Life Quest (and other stuff)

I think I might be a little naive. Of course I am aware that in many aspects of life I am blissfully ignorant, which is why I may never be "successful". To quote Mark Twain: "To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence." I know I do not always have the confidence required, and by knowing I lack ignorance. I just can't win. But back to the point. I think I might be a little naive. You see, I know about the violence and crime in South Africa, but have been able to focus on the beauty and potential. I know that not everyone is good, but I also know that not everyone is bad, and I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. But while planting some flowers this afternoon, I had one of our neighbours stop by for a chat. Most of the chat was about burglaries, car theft, abductions and rape, the first two recently happening in our street. My street. My beautiful South African street. Shattered. I know of the dark side. I just wish i...

Yesterday I followed a link to a Food24 page with details of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant, Maze. The link was tweeted by @SamWilson1 commenting on the bad reviews following the dinner on Friday night. I read through many of the comments, and slowly I also started to form an opinion. I wasn’t at the dinner, but have a twitter friend that was thrilled to meet Mr. Ramsay at the Good Food and Wine Show at the CTICC: “it was awesome! I got him to autograph my book "Get the **** out of my kitchen". (Thanks @Janaquar for the pic.) So these are my thoughts, but first some background. Gordon Ramsay is one of the chefs who appeared at the Good Food and Wine Show at the CTICC last weekend, and people seem happy with the R300 (including Food Show entry) to watch him in the Chefs in Action Theatre. On Friday night there was a charity dinner at Maze (R1500 pp), where diners were let to believe they would be interacting with Mr. Ramsay and have a Question and Answer session. T...

We went on a stargazing weekend to the Cederberg Observatory last weekend. The weather was kind, although cold, and we had clear skies the two nights we were there. So I decided to try my hand at astrophotography. I didn't think it would be easy - but what I didn't realise is that taking the photo is just the first part. The processing afterwards is as important. So you can imagine my disappointment when I opened the pics on my computer and mostly saw black with a dot here and there. And as I am very much a beginner at taking and processing star photos, these are not the best you'll find on the web even after processing, but I gave it a shot and will hopefully just get better and better and better and better... (All ISO400,  f5.6, taken between 21h00 and 03h00 ) The belt and sword of Orion, just before they set. Canon EOS 350D standard lens, 5 second exposure, processed in PhotoShop. The Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighbouring galaxy (fuzzy blob). Canon EO...

Update: January: Being happy – had some less than shiny feelings lately. Getting better. February: Sexy sleep wear – mostly good, but need something nice for the colder nights. March: Read squash rules – did it, still confused, but still playing. April: Donate clothes to charity – did it with a photo finish on the last day of April, but it’s done. Now for May: Plant some flowers. Not making promises they’ll grow. If you know me, you will also know I have the absolute worst luck with growing plants. I have the extreme super power of black fingers. Plants come near me and simply give up as this is better than the death than awaits them if they actually let me try and take care of them. But it’s not all bad. We started a veggie garden a few months ago, and most of the plants are doing well. I only killed Fennel, Coriander, Tomatoes (but they had a very small chance of survival) and 2 of 8 Marigold plants (see, 6 are still doing well). But after having pizza topped with veggie...

There are some things in life that you cannot really plan for. Things that make you think: “Man, that would be cool!” but in truth you don’t believe it could ever be a reality. Things like owning an island or controlling a NASA rover. Well, last night I took control of a NASA rover. Yes, I am serious. The SAAO (South African Astronomical Observatory) organised an uplink to the NASA lunar exploration guys in California and as members of the Cape Centre “Astroclub”, hubbie and I was able to attend the demonstration. Via Skype we were introduced to the NASA guys and then introduced to Max Rover. Now, Max isn’t one of the lunar rovers, but rather created to explore areas on earth that is less than friendly to humans. Like the middle of the desert. But don’t let this fool you. A lot of what is learnt by developing rovers like Max is what will put a rover on the moon. And getting back onto the moon is what is aimed for. When we met Max he was in a 4m x 4m test box with fine sand a...