Monday, May 28, 2007
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Monday, May 14, 2007
Going Solo
My Hunny got me my very own domain a little while back, but I've been slow to get started up there. This weekend I finally took the plunge.
Pay me a visit and get my first installment of the road trip saga.
Pay me a visit and get my first installment of the road trip saga.
Sunday, May 6, 2007
Road trip!
I apologise, it's been ages since I last posted, but I've got a good excuse ;-)
My Hunny loves maps, google earth or a good map book can keep him entertained for hours. So last Christmas I bought him a big laminated wall map on which he could plan and mark our bike trips. We put the first few pins in the map just after Christmas when we took the bikes out to Nelspruit. That was also my first proper trip on the Kawasaki ZZR 400 I got last October and also my first trip actually riding a bike, not as a passenger.
The Map is on a wall in our spare bedroom, the same room that I blow dry my hair in. It during this exercise one morning in February, filled with nostalgia from looking at the pins marking our Nelspruit trip, that I said to my Hunny: "Wouldn't it be nice to takes the bikes all the way down here?", pointing to the southern most tip of Africa, Cape Aghulas.
After a lot of planning and anticipation, last Tuesday morning the 24th of April, we set out on that trip.
On Wednesday the 2nd of May we pulled back into our garage after 4000 km's, stop overs in 7 different towns, 8 days of riding, one days rest, one accident, much junk food and traces of several thousand bugs our helmets.
It was a great trip despite some not wonderful weather. I kept a notebook, so over the next few days I'll write a more detailed account of the experience and post some pictures ...
Have a great week,
Alex
My Hunny loves maps, google earth or a good map book can keep him entertained for hours. So last Christmas I bought him a big laminated wall map on which he could plan and mark our bike trips. We put the first few pins in the map just after Christmas when we took the bikes out to Nelspruit. That was also my first proper trip on the Kawasaki ZZR 400 I got last October and also my first trip actually riding a bike, not as a passenger.
The Map is on a wall in our spare bedroom, the same room that I blow dry my hair in. It during this exercise one morning in February, filled with nostalgia from looking at the pins marking our Nelspruit trip, that I said to my Hunny: "Wouldn't it be nice to takes the bikes all the way down here?", pointing to the southern most tip of Africa, Cape Aghulas.
After a lot of planning and anticipation, last Tuesday morning the 24th of April, we set out on that trip.
On Wednesday the 2nd of May we pulled back into our garage after 4000 km's, stop overs in 7 different towns, 8 days of riding, one days rest, one accident, much junk food and traces of several thousand bugs our helmets.
It was a great trip despite some not wonderful weather. I kept a notebook, so over the next few days I'll write a more detailed account of the experience and post some pictures ...
Have a great week,
Alex
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
We need to talk about Cho Seung-Hui
A while back, I read a book by Lionel Shriver called 'We need to talk about Kevin'. I think it's a brilliant book - go to the wikipedia link to get more detail on it if you haven't read it - but in brief it's a fictional work written from the point of view of a mother of a Columbine type killer. Not an actual Columbine killer, but a kid who took his crossbow to school and killed a bunch of his classmates. While not easy reading, it was a very thought provoking book, asking the question: Is it all bad parenting, or are some kids just born evil?
I'm not trying to jump on the bandwagon and just score extra page hits with this post, I'm just wondering if anyone else noticed one similarity between the book and the shootings at Virginia Tech that stood out for me: Kevin chained the doors of the gym where he staged his massacre; and the doors to Norris Hall were chained shut. I don't think it's been established if Cho Seung-Hui chained the doors, but this did give me something to think about.
Enough times in the media I have read about kids getting bad ideas from movies/music/video games and acting them out, but I've given little thought to those claims. I've blown most of that off, saying that if the kid was that way inclined, he could get his motivation from anywhere. How I have proved my point here, and with consequences that feel far more real to me than the initial argument ever did. If a prize-winning novel written to provoke thought could inspire an educated young adult to do something like this (I'm not saying it did, I'm just theorising), then we couldn't be safe for banning kid's from playing all the video games in the world!
This is not a new thought by any means. Some people reading this will think 'well duh!'. It's just that it hit me with force today, and I'm wondering what exactly we can do about this? Censorship and Gun control can only go so far. People who really want to wreak havoc will find a way.
"It's a mucked up world" a favorite preacher of mine likes to say, and boy do I agree with him today.
I'm not trying to jump on the bandwagon and just score extra page hits with this post, I'm just wondering if anyone else noticed one similarity between the book and the shootings at Virginia Tech that stood out for me: Kevin chained the doors of the gym where he staged his massacre; and the doors to Norris Hall were chained shut. I don't think it's been established if Cho Seung-Hui chained the doors, but this did give me something to think about.
Enough times in the media I have read about kids getting bad ideas from movies/music/video games and acting them out, but I've given little thought to those claims. I've blown most of that off, saying that if the kid was that way inclined, he could get his motivation from anywhere. How I have proved my point here, and with consequences that feel far more real to me than the initial argument ever did. If a prize-winning novel written to provoke thought could inspire an educated young adult to do something like this (I'm not saying it did, I'm just theorising), then we couldn't be safe for banning kid's from playing all the video games in the world!
This is not a new thought by any means. Some people reading this will think 'well duh!'. It's just that it hit me with force today, and I'm wondering what exactly we can do about this? Censorship and Gun control can only go so far. People who really want to wreak havoc will find a way.
"It's a mucked up world" a favorite preacher of mine likes to say, and boy do I agree with him today.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Doh!
Well, I just read my post from Friday (after a suggestion from a friend) and well, I obviously didn't read it through before I posted it. Sorry folks, it spell-checked fine but what I need is an 'is this the correct word?' check. I could go and edit that post, but I think I'll leave it up as a reminder.
A little piece of happiness for Monday: I've been visiting Doug Savage's blog the last couple of weeks. Savage Chickens gives you cartoons on Sticky Notes, really funny stuff, go see for yourself.
A little piece of happiness for Monday: I've been visiting Doug Savage's blog the last couple of weeks. Savage Chickens gives you cartoons on Sticky Notes, really funny stuff, go see for yourself.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Relief feels weird
I'm always amazed how your body knows what's going on in your brain. I shouldn't be amazed anymore, I have one if the most communicative bodies out there, it never lets me get away with ignoring my worries. this morning though, I got a different communication... relief.
I can't at this stage go into too much detail, but a situation in my work has had me rather anxious for a little while now. My body's reaction has been to dry hurl every weekday morning. Not pleasant. What makes the situation unhappily messy is that it needs to be kept under wraps until certain things came about. I wasn't to comfortable about this because a fair amount of deceiving has been done. On party in particular I felt aught to know what was going on, and this week I got the go-ahead from my management to say I could let this party know.
I sent of one very carefully crated email this morning and immediately felt a burden lift off my shoulders. That wasn't the new experience though. When I received the response to me email this afternoon it was exactly the response I wanted & needed to the situation. I felt what must have been 4 weeks worth of held breath leave my lungs, I felt at least a little dizzy and my ears blocked up. Now that was weird.
It's not at the top of my list of best physical feelings ever but that had to be one of the most unusual. My left ear is still blocked.
I can't at this stage go into too much detail, but a situation in my work has had me rather anxious for a little while now. My body's reaction has been to dry hurl every weekday morning. Not pleasant. What makes the situation unhappily messy is that it needs to be kept under wraps until certain things came about. I wasn't to comfortable about this because a fair amount of deceiving has been done. On party in particular I felt aught to know what was going on, and this week I got the go-ahead from my management to say I could let this party know.
I sent of one very carefully crated email this morning and immediately felt a burden lift off my shoulders. That wasn't the new experience though. When I received the response to me email this afternoon it was exactly the response I wanted & needed to the situation. I felt what must have been 4 weeks worth of held breath leave my lungs, I felt at least a little dizzy and my ears blocked up. Now that was weird.
It's not at the top of my list of best physical feelings ever but that had to be one of the most unusual. My left ear is still blocked.
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