 2007. Time : undisclosed.
Leaving CT for London : 26th of January 2007 : flight leaving around 20:00 as far as I recall.

Please refer back to these dates and times if you forget.

[Z]

Due to some popular...

2006-10-05T20:20:00.000+02:00

ok.. so it was only one person asking to update the blog as I haven't posted in the last.. 2 weeks ? :) Here's one for you then Micon.

You wanted some pics as well.. sorry to say but that not being my forte you'll have to push GG's button to get some news pics on her blog, which she does fairly regularly though.. so don't know why you nagging about that :)

How is life ? Well.. it's getting that time of the year here in London.. winter.. and it's getting pretty dark pretty darn quickly to. My sleeping patterns are all over the show, but that has very little to do about the weather I have to admit, might be all them stress that I'm throwing onto my own plate.

Now they say ( whoever they might be ) that true madness is doing something again and again and expecting a different result. I believe I am entering the stages of true madness, then again, those who have known me for a while ( you know who you are ) would have said that ( most likely to my face as well ) ages and ages ago.

That reminds me ( side note ). Werner came to visit last weekend. Was legend to see the man again. He's changed ( as we all have though ) and grown as a person a lot, but in the classic Werner way of things he's very much the same kind of guy we all knew at school. Hard worker and enjoys hanging out with friends :) This time with a little less hair ( he's semi-shaved it) and with more hair on his chin than his head :) But that could just be because he was on holiday here with us.

He came around on Saturday evening and we just chilled here at home and watched Da Vinci Code. Long movie.

On Sunday though we (eventually) got up and went to Greenwich market for two reasons. One : GG wanted to go buy something for her friend's b-day ( who's semi-party we're going to on Friday ( tomorrow ) night), and we hadn't had anything to eat so I was thinking a pub lunch wouldn't be a bad idea... and so.. we ventured outside, finding out that the bed or couch with some hot choco or coffee and another movie ( possibly getting some of that all important 8th food group : pizza ) would have been a VERY good idea.. the drizzle had decided to attack us.. and in a fairly big way.. so we reached Greenwich market all soaked and hungry ( after meeting up with Bets, GG's friend at Canary Wharf ) and so we got some burgers and the likes and sat down to a late lunch / brunch / pub lunch ( which in this country apparently goes miles until about 14:00 or something :) )

I've got some freelance work to do tonight actually so think I'll update everyone over the weekend a little more, when the perception of more time is a little true, but it's still pretty much a lie :)

Have fun all.
Z [over]

Nearly a month

2006-09-24T01:53:00.000+02:00

... has it been since I've last blogged. There are a multitude of reasons why that is. (Just took a while there to email old school friend who's coming to visit next weekend, haven't really seen him in ages).

Listening to song that friend sent me. Afrikaans song about SA ppl working in London and living here, never really belonging and never really leaving, get use to the lifestyle.

But back to the topic at hand, a month has passed.
Work : Things have had a fair amount of ups and downs in the last 2 weeks. I received extention of contract that started two weeks ago. Going to be running for 13 weeks ( touch wood), and the first two has been.. painful I dare say.

Those who are in the know of contract work on projects. You tend to have to give a recollection of your time spent on which projects that was done ( normally all of them have budget codes inside of the company that you are contracting into, but not always) and it was with that problem that I was struggling the last two weeks.

There are two really big projects at the moment running in the CBS (central business systems) department, the one that I work in. The one is heavily involved with finance. Now, needless to say, when a company that does about £1bn a year turnaround and is one of the countries leading television broadcasters, has a CBS project that involves finance it tends to pull rank.. in a big way.. and so when the new system was to be rolled out, Paul (kind of lead developer), Wendy and Rob (my boss) were still working on the coding of it on the Friday before it went live... not really the best way forward, as these things go they had to go up to Manchester ( Paul and Rob that is) to install some hardware for the upgrade of system. They were to spend a day there and then return on the Tuesday... Ironically on the Monday that all this was happening my new contract was due to start, but I had run out of work, had taken a sicky on the Monday to give the guys some breathing space as well, so they wouldn't have a SA guy asking what he can do or if someone has work for him to do, which, thinking about it now they wouldn't have been able to answer because they wouldn't be in London.

Anyways...

So on the Tuesday I went in to work expecting to see Rob and Paul back at the office.. and when it struck around 9:30 and neither was in I realised things had not gone well on the Monday. They weren't coming in, they were still in Manchester, not good.

And thus my dillema started. I got to work, asked what there was to be done and got a budget-code-less (and that last four letters is what is suppose to make you cringe) timesheet project, which Kieran told me shouldn't keep me busy for longer than a day and then Rob and Paul will be back and there'd be something else for me to do..

And thus it didn't turn out that way. Poor Kieran had done very minimal programming in ASP, and weirdly enough in web development. Now, don't get me wrong, the man does what he's suppose to do very well, and he works very very hard. But I honestly got a half baked something. Wouldn't go so far as to say I got a site.

So I got the AJAX part of it to work, which had been his struggle at a time because he never really got a clear hour or two to work on the project ( and that showed for sure). Day passes and Wednesday comes along. Paul and Rob return.

Now things had gone particularly bad up north and things were still going bad. So I gave them their breathing space rather than to ask and bother ppl who are highly stressed. I took to working on the Timesheet project just to stay out under foot from the finance project. But the project I was working on had more and more faults as I went deeper into it. What I should have done, was just rebuild the whole thing from scratch when I first set eyes on it, but alas, that I did not do, and that is outrightly my fault. So it came that I've basically spent about a whole week worths of time ( which is a lot of money from ITV's point of view to pay) on a project that is no closer to working correctly than when I got it on my plate, and I feel guilty that I'm going to be charging my time against it. I have tried to do some creative admin in the lines of charging extra little bit here and there to other projects, but essentially I'm not sure what to do with it all. Maybe I should ask Rob the best way forward, he is after all my boss and should know these things.

All that being sidenote to why I actually am still up and writing this post.

I love being up really late, especially in the flat, I tend to look out over South London from here and think about all those people living their lives and for the greater part of them being asleep. I enjoy trying to think up really huge philosophical points of view, yet very seldomly being able to find either the topic to think about or keep one train of thought.

Funny actually, as I sit here I'm wondering what the time spent here in London over the last 7 odd months has taught me... I used to be very open with personal information, what I earn, if I can afford this or that, where I'd like to go in life, what I'd like to do, and I feel it sad that in having one bad run with a landlady I've closed up, my plans and ideas are privy only to myself and Grieks at the moment. Oh sure, almost everyone I know or that is close to me has a general idea of where Zodan is heading, maybe. Uhmm.. this feels like blabbering for blabbering's sake.

Maybe I should post this and go to sleep... it's been a longish day, and tomorrow I'll be doing a lot of freelance work stuff.. loads of it actually to be honest.

Best bet forward. Time to go hit the hay.

[10,4]
Z

Good news

2006-08-30T00:36:00.000+02:00

Well, we're getting there with the new flat.

We moved in on Saturday after buddy Fanus helped us carry stuff over from the otherside of the dock to where we now reside here in Britannia Village, in our own little 2 bedroom apartment. Has a very nice lounge, cosy little kitchen (yes the subtext would be tiny there, but for two ppl who know their way around each other it's a perfect place) and two really nice bedrooms, with one bathroom and yes it does have a proper ( not like with previous flatshare) showerhead.

There were a few appliances missing and some crockery needed to be filled in, and thus we filled those gaps tonight by doing hopefully the biggest ( I surely don't wanna do more of those) shop at an ASDA store we've ever done.

Phone line and internet will hopefully get sorted out soon (phone line update is that BT technician will be here on Tuesday 5th of Sept to activate the line to the flat) and then we'll be home dry on our own inet, finally getting some bandwidth to download some nice things.

I bought storage router in the last week, and just waiting for the USB hdd caddies to arrive so that I can plug the 20GB notebook hdd that I'm borrowing from work into the caddy and plug that into the router, tried to share a USB memory stick over the network tonight and it works like a bomb, so can't see any reason why the hdd shouldn't work either :) Then it'll be some stress testing but after that we should be all sorted :)

Being a guy that likes to look forward into the future I've started looking at the prospecting property market in SA... my goodness, there are even some properties next to previous work that are going for R1.2m, for a tiny little place like that, and in Woodstock no less, dodge central. Can only but gasp at what the market is looking like at the moment. Had a look around Brackenfell (old home town) and in all honesty, I didn't know it was that... hair raising. It's a little bit worrying, because i'm not entirely sure how we'll be able to enter the market when we return end of next year to the beauty of Cape Town. Maybe a nice UK lotto won't hurt to much. But we'll see what we can do..hoping to get into some off-plan investments end of next year, but there are other avenues as well to explore. Before that though, there are a fair amount of debts to clear.

Hope all is well with those reading the blog. Promise to get some more words down a little more regularly soon, life just a tad hectic at the moment though.

[Z,out]

Failings....

2006-08-18T20:28:00.000+02:00

Some ppl in life get really hard on themselves if things don't work out for them.

They qoute things like, "Life isn't fair" or "I should get [insert random stuff/emotions here]", and in most cases it tends to be very self focussed. Yeah, I'm generalising, but this is my blog, so I'm allowed.

Me, I get really pissed off at myself when I feel I've let anyone else down. And I feel I have. Rather severely at that as well. The whole current rent/work/contract/my boss doesn't know/can't tell me because it's waiting on someone coming back from his/her holiday is getting really tough. I don't mind it weighing down so much on me, but I cannot convey in mere words the amount of hatred I have towards (and I know hatred is a very very strong word ) myself for putting Grieks through all this.

I'm sorry my love, that I didn't think before I acted, and gave notice, a month to early.

Z[out]

Quick one : Motorshow Pics

2006-08-16T23:11:00.000+02:00

Last night I finally got the motorshow pics that I took on two visits to the British Motorshow ( oh the perils of working for ITV that gets free tickets to stuff that they are media partners with.. o who is me ).. So I thought I'd share a few nice ones.. rather, the only nice ones I could find. It would appear that I'm not the l33t guy behind the camera that I had hoped... in time I shall become more than padawon... maybe...

Without more waiting : Pics.

Pano of the Button F1 Honda, finally the man got his 1st win as well, not in this one though.

BMW Z4 : 3.0 litre beast, flatmate has one in 2.0 litre. Looks like nice car, her's is called Jack, Grieks has had a drive in Jack with Pamela, I'm still to be honoured with such a drive... maybe before she sells him.

Forget what you've heard about this monster, this is no small car. Those of you who have seen/ stood next to a 7 series BMW (which was strangely lacking at the motorshow), this is a level up. Those who know me personally, see the top of those wheels, those reach to about halfway between my knees and my top hipline, yes I kid you not, this is a ship on wheels, but so so beautiful.. they weren't doing testdrives though.. sux.

The only Mini I would be able to afford at this moment in time.. looks kewl though.. maybe one for Cledan :)

Mazda concept car... Zoom Zoom [as Grieks would say :) ], looked really kewl on the inside as well, but there's another pic on G-unit's blog of him sitting in front of it revolving around. Shweet car man.

This little sequence would be the opening (of the "cockpit" as they like to call it) of the AeroX from SAAB [ for a change a really kewl looking car from the people who tend to bring us cabroleits that don't really.. excite is the word ?

If you'd like to see more .. follow on to here, but ye be warned, fast system and high broadband ( or long wait) advised : Not for children consumption, this will empty anyone's pocket.. if they had more of them.. : LINK, CLICK HERE FOR SPAM :)

Rosy, sometimes life aint always it...

2006-08-06T19:50:00.000+02:00

Standing at a crossroads lately. There are a huge amount of choices to be made in the next two weeks, all of them are going to have a fairly profound effect on me and Grieks' lives, we want to stay here, and I've finally eliminated all my SA and UK debt so that we should be able to pick a place here somewhere that's nice ( we're moving flat yup, long story, don't know if I want to blog about it, caused enough energy drain because of it, will just be more to blog about it).

Doesn't help that my contract runs out in 4 weeks time either. But I have emailed my boss today to ask if basically there will be enough work to keep me going at ITV ( which I know there is, but just trying to focus on that, I really enjoy working there, and enjoy the team), so it's not easy to be us at the moment. We have a lot of viewings of flats in the next three days that are coming up.I'm hoping that we can get an option on the Western Beach one, and that Pamela likes it as well so that we could move in there.. if however my boss comes back to me in this week to let me know that hey, no problem, we'd like to have you for another 6 months then one part of the saga will be sorted out, and the other part of it will follow suite, being that I'd have proof of income. There are however other ways around the scenario. I just don't like having things up in the air to be honest, I like knowing what's going to happen next, and unfortunatly it seems we've decided ( this is most likely all me though ) to cut it far to fine/close on this one and in all honesty it is my fault.

[Monday] : It's been a long and fairly frustrating day at work today. I'm having difficulty finding the things I have to find (code wise) in the CMS that we use here at work, and thus that's adding to the other stresses that I can't complete my work in the timely manner that I always enjoy doing. Grrrr, not helping that Paul (lead developer, and guru familiar with the CMS for the last 2 years) is on holiday as well, so there is really no one to ask about Autoplace behaviour in Swordfish, especially regarding ASP uploaded documents and the default folder behaviour of them.. none of this making sense to anyone else, well at the very least then I'm not alone :)

So we'll see what the week holds for us, at the very least we'll be heading over to Scotland to go have a bit of a breather.

Greets to all.
Z

Are we there yet ? ...

2006-07-28T10:57:00.000+02:00

Well.. almost.. a fairly large milestone was hit today. My funds that I transfered from the UK into SA account to pay off all my creditcard debt.. it cleared into my cheque account and so I quickly logged in this morning to do some transfers and pay off the budget account and those kind of stuffs.

I am officially creditcard debt free. I have paid off my UK creditcard ( which was used to live of for a month) on Monday when I got paid and so today marks the end of an era in debt stuff.. (for the time being, but I think that buying house and the likes will be a little way off still)..

I however still owe my dad a fair chunk of money, but he's keen that I work with that for him over here in some mid to long term investment options.. which I'm looking into myself as well, hopefully soon to be able to make some little extra here and there on a few stocks over the next 10 - 15 years... but will play that idea around a few other people I've met up with lately.

Will do a nice long post over the weekend again with a little more time.

Greets to all..
Z

Life.. it is good

2006-07-19T11:53:00.000+02:00

In all fairness I could rant and rave about how I still don't have broadband at home, how I still have debt to pay off to both bank and family and how I should have done this or should have done that, and should not have done that... but we all have those...we all have tough times and we all have things we shouldn't have really done.

Today this mini post aint about that, is just to say that things are actually fine, life is really actually good. I've got a bit of a scratchy throat, and Grieks might be hitting a bit of a cold, but there are no real big dramas in our lives at the moment. We have a great place to stay (roof over our heads, more like ceiling though), great flatmate who's planned a "wee" whirlwind tour of her home called Scotland for mid August ( she's even taking us with on the sailing boat she's chartered for her dad's 60th birthday). We've promised to go show her the sites and sounds of Cape Town come end of 2007 when she'll be making a turn in CT, of which we'll make sure now won't we.

Feeling more and more positive about work and everything around me than I had the last 2 weeks or so. It's amazing what a change of project/responsibility can do to a person's sense of belonging.

Don't get me wrong, I don't feel I belong here, just feel a little more in place though :)

Hope everyone else out there is having a nice day, even if it is a rainy one.

10-4

Home...

2006-07-16T01:01:00.000+02:00

.. missing it and the likes does get to one over here. No matter how tough your skin is and how hard you think you are, everyone sometimes gets that pang that hits us all as we think back to home, where we came from.

That said, this just really made me sad : http://www.theherald.co.za/herald/news/n03_14072006.htm . Here the police were doing their duty and the mentality in SA is that they are causing trouble, when all they are doing is stopping another person destabilising the SA electricity grid illegally, something which has lately (the last6 months or so) just caused loads of trouble.

For SA to survive and move forward there is going to have to be a huge mental shift for the masses. It seems unfortunate that we haven't been able to trust our goverment to help all of the people of our country to make that mind shift from "The world owes me this and that because of history.." to "We need to work together to make for a progressive South African nation".

Just an arb post after having read an arb article.

Till another time.
Z

Time to pick it all up again..

2006-07-10T23:11:00.000+02:00

Have been having a bit of a downer week, and things like work and personal esteem has been suffering a bit under it, not due to home sickness or anything like that, just a general feeling of not being good enough for the job that I'm being paid a fair salary for. Everyone else I talk to keeps on telling me I'm talking through my nose, that I'm good enough to be paid the amount I am, and in some sense I tend to believe them, but the perfectionist in me never sleep, and I mean never, sometimes wake up in middle of the night thinking some really sad things like ... "I could have coded that stored proc so much better by doing this and that and blah blah..." and the weird thing is that I tend to get back to the code I wrote, reviewing it (normally on own time), and thinking.. actually.. it's very good code cause I can use it somewhere else again..

All that said ( this aint going to be a long post though), there are loads of things I wish to learn and I have a bit of a plan on how to do it. I'll be testing it over the next 2 - 3 weeks to see if I can keep at it for as long as I need to make it all habit.

There will be a little bit of a glitch in the making of the habit, the London Motorshow on the 21st of July, being that I've taken the day off work as well, to go look at some really really kewl cars :) And then in the evening go to UB40 concert... I know I know.. it's not my normal music, but I've heard they are really good live, and to be honest, they were the only concert that jumped out when I was looking at the concert list.

Had been keen on going to the Air Tattoo (http://www.airtattoo.com) next weekend, but in all fairness don't really have the finances to do so.And on the other hand I really don't have a nice camera with kewl lens to make it worth the while either.

Anyhoo ppl, it's late ( relatively speaking ) and I have a new regime to start.

Hope all will have a great remainding week ahead.

Greets
Z

Been a week...

2006-07-09T00:17:00.000+02:00

since previous posting, actually, think it's been a bit longer than that.. ah well.

The time past : (anyone who's ever written me an email and gotten a reply should recognise this format.. those who don't.. welcome to Zodan standard answer mode).
Back to the point.. time past since previous post. Uhmm, ja, not much really to say though.. work has been moving forward, although on Thursday things started to take a dive for the bad side of living in the UK. The british in general (and by that I mean the English, generally not the Irish/Scottish, have a tendancy to be slackers of note... it seems the virus which infects them hit me for a short stint of a cold over Thursday and Friday. Not proud of this, I enjoy my work to pieces, and enjoy learning new things every day, which I have to admit I should give Mr Doswaul a lot of credit, he's a good teacher ( though not mentor, there being a fair difference there, my previous coding boss is a mentor ). He ( Mr D), points one in the general direction and then allows the padawon to learn on his own, without showing to much, but generally giving a good idea of what is to be done.

Since then a few things have happend though. Previous friend has contacted me in regards to a possible partnership in a few business models that he is interested in going into. Knowing that said friend has a fair amount of investment capital would be a tad of an understatement.

The development though has put me into thinking mode, not that I haven't been in the mode for a long time though, this just kind of moved it up a notch I suppose.

Blah blah, time to just babble.

It's 23:45. Sitting in the living room looking out over the view, only person awake in the flat. Lights on dim in the living room, great open London night, great view as well. DLR going past on the King George V line, listening to calm relaxed tunes on notebook, in contemplative mood. Especially about the things I really miss. My two best buddies in Cape Town. The really great times that were had on numerous occasions, from going to huge lan in a town where you'd never expect it to just lanning at Oct's place, introducing Grieks to the guys at a lan, [ John Mayer - Comfortable ] , to going out and getting completely clobbered on my b-day with the guys and Grieks (who had saved me from a lot of embarresment for hiding the "extra" drinks :) Thanx my lovely, still owe you big for that one :), to playing risk with everyone and drinking Vodka, staying up really late on week nights and just chatting about the games we were going to write, checking out the stars and Saturn @ Micon's place with the telescope. Going to the beach with Oct and flying kites, screwing it up and getting lines cut.. going to Corner House on Friday nights, going home at really great hours in the morn on a Sat morning, and then having a cuppa at Oct's place before taking that leisurely walk up to my parent's place to go put down my head on a pillow, just before the sun would pick up his from his slumber.

:) Having Cledan lay in the living room waiting for me, and then snugging into bed with me if even for just a few hours of laying at my feet, while my senses tried to loose the smell of ciggies that would be klinging to my shirt and other clothes. Small price to pay for really good times with the ones really close to the point of my heart.

I miss my friends, more over, I miss having them together and enjoying those great times together, even if just playing pool in Durbanville, or Risk nights at Oct's place, or Lans.

Reality will hit me some or other time I suppose. Until that happens one day, those are the times that I hang on to in my memories.

Other one that sticks so vividly in my mind was the drive at 23:00 at night over the Gordon's Bay pass towards Kleinbaai (favourite kuier place), on the night of Grieks' graduation last year. Was such a beautiful, wind-silent, full moon evening. Had driven the whole day though, so was a bit tired, but the views at night with a full moon was just absolutely stunning, one of those few moments in life where you forget about all the worries in the world that you have or might have (and this was a fair huge feat considering I was worried about freelance work I was doing, having to organise everything for the few days that Grieks' family was down in Cape Town for, and then organising everything to fly up to JHB and have tickets and visas and the likes all ready for going to the UK.. a lot of things to worry about in short).

Memories since being here ? You might ask, or might not.

In no particular order : Taking Grieks to the pub at Founder's Arms, going to the Queen Mary with her and friends, the way I tickted her off by having us walk all the way from London Bridge to Bermondsey station on our 3 year anniversary, uhmm, ja not a good one, seeing Grieks smile when she's happy either by friends coming to visit or us just taking a stroll down here and there in London, Grieks finding the flat, going to movies with Grieks, the London Dive show. There are a lot more though.

Anyone who's gotten this far in this particular post should really go get a nice cup of coffee now.. back already ? Was a quick cuppa ? :) Take a nice long sip, close your eyes as you savour that taste..... nice hey ? Get that very same sensation almost every morning when I wake up and walk out the room and at night while sitting like this and staring out the big window into the wide open view.

[Sidenote]: Having a bit of a trouble installing RedHat 7.0 with Microsoft Virtual PC (they took over Connectix who wrote it up to version 7 I think). Why only RedHat 7.0 you might ask, being that Fedora and Enterprise is out there... well, it's a server config for a business opportunity,need to set it up on my notebook and sort out how I'll be interacting with it from Windows as well :).. feels really nice to get back into new things again, last month or so at work hasn't been like that.

Well, it be late, and I should really be getting into bed for a nice little lay in tomorrow, hopefully that is. There are some plans to go visit some friends. Maybe I should just get up early and sort out some life things.

Have a good one all.. and to all those in SA, we keep you all in our hearts and miss you all a lot.

Z, out.

June toys...

2006-06-29T23:13:00.000+02:00

Well, it's been an.. interesting month. Here's the post I've promised a few people to show the toys I've bought this month. But 1st, a little bit of background.

Notebook : Well, it is the dream of most developers to obtain a notebook of decent strength so that you are mobile while running all 300 database engines that you might require as well as the 4 different web servers and still be able to play games ( normally a nice extra. Depending on your budget), and so with that in mind I had looked at a great range of notebooks available to people in the UK basically ever since we got here and had inet... I've only heard good things from numerous people about Asus and have always been a fan, they tend to make really good notebooks, a little more pricey sometimes, but quality that's more than worth the extra few pounds.

So we moved in, not having anything in the lines of a tv, I had looked at the finances and had ordered Sky TV (although installation ofcourse, would take a week or so to get here and done though, not a worry as we didn't have a tv yet). Being that we required a tv I was in a bit of a fix, had worked for the cash ( salary a month in hand thing again) but hadn't received it yet, and the Sky installation was due the weekend before payment.. so no chance.. so I started looking at tv's.

1st things 1st, it required a scart input due to Sky operating that way. There was a 28" crt LG on sale in the flat block for 180 pounds, but it was crt, so.. huge backside, and the current furniture wasn't going to support it.. to heavy. That also said, I was looking for something that would be a bit thinner. So after looking at sizes, and looking at the budget, and looking at a lot of other things... I got this....

Yip. Full model : Samsung LE26R74BDX, with built in Freeview digital tuner ( not that it was at all the defining reason for my selection ) Has all the new bells and whistles, and a great 8ms response time on the LCD panel, great for.. wait for it.. DVI output gaming from the notebook.. :) Yup, it should be illegal, and yes I have already done it with TOCA 3, looks great.

One thing that someone at work highlighted to me (and I have seen since the Sky installation). Everyone here is hyping HDTV tele's (as this one is as well), but what they forget to mention is that the service to customers aren't HD yet, except if you buy the 299 pound SKY HD box.. which..in all honesty.. I was not willing to do. (Not to mention not have the budget for either).

I was at a tad of a dilemma before buying the tele. The price of the notebook I could justify because it is already starting to pay back for itself ( I've done some freelance work already for previous colleague that is currently in Ireland, and got paid for it today as well :). But the tele is a complete splashout, something I am not use to doing for myself. I like spoiling other people, spoiling myself is not something I tend to do often, and when I do I have to admit it's normally with other people in mind.

So ya, I bought that beautiful baby, and had it delivered the next day to the flat ( brilliant service from http://circuitciti.co.uk/circuitciti/if anyone in London is keen on anything tele digital. On the same day I ordered this...... the spec list to be found here, and here, interesting to find that they don't do them anymore though.. oh well.. I had my eye on this one since the begining of the year. And so I ordered this as well. They both arrived the day after order and payment ( was very impressed with laptopsdirect.co.uk as well). [edit : Had a look again at the spec list, and it seems I got treated to a bit of a surprise, I don't have a 256 MB nVidia 7300 Go processor, I got a 512MB one :), nice to get something extra for the same price, and that's still dedicated memory, not shared with the RAM.. shweet..)

So yeah, that said.. spoilt myself rotten, put the Sky installation back by another week ( cause it was possible) and on the day of installation I got these as well :)

Yip, I went out to buy the games, but the gamepad ( Saitek P2900, wireless [radio], I ordered through the inet and got it on a Saturday no less ( after ordering it at 21:00 on Thursday night).

So that said, I have done the following : Hooked up the notebook to the tv, fired up the game, and configured the gamepad to work for Toca, and started to enjoy the toys by playing from across the living room.. can't express how kewl it was.

All things considered, very happy with the buys and the fact that the notebook is already starting to earn me some money on the investment as well. Hopefully soon there will be some more income from it, but all in time all in time.

For now I should get to bed and enjoy a day of learning new things tomorrow, new things I suppose people would say I should have known, but I'm changing my attitude towards that, no more the pessimistic coder which feels he knows a fair amount.. but keen on learning the ways... very keen actually.

Nite all..
Z

Broadband explained...

2006-06-25T16:14:00.000+02:00

Hi there all.. it's Sunday afternoon, and the promised post about our internet problem is happening today.

Promise I'll try and keep cool and calm while posting...

Righto. So we moved into the flat on the 21st of May, signed the 3 month contract. The Monday afterwards I didn't do much other than to get my bicycle from previous place to here. For the 1st week it was all about just getting used to living here and settling into a semi kind of routine.

So the checklist was set up, need the following. 1st off, require BT line.. so applied, went through the whole process of ordering and activation, which was done remotely as this is an apartment block and they basically only had to activate the line on the exchange (pre-wired). Line was activated on the 3rd of June and so on the following Monday ( 5th) I went through the online process of ordering broadband service from Tiscali UK. Now this was done because we used them in the previous house and all things considered it was fairly painless to set up and get going on it.

They quoted the normal 10 - 15 working days to receive service, which was fine although I did phone up and they said that normally it only takes 8 working days to complete from ordering to activation, the quote is for if something goes wrong. More than acceptable as everything on my side was in the right I was of the thinking that it would all be sorted out.

This only amplified my surprise when I received an email from Tiscali the next Tuesday (at 16:20) that our application was rejected, because.. the phone line provided was not a BT line.. (after having received an email on the Thursday 8th I think...., that line tests were being conducted to make sure that service would be possible). I was not happy, and this is where the downward spiral starts.

So I have about 40 minutes of time ( cause the order chasing department of Tiscali closes at 17:00) to sort this out. First off I phone up BT, ask them if there is any markers on the database on the line that would have triggered something on the Tiscali system to say that it wasn't a BT line. They assured me there was nothing on their database that indicated any problems or any "markers" as they called it. Additional to that I asked if they could do a line test for me to see what kind of DSL speed would be available to me on the line. They put me through to a very Irish bloke who helped me very professoinally, and assured me that BT could provide me with 5.5 Mb/s dsl service. Sounded very tempting but they don't have an unlimited account policy and thus I phoned up Tiscali again.

So right, I phone them up. Told them that I spoke to BT and that the line is a BT line as there was never any other line at this address/extention and it was newly ordered. They apologised for the inconvenienced and said that they'll be resubmitting the order. Now with hindsight I should have cut my losses right there and went with someone else, but alas.. mistakes are there to be made.

I said that it was not acceptable that I basically had to have a new order from scratch because of a mistake on Tiscali's part. Because of Tiscali having remote (other country) call centers this was not the best call to be putting over my distaste in the progress of matters.

So I called back again about 30 minutes later, got a very keen guy on a much better line who told me that he completely understands and that he will escalate all this to a higher level and basically promised me dsl service by the next Tuesday afternoon.. which.. all things considered nowI should have know was a ruse. But I was a fairly easy bite at that moment, so I was caught.

So on the Friday I phoned up on the Tuesday to check on progress on the order, just to be told that my order has not progressed due to difficulty in their ordering system. This had me up in arms... I was not at all happy, and the only thing keeping my anger at bay was the fact that I was at work and my boss sits just two seats away from me.. I was not at all happy. I spoke to this lady and explained that I know it's not her fault, but that I could not accept this at all. She told me that she was going to put this order through as top priority and that she would escalate it to the highest network level possible.

After about 30 minutes on the phone to this lady and explaining the whole thing I decided it was time to get off, I was enraged with anger and nothing good was going to come out of just going on with the conversation. I kind of had to accept their plight of apology and the extended 5 - 8 working day schedule that was becoming the norm for me calling up.

So on this Tuesday past I call up again ( having previously been promised that service would be activated on the 19th of Jun), this time I had to hear that my order had been "stuck" in the order system due to outtages in their software in the previous 2 weeks.. *sigh*... I basically lost it right there and then, clearly voicing my distaste, as the record of my calling and having problems ( with all the internal service requests ) being in front of the consultant I was talking to. I voiced that I realised this was not his fault, but that he was now receiving my anger because of the company he's working for.

He assured me that he would have felt exactly the same had he be in my place. He assured me that he will escalate the order to top top priority and have this supervisor take personal care of the order, he convinced me, due to him being soft spoken and very considerate.

They gave me a final promise of service for this Wednesday evening, or Thursday morning latest. I have subseqeuntly phoned up a few times since Tuesday to make sure that things are in progress.

And thus it is that on Wednesday I hope to put up the DSL modem and check it all out and get going on our own inet.

This then concludes my rant of service problems in the UK. To be honest I think it was just one particular case and I was the unlucky bugger to receive it.

I was going to post about my new toys today as well, but I'll leave that for somewhere in the week, got other things I have to be doing as well.

Hope all is well with all the readers ( 2 or 3 I bet, if even that much )...

Greets
Z

Broadband throbbing vein in head....

2006-06-19T11:15:00.000+02:00

Needless to say I am absolutely raving with anger at this moment ( the only thing stopping me from taking the nearest person's head off with glee is the fact that it's the man that pays my cheque and signs the invoices.)

I'll blog about this in much more detail (fear the pages of wrath that will come forth from it), I just needed to get this off my chest, the fact that I would most likely break a rowing machine were I to be in a gym right now... no one except maybe Grieks will understand at this moment, but hopefully within the next 5 to 8 working business days ( I spit these words, each one) I'll be able to update the blog with the whole story..

Had a great weekend, should be focusing on that really, but when the week starts like this.. it is just so so tough.

Hope you all had a great weekend.
I'm going to get back to work...

L8r
Z

The view...

2006-06-06T18:19:00.000+02:00

Well.. we finally got Fanus and Hermien to make a turn at the flat and Fanus was kind enough to take a panorama of the view (being that Saturday was one of the nicest days we've had here in London)...

I have ordered all the extras in this week ( things like inet and sky tv ) but they'll only be active and running in "10 working days", as per qoute from the beautiful people from Tiscali and the likes.

Apparently we are yet again to far from the closest exchange to get a nice big pipe to the net though, so we'll have to settle for 1mb unlimited. Such is life.

Hope all well with everyone else.
l8r

A new begining...

2006-05-20T14:26:00.000+02:00

...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..

2006-05-17T17:34:00.000+02:00

.. 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...

2006-05-16T16:04:00.000+02:00

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...

2006-05-09T22:55:00.000+02:00

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...

2006-05-07T01:48:00.000+02:00

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....

2006-05-04T21:56:00.000+02:00

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

1st of (hopefully) many...

2006-04-30T12:01:00.000+02:00

It has finally happened. After months ( more like weeks though) of getting use to the UK, finding out a whole bunch of stuff I suspect I should have known before we came over, and getting down and dirty with how the real work seaking world works... I got my 1st pounds, in the bank, and cleared... and last night the HSBC internet banking went into full swing.

Now unlike the G-unit that's here mine was none to do about buying gadgets [ja, I'm jealous. That Wolverine is one meen machine man]. A few ill investments last year had put me on the road of debt, and thus a big wad of the pounds I had done 3 weeks worth of work for, has been put on the road to SA. 1stContact is a company here in the UK that organises stuff for SA (and other) ppl who come over here. From things like opening a bank account and setting up a limited company (wish I had known about that, they charge less than the current consultancy that I work through, although the current one does take out indemnity insurance of up to £1m for me), to helping with the getting of a shenglen visa (to travel the EU basically).

Anyways, after finally being able to transfer the rent to my cousin's account, pushing a hefty sum over to SA (still in the process, normally takes 3 working days, so should be there by Thursday night hopefully), and paying some of the UK creditcard off ( everything having being budgetted in advance though, well in advance) there is still a bit left to spoil my lady with, and so hopefully today I'll be able to do that :)

Truth be told I'm hoping to slash my month travelling costs by getting my butt back onto a bicycle in the near future. A few reasons for that. 1 : I really love cycling, and there's a bit of a story there. Back in the day (and because it is around 10 years ago.. gosh I'm getting old ), Jerry and I used to hook up on Sunday afternoons at his place, check that the two bikes over there were in some state of road-worthyness (a very loose definition about the state of the bicycles but anyways, and there's a whole post on it's own there as well), and then we'd ride out to Kuilsriver to go pick up some VHS (ol' school) movies from a video rental in the main road there.
Thinking back to it, little did we know the things that would happen about 2 years later, hey Micon ? :) The vid shop was about 300 metres away from Riette's place :) Ahh, them good old days huh :)

The normal Sunday routine though ( to get back to the point) changed after about 3 months of doing this every week. We kept on telling everyone that we were cycling to Kuilsriver, but we skelm-ed out to TygerValley instead, to go have ice cream every Sunday. Now the ice cream aint the skelm thing, the fact that we went through some of the most traffic ridden streets to get to TygerValley, that right there would have had the parents (on either side) put a nice ban on Sunday get togethers.

This is going to be a bit region specific : This all happend back in the day when the banking court in T-V was still the putt-putt course, and the general open area was full of wood (sleeper) benches and tables where we'd used to sit down and chat about some arb stuff while we enjoyed the prize of Marcel's frozen yoghurt in a big sugar cone. Man good memories are awesome epinephrine.

That being a long explination for reason 1. Reason 2 : I need to get fit. No seriously, I need to get my cardio vascular going a bit more than I am at the moment (which at the moment is being done by walking to the tube station every morning from home, and not taking the DLR (which 9 out of 10 times at that time of the morning is over crowded anyway, and just makes for an unpleasant start to the working day).

And so, with that in mind I'll be purchasing my 1st bicycle in a decade ( previous one was bought when I was either 13 or 14, can't really remember, and as far as I recall I didn't buy it either)

As things go I believe it's time to get my lazy butt out of bed and get something into my stomach.

Good day to all, and hopefully a great week for all as well :)
Hope you enjoy the new job Oct, think you start this coming week, correct me if I'm wrong...

Z

Male explorer...

2006-04-25T21:40:00.000+02:00

It's been a long while since I've done a post, have started a few but then didn't really get into them... so tonight there's a bit of a story to tell.

My Y-chromosome acted up today, yip.. I went all guy like and went walking around, after work.
Here's the story. Grieks has been craving KFC for weeks now, and last night I got the idea to take her out for dinner pending the clearing of my 1st pay into my account, only one problem in that though. I discussed the details of my bank account with the company that manages the limited company (supposedly my limited company.. it's long an complicated, think I've explained it before, not gonna again). The long and short of it comes out that I didn't put in my bank details when I registered for the limited company.. why ? Because I only got my bank account details the day afterwards.. and had thought that the consulting firm that I also work though would have done that on my behalf.. lesson number one, never trust anyone else to do something for you, even if you think it should be their job.

The long and the short. I received my pay in the post today, in cheque format, which will be deposited tomorrow during lunch (perhaps earlier) at the HSBC very close to work(just a block away from the pub as well :). Which will hopefully clear before the end of the week, however I doubt that very much and being that Monday is a bank holiday ( I suspect world over, Worker's day).

So, having taken that into consideration I went to aforementioned [t] HSBC and pulled some money. I had looked up KFC on google earth (through the google maps website basically), and knew about the one in Victoria station ( which is only two stations away from Waterloo.. ).

So I walked down to Southwark station, (as per usual), and then thought.. wait.. there has to be a KFC close.. alas, to make the whole thing short.. 2 hours after leaving work for the 30 minute travel to home, I finally got home with a 10 piece KFC bargain bucket (Micon and Octavo I suspect will know what I'm talking about ) and had a Grieks with a big smile on her face :), the walk/effort well worth it.

Work : It's actually been very kewl, I've been able to turn around on the little projects that I've been handed to do while we wait for the big project to fall that the company upsized in [man]-coding power to do and has been slipping. I still have another month and week on contract left and hopefully making enough of an impression that they'll like me to stay, but I'm not betting on it. Have put down on the budget that I'll be without work for the further 3 week of June, if they extend my contract it'll be a great bonus, if they don't.. well, such is life. Have had a few regular calls from agents while I haven't been putting my cv out there, think I submitted to a fair amount of shared databases, but we'll see how things go closer to the time though.

In other general news : We're looking at moving, having been here for 3 months has been nice, and we're enjoying the nice and quiet that the house now has because we're alone here, but in 3 weeks time that's about to change, and so we've been looking around. Found a family in, wait for it.. London has an area called Plumstead :) We'll be moving in around the 20th. Still need to email my cousin that we're giving notice.

Anyways.. I've got to hit the hay, want to get some sleep in for a while... :)

Greets to all
Z

Questions : Those really big ones..

2006-04-09T22:49:00.000+02:00

they fascinate me, endlessly. I would suppose a lot of people would go "Duh, they've been in the minds of a great number of what's considered mankind for a very long time."

After a spell of unwellness stomach this afternoon, I'm currently sitting in the kitchen of the house where we live with my cousin, her bf, his brother and their friend, and since Tuesday another new housemate. Looking through the nice glass door to the outside where it's raining, and has been since about 4pm this afternoon around. Not thundering down in buckets, but that same kind of Cape Town soft patter against the windows all around the house, the kind of weather that makes me miss Cape Town this time of the year over the weekends. Weather that forever gets me into this... can one call it : "Thinking mode".

We've been in London since end of Jan this year, and relatively speaking I don't see that as a very long time. My expectations for being in the UK were/are to have gotten a nice, decent paying job, and to use London as a base for some travel ( however the plans are to do a lot more of that in next year rather than this). I want to build up a bit of a network, and have already done so in a fair amount, to be able to do creative business ventures and see what markets work here that haven't been, either created in SA or are being used effectively in SA. Sounds very business like.. and a lot of people would go : "That's not Zodan, what did you do with him and where have you taken him ? ".

And yet, having already started this journey, by being a contractor for a leading broadcasting corporation in Waterloo, I find myself doing the thinking thing tonight, as I have for a while now.

I envy my life companion (cause she's more to me than just a girlfriend). And one of the reasons why I envy her, is because she's always known where she's wanted to go with her talents, and where her talents lay as well. And come Jan 2008 we'll be taking ourselves back to Cape Town, getting a flat somewhere close to campus and she'll start with her M.Sc in Marine Biology. I, on the other hand, have always been one that ... explores to where I am ( if I may say so myself).

I studied at Maties, and heck I'll never regret a single second of it.. got my degree and then took a 90 degree turn (in the books of most who know me), and did webdev, (which I am still doing to this day... a long almost 3 years later). And not to blow my own horn to loud, I'm not half bad at it, but I still feel that I'm nothing as good a coder as say Octavo is, just because I know he's a great master of the art that we both enjoy using it. ( And coding is an art, he'll be nodding his head if he's reading this, it's being creative with solutions). Neither am I as good with SQL than Mr G, who I believe to be a really good DBA, currently enjoying his time here in London as well.

I know that I'll hopefully be coding for the most of the time that we are abroad here in the UK, and I have no problem with that, as it seems the wave of companies and private investors are looking to make the comparatively level playing field of e-commerce, all the more the way the world is going to run, and with that in mind I stand at a point where I can become involved in those oppurtunities, and I have already begun to do that, very recently actually. This has brought on the fire of own business ideas that I have, of which I am going to try and set up as many as possible over the next 2 years, in partnerships with people who I believe have the same kind of business ethics as myself.

Seems I've taken a wild turn away from what I started this post about, and I haven't really reached it yet either. Back to the point. Blah blah blah.. why ? Cause I can, and I like to talk, not because I like the sound of my own voice, but because I love writing my thoughts down.

Nope, lost the train of thought, not really keen to pick it up again.

Oppurtunity is a rare thing, and sometimes it doesn't turn out entirely the way we wanted it to, but grabbing onto it, and not letting it go is far better than the perceived security of the known.

A new phase starts soon... watch this space.
Z

Long days...

2006-04-03T23:49:00.000+02:00

Well.. it's that time of the year over here in London. Long summer (only spring now, but it is heating up nicely though) days. I went to work early today ( due to some antics on Friday, read the post, read between the lines and if you spoke to me over the wkend you'll know why). Got to Southwark station around 5:30 am and it was a nice walk to the office. Just before you get onto the block that ITV shares with the National Theatre (I never knew until I came from the other side last week...thinking I should go walk about a little more during lunches these days), there are all these trees on the South bank of the Thames that at the moment doesn't have blossoms yet.. but that time of the morning it's still fairly dark (had some memories of doing that kind of thing when working at Flatspin.. brought back some good memories :).. and over here they've put what I think must be blue and white L.E.D's in the trees... it looks absolutely awesome,no really.. so much so that I'm going to ask my brother to make me a few strings for one day that we have little trees in Cape Town :)

And they've done loads of the trees down the bank with these strings of little lights, makes them look like they have light blossoms in the dark.. my camera phone doesn't take kewl pics though, but hopefully I'd be able to take a tripod pics of it on an evening when taking Grieks to check it out.

Got to get cracking on some things this side. Hope you all are having a good time where you all are.

Z out.

Bit of a bummer...

2006-04-01T22:53:00.000+02:00

So.. after a fairly...interesting week, Friday arrived.

The day was met with mixed feelings. Felt great getting to the end of the 1st working month as such, because of the promise of payment for services rendered, but due to this country's interesting policies I had to go for a National Insurance number interview. Those who have worked here (legally that is) will know what I'm talking about. So I had phoned up Social Security services and found what was ( according to them) the closest office to me and they came back asking if I could do this Friday morning as an interview date. I told the lady over the phone that it was in order as I had just received my copy of my contract (signed by 6mil other people the day before) and had my letters stating where I live is kewl (opening a bank account has it's plusses).

So I was scheduled to have my interview at 9:10 on Friday, and had told Rob (my boss) that I would be late for work (although I had worked in the hours already during the week so I was kewl, had actually overworked the hours, but I digress). So all was well in Z's world of flying ponies.. uhm.. don't ask.. anyhoo.

Worked out the whole journey (with fair amounts of help from Grieks), and got to bed feeling ok that the end of the month will be a good experience.. if only I knew.

So I get to Dalston Kingsland station ( after taking the Jubilee tube to Stratford), and find that the area I'm in resembles something like.. Mowbray (would be a good comparison).. having been in such areas most of the last 2 years back in Cape Town I wasn't scared.. been a lot more scared walking into ITV the first time.. I take the directions as provided to me through the post (which I must say is most efficient in this country, except to get packages back to bosses in Cape Town, hey Craig ? :), and arrive at the social security office about 8:40 (which was the plan incidentally).

Not being the first person there I got a little worried that this might be one of those situations where goverment organise 20 interviews with 5 interviewers for the morning thinking that 10 or so won't pitch, but waited the 20 minutes out until they opened the doors. Was ussered into a line of people and gave some lady the letter they sent me.

Needless to say my feelings about goverment efficiency was yet again proved correct, and my 9:10 interview started promptly at 9:50 [which was about the time I was hoping to get done with it and get back on the trains and head to work to hopefully get to work at close to what I said], being that I was fairly well prepared though I have to admit I did walk out of their around 10:15 so it didn't go completely bad.

I finally got to my desk around 11:20 though. I had done most of my timesheet (contract worker now, have to fill those out) the previous night at home and added into it that I was going to do 5 hrs of work on Friday (this I added on Friday in the office),and handed that to my boss to sign so that I could fax and mail the copies to where I had to. He did so, and it was in the post before I went to the pub with Paul (co-worker) and Colin ( another co-worker). The plan was to go to Stamford Arms, and then Rob would phone Paul for us to go to Doggits (another pub). This however (and unfortunately) is not how it went down. We got to Stamford, had one round, and the boss had not called yet.. so around 13:30 my bosses boss turns up and starts to order rounds.. :(

That's where it all went south. Needless to say, never went back to the office, boss did eventually make a turn at the Stamford though, bought him a round which I hope helped my case, but I suspect I screwed up. Eventually walked back to the office to email the project I'm working on to myself at home, so that I can make up the time I lost over the weekend. Will also be going into the office hectically early on Monday morning to work in them hours and then start the normal work hours around 9:30 or so.

Tomorrow (actually later today already) it's down to the London International Dive show at Excel.

Hope you all have a great week ahead. Me and Grieks, we've put April down as a new month and a happy month :) Not to mention I'll get paid in £'s for the first time ever,hopefully a good experience to happen at the end of April.

L8r.
Z

Week 9 and Week 3 .. so to say completed.

2006-03-30T22:27:00.000+02:00

Hi there all. Been a while, but things have been.. busy.

Yup, week 3 of work is almost complete and as it falls nicely with the end of the month I spoke to the recruitment agency and they're kewl with paying me for the last 3 weeks' work, rather than their normal 4 week policy. Which is kewl cause the consultancy firm that I'm working through require my timesheets on the latest by Tuesday, for payment of my salary ( after all of the red tape), only at the end of April. Painful, but luckily it'll cover most of everything :)...

Just a thank you to all the people (both in UK and RSA) that's supporting me and Grieks. We owe you all a great big thank you, and where applicable a nice big hug, for those in the UK (and it might just be by inviting us over for this and that, and going with us to the St. Patty's parade), we'll make it up to you hopefully soon... to those in SA (and here too, even if it's just by chatting to us, keeping us up to date, or helping financially) we'll be making the rounds at the end of the year and hopefully treating you all to say thank you for everything :)

Hope you all are doing well, where you might find yourself in the world. And maybe soon I'll post some pics (got the ideal oppurtunity coming up on Saturday : International Dive Show UK )... who knows hey ? :)

10-4
Z

Shoutout..

2006-03-20T22:44:00.000+02:00

This one goes out to the lady in my life that's gone through a lot of trouble and tough times to be with me : My kitty kat ( Grea ).

There are so many things I am thankful for that I don't know where to start, so this might be a little disjionted to other people.

Last year Grieks did her honours degree in Marine Biology (B.Sc Hons), when moving into the house that I was sharing with a few of her old residence mates. Having to move in with 4 guys who were..to say the least a handful, particularly in what is considered by almost all people I've talked to as the most stressful year in a B.Sc academic career was a big step. Throw into that pot now the added stress of Zodan thinking he could shift the world and accordingly taking almost all the private time we had into projects and things (I did a lot of work.. really long hours).. then having to handle all the worries that came with the idea of coming to London and then supporting me every step of the way from SA to here and every day while we've been here, all of that while graduating with great results and supporting us the whole way takes one of the most special ladies in this world.

I don't know how to say thank you, and every day I try and do something special for her, all be it in a the smallest way, cause through being just herself she's made me into the luckiest guy on this planet, for that my kitty kat I want to thank you :oxxxxx

Thank you for being just yourself, in being that you make me smile, even when you are just laying sleeping... Lief vir jou my sexy kitty kat.

Jou Z :)

Week 7 and 1...

2006-03-19T20:38:00.000+02:00

Yip.. had to take a look at the Win caldendar to figure that one out, but we have been in the UK for almost 7 weeks now (scary thought) and I've finished week 1 of work, which to me is always a nice thing to report..

Work week 1 : An interesting blend of emotions ( as my previous two posts describe in their own way and I'm not going into it again ). Been up and down about it, but mostly it's the normal new job scenario of new things to learn.

Friday was somewhat classic though. My boss and the other developer normally go down to the pub on a Friday afternoon around lunch time, sit down and have a hearty chat about things and I was invited by the developer to join them, my response being that I'm definitely coming with, but won't be drinking because at this time I can't afford it, cash struck for a while (long story, only really get paid for the 1st 3weeks of work at the end of Apr, it's a long story.. believe me).. to which he told me to "behave".. didn't know what that meant until we got to the pub.. literally just down the street. My boss had told me it's not the closest one (while we were walking down the street), which gave me a bit of an insight into what the Brits here consider to be close... as it turns out it's about 3 blocks away from work.. I mean really.. that's not far, considering that I have a solid 10 minute walk to work from Southwark Station ( that one just for you Oct :).

I consider far to be a little more even than what I used to have to walk to get to work from Salt River station to Roedebloem Road (and even that was still a nice walk).

I digress. So ya, went to the pub, walked in, my boss asked me what I wanted and being that the only familiar name I saw on the taps was Amstel on one of them I asked for a pint of the regular (Sorry Craig, no Windhoek over here.. I wish). Boss bought me a round and we sat down to talk about all the green stuff in the pub (St. Patty's day.. officially).

It was all good fun, but 3 pints later (no lunch I must remind all the readers.. of which there is like 4 or so.. maybe :) and about an hour or two later we were heading back to the office to wait for the 17:00 sign off and goodbye from everyone for the weekend to start. Got there, took the 3 bags of crips (SA translation : Lays chips) and munched on that, hoping to counter some beverage effects.

Other than that it's been a quiet weekend. Next weekend there are a few things in the planning, but until then it is going to be a week of hard work to get up to scratch with all the systems I would like to know by around Wednesday, after which I'll hopefully be able to get some learning done on the books I bought when I got here.. some .NET.. hopefully.. soon..

Haven't heard from the G-unit lately, got text from him asking if I would be character witness for him, so he's probably already in some trouble :p Hope to see an update on his blog some time soon though.

Well, got things to learn.Hope ya'll have fun, where ever you might be.
Z

Personal wants...

2006-03-17T00:05:00.000+02:00

Howdy again. You might think, sheesh, two posts in one day.. but if I have my way this will be a short one.. heck, who am I trying to kid, I never write short posts.

Actually, the previous post puts it really well : I want to be making a positive contribution already. I think this is the only time that I don't like having to learn something new, when it takes longer to learn something so that I can have a positive contribution to the working enviroment around me. I have always been striving to add good value to all things that I do, and to all the people that interact in my life and those who I feel are really close to my heart.

It just is one of the big things that drives me in life, and when something that really pushes you forward so much doesn't get furfilled [typo galories :)] it all just seems a little.. hurtful I suppose.

My brother says I put to much pressure on myself to perform, and I suspect that he is most likely correct as well, asked my fellow developer today how long it took him to get to grips with the system that I'm learning, and from the answer I got he took a fair while to get to grips with it in totality, and he was a com-sci degree guy. So technically I shouldn't be so hard on my self, but I drive myself by being hard on myself.

You know what... it's going to be better in the morning, I'm going to hit the hay and start tomorrow nice and early.. for a change.

Greets to all.
Z

Something new

2006-03-16T15:29:00.000+02:00

As most who have read a part of this blog has discovered, here has a lot more to do with what I think, feel and experience that gets put down here, no less today will be no different.

I'm currently at the office, it is lunch, and the rest of the team is out and about. Rob and Kieran (Irish guy who'll be taking tomorrow off because of St. Patrick's day) are somewhere I think in the building having a little sit down and meeting, most likely actually about me, and I think Paul is out somewhere else.

How do I feel ? At this moment in time ( and for most of the week that's been past), the sensation is that of drowning. I don't know the CMS (content management system) that ITV has bought and is paying support for, although I am working through the manual on how to handle it and have had a hands-on explination of it from Paul about how the crux of it works. To be brutally honest I'm not up to speed with server side JavaScript, but that's not really a problem as I know that it is very easy to actually pick up, and I have been able to do some coding in it while being here.

The overriding feeling over all of this is that feeling everyone gets in the 1st week of : I know my stuff, I know how to do what I used to do, but they do it differently here. I put down the 1st week as being one of those where I'd have to get use to how they do things here, how their CMS works and how I would then code inside of it. How's that going ? Not to badly, the more I read the more I feel comfy knowning I'll be able to do this. What has always bugged me is that feeling that I get that I want to know NOW how to do everything that I need to be able to do, and it just doesn't work that way... [I can see a lot of people thinking : "Duh! Zodan, that's life, you can't just expect to know how to ride a bike the 1st time you get on it and think.. well it's all about balance and leg work."].

Tend to think it's the persona in me that wishes to learn and over-achieve that is driving this feeling of "Come on man, get going in this, you aint stupid, you know you are a fairly bright spark.. go go go".

Think I'm going to read some more, although even doing that makes me edgy because I'm not much of a manual reader than I am a "go-fiddle-with-things and see how they break"-kind of person.

I want to get my hands in the code and get dirty.. quickly, cause I want to start to make a difference. I love getting instant gratification on being a positive influence ( stems from wanting everyone to like me, which over the years has gotten better, although I still know some places where I'm not in the favourites section of the little black book). I love learning, I just don't like that in my case it always feels as if I'm taking to long doing it and getting my mind around it all.

I leave you with on a positive thought : Change is a great teacher, embrace the teachings and life will only better for it :)

over and out for now.
Z

And so it happens.

2006-03-07T22:29:00.000+02:00

Yip... it is affirmative. I have a job. Hurray !!!

The contracts and the agency will be going through the approval process tomorrow at the consultancy that I am running the limited company through that'll handle payments and the likes. I will also be briefed on how things will have to run from here on end. That'll happen tomorrow though, today.. I feel good :)

The lowdown : Went for the interview this morning, got there and learnt from my previous experience on last Friday ( still need to blog about it ), and spoke nicely and slowly. Rounding out my words (not like I used to do at Flatspin where I would normally just run through words and have no one understand me.

To be honest : I had a hunch that these guys were looking for someone with a lot more JavaScript capability, which I had used a lot on client side DHTML, and was a bit rusty on (ever since learning that they want me for the job I'm getting a lot of resources down here to hit the learning curve in the next few days). I had thought that the interview went ok, but they were interviewing another guy later today as well, and somehow I thought he might have had more experience than me. And so I got home thinking it was a kewl interview, had fun talking to the guys, but I was expecting the normal call of "Hi Hendrik, I'm sorry to say but they've opted with the other candidate." Which in all honesty I would have understood completely.

So.. come around 16:00 and I hadn't heard from the agent at all I gave her a call to find out if she had heard from the client.. nope.. but she would phone me as soon as she knew. Being that the interview stopped around 11:00 in the morn I wasn't to optimistic, could you blame me.

17:00, agent phones up and says they are really keen and want to know if I would join them for drinks on Friday (this was due to a quark in the interview, but I'll blog about that another time). I said I'll phone the agent back in a little, just needed some time to talk things through with Grea and make sure I was doing the right thing.. at the rate they are paying me, I am :)

So ya.. contracts tomorrow, drinks with the team on Friday and come Monday morning a really nice steep learning curve comes my way :) And to be honest, I can't wait, I've been waiting for a nice challenge in coding for a while, this (along with the fact that I am set on learning .NET in the next 6 months, all be it on my own time [ Grieks says she wants to learn with me.. who can ask for more in a girlfriend ? :) ],) will be a great time for both of us ahead.

Well.. off to bed.. I need some sleep after a good day.

L8r
Z

Belated Part III [Curri....cu...lum... what ? ]

2006-03-06T23:17:00.000+02:00

It's way overdue, haven't blogged since I think 21 Feb of something in that order.Sorry to all the millions of fans.. wait.. hit count less 10, right, it's been overdue, live with it.

* I was phoned by the IT manager, asked if I wanted to come in for an interview.
* I replied in the positive, he told me 45 min SQL test, 45 min 1:1 interview, him and me.
* I said, excellent, where abouts ?
* He said : Soho, just off Oxford Street.
* I said no problem, could you email me a link to what your company does.
* He did. I had a look at the site, the salary looked decent. I was keen.
* Went for the interview. Got the test, forgot half of the little SQL I knew, had a great 1:1 interview. Spoke kewl and that's about it, they had another guy come in and he would phone me back.

The thing that now goes and throws a spanner in the works is this. I had that interview on the Wednesday, on the Thursday I had an interview with a consultancy firm. This however was not for employment, but for a different kind of matter. Limited companies.

Now those who are here and have done some homework ( I didn't, not enough anyways), will know what the Limited Company idea is.... a matter of taxes as such.. being that I still want to hopefully get a job in this country I think I'll leave that at that for the moment being.

I went to the consultancy, they got me interested in looking at the contract market and so Thursday started making life difficult, cause.. well.. let's just say that the permanent position wasn't looking so nice anymore. Especially with NI (National Insurance payments, different kind of tax.. )

The 1:1 interview guy was going to phone me back on Friday to let me know if it went ok or not and they wanted me to come back for a 2nd interview. To be honest, I was hoping he'd phone and go "Sorry Hendrik, but we've had a stronger candidate" Instead, he sent me an email, asking me if I would come in for a 2nd interview on Tuesday with him and the IT director.

This is where it goes pearshaped ( as if it wasn't already). I said yes, and here's why. I had basically had a quick interview at the consultancy, not really having a complete overview (they gave me the contract papers, which I took home to go and read, and I was still in the process, and was going to return to them on Monday with the papers).

So come Saturday I read through all the papers and the fine print (they call it fine print for a reason I realised here). And uhm. ya.. perm job.. not looking all that kewl at all now. So on Monday I get the complete haulover at the consultancy. I decide to take the risk, I've gone this far I might as well go all the way.. I had however, discussed all this with Grea, so there were no life altering decisions being made without her at the very least knowing and in most cases giving some great level headed advise about what might happen down the line.

So.. I email the guy of the permanent job, thanks but I have in the mean time received some information that shows that the contract market looks somewhat more interesting. (Or something close to that ? ). I was hoping.. really hoping.. he would email me back and say.. that's kewl, we understand thanks for your time and send me on my merry job hunting way.. uhhmm.. no. No even close.

The guy phones me up, asks me (very politely, he was ever the gentleman), why I might have changed my mind ? So now I know that most permanent positions and desirably filled by people who are going to stay a long while. First line of defense, run the 2 year-working-holilday-visa script. This basically puts it out that I am, by law since Feb 2004, only allowed to work a maximum of.. yup.. you guessed it.. 12 months on the 24 month stay that we are allowed in the UK.

Zodan thinks : "Zodan 1, Permanent job guy 0 ". Nope, he countered that one very elegantly with the "Offer him a work sponsor from the company after the 12 months"- script. Which really hit home hard, as in very very hard. I have to mention here that he did also (during the interview) very nicely throw in the 28 days of holiday on the job perk, excluding the time that the company closes (unofficially) between xmas and new years. Needless to say, this was also hovering in my head at the time.

I had to revert back to saying that I am truly sorry, but would like to use the oppurtunity to check out the contract market and basically burn myself in doing so.

He, yet again very politely, said that he was sorry to hear this as he thought I would have worked very well in their organisation. I wished him well with the other candidate for the job and that I would be one of the 1st people to subscribe to the business idea that they were developing. Which I'm sure I will, at least I think I will.

So ya. That in a nutshell has started the long haul towards getting a contract job. I think I'll fill in the rest of the details at a later time ( although that so seldomely [typo I think] happens that I might be lying here).

I've been at the contract search for two weeks now, of which the 1st week was basically getting my CV up to standard for the UK market, way different than how things are done in SA, and then getting up to speed to how to actually apply for jobs. Things I have learnt in the last 2 weeks I believe will help me in huge leaps and bounds when we go back to SA, in working the market and knowing how to get that ideal job that we are all so looking for.

I want to post more at this time, but it's getting late, and I have interview no. 4 tomorrow morning with a huge company about 5 minutes walk away from Waterloo station, I want to land this one, not as badly as the one I had on Friday morning in Bechtel House in Hammersmith (would have been the ideal job, but more on that next time), but this would be a great financial boost if I can land tomorrow's job.

Hold thumbs people, interview = 10:30 UK time, for those in SA, that's still 12:30 that side.
Will tell you tomorrow who it was with :)

Later
Z

Curri...cu...lum... what ? [Part 2]

2006-02-22T00:16:00.000+02:00

Howdy all.

I'll just have a quick look where I was and where I'll continue on for a little while in this post as part two of the riveting (typo no.. you get the idea, these will now follow as the signal [t] for ease of read).

Right, back up to speed.. job search centre, free inet and the likes. It just so happened that neither ourselves of the housemates doing security for a living since ( I think it's been May last year or something) knew about the inet-enabled job search centre about 200 metres from the front door. Luckily the landlord ( on his return to London after going to SA to view the house his wife bought) told me about it, because he was now living next door and the au pair always went to the job centre to check her emails. Great news. ( No really, this was some welcome relief from doing about 12 - 16 pounds per trip [ that's 2 ppl, travel and 4 hrs of inet time in an inet cafe in Oxford (cheapest) ] ).

Would have saved loads if we knew that.. even more if the house was online when we got here..

Anyhoo. So we walked down to the job centre one morning, walk up to the dude there and ask what we need to do / pay to use the facilities... "Ah no mate, no worries, just fill in this form and then sign your name in the log book for firedrill purposes, and there you go.. next time you just sign in and sit down and surf, telephone and faxing services for free as well sir."

Nice dude, bet it helped that they were offering everything for free, but he's a nice enough dude as it is as well :). So there we go.. I started searching.. for both myself and Grieks (blog here,and ya that's what I look like under water, and yes I did the superman stunt thing, I blame Benz.. those who dive, you know what I'm talking about).

The IT market has experienced a bit of a boom lately here, even though some papers say it hasn't. Evidance on the web was at first staggering. Little background if I may : Go to something like ITselect.co.za in SA, type in Web developer, and try and find someone that's looking for anyone other than either PHP (which I don't do yet, cause I don't make time to learn it) or ASP.NET.. there's maybe one or two J2EE stuff, but that's it.. nothing about classic ASP without ASP.NET ( which to my dismay is where I'm at this very minute in my life.. sad I know.. true though), for that matter, try and find more than 10 - 20 jobs in web dev.. righto.. now... little bit of a scope thing here.. go to cwjobs.co.uk and punch in the words Web developer in there.. and select all jobs.. and wait for it.. a whopping amount of posts..loads..

What was naive Zodan thinking when he saw the job count ? .... come on, some of you people actually know this vain boet from Brackenfell.. yup, that's it.. I was thinking this was going to be a cruise mate.. ( I can see Oct sniggering.. piss off :) He knows I love him and I say that in the most affectionate tone imaginable ( just for the sensitive at heart).

The thing that I did not know, and only got to learn last week, through 2 different sources was that there are perhaps 1 in every 1000 recruitment agents that read your CV in this country... 99.9 % of them import your cv directly into a recruitment database and do what.. a word count match between the client's spec list and the whole database, then selecting the top 10 of the cv's that jump up, phone those guys up, ask if they are available and then select 3 CV's to send to the client.

Rest of the world 1, Zodan 0.

It was about to get some mighty more interesting, cause then during the week of being at the job centre we organised that the broadband got hooked up here and was running.. this happened on a Friday.. uhm... interesting. So after making sure everything is stable on the broadband, by doing load testing for some 9 hours overnight ( so what's a few episodes of cars driving around :) I was behind on the series anyway :).

I set off on the Saturday evening on the mission of all mission with my choc chip cookies next to me on the bed to start applying for as many web dev asp jobs I could find. And I found a few.. I think I have about 40 - 50 confirmation of application emails in my inbox.

The call back ratio on Monday.. well atleast it wasn't nothing.. I got two guys phoning me back, one even from a direct company in Soho who wanted me to come in for a SQL test interview. (will get back to that later, other post by the looks of time, and boredom on the nation's eyes from reading all the pages and pages of posting.)

Blimey, my posts seem to be fairly.. long. Think I'll kill this one and move along to tomorrow, before people are kept out of work for to long reading things while suppose to be working :)

[Part 3 to be in the post soon, promise I'll try and get some pics in there somewhere]

Curri...cu...lum... what ?

2006-02-21T02:35:00.000+02:00

Man I didn't think this through properly. And that's just the honest truth.

Honesty is the best policy so here goes.

You remember how in English Second Language ( those of my buddies who didn't do the honourable thing and had 1st language : you suck) you had to do those Creative Writing assignments which involved creating a CV and covering letter for the dream job you just spotted in the newspaper. Ironically enough our example in highschool was of a reporter.. figures.

Anyways. Wondering how I can phrase this.. I was always told that I was gifted at school ( by the teachers, bah.. what they know.. they just mark your papers), but somehow I think I spread my "gifts" to thing on doing a lot of different things.. and on the honesty side again : I wouldn't change a thing, I had a blast, especially in final year.

This did however mean that Zodan wasn't what you'd call an A student.. not a bad B one at times, but not the par excellance (as my typos show).

So when I had to go to my 1st job interview (ever) in Jun 2003, I had a fairly basic CV which did the basic thing of highlighting some (completely irrelevant) "achievements" from school and stating that it took me a little longer than what it should to get a 3 year degree.. a B.Sc for that matter, which isn't something to sneeze about.

The fact that the interview was being organised by someone that had met me some 2 years before and had found out that I can (apparently) do some ASP coding had nothing to do with it, I got into that interview completely on my CV (uncross my fingers at this point).

The fact that they company being mentioned (Flatspin) was in dire need of another developer to fill the needs of a very lucritive client, and that I have a cunning nack in making people think that they need the few skills I have to survive in the IT industry, yet again has nothing to do with the fact that I worked for them for the subsquent 2 and a half years. Honest.. nothing (uncross legs at this moment).

Oh before I forget, give credit where credit is due : Oct thanx for the initial CV template mate, couldn't have gotten anything down on e-paper without that one, and it looks classy too :)

And so we continue, [yup I talk a lot, ask Oct and Micon, and especially anyone that's played the boardgame Risk with us, verbal diarrhea], I digress.

So back to the present,or rather, not just yet. Over the months of December 2005 and Jan 2006 I had the time to update and change my CV, scope out what was available online in the line of jobs for ASP (classic, 3.0, not .NET) blokes like myself, with a little (enough to be very very dangerous... DELETE comes to mind) SQL experience, some DTS (again.. wonderful the things that happen @ 2:00 am in the morning when you are working from home on the launch date of a HUGE database driven website and you've missed a tick on that list of tickboxes before clicking continue.. uh hu.. I can see Oct feeling the enema (typo no.. million and counting ), very little PHP (no seriously, very very litte.. I know the open tag starts with
Lost my train of thought.. right. But being that I was on "holiday"the CV updating only really started getting into swing in about the last week of being in SA. That time when everyone else around you is going "Did I leave the gas on ? No, I'm a squarrel..." and is running around organising everything regarding clothes and the likes for the big trip to another country. So time for CV updating was, spent on something else.. most of the time.. and then there's Discovery channel on DSTV.. and and and... you catch the drift.

Don't get me wrong. I did do some work on my CV, but when I got here that all changed.

Run back almost a month now : We land in the UK, cold, tired and annoyed at the food.. (yup, we flew cattle bunk style, although with Virgin, which I heard was better than most.. especially Air Namibia ? )... and not in the mood for anything else but to put my luggage in a cupboard and put my head on a pillow, after a decent shower though as well.

We had landed with the impression that the house we were going to pay rent to live in was already online and that the cost of that would be covered by our rent, only to arrive here and find out that both the broadband and phone line had been cancelled because the owner closed the accounts before going over to SA... uhm.. strike 1.

After about 2 weeks of hassle, and finding a provider that does unlimited downloading (it's important, if you can get it why not.. and still only pay 14.99 pounds per month) we finally got online here @ home. Before that... yup, Inet cafés. If you ever come to the UK and you are here to try and find a job.. your first Inet cafe visit should be to do only a few small things.. email/sms your parents (or whoever you deem NB in your life) that you are ok and living the high life...second.. use the web to find a jobsearh centre near you (this all being if you don't have inet at home in the 1st place, but being that you are in an inet cafe that negates the above fact.. that verbal d word coming to mind again.. yup, same here).

Jobsearch centre : Free inet, free phone calls to companies to organise interview and free faxing, and in our case.. just 200 metres away from the house.. literally. I can pull up a Google Earth pic, but it's going to be to much hassle now.

Looking at the time I think it best that I get down and dirty at finishing the CV now, I need to have it working for me in about.. oh.. 7 hrs time ( and that includes me beauty sleep, which should be like 9 hrs in the UK).

L8r
[Z]

Overdue... by a long shot...

2006-02-19T18:37:00.000+02:00

Well.. the previous post was... uhmm.. ya.. guilty as charged your honour (the 24th of Sept) when I created the blog. So, as in the words of the G-unit,Micon and Octavo.. I suck. I could put down a load of reasons why the blog has no more than ( after this one) 2 posts, and they would all be justifying (think the word exists) the aforementioned fact, but that's going to take away from the huge amount of info that'll be coming through in some bitesize posts over (hopefully, terms and conditions apply - private joke with Craig) the next few days and hopefully after that weeks to come.

So where to start.. uhmm.. righto.. Sept, can't even think back that far.. I know that after the 24th Grieks' dad sent his old 4x4 Isuzu down to Cape Town so that we had some transport after one of our housemates lost his car on his b-day in Obs (stolen).

Being completely green when it comes to car maintanace and handling all the other side ( I'm use to : get in the car, turn the key, maybe check the fuel gagde, and let rip) of the whole "owning" a car, the whole idea being able to use someone else's bakkie to drive around was a bit of a blessing and a curse.

Blessing : Independance, being able to take Grieks to campus when she needed it, and testing the boundaries of Flatspin's flexitime and flexiwork guidelines :) Other than that things like going to Sinful (Camps bay ice cream place, if you are anywhere in that area, ask the locals, believe me.. well worth it, and they're open until late at night in the middle of the week as well) when the mood hit either me or Grieks, especially when the world of work and varsity just got that little to much. And all the other things like being able to drive to Kleinbaai for a weekend with buddies, which only really happened once.. still feel bad about taking Cledan though, sorry Sherry.

It also made it possible to haul stuff around, for me to go drop in on Octavo being able to sit down have a glass of wine while we were trying to figure something out for a little on-the-side business idea, and go pick up Grieks' brother from Saldanha for things like training in CT for a week and getting him to the airport for those great things called home visits :)

The curse part of it : Well, as I mentioned, I'm not the mechanic in the family.. that I left mostly to my dad and brother. Don't get me wrong, I was/am one of those kids that took and still take everything apart when I can ( I don't really listen to the proverb : it aint broke, don't fix it), but I used to have the full compliment of 7 screws left after taking apart the expensive wrist watch my dad got me and my brother when I was 7, and then trying to put it together again... the result, a fairly warm butt afterwards, and the wrist watch became spare parts.

So, back to the bakkie. I have another built in thing that probably comes from my dad's side of the family. I really like being able to give something back in a better condition than I got it. And being that Grieks' dad is my to-be-father-in-law ( unofficially, but somewhere we'll make it official :) ), I was out to try and make a good impression.

In defense of my in-laws-to-be : They are a great bunch of wacky people, who I enjoy every moment spending with, especially on diving trips to either Sodwana or Mozambique (which has happened a few times now.. but more about that later), and they've lovingly taken me in as part of the family.. no, not the "ag shame there's a little doggy on the roadside" kind of take in, these people have given me another family away from home in Cape Town, and I love them all to pieces. They expect nothing from me, and keep giving towards me and Grieks in abundance. I owe them a huge debt, which I'm hopefully making a bit of a dent in by trying my best to look out for their eldest...

Enough about that now.... quick look at the post length, thinking it might be time to sign this one off and then start a new one.. why ? So you can go get some coffee and take a break from reading to much on the web, come back and get some more info, cause there's going to be loads, and I suspect only the die-hards will be reading all of it.

That Late idea sounding like a good plan right about now.

L8r

So why not ?

2005-09-25T04:30:00.000+02:00

Ya.So here it is.Zodan's decided to get on the gravy train of blogging.The information highway is about to get some new information from another droid in the new to be called Sky network [Google building it's own internet apparently, from there the reference.]

Point number uno I should share is that any posts made by moa will be typo ridden, as two very good buddies of mine will confirm, Z's never been all that bright in the English grammar and spelling department. Still trying to find that niche department where Z does excel, but the universe is very very good @ hiding these things..as most of you will also feel from time to time no doubt.

Why did Z get a blog ? Was it because he has a few friends who have one and he saw them having fun spending hours getting their template "just right" ? Is it the open expanse of the net that draws him to write mindless gobble that no one is really going to read ?

The answer : Nah, think G's blog gets close : Just to blurp out stuff on random, keep a semi-diary [always get that one mixed up with dairy, yup.. got another person to smile in the universe :) ] And I like babbling.. a lot, really a lot.. and the whole thing of writing text files @ odd hours of the night and then storing them in a directory that only gets found next time you wanna write something and you spend 6 hours reading them all again and wondering.. " what was I on ?, Was I really that ignorant about life and the universe ? " And next time your hdd crashes it's all over.. gone.. memories, thoughts, recollections.. the stuff of life.. gone.. cause the 7 year hdd decided it has done its last platter spin for ol' good time's sake.

So ya, this will be a place where I let off steam, rant and rave about stupid stuff, ponder certain big questions out there in the universe [mainly only my own little world], and hopefully be able to keep a few ppl up to date with my life, to minimise email traffic that needs to go out.

The title ? I hear you ask.. was looking for something nice and catchy, but another one of those universe hiding things.. not my forte, and that one took me about 5 minutes to go.. not bad, I like it, says something and nothing @ the same time.

How many people will get onto this blog ? I doubt more than one [me :) ]... but we'll see won't we ?

At the minute I must return to some HTML, ASP coding, much ado about nothing really. But maybe it'll kick off :) Yup, it's a secret.

10-4 [Z]