i have been driving without a car radio for the last three days. not because it has been stolen, but because i put the cover in the back, and kept on forgetting to take it out again. it is nice. i also got a mini zen garden for my office, and this motivated me enough to clean my desk yesterday, as well as my drawers. my office is clean now

it was raining yesterday, and probably last nite too. funny. it is winter. it never rains in winter.

lets try and get this god damned day going. a nice cup of hot rooibos tea might just do the trick. or not. found a nice swastika in my peace sand this morning ;)

failed to mention that stephen also showed up at the dome with cara. they had a mcsa weekend there. nice, yet another meeting on my carve stick. stephen also informed me that our first ascent have been recorded on the website. my first first ascent. haha. that really made my day.

still have a lot of work to do, and got some more this afternoon. will take a look at it tonight...no, tomorrow.

went to hot spot cycle shop ( :) ) yesterday after work. eish, some really good bikes there. took another look at that avalanche gt 3.0 at R2695. it is a lot of money, but it is a nice bike. and it would probably leave me less dissappointed than the other. decisions decisions. i have to decide, the thing is the little weirdo at the pet shop will cost me about R300 if i decide to redo my fish tank. poor fish, they need this break badly.

i need that bike badly. would someone throw 22?

what a dissappointing weekend this was. i experienced total and complete failure. did not do my solo for obvious reasons. also after doing some maths i discovered that i did not have enough quickdraws, and was not prepared to skimp alone.

discovered a cave, with unusually shiny rocks. looks like pieces of metal have been embedded into them. there is a platinum mine about 1km to the south. i would at least see if i could get these rocks examined. may be nothing. may be something. loads of work to be done both at the office and with attendo.

did the maths - doubt that i would get the chance of doing my rope solo this weekend. not enough hardware - short 6 quickdraws. given enough time i think i might be able to make a plan....hmmm... wil see and decide there. hope i can get away here early enough. need to leave at 14:30. got great news from saclimb - 9 new routes!!!!!

doubt if i would keep trip report. will see what happens. still need to finish quest tr. wonder if i would be on tv again saturday? *grin*

got more mail from alana - her mail does not always make sense to me

mindless work - search copy paste - listening to everybody hurts, don't dream it's over. i love the music. at the moment the only thing keeping me sane. lost my mind earlier this morning finding it again after letting out a few animal howls in the empty office next door. weird. that it helps. it's weird.

learnt more a bout alana this morning, her site, back online again yesterday. still deciding whether i want to link it to it. i will speak to her and decide. her paradigm would add nice flavour to the different life experiences, but i don't know if the content would be much appreciated by all. then i remember that this site has got nothing to do with anyone but me, and should i decide that i like it enough it would get linked.

mindless work - search copy - paste - backspace - rod stewardt, beegees

excited about my solo performance, scheduled for saturday. alone on a vertical wall, doing all the work, all the concentration, no-one to back me up. check on me. solitude. not loneliness. i love it, it phsyches me out. out of my comfort zone. a pack animal alone in the veld.

will it touch or change my thoughts as much as the drakensberg, or the witteberg? i doubt, but it might just touch it again, touch it enough to make me remember the times i had to spend on my own, sometimes concentrating not to loose it. alone at a campsite is ok, dull and lonely but managable. alone lost in the mountains, or alone on a big wall, it is different. knowing that death is all around you. everything you see could be a murder weapon. i need that again. i need to feel i am dying. i remembered that for just a few days after i came back, and especially that first nite driving thru town. everything felt surreal. i did not want to say anything, to anyone. as if nothing really existed. as if no-one mattered. as if it won't make a difference smiling or crying, talking or keeping quiet, but keeping quiet, and still, just made the experience so much more intense. feeling secluded like never before. i need that again. i want that glostick. blow that whistle. wish so badly for someone to come save you, finding no one. realising you are running out of water, headlamp dying, not knowing where you are. hearing things, illusions, dying.

i'll go next year. i hope it is even worse this time round. i doubt

copy paste search - just piano music

long to do list open in outlook, non work related matters. wash car, fix rear breaking light. pack - pack.

i wonder if i would be able to go a complete day without speaking

i wont have time to blog today, a quick list: got up - came to work - did not work - working late - proj sold again - have to be delivered tomorrow - hungry - wallet at home - dying

friday started early today - around 5:30, got up, had nothing to do cept eat, shower and the usual morning ritual. i read the most amazing story about this girl, amber. climbing incident, good stuff to read a week or so before a trip...

spent yesterday trying to prioritse my todo list in my head for this weekend. fix bike, restart fish tank, finish project. another item popped up today, finish trip report from african quest. andre needs a few for the webstie. i was planning on waiting for the photo's from jacques first, but i doubt that he would have pics of the areas i was in, as i never saw him.

even with this weeks adventure race out of the way i still doubt that i would get to everything i want to do.

money matters would again be the topic of office discussions today. great ideas are born within these discussions and it almost always ends in someone stating that we can make millions, and should write these ideas down. some more great ideas gets built onto the original, and as usual the obvious gets stated and restated as in any conversation between mortal humans.

getting more and more excited about the climbing next weekend. the trip there is the downpoint but it promises to be a breeze after what i have been through with the eastern cape trip. still have to do the tr :)

i partially fixed the bike the other day, but have discovered that my gears are all screwed up. along with that i would take on the fish tank this weekend. need new gravel, new plants, and silicon to glue the pipes and stuff to the bottom. would cost a few bucks again tho. might even need new fish after the operation. oh well. will try and keep most of the water.

need to finish this project as well now. need the money, have a large list of mandatory toys. maybe i should consider selling my little canary again. i never fly it anymore anyway.

sitting here.... alone at work.... on a public holiday... celebrating my birthday...

how am i supposed to work?

i'll take it easy today, want to go to bruce's to buy that helmet... wonder if they would be open...

blogged today, in short, it was a good day. most things seemed to work at first try, or at least within a few attempts. i just realised that i still have loads of things to do. fixed my bike yesterday... phew... stole some cycling gloves... (long story, do not wish to get into detail, but feel that it should be noted)... ready to cycle to work tomorrow, should i awake soon enough. i am considering leaving home only after 6:30, seeing that i do not have sufficient lighting on my bike. i would carry my headlamp though. also my quickwic© first a

----boss barged into the office - ALT TAB!!!! ALT TAB!!!!----

where was i.... oh yeah, my quickwic© first ascent© shirt, and long pants....i think, might even come with my cross trainers....leave my jacket, wallet etc here....hmmmmm - i got to get back to work

did not blog today, in short, it was not a good day, too much work, too little motivation. nothing wanted to work. including me

worked till about 23:00 last night. was enjoying it all the time, a first, at least a first in quite a few years. i heard about this book that is supposed really get you all worked up and excited about programming, too bad i am such a lazy reader.

the app got pretty far last night, and should hopefully be completed somewhere next week. i have realised and reconfirmed it last night. the estiamted time needed to complete a project can easily be calculated by taking the projected time, multiplying it by the amount of people working on the project and deducting the amount you get paid for it. which usually is not much, or at least not as much as one would like it to be.

weekend suddenly popped up and i am still not sure whether one weekend would be enough. i am however still thriving on the weird and wonderful feeling from last week. solitary in it's best, suffering as good as it gets. i think everyone needs a time like that every now and then. kind of a little bit of what the army used to do to a person. the reason why most of todays men, and women, are so turning out as weird "expressions or art statements". whatever they want to call it to justify their utter mindlessness. dressing up as a woman or coloring your hair pink. who cares? realize you have issues!!

did not get mad or even slightly worked up writing that paragraph, my first step to becomming a sane memeber of society, not that anything like that is possible to anyone of the so called society. last week really did make a difference in my life.

am planning on a trip to mokopane, the old potgietersrus for a bit of climbing. have not climbed any vertical rock sine may i think it was....may or april. i want some good granite under my aching fingers with a good couple death meters below me. need to get the heart racing again, would make the perfect blend after last week.

would probably be working on the project again saturday night, but i thought it good to spend some time controlling again as well. there is an event saturday, i get the strange feeling of dejavu, and up pops the idea that i have blogged this before, maybe yesterday.

spoke to matt again this morning, the little guy from canada that is madly in love with this sa girl. he seems to have the most amazing imagination, really hit my humour nerves right on this morning with his idea of a perfect life. flying for saa locally, living in capetown and be home early enough to bang his lovely wife after or before eating her gournet cooking. a while ago he said that he is sure one of his favourite quotes would be "great landing captain wadham" - go on sir, live in your dream, it is one of the best places to be

the argument in the cubicle next to me is pretty loud now. marketing division doing what he is best at. selling ideas, but he has targeted the wrong victim, development department. you can't sell more work to anyone, no matter how well it gets sugar coated. no pay, no work. the guy seems to have a more than valid point though. and the guys are starting to fall for it, but i am sure that it would get discussed again when he has left, his points would be regarded as valid, and sometimes even brilliant, the right way to go, the thing to do. but would soon be scrapped as something that either can't be done now (and be postponed to an infinite date), moved to the wish-list of release 2 (which would never come, since release one would never get released) or just get nodded at, and forgotten about. if all these fail, the boss would come back and say no, it won't work.

i am slightly concerned about the weather, more precisly the temperature of the mokopane weekend. t has got a good point, we did freeze last time, around the same time of year. but i tend to think we are better prepared this time round. much better.

received a few pics of the quest, but not enouh to get a nice tr going. although i mightbe waiting forever, as i would not be happy if i can not have pics of places i want to wrote about, which does not exist, as i never even swa the camera guy.....nice guy tho

argument stopped now and marketing left. amidst the normal stating and restating of the obvious, there was actually another outcome, that i failed to mention. this outcome is based on the light shed upon a subject, reflecting sharply into other dark areas and ultimately hitting an individual or group of people against the head, causing them to "see the light". the blame for it not being there in the first place now needs to be shifted to someone else. management. why did they not envisage this? they need more insight from the industry side... (and then stating the obvious a bit: "we need to stop doing demo's all over and start selling products", then restating the obvious: "we will never get a product out by continueing like this"). now all are eager to get this thing right, have the best intentions, and wait (or rely) on management to come and crush the snow ball before it gets too far. at this point a few obvious things again gets stated and restated. largely to prevent people from thinking to far too fast and loosing track. this happens often to some nations in our country, which is abruptly anounced by a dumb expression the "eish" or "haow" sound.

society - an extended social group having a distinctive cultural and economic organization

got to work all motivated today. actually pulled it off and started working as soon as i got here. i went at it for a straight hour. luckily the maid just showed up and asked if she could vacuum the office. even if i want to work, i get interupted ;) - leaving the noise behind i walk outside - nice hot cup of tea

funny how i get so aggrevated by the smallest things. and sometimes even, i am the one on the wrong side of things, the one with the twisted idea about the reason for something to be as it is. which it is. this morning i got all worked up about my boss giving something a name that ... ag never mind, i can already feel myself going there again.

my first moonlighting project should be completed by tonight. decided to stay late and work on it, the client already deposited the money, so i guess i need to get his project to him asap. then there is the other one, i might even get that close to completion tonight. i would also be able to work on it saturday while controlling johannesburg airspace. it gets pretty budy at times, but there are also the pre and post rush hour, which has me staring at my scope with the few blimps moving around outside and above my airspace, which leaves time for development.

i am strangely still motivated to work today, must have been something i ate, or the mixed frank sinatra and five for fighting playlist breaking the silence, with the noise of the keyboards keys being smacked in each and every direction as i type as the only competition. i also heard the gary jules song for the first time in ages and remembered why i blogged.

realising that i might not have enough time this weekend to do all i planned on doing, i get all excited again, not the good kind. i am thinking of changing nxt weekends adventure race to just a day outing, and come back afterwards instead of sleeping over.

still have not had time to do a proper trip report on the african quest, i would as soon as i have some photo's to go along with it.

head lumping through my shoulders onto the floor and out the door. followed by my body falling to the floor and my head producing a soft *sigh*. blowing around some leaves and ground particles. some many things, so much debt. i looked at that canon 300D again just now. i thought about that mtb this morning. all these thoughts lead me towards the amount that i still owe on my car, and the fact that i still have no pension fund. i am turning 24 this year, i should have had it in place long time ago.

maybe that is the main reason that i am so unhappy these days. i am tired of struggling.

the next few days i am to work myself into a paralatic stage. apart from work here, i have started on two freelance projects, they kind of intertwine a bit so i guess when the one has been completed the other should not have all that much to do still.

i have decided to start training hard from monday, if i get my bike fixed saturday. i am really losing shape, and have realized that i can actually feel myself getting tired more easily. there is no hope in hell that i would have a better change than a sloth to finish an adventure race, let alone get a position. i have also come to realize that i need to start focussing on climbing again. my monkey mussles have disintegrated with the barn closing.

it's freezing outside today. i feel the agility of my fingers over the keyboard slowing down to frozen snake speed.

received good and bad news today. good my boss will be leaving for a few days to go on holiday. bad news came via my inbox from him giving me instructions to some more work that needs to be done. it really is a lot of work, considering i still wanted to do some other stuff as well. got to bring in the dough

back from the gramadoulas. i have more or less kept a trip report, but this has to be reworked into something that would make more sense than the shrivled piece of paper with the freezing handwriting that it is now, so bear with me. i would also work towards adding a few pics, if possible.

i would lie if i said that i enjoyed this race. i would also not be honest in saying that i did not. looking back there are a lot of mixed emotions, ups and downs. in the end, i think i learned more than i ever learned in such a short time of my life. i learned about what the human body can and can not do, what i can and can not do, and how horrific nature can be when it wants to.

a total of 5 people almost lost their lives this week. 2 ended up in critical condition in hospital. and i discovered what it felt like being completely on my own, in an unforgiving part of the world. being left only to my own skills, my own reasoning, my equipment, and the grace of God. no contact by any means with anyone. should things get worse, there would be no-one to come search for me before it is too late. it was harder to keep a straight head than i thought. to not start running around searching for help franticly.

i really had the experience of my life, the best and the worst times all in one week. if i have the chance to do it again, i would most definitely go for it.

getting back to town was nice, and i went with karen to drop esther off in the cbd. it felt good to have colored lights around me again. to smell the polution, and see so many people clogged together between these concrete buildings. it made me forgive all the stereotype office junkies for a while. all the common minded wind chasers. for once they were all welcome.

back at work things were still running well, and i was ready to get back in the saddle and start working again. still looking out the window with a bit of a dazed and confused feel. like i am high on something that makes me tired and careless. again feeling like i am the only person really alive. feeling like i do not really belong here. and feeling that everything has just begun.