Author Archives: Marius

About Marius

Owner of Henriska Technology and Project Manager by profession.

Daily Travel Photo (DTP) #1

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As most of you know my current job involves travelling across the breath of South Africa, mostly by air but I do come across things I would like to share.  I thought I would take a leave out of Paul’s and Kerry-Ann’s (they are the people behind Cape Town Daily Photo) book and share a photograph on a daily basis.  At least that is the idea, I might skip some days when time does not allow.

I am calling my attempt at this, Daily Travel Photo (DTP) since it will be a photograph about where the road and work takes me.

DTP 1

I though the best place to start is where I stay at the moment.  It is a glorious sunny winters day in Johannesburg and this photo is taken from my guesthouse room balcony of the back garden with the swimming pool and little cascading  waterfall which has a very soothing sound.

Hope you enjoy what I have to bring you on a daily basis.  Actually I stated this yesterday with the post regarding the beggar.

Comments always welcome.

Johannesburg beggar

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Yes I know it was a while but I have been so busy with travelling and working and life in general. 

Here is how ingenuous people can be.

Jhb beggar

This photo was taken when I stopped at a red robot in Johannesburg yesterday on my way from work back to my guesthouse.  This guy was painted silver from head to toe and stood dead still in the road.  I was at the robot for at least 2 minutes and he did not move at all, not even his open mouth closed. Just as the robot turned green the car in front of me dropped some money in his hat (which was also painted silver) and he moved to say thanks.  Although I do not like to give money to robot beggars, I also gave some since this was really ingenuous and he deserved some recognition.

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Super 14 and Fun in the Sun!!

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image What were they thinking, and here I am talking about that 15 Stormers that were on the field yesterday.  What a bunch of wallies … I have not seen a bunch of guys that for 80 minutes had no idea what they were doing.  On yesterday’s performance they do not deserve to be in the semi’s.

Well done to the Sharks that showed how it should be done.  Good luck to them and let us all go out and support them next weekend against the Waratahs.

Over the past week, I have spend 3 glorious days in Sun City courtesy of IBM for great work delivered during 2007.  I was one of the lucky one’s that stayed in the Cascades hotel and what a joy.  I was not like Tertia and spend basically all my allowance provided by IBM.

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Went on a game drive early on the first morning and almost froze to death but what a great drive.  Got to know a elephant … the driver had to quickly start the vehicle and move away so close the elephant got.  Also was treated to a baby white rino, “rooikat”, zebra, giraffe, impala and various other wildlife.  Unfortunately we did not get to see lions or cheetahs.

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Went on a walk through the Sun City forest over hang bridges and through waterfalls.  The photo above is from behind the waterfall.  Bet you did not know you can walk behind waterfalls in Sun City.

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For those that know me, no I did not play golf.  We could not play the Gary Player course since there was a Pro Tournament on at the time and I do not like the Lost City course so decided to give golf a skip.  Above is picture of the 9th hole on the Gary Player course and below the Lost City course taken from the tower on top of the Palace of the Lost City hotel.
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imageOn the first evening we went to watch the show, Let There be Rock, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  One pity is that they played no Queen music which was a bit weird since I cannot see how you can have a Rock music show without Queen.

Both evenings we had gala dinners and on the second evening people partied till in the wee hours of the morning. I was not that brave 🙂

Lounged around the pool, sipping cocktails and beers.  Spending time with friends.  Just had a great 3 days away from the office and did not had to worry about work and all the other things that is going on in my life.  Thanks IBM, I really enjoyed it and appreciate the gesture.

A friend of mine will be spending the next week there on a conference.  M, if you read this, take some time out from the hectic conference life and just enjoy some of what Sun City has to offer.

You can see all the Sun City photos on my Flickr stream.

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Travel, travel and more travel.

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OWSunrise 4

This amazing sunrise was taken one morning about 2 weeks ago.  It looks like the whole sky was burning and had all these shades of orange and red.

image Pity about the Stormers that only managed a draw last night but taking the weather into account I think we should take what we got and move onto the next game against the Lions.

The Stormers is 4th on the log and still in the running for the semi’s. They would probably battle to get a home semi.  It would be good if the Sharks can also move up to the semi’s.

 

So back to the title of this post.  About a month ago I started working on a big new assignment with a company based in Johannesburg.  I am still with IBM and are working on the outsourcing deal between MTN and IBM.  This basically mean that I stay in Cape Town and work in Johannesburg.  I travel up beginning of week and then back to Cape Town towards the end of week.  I use to stay in hotels but that just got to me.  Now I use a guesthouse and go back to the same one each time and try to stay in the same room.  Now at least it feels like home away from home.

The travelling in airports and airplanes  is really tiring.  We have estimated that a round trip can take anything up to 10 hours if you take into account time from home to airport, picking up car and then trip from airport to destination.  On my next trip which starts 20 May I will stay longer which mean a weekend in Gauteng.  This will be a new experience since I have not really spend leisure time in Gauteng yet, so will need to find things to do.  Anyone in the area that knows me and want to meet for coffee or drinks, just let me know and we can make a plan.

Last week Thursday evening we had the Welcome event for all new IBMers that joined us from MTN.   Welcome to all the new IBMers, trust that you will enjoy your stay and work with us here at IBM.  Now some of my colleagues really let their hair down.

Next week I am off to Sun City with over 200 of my colleagues for a well deserved break and to have some fun in the sun.  Thanks to IBM GTS which had a great year last year.

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.
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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.