Oltman Botha 1978

About 31 years ago to the day, an old buddy of ours - Baas Oltman - was born to the Botha household with much fanfare, celebrations, and great plans.

31 years later, he's grown bigger, grown older, and grown bolder (sic). Who would have thought he'd be celebrating his 31st birthday just 6 days after our fourth democratic elections!! Sorry to say, FF+ hasn't become the new democratically elected government, but at least they're still around :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BAAS OLTMAN EN VEELS GELUK MET JOU VERJAARSDAG!

GROETE, DA'DIE JOHNSTONS

Braai at the neighbours (the Hoyer senior)

Mmmmmmm. Divine! Chops, porkies, steak, salad, curried carrots, three bean salad, potato salad, garlic bread.

What a great way to end the weekend away!

Here comes the sun!

Finally on our last day at the beach the sun has decided to join us! It has been an awesome time relaxing inside with the soothing rhythmic beating of the waves outside but being able to actually enjoy the entire beach experience (swimming and lounging on the beach) is just one step closer to heaven.

We attempted to brave the icy cold waters yesterday and it was do able, but for me, really cold (the rest of the group is just a bunch of polar bears. They're insane). Today has been far nicer. Earlier this morning we spent a good half hour floating in the water like a bunch of placated sea lions before beaching ourselves belly first in the shallows to enjoy a moment of quiet reflection.

It's almost time for a braai now with the neighbours (who also happen to be the owners and Steve's grandparents) so Kat and Steve have gone out to quickly enjoy a bit of low-tide foraging along the ridge (you might be able to just make them out in this picture in the centre of the frame against the backdrop of some crashing waves). Joe and I are chilling on the deck with some popcorn and coffee (no coffee for me though, because I'm no addict).

Good times indeed.

Sunday by the beach

Tea with the owners (Steve's grandparents)! Promises to be fun :)

Steve's new car

Vehicle of choice for our relaxing getaway

We are here. Look at what you're missing!

Aaaah. The warm sea air and soothing rhythm of the undulating waves caressing the shore - what bliss!
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Road trip to getaway by the beach

Today is the day to start our long weekend getaway. Steve and I are going away earlier than the others (Kat and Joe) and we are going in LUXURY (Audi A4).

It's a modern marvel of German engineering! In fact so much so, that we honestly had to read the manual to insert a CD (and we are both computer nerds with appropriate qualifications).

I'm looking forward to getting away from all the stress at home and celebrating Kat's momentary "transitional" unemployment.

Back home a certain Thai restaurant is fuming because we changed over the remote control access to the complex and their landlord didn't bother to apply for remotes for them. Naturally they think it was all my ploy to stuff them around even though the truth is we instructed our managing agents to notify ALL owners - even the "problematic" ones. This perception will no doubt just fuel animosity towards me and I should expect more death threats and physicality from them.

Ah well let's enjoy a wonderful week off!!!

300 (tonight you browse in hell?)

We've been blogging for a few months, and already we've reached the 300 mark. Not a massive milestone by any stretch of the imagination, but a handy number to blog about. Thanks for the Spartans and their small villa, otherwise I'd have to wait for 500, or 1,000, or something bigger, and that would be pointless.

I wouldn't quite say that tonight you dine in hell, but perhaps some of my blog posts make you feel that way. At any rate, we haven't got a sniff on the other parties in the elections, but if we hit 10,000 by 2014, I'll promise to consider running for elections - okay?

My name's BrYan, and I'm a citizen

It's now just after 7am. My fingers and thumbs don't even work properly because it's so darned cold. I've been up since 5am because of a prayer meeting at the church to pray for the nation and elections, and for the first time ever, I'm here to vote in the morning. Something Kat said about "you're up anyway".

I'm actually waiting in a queue to vote! I've never had to wait! Usually my complete experience of voting is waste my day away, drive to Atholl Heights, stroll in, make some jokes, get my thumb dotted, mark an X, and walk out (not without saying hello to my father-in-law). This time I'm actually waiting. It's insane. What a waste of my day. I've probably spent more time in this queue (five minutes) than I have in the past two elections.

Some dude is allowed to the front because he's on crutches. I knew I should have faked an injury. I'm trying to, but people are just staring blankly at me. Those blank looks remind me of Jacob Zuma. They must be ANC supporters. I'm surrounded by them. Reminds me of zombies. Mmm... Zombies ... Braaaaiiiiins ... I wonder who zombies would vote for?

This is a waste of my constitutional right to sleep in late on a public holiday. I'm an unhappy member of the voting public. And I thought it was illegal to canvas today - the IEC party is still running around everywhere, and their banners are all over the voting station. That can't be right.

And what's with the kids? How can they be allowed to vote? This is the strangest election I've attended.

My name's BrYan, and I'm a plumber

Early Monday night, as we were about to leave for a family dinner out (to celebrate Duncan's graduation), and to return Wendy's car, we heard a funny "pop-thud-thhhhhhhhhhhhhh". At first I just chose to ignore it, but after a few seconds I decided to go check out what was going on (read: Kat was panicking about the noise and needed hunky manly man BrYan to go and risk his life and limb to identify the noise, unwittingly encountering the first-ever recorded mythical beastie gargantuan meat-eating gecko and be consumed by its gaping maw, granting Kat an advanced yet futile warning of her imminent demise [this is my blog so I'm entitled to be dramatic]).

I investigated the noise coming from the guest bathroom (yes we have two bathrooms now! What a blessing ... I call the guest bathroom the Xbox bathroom on account of Kat playing on the Xbox while being on the bodger - it's amazing! You can bath and see the TV... You can pooh and see the TV! Bruce and Ant designed the bathroom with a man in mind!), and found water pouring out from the cupboard underneath the sink. Being the quick-thinking stud that I am, I opened the cupboard doors only to receive a jet of conveniently-directed steam to the face. Like any super-stud, I realised I had to cut off the supply, but had no idea where it was. By now the floor was covered in hot water and the flat was slowly flooding. I summoned our landlord, who arrived quick as a flash and directed me to the stop-valve, which was residing on the roof.

I climbed out, and, with my hands clutching to the railing like a rock-spider's hairy legs would to a rock (or something), I used my nimble foot, disabled the valve, and etched the next milestone achievement into my blog forevermore. I saved the flat. I was a hero. I was ... a PLUMBER.

Next began the mopping-up stage. Rolling my jeans up to over my ankles ala Tom Sawyer (sans the straw hat), I had managed to remove most of the water from the affected floor areas of the flat within thirty minutes. Kat rejoiced at my rippling muscles, studly aura, and quick-thinking ingenuity (no point in laughing because I can't hear you anyway. This is a blog). I quipped in my manly drawl "it's time to get to dinner now, little lady" and off we went...*

(*... And not a moment too soon, because I didn't want to be the first person to be eaten by the legendary gargantuan mildly aggressive bathroom gecko!)

Home Affairs for me!

Off to Home Affairs to collect my ID book.

Time now is 8:30am. Let's see how long this takes :)

...

8:41am. Job done.

Wow. Now I can vote.

Time to vote for change! Vote for Zuma! Amandla!

I wonder if subliminal messaging works...
Anyone remember the song by Trio? DA DA DA...

Reality Bits :P

Okay so please excuse Bryan's over zealous desire for blog readers....he gets extremely excited whenever a new person is clocked up on our counter...but he really doesn't mean to call you all losers and as is patently obviously, he is in love with the idea of having followers.

So back to reality and the normal mundane news of our lives:
We had a pretty good Easter break, Bryan and I managed to actually cook a leg of lamb all on our ownsome, Bryan sliced up garlic slivers and I poked holes in the lamb and jammed them in. We even got the cooking time right and it came our superb. We thought it would be a great idea to start our own little Good Friday tradition to make it special seeing as it is a really important day in history. So we invited Julian, Janith and Raphael and Steve for dinner (luckily we only invited 6 people cos I don't think I could have manged anything bigger and I only have fancy cutlery for 6 people :P) oooer looks like a face with a double chin!
Anyway, we had a lovely evening, Janith and Raph brought yummy cheese and sweet chilli for starters, Bryan roasted potatoes and I did Woolies roast veggies and Juliand and Steve supplied decadent peppermint pud and gino genelli ice-cream to round it all off. Was a good start to our weekend and was wonderul to bung everything in our dishwasher afterwards. Special mention to the Tilson family for giving us their dishwasher..it has been a dream to have. Hate to say it but we could manage with a maid only once a week now...just not sure how to tell her that the dishwasher has made her less of a neccessity!

I made Easter cake on Saturday and pavlova pudding for Sunday and then we had a bit of a bad patch which doesn't need mentioning of details suffice to say that marriage has its ups and downs and the result was a miserable night that has spurred us on to think of great battle plans for what to do so we are nice to each other even when we are mad with the other person. Easter Day was glorious weather and we had a great time at the beach flat that Mom and Dad, and Bron and Brian had rented on Sheffield beach. I got to do some boogie boarding (I know that is no longer the cool term but I don't know the latest term) and had a good swim. Lunch was delicious..Sarah and Rob Jobling joined us and we had more lamb and of course my meringe pudding (yum!) ...the Easter bunny came at numerous hours during the day (because none of us could combine our Easter bunniness sensibly), this completely befuddled Gracie until she decided she was going to stay at the beach indefinitely till she spotted the bunny even if it took till next year! One hunt for eggs meant mom nearly got her bottom zapped on the electric fence guarding Gracie from stumbling into it heehee...I really love the beach and thoroughly enjoyed the day :) Hopefully Bryan did too even though he ended up building sandcastles with Gracie instead of catching his longed for nap on the beach.

Bryan and I ended Easter at his mom's house hunting for more Easter goodies, having buffalo wings and a good chat till late in the night.

Hmm so that's our Easter weekend pretty much ...sorry this is a rather hurridly written post due to the knowledge that I am neglecting my work while I write. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend too...more holidays to look forward to this month wahoo!

DO NOT FORGET TO VOTE!!!!!!

Welcome to LOSER-ville, population ... YOU

Hectic business here. Our weblog has hit over 200 visitors.
In 8 days we've had 75 visits. That makes an average of just over eight people (and one dog) per day. What is wrong with you people? Have you not got anything better to do than to read about our lives?? Why are you still here??

Operation Rescue Zim Mission Mission (ORZMM)

It's 07h30 on the 13th Day of April, 2009. The message comes in. Zim Mission Team 2 needs help. Should we choose to accept this mission, we must be ready to mobilise in the next hour and head for Vereeniging. We would be sacrificing our long sleep in on a public holiday, a network session @ UKZN, and any semblance of "day-off". We don't hesitate for a moment. The Mission needs us, and we could do with a mission.



The twins, Julian and Nick, are ready to go with us, but owing to the nature of our mission, we don't need a demolitions expert or a sharpshooter, and there's no room for the extra personnel, so we have to take what we've got, and get moving.



Hunger is hitting the mission team, with Jed Skinner radio'ing to HQ "are they going to be bring food?". We know the situation is getting even more desperate every minute that goes by. These guys need our help. The Mugabe Regime has even managed to infect Megan with some diabolical (or at least, it's dia-something) illness - those evil thugs.



Word on the wire is that there might be a rescue team closer to the extraction point, and now Kat & I are just spending the last anxious minutes waiting for the green light or the word to stand down. These avo sandwiches will have to do to steel our nerves in the interim.

UPDATE:
The mission was aborted. Not the Zim mission, but our mission to rescue the Zim missionaries. Turns out there was someone else nearby that could salvage them from their situation, so Kat and I were ordered to stand down. Which was a good thing, because I'd finished my avo sandwiches and I was starting to get a bit jittery again.

A minor taste of justice

Arrived at work today, only to find some jerk (ND628-783) parked in my RESERVED parking at work. Just on principle, I am tempted to vomit all over the driver's seat and stage a miniature protest all day long chanting "hell no you must go, hell no you must go", but I know that would be pointless, because I'm fairly certain this car belongs to some GEOLOGY field-trip participant, and I'd be wasting my breath for a week.

At any rate, I have done the next best thing - parked him in! Again, this may be pointless, but I feel a bit better about it (except that our car presently is uninsured since we are in that transitional insurance period). Oh, and what's more, the security guard on duty has now reacted by organising the car to be clamped.

Check out my moment of justice (I snapped my proud moment - do you think he'll get the message? I'm the white Honda Jazz at the fore)! At least now if the guy's around, he'll have to be inconvenienced to find me and wait for me. I pay good money for that parking bay!

UPDATE: The jerk was a guy called Neil from MATHEMATICS (some student); he had to ask my secretary to phone me to move my car. I took my sweet time and about twenty minutes later I came down to find the scallywag having a puff and waiting diligently for me to move. I said "howzit" and moved my car. He's lucky they hadn't clamped his wheel by then. Grrrrr.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?

I haven't blogged in a day, and I log on to read Kat's message to Brian, and to check some comments left by our Japanesey friend Billy (AKA Samurai Bill). I noticed the counter "How popular is our blog?" and the darned thing has jumped over 100 in a day, and is already almost at 150!! What the heck is wrong with you people? Don't you have anything better to do than read about our lives??? Just leave us alone will you? Go on, get up, go away. Go look in the mirror. Yes, you're a real person with a real life, and you don't need to spend time with this frivolous banter. Go on, now go. Get lost. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. It's sitting at 138 at the time of posting this... close of work today, let's see how it changes by tomorrow.

I'm going to have to start a wikipedia about this addiction if you're not careful...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Brother-in-law, 1978 :)

So today is my brother-in-law's birthday ...HAPPY BIRTHDAY Brian :) Turning 31 oooer really moving into grown-upness and with such a really early morning leaving for work at 6:15am it definitely doesn't help the aging process! (do you do this every morning?!) Anyway Bryan and I hope you have a blessed and wonderful day and Gracie is awake by the time you get home ...not to mention Bron and Micaela :P We'll have to bring you a prezzie on Sunday! Have a grrrrreeaaaat day :)

New Job

Yay! Yippee! Wahoo! This is because I have resigned from my job at CAPRISA where I have been for 5 years (that is a looong time these days!) and I have accepted a post at a unit within the University called the HIV Pathogenesis Program. I'm really looking forward to it because I will be learning a whole bunch of new things and as scary as it is stepping into the unknown, I know that I do have some skills that I can use well and it will be much better than sitting around twiddling my thumbs wondering what direction my career is advancing in.

The waiting for the new job has been really long so it is a great relief that something has come of it and I have prayed and thought about it long and hard and feel happy with the decision. It is less job security and less benefits but I'm amped! Been taught a whole bunch about patience and I do wonder at God's timing seeing as nearly half my department have resigned this week ..I'm sure there is a good reason for it all though!

Wahoo for Debbie Knighton-Fitt who also resigned last week (on April Fools Day hahaha) after her long wait for her dream job too :)

It does feel a bit weird at work realising that I have a stack load of task handovers to do and I won't be here this time next month (what a weird saying...I mean how can you be in a place in this time next month...totally contradictory!). But also I think there is this general atmosphere of gloom at present which I hope will go away soon. Anyway, I'm also sad to be leaving friends at work who have been good friends over the years but I just want to get up and go now! It's a bit overwhelming really having to suddenly complete everything you thought you had unlimited time for!

Ooer have opened a new pack of sticky notes and they smell like fish food...bleh!

Better go and do work...only a few days this month to do it in...hooray for April public holidays!

Keeping up with the Jones's

We hosted Bronwyn and Justin for wraps and basic catch up for wedding prep. I'm the MC and also one of the groomsmen so I needed some guidelines. I have been helpfully advised to "just be (myself)" and "just be funny". Well that's helpful :-/

My nickname has a lingering effect

Did anyone else pick it up? Oh come on - seriously... no clues? Not even a little idea?

Nothing?

Oh well... then check out my personal blog and read the article.

If you still don't figure it out, let me know... it's just almost like an ironic iconic coincidence really... no idea why it's iconic, or ironic, but there you have it. It was melodramatic.

Packing and going

Hi guys



It's with a really heavy heart that I write this post.



It turns out our victory of Monday night was very short-lived. We've received summons to go to court and I'm being sued for ten million Rand for damages to the commercial section holder's right to sell his property.



Turns out there's some clause that says they cannot be sued or blocked if they're in a sales agreement because technically our beef is with the new owners and not the old one. Our attorney says it could be really serious if we go to court and the costs are just astronomical - to get an advocate for the first appearance is going to cost Kat and me over R40,000!! And that's just to draft papers and appear for round one!!



I've been given the option to sell my flat to him for R300,000 cash and he'll drop the case, so it looks like I'm going to have to do that which is a heavy burden for me. How can the guy with more money win the court case without a trial??



There's just no justice. This country sucks. I'm too upset to blog more.
UPDATE: For those who are still responding with shock and horror, this was nothing more than a lame attempt at an April Fool's joke. We (i.e. I) apologise for any inconvenience or attempted purchases of our flat which may have incurred in reaction to this blogpost. Thanks.