Month: April 2008

Cheese Festival disappointment!!

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Those of you that follow my blog would know that I won tickets to the Cheese Festival, courtesy of Winecountry. Yesterday, my daughter and myself set off to spend the day at the Cheese Festival and as a cheese lover, I really looked forward to it.  I made arrangements with Henre from Winecountry to pick-up the tickets at the Clover Gate. 

The first obstacle was that the person that manned  the entrance to the dirt load that lead to the cheese festival did not want to let us in without tickets.  Explaining to him that we had to pick-up the tickets at the gate did not help much.  After much convincing he eventually let us through.  I must have known that things was not going to go smoothly.  We had to park miles away and after a long walk got to the Clover gate.  When I asked the people there that an envelope was left with the tickets for me, they had no idea what I was talking about.  The one guy asked around but no-one was really interested in searching for any tickets that might have been left there.  They just said that there was no tickets.  We just turned around and walked all the way back to our car very disappointed – (actually I was really mad since I knew that my daughter was looking forward to it and how disappointed she must have been).

I do not know who did not do their job.  Was it Winecountry that got the arrangement screwed up?  Was it the people that was suppose to drop of the tickets that just did not bother?  Or was the tickets there and the people manning the gate did not know and was not interested in looking for it.

The bottom line is that I did not go to the cheese festival and in the end it is WineCountry through witch the competition was run that has lost my confidence in them. I will have to see what will be done to make up for this .. I do not have any trust that anything will be done.

The good from all this is that my daughter and I then went onto Franshoek and spend the day in Franshoek.  I have not been there for ages.  We just parked our car and strolled down the street from little shop to little shop.  We had a great lunch in one of the many eating places.  After lunch we went to the Chocolate factory where my daughter spend some money on South African made Belgium chocolates.  Here is a picture of the little shop.

Franshoek 2

One of the main attractions in Franshoek is the Huguenot Monument:

Franshoek 4

So in the end, the day turned out quiet well and I rediscovered Franshoek again.  I will definitely visit the town again showing visitors around and spending some time in their fabulous eating places. 

The moon, rugby and friendship.

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Today is full moon and it poked its head over the mountains fairly early today.  Here is what I captured with my cellphone – excuse the quality.

Early moon

image How about the Stormers yesterday beating the Hurricans.  This win moved the Stormers up to 4th on the log.

Next weekend the Stormers are up against the Highlanders that got beaten by the Bulls.  Lets hope that the Stormers can bag 5 log points by beating the Highlanders and run in more than 4 tries.

 

Over the last couple of days I have been thinking about friendship and relationships and all that I am left with are more questions than answers.

  • When does a friendship stop being a friendship only and become a relationship? Is there one defining point where one moves from one state to another?  How does one knows this?
  • Does it mean that when one is in a relationship, other friends become less important?
  • Why is being in a relationship so much more complicated than being just friends?
  • Can one be great friends with somebody while that person is in a relationship with somebody else?  Or if that other person is just very interested in somebody else?

South African bags a major!!

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Trevor Immelman won the US Masters early this morning South African time.  Although he had a bumpy fourth round (so did everybody else) he held on and beat Tiger by 3 shots.

This is the first time since, I think, 1976 that somebody won the US Masters leading from the start.  Trevor was the leader at the end of each and every round.  Another interesting fact is that it is the first tournament this year that Tiger entered and did not win.  He got damn close but Trevor did enough in the first 3 rounds to keep him out.

And how about the Stormers?  Lets hope they can keep it up in their next couple of games and move up to at least 4th on the log to play in the semi’s. Here is the log after this weekend’s games.  As you can see, about nothing between 3rd and 8th position on the log.
image

New challenges and change.

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Change is the essence of life. Be willing to surrender what you are, for what you could become.

They say that change is as good as a holiday.  Things are changing in my life and with it will come new challenges.

At work I have moved on to a new role (still within IBM South Africa) which will mean that for the next couple of weeks and months, I will be staying in Cape Town and working in Johannesburg.  I will be commuting between Cape Town and Johannesburg on a weekly basis and depending on the needs of the work, I will be in Johannesburg anything between 2 and 5 days a week. I cannot say much about the work I will be doing but when things are more finalized then I will post it here.

I will get to know the inside of airports, airplanes and hotels.  Made sure that my Voyager and BA Executive Club cards are up to date and make sure I stay in the same hotel group to benefit from Frequent Guest privileges.

This should give me a chance to pop in at 27dinner in Johannesburg.  Do they have Geekdinners in Johannesburg?

This will also give me the opportunity to see my Johannesburg and Pretoria friends more often.  Hey, one cannot live on hotel food alone.  So if any of my readers from up there want to meet, then contact me and we can make a plan.

I am sure I will build up a wealth of experience of how to commute across the country for one’s job.  From time to time I will share that here – what to look out for and what to avoid.  What the quickest way through an airport is?  Experience with hotels, rental companies and airlines.  I will also appreciate any comments which any of you might have on things to avoid or look out for.

To my Cape Town friends,  I will not leave this beautiful place anytime soon so you will still see me around.

Geekdinner @ Greens

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After months of not attending the Geekdinner, I went to last night’s one that was held at Greens in Plattekloof.

It was really enjoyable.  The food was great and Perdeberg sponsored the wine — thanks Perdeberg.

It was good the see Ian, Tania, Neil, Bob and many others again.  I also met Bev, the one and only Feisty Female  — was great meeting the person behind the tweets.  Also got to meet Kerry-Anne and Paul from Cape Town Daily Photo.  Kerry-Anne, hope the moving today is not to strenuous and that it goes well.  Paul, you must enjoy your tip to Vegas, am sure you will enjoy it.  I am so envious.

Ian was his best again with his talk on Hippie, Green and something about technology. Bob told us all about what is going on the payment systems and the Presentation Karaoke was just hilarious.  I did not get the name of the presenter that tried to find his way through Tania’s slides, but he did an excellent job.

All in all, a great evening with a bunch of Cape Town’s geeks.