archives | personal

nov 26 2007

awww, cute

last night ed and pulled a late one, for a sunday anyway. the occasion was my brother's dog was having puppies. what an experience! i have been around animals that have had puppies / kittens before, but as a kid and i was never really there in a sense - having woken up the next morning and there were some cute, little things...

out of the litter of 5, there is only one boy, there rest are girls (one boy didn't make it) and they have such characters already. there's even one that looks so much like mom, aka mini-sheeba!

they are seriously so cute and mommy sheeba is such a good and brave dog. i am so proud of her and excited about the puppies...

i have added some more puppie pics to a new gallery, go check them out (10-01-2008, added some more pics)

Posted by sarah | comments (1) | goodies, personal

may 23 2007

the pics are up...

finally, i managed to upload the pics from my 30th birthday bash. it turned out well and i just wanted to thank everyone who could make it out to melkbos and share this great evening with me. by the looks of the pics, i think everyone had as good a time as i did...

Posted by sarah | add a comment | chillin', personal

may 10 2007

long overdue

well, i think this must be a record, 2 months without blogging? things just got very hectic. i was thinking of back dating some posts i had in mind, but never got around to actually posting. i still might do so, so this'll be a shortish one.

next week is my 30th. i think this a monumental milestone? i still have to have a good sit down with myself and determine what 30 should mean to me personally. i haven't felt much about birthdays (or should i say ageing) and still don't 'worry' that i'm getting older. though, i do feel i should make some time to figure out if more of my dreams can come true beyond 30 (and before 40) and what steps / leaps i need to make for those dreams to come true.

Posted by sarah | comments (4) | personal

feb 26 2007

a good sunday

yesterday ed and i went and watched the nashua cape cobras play against the fidentia warriors at newlands. it was a beautiful day and my very first live sporting event, seriously. i really like the the pro20 format, it's very exciting and it's not lengthy or boring as a test match, although i guess a one day live match should be just as fun.

i was wishing i could see the slow replay sometimes, it was quite funny, because you have to focus on so much happening around you at a live event... and a bonus was that the cape cobras won with 6 balls remaining, needing 6 runs with an awesome 6 into the pavillion.

Posted by sarah | comments (2) | personal, sport

feb 22 2007

new wheels

last friday i got myself a new set of wheels. with a mere 97 km on the clock, i drove me new shiny, black runx 3 hours up the coast to hang out with some friends for the w/end.

i am well chuffed with the ride. it's my first brand new car. i even got to choose the colour. and i am way glad that i chose a toyota...

Posted by sarah | add a comment | goodies, personal

Jan 19 2007

y'ello mnp

i have finally ported my number and yes, i moved over to mtn. out of all the places i went to, they were the friendliest, most helpful and least fussed that am a freelancer and don't have payslips for the past 3 months. cell c wanted me to supply a ck1 form (or something similiar, ie registered business), 3 months business bank account statements aswell as the normal required documents in order to port to them. i was with vodacom, indirectly, but i wanted to port from my 3rd party provider (altech autopage) directly to them. i didn't get to ask them what they wanted from me in order to port, they were unfriendly and didn't have any deals that rang my bell.

i started the process last week, it took approximately 5 business days for the change to happen. slow, but there was a delay because i supplied my cheque bank account details and wanted to get debited on my credit card, so they actually needed my credit card statements from the last 3 months. i got approved on tuesday morning and got my new sim and phone that afternoon, my port from vodacom to mtn only went through this morning - it wasn't ported by the time i went to bed last night but when i woke up i was officially an mtn subscriber!

i got the imate kjam and after 2 days i know the basics. it comes with a 190 page manual that i haven't even started reading... so this w/end will be spent figuring out all the features. i must say i am impressed so far and the camera is really cool - although it has nothing on the nokia n73, which was initially my first choice - but i didn't buy it for the camera!

now i need some mtn subscriber readers to drop me a line and tell me more about what i can do as a subscriber to mtn. i already know how to check my balance... and that's about it!

Posted by sarah | comments (6) | personal, tech

nov 14 2006

ouch!

today i found out that my brother (the one who lives in germany) is in hospital. the bungee weight came of off the rope he was attached to and he went flying into the crowd.

i'm not too sure of the exact details but i think an audience member was injured (dislocated shoulder). my brother came off worse - imagine being on a bungee cord and the darn thing snapping / coming lose in mid flight. the impact would be pretty hard... he has a broken arm, one week of hospital stay to look forward to and a plate in his broken left arm!

needless to say that he won't be doing that again, he'll be focussing on his comedy act when he has recovered.

i hope you get better soon boetie!

update: lloyd has managed to upload a few pics here!

Posted by sarah | comments (7) | personal

oct 09 2006

p a r t y

this past saturday we had a 5 piece party at the house in honor of kaptain karina being down from london - dude, it's such a pity you had to leave early by the way! i know i had a good time! i also know i was one of the last people still standing in the wee hours of sunday morning... i'm also pretty sure i was still drunk when i woke up a couple of hours later!

i just want to thank everybody who managed to get theirs arses to our spot. i hope you guys had a good time? my pics are here.

here are some items that have lost their owners, please drop a comment if any of them belong to you and i'll make a plan to reunite you with them...

Posted by sarah | comments (5) | personal

sep 21 2006

when are things going to change?

i got a call from the bank this afternoon. not just any call, it's one of those marketing calls that i normally don't take... but i took this one. it turns out it was more of a 'we'd like to know what you think of this service' call. ahhh, excellent...

so i let rip. now i have mentioned the bank charges before and how much i am not impressed with the banks. to actually speak with a live person from the bank about this, wow!

i let sandra* know that i think absa thinks i'm a stoopid customer. stoooopid... if they think that i would rather use their credit card than fnb's. why she wanted to know? well, you guys charge me 19.75% debit interest if i spend less than 10,000. if i spend more than 10,000, you charge me 16.25% - effectively encouraging me to get more in debt (quite honestly who can afford to pay back more than 10,000 on a cc every month?). at fnb (and standard bank) the credit card debit interest rate is a flat 17%, no 'rewards' for spending more or less than a certain amount every month... i couldn't find the cc interest rates on nedbank, page not found error!

having said all that i needed to, sandra said she would talk to her manager about this and get back to me. i must admit, i don't know what i expected - it wasn't much though. about 30 min later sandra phones back and says her manager wants to waiver all cc charges this month in a gesture of good faith... i'm like well thanks, but you still don't get it do you? you charge me more than double the interest rate set by the reserve bank and give me less than a quarter (on average) back if i 'save' my money! it's just so mad because most of the banks services just don't warrant these ridiculous amounts of money they are taking from us.

seriously, i'd love to know when this investigation into the high bank charges is going to yield positive results for the consumers?

* not her real name

Posted by sarah | comments (1) | debate, personal, ranting

sep 10 2006

up and running (kind of)

i have been a little busy since leaving ripe design. i finally finished a freelance job and got the client up and running after transferring their hosting to hetzner. it was a great relief and i'm happy that they like the changes to their website.

on thursday, after getting this new look up and running, the adsl went down and it's been down ever since. it's obviously up again now, sunday afternoon. who knows when it'll go again, hopefully not soon. it really messes up things for ed and myself. we really rely on the connectivity...

the past week has been pretty cool. i've spent time setting up myself for freelance work, now i just need to sell myself. the coming week will be spent following up on leads from some friends. i've read up on how to run your business and i've also tried to setup a system to follow finances and budgets, so come the end of the month i'm not in for a nasty surprise!

hope you guys like the new look?

oh, i finally added the pics of ed opening his b-day pressie...

Posted by sarah | comments (12) | personal, web

aug 07 2006

some words

last week i came down with a cold. coughing all night long and getting no rest at all. so i went to my friendly, expensive doctor and got some pills. they worked and i slept right through friday into saturday. he gave me a course of pills, which i hate... and by sunday my body was screaming for me to stop the chemical, anti-biotic inbalance. now i know it's not good to stop through a course of anti-biotics but when you're throwing up and have constant heart-burn it's just not worth it anymore. so, yeah, i put a stop to that!

other exciting news is that on friday when i attempted to switch on my laptop, the hard drive wasn't there anymore... after attempting, unsuccessfully, to start the damn thing i gave up and resigned myself to having lost quite abit of data. maybe not though, hopefully the young guy who's now got the drive can recover some of the data!

and last but not least... i resigned from my job. the 31st of august is my last day at ripe design. i have no concrete plans of yet. i plan on doing the odd job from home, gotta pay the rent you know, but i haven't looked very actively for another job just yet. i feel like i need abit of time to make the right decision in my career path from here on out.

Posted by sarah | comments (5) | personal

jul 05 2006

chaotic

i had last week off in order to move our home from bloubergstrand to duynefontein. there were alot of things to be done, alot of running around to do and being accosted by a psycho woman at canal walk on friday didn't help matters much, plus i had to organise to get ed's birthday present to the new house without him knowing a thing...

all in all, the move has been acheived. the office is set-up, sort of. the network was configured but that's gone wonky. the adsl is not playing nicely either. i guess it might be networking skills though, which are not good. all other rooms are completely moved in and sorted.

i had great success in getting ed's pressie to the new house without him catching wind. i had further success in concealing what the pressie was aswell. *smile* he was ecstatic, mission accomplished.

psycho woman at canal walk? well that's a long one. here's the condensed story: paid for parking, leaving building. woman entering building. accuses me of taking her parking ticket from the machine. i deny this. she insists and grabs my paid-for parking ticket. i protest some more. she insists i've stolen her ticket. i wrestle the ticket out of her hand. she calls me all sorts of nasty things and follows me to my car. i'm flabbergasted. shaking my head, i motion to her that is infact a psycho... she's in her car next to me frantically searching for her misplaced ticket ( i hope she found it and felt like a right tit). i drive away with crumpled, torn ticket. it doesn't work at the gate but the kind parking attendant takes pity on me after i mention psycho woman and he lets me out... phew!

poor germany. i had hoped they would make it to the finals, but last night's game with the final goal in extra time was quite a kick in the balls... i'm hoping france will play well this evening and make it through to the finals.

Posted by sarah | comments (7) | chillin', humour, personal, sport

may 26 2006

it's time

i've been quiet, i know, but i have some things 'hanging in the air'... in anticipation of ed's birthday on the 30th of june, i cleaned the back wall of 'old' the grafitti on a recent sunny day. the idea and venue for the party have changed though, come the 30th of june we're more than likely not going to be at our current address. because of the f*^@ers, we've seriously decided to move and we've found a really nice spot near the nuke plant in duynefontein. we haven't got it yet - it's 'hanging in the air' right about now - but i hope we do get it. if we do, on the 1st of july we'll be having abit of a party to celebrate ed's birthday... yay!

tomorrow, ed and i are going to an allen carr 'easyway' course. this means, hopefully, come tomorrow afternoon we'll both be non-smokers. i'm a little nervous because i have attempted to quit before with no luck at all! ed, on the other hand, seems rather excited.

wish us luck!

Posted by sarah | add a comment | personal

may 15 2006

what fun!

this past saturday ed took me for my surprise birthday present. i had no idea what it would be, but thinking back to the previous year's surprise, i just knew it would be something really exciting. i had an awesome time quad biking through the winelands in kuils river on saturday. we managed to get a little movie of me doing donuts on top of hill and some nice pics. i definitely reccommend doing it, even if it isn't your birthday!

thanks to everyone who joined us later for the birthday party. it was really cool. i had a really good time... now i've got to start thinking of something really cool to do for ed's bday!

damien, do you remember our super good chuck norris joke that we came up with? i'm trying to remember but i'm not having any luck!

Posted by sarah | comments (5) | chillin', personal

apr 21 2006

cute and furry no more

yup, the mouse has been 'taken care of'.

after it munched holes in my latest, favourite pants i took drastic action and purchased 2 'classic' mouse traps. the ones where you put some cheese on the end and when the mouse pounces on it, the trap activates and... well you know...

i must admit it didn't feel great to discover the critter was back in the house and had fallen prey to the trap. what must i do to keep mine and ed's clothes intact though?

Posted by sarah | comments (3) | personal

apr 19 2006

slow...

blogging has been slow going. i am sorry i have been pretty busy.

that's always good.

rockachic has finally hit our shores. she's not staying the 3 months she mentioned before, but for a very good reason. she's going to roadtrip through the states. from west to east coast... exciting (and dangerous, if we know rockachic)!

i'm awaiting lauren's arrival. i hope it's soon, because her birthday was just the other day.

other than that i am spinning.

woohoo

Posted by sarah | add a comment | personal

apr 06 2006

a celebration

last night we celebrated my mom's birthday in true style. we gathered at the lagoon beach hotel in milnerton with a view to kill and luckily for us, the symphony of fire was on last night aswell. so we got a really good show and some nice chow.

quite honestly i think they really could step up their offerings in the food department. the only thing i liked was the dessert and that's never really a hard thing to do.

it's a very swanky hotel but a gourmet burger will never go wrong. i've seen other swanky spots do it and people pay the price just to have the burger... i would've!

Posted by sarah | comments (3) | personal

mar 29 2006

cute and furry

we've had a mouse in our house. i was completely unaware of it's presence and that's saying alot because i spend a good deal of time in my humble abode. anyway, brave ol' melanie discovered our cute, furry visitor very shortly after starting work in the office one morning. rumor has it that she shrieked and pulled her legs up high to avoid hurting it. it scurried away...

anyway, last night or late yesterday afternoon it made another appearance, this time the boys thought they would have a go at catching it and putting it back into nature. they didn't manage to hit it with the pellet gun but they did manage to chase it into our bedroom.

much later on i got home after playing volleyball and saw the lounge in it's post-'catch-the-mouse' state and thought nothing more of it. i grabbed the laundry basket out our room and out jumps our cute, furry friend. i shrieked.

ed and i catch it. we take lots of flashy photo's of it... weird, i know. then we set him free into nature (just over our wall are a ton of bushes).

this morning, while taking the washing out of the tumble dryer i find my favourite pants all eaten up. thanks to cute, furry mouse - who i hope suffered immensely when we took all those photo's of it and i hope never returns again. i'll kick it's ass!

it better steer clear of me because, i must admit after the week and a bit that i have had, i'll wring it's bloody neck!

Posted by sarah | comments (4) | personal

mar 27 2006

some wedding pics...

i developed a cms for my brothers website... um, for both actually. but more recently for my older brother, so he could upload pics from his wedding. all his friends and family all over the world could then check them out, yay!

it's based on the gallery that i have made for my website but has yet to be implemented because i'm working on a ton of stuff for the cms. hopefully i'll get my ducks in a row and get this huge monster up and running soon!

Posted by sarah | comments (1) | personal, web

dec 31 2005

xmas day in melkbos

13 years ago, almost to the day, there was a huge veld fire that spread from the table view area (on the beach side) right through melkbos and eventually got stopped at the houses in koeberg / duynefontein. this christmas ed and i went to melkbosstrand, it was abit of a mission with roads being closed due to the fire that had being going for 2 days already. the r27 (west coast road) was sealed off and it was slow going on beach rd. the following 2 pics were taken from doodles and big bay.

the next 2 were taken along beach rd between blouberg and melkbos (the 2nd one is near derde steen)

it didn't seem that bad when we drove through to melkbos, it hadn't actually reached there yet. but with gale force winds it managed to get abit out of control. it somehow passed atlantic beach golf resort and hit melkbos, that's when we climbed on our roof to get a better look at what was going on, with sirens screaming past my mom's house every few minutes... these 2 are the evacuation of sea park (a retirement village behind my mom's spot)

i also managed to get a nice sequence of the chopper support loading up with water from the sea nearby.
and while i was on the roof this little (or very big) creature escaped the heat and flames and landed next to me!
later we went and visited a friend who lives in bato way, pretty close to the bushes that were burning, and got some good pics of the fire and chopper dropping water.

it was a pretty big fire and alot of damage could have been created because 13 years ago there was alot less development. but the firefighters and volunteers did a great job at controlling a damn big fire in terrible gale force conditions. well done everyone! these last 2 pics were taken as we were leaving melkbosstrand later on in the evening, the sign is on the way to the r27 (west coast road) which was still closed and the 2nd one is where we popped out on the r27 by big bay...

i hope you all had a good, safe and loving christmas. i hope you have a great, safe and happy new year... see you all next year!

Posted by sarah | comments (2) | personal

dec 14 2005

running on empty

the past week and abit everyone i know has been asking each other if they know where they can fill up.

i know the closest garage to me is empty. there's simply no fuel.

now i thought that it was only the western cape experiencing this fuel shortage problem but after listening to a national radio station this morning i heard that jo'burg is also a little low on fuel too.

the problem is minor, but big. it's not like we are being boycotted and will never get fuel again. or the country can't afford to import crude oil. it's a glitch in the system so to speak. the fuel companies were told to convert all 97 fuel to the environmentally friendly unleaded 95, before the end of the year.

it seems alot of the fuel producing plants decided to do this at the same time (more or less) and production fell. plus here in the western cape the caltex (chevron) plant in table view was running at a third of it's capacity due to maintenance... pretty much around the same time. hence the shortage in fuel. it seems they are working hard to get it sorted, in some instances they are claiming that there'll be fuel available in the next 24-36 hours. i reckon in a week things will be back to normal.

i've been pretty lucky in being able to find some 95 fuel not too far from where i have been running around. there's fuel at the shell garage on n2 coming back to cape town (as you just get off the sir lowry's pass and just after the gordon's bay turn off). there's also 3 garages in melkbosstrand. i've stopped by the caltex there and they have fuel...

the bp in west beach is empty, don't even bother just yet.

anyone else wanna add info on what and where there is fuel available / not avaliable?

Posted by sarah | comments (4) | information, personal

dec 01 2005

it's not melkbos

yesterday the armed response company called me at the office to let me know that the alarm went off and it shows zone 1 was triggered. that's the front door...

i call ed and find out if he's at home and didn't have time to switch off the alarm? ed's not at home, ed's on site in bothasig. shit, my stomach sinks.

i phone the armed response guys back and let them know that it's not anyone who has authority to enter the premises, go with caution and guns drawn... ie. shoot the ****ers when you get there.

i leave work to go there and check it out. already i'm skimming what sort of damage control has got be done when i get there. oh shit... ed and i got a new tv and dvd player this w/end, i haven't got those insured yet. at that stage i started driving like a maniac in seriously buggered up traffic trying to get all the way from observatory to bloubergsands in a flash. complete and utter madness.

armed response phones back. i've since made it onto the m5, about a quarter of the way there. "nothing to worry about ma'am, the house is all locked up and secure". i'm still coming through to check it out. why? it's silly but i've lived in a village most my life, a place where i never used to lock my car, i kept sound equipment (worth about r10 000 - r15 000) in it over night after coming back from gigs at 3am in the morning, too tired to unload. i've never been burgled in my life before. the plain and simple of it all, i was worried and wanted to check it out for myself.

when i got there, the place was still locked up. the armed response guy (brendan, very nice) put my mind at ease about it all. but the reason for the alarm activating is weird. they said after power cuts it might send a signal to the control room when it comes back on and there's been quite a few power failures in the area recently and yesterday too. but the power never went out. how do i know? the hi-fi was still on when i got home and the time still correct. both of those things debunk the 'power cut' story. still wondering why the alarm would've gone off! any ideas anyone?

today, the telly and dvd player are getting insured...

Posted by sarah | comments (6) | personal

nov 15 2005

the last couple of weeks

ed and i have been to 3 weddings in the past 2 months, there are no more for the rest of this year as far as i know! the last one, i have to admit, rocked! congrats to adrianna & paul, jed & nicky and tina & dave...

last sunday mom, dad, carla-mia and baby rachel (the in-laws) arrived from jo'burg to come and stay at our place for a week. ed and i finally got to met our niece, who is a cutie and well behaved! ed managed to scare the crap out of rachel one night while playing peek-a-boo. she's got a helluva crying face... i still laugh at the thought of it. that sounds bad, but it was really funny.

Posted by sarah | add a comment | personal

oct 04 2005

vball and static

here's some pics from ed playing volleyball this past sunday and winning bronze!

i helped sub when warren wasn't available, so i ended up getting a bronze medal aswell as a silver because the girls 6-a-side i subbed for won silver... two medals in one day and i didn't lift a finger!

lately i've had a ton of static electricity, so much so, that i am constantly shocking myself on every surface imaginable. i see sparks and it's usually accompanied by a cackle sound...

be it ed's nose when we go in to kiss (it's happened only once so far), the car door on my leg or hand - which ever touches first, work collegues, the door at work... i thought it was because i was tying my hair up, but that's just a part of it because i still shock but not with such a kick when my hair is loose. it must be the clothes i am wearing. it's a good thing there's not much lightning here in cape town, it's quite likely that i would attract a very unwelcome bolt of lightning!

Posted by sarah | comments (2) | personal, sport

sep 12 2005

it's your birfday!

happy happy birthday to kaptain karina, for yesterday...

i hope you had a real good one!

Posted by sarah | add a comment | personal

sep 07 2005

all over the show

i've been crazy busy since i lasted posted something about all the rain we've been having here in cape town this winter [note: total dam storage is now at 81.5%].

all the work at work has been rather welcome as i've been rather frustrated with the lack of anything challenging. i finally got an opportunity to flex and show my php muscles in the past week and a bit on a rather complex site, which is getting shown to the clients tomorrow. in the background and prior to that i've been going through old company backup's and uploading all the pics to a stock images server. so i'm trying to keep myself busy and stretching the boundaries as much as possible!

a friend of our's from willliam's town (usa) came to visit and holiday for a couple of weeks, we got a chance to sit down and have dinner together this past sunday. as much as we tried to not be rude about the usa's leader, we couldn't. not that we tried to offend her, i know americans are extremely patriotic. she agreed that bush is taking alot of strain over the katrina hurricane and his inability to grasp the magnitude of the devastation, aswell as his inability to act in a timely manner. i caught the news pretty late last week cause i was that busy racking me brain and not paying attention to anything else except a bunch of code and databases. but when i finally had a moment on thursday last week to see some of the images being broadcast on bbc news, i was shocked! i wasn't even quite sure that i was viewing footage from the great, powerful usa! it looked like a war zone and a third world country struggling with poverty and crime (not to mention a natural disaster). then today i spotted something on the zimbabwean propaganda media site, the herald, that lambasted the president:

What you can blame Bush for is that his peanut-sized nodule (brain) did not immediately grasp the magnitude of the disaster.

ouch!
[via wandering and wondering, provides another link to another ridiculous editorial on the herald website]

on the home front, ed was away for most of last week, it's strange being apart from him because we've been stuck together since we got married! besides missing him terribly, i found i had plenty of time and no idea what to do with it. i visited friends and tried to visit my mom but she was always out joling (shock, shock, horror)... on saturday i watched rugby by myself because vinnie was too tired, ed stopped a burglar from robbing and possibly harming him. when ed (aka the machine) finally got back that evening we went to a friend's birthday party all the way in glencairn, simons town. that ended late (3:30am) and only after some-one put 'bobby mcferrin - don't worry be happy' on...

on sunday we woke shortly before midday, while outside in the yard, i noticed some-one's handbag had been thrown over our wall. everything seemed to be there, except for the cash, so we phoned the owner and she came around with flowers and chocolates to thank us. it was nice and unexpected. i'd expect some-one to do the same for me, with no reward expected in the least (okay, maybe some chocolates).

anyway, got some more work to do...

Posted by sarah | add a comment | personal

aug 31 2005

some pics for now

i've been terribly busy and haven't really had time to post, so here's some pics for now:

Posted by sarah | comments (1) | personal

aug 16 2005

it's been raining

winter has clearly been in full swing for the past couple of weeks, it's been raining alot and it's been very flippin' cold. so cold that the dew has turned to ice - on cars, people's lawns etc.

about 2 weeks ago ed and i went to clanwilliam, arriving pretty late on friday evening. awaking on saturday morning i was well surprised to actually see the effect of all the rain we've been having (not record highs but alot more since last winter), see for yourself (and yes, i got up way too early!):

quite a remarkable change, hey?

i am back there this weekend and i'll actually try and stand in the same spot and take a photo of the same spot... ha!

Posted by sarah | comments (5) | personal

jul 13 2005

the good and bad

one of the good things that has happened in my world recently is that ed and i have finally got our own spot. we're renting a great spot in bloubergsands. i thought it was called west beach but it's not, bloubergsands does not mean it's near the beach, in fact we're behind some huge dunes / bushes... but we can still hear the ocean rumbling.

the move has been crazy and good. the place we moved to was a pit, cause the previous tenants were pigs (real dirty pigs), so we did it up and as a result we don't need to pay rent for the first month, bonus! i will be posting pics of before and after in the coming days...

ed and i had a double bed and the dj equipment before we moved (that massive couch we used to have we sold to a mate of ours, we had nowhere to put it when we moved from simon's spot and it was costing us to store it!) and bits and bobs (kettle, snackwich maker, no cutlery / plates / cups etc because we gave that all to melanie when she moved to her spot in table view). so the past few days, w/ends we've been shopping. we got some real good deals on a fridge (that currently has mainly beer in it), a washing machine, dryer, microwave, cutlery (very new sharp knives), pots and pans, vacuum cleaner, curtains, etc. all in all a crap load of shopping has been done.

it took us a week to get the place done (it was a real mess) and this past w/end we pretty much moved the bulk of our belongings in and slept over. we're getting used to the new noises that go with the area / house and we found we were sleeping light the first few nights, but that's pretty much a thing of the past already.

other good news is that the rains this winter (so far) have filled some of the dams pretty nicely and the overall level of all the dams has finally exceeded 50% (currently it is 53.7%, last year the overall level was 37.1%), more rain is expected over the next week.

slightly bad news is that i am worried. my horoscope for today doesn't help either (i usually don't read the damn things):

taurus (apr 21 - may 21): something is going on behind the scenes and you need to know about it so that you can make a decision. safeguard yourself by doing a bit of detective work. you will not like what you uncover and might even need to take drastic action

i recently pitched an idea to some people, it's still early days, but some of the feedback got me thinking already and ed has given me a fresh spin on things, so this is all very crazy right now. i was already thinking of taking some drastic steps, i've got a feeling that my idea might be 'stolen' and i won't get the credit. seems like i must start doing some detective work...

Posted by sarah | add a comment | personal

jul 01 2005

a day of days

yesterday was ed's birthday and did he have a day of note...

a very good day. he got awesome presents (if i don't say so myself, ahem) and his day went really well. work was good, later they won gold in volleyball in the men's 2-a-side competition (our mixed 6-a-side is out of the tournament, with no chance of a medal). we ended up at buckley's just to play a few games of foosball, but it was dead so we played pool and who walks in but our favourite lesbian. we had a good party there and got pretty sloshed (at volleyball already, actually)... we headed home at close to midnight, planning to drop off the expensive stuff and then to head on out to town, but when we got home our party plans crumbled and we got real snug instead.

i'm so happy ed had such a great day... how on earth do you top that?

Posted by sarah | comments (2) | chillin', personal

jun 23 2005

bits

last night was cool and crazy. we played our best game of volleyball ever, we still lost but as a team we rocked... then we stayed for some drinks and headed on home.

almost home and the back tyre disintergrates. 11pm at night. we call home to see if anyone is there and if they can give us a hand, nope. the (long) walk begins. we try hitching, but no-one's really interested, until we get to about 2-3 kilometres from the house and a really tired looking guy gives us a ride.

quickly grab my keys, some juice and head on back to the combi. what a mission to get the spare tyre out and change it, my jack is made for a tiny hatch-back not a big combi. put rocks under the other tyres so it won't roll off again... change the wheel and head off home, by the time we get there the spare has gone pretty flat, yay! head on out to the garage to put some air in and by the time we get there, that tyre is finished too. double yay! leave the combi at the garage and finally go home to get some sleep, it's well after midnight when we hit the bed.

mission around this morning trying to get some new tyres for ed, he's working from home until my dad comes around with some new (old) tyres for the car. i'm a little tired...

billy corgan has released his solo album. he's been keeping a secret for about a year now though, he wants to reform the smashing pumpkins... i liked the pumpkins, so hopefully it happens.

so we have our first woman deputy president. nice for the woman's rights, bad because it's like shuffling a bad deck of cards. what am i on about? well, the president replaced a person suspected of corruption with some-one else who's suspected of some questionable dealings... we'll see how this pans out, it seems dodgy in so many ways.

i was watching the news on tuesday evening and spotted a piece on patricia de lille naming names and still questioning the arms deal shenigans. i thought she had a valid point, in point form below a brief summary of what when down in the news piece (in parliament):
- de lille asks why we paid more than the market price for various arms
- trevor manuel yells that they only bought the best for the country

what do i think? well, why did we pay millions more than the market price for the weapons? she never asked "why didn't we buy the cheaper version?", she asked "why did we paid millions more than the market value?" well, why did we? i would like some-one to answer that question. i have no doubt that we would want only the best, but why at a cost of millions / billions when we have people starving, unemployed and without a roof over their heads?

make poverty history

Posted by sarah | add a comment | music, personal, politics

jun 14 2005

it's so cold

last wednesday during the afternoon i started sniffling, it seems i had caught the flu from one of my work mates... by that evening i was down. i was throbbing all over, headache deluxe and unable to sleep.

on thursday i was a mess, unable to really move at all, shaking all over and frozen to the bone. i sure got the flu and i got it bad. i spent all of friday in bed too, sweating it out and catching bits of sleep because i wasn't getting any during the night.

on saturday i was feeling alot better, but i got a cough and a pretty sore throat. so i went and got some cough medicine and some throat lozenges. the packaging for the lozenges said "take every 2 hourly or as often as needed". my throat was damn sore, so i had about 4 in the span of 2 hours, when i decided to read the rest of the packaging...
under side-effects and special precautions it says the following:

Depression of the central nervous system with convulsions, hypotension and coma may occur. (among a list of other things)

i stopped taking the lozenges and opted for some mints rather...

i've pretty much fully recovered, with only a slight cough remaining, and i still have a few antibiotic pills to take.

oh, i'm glad he's been fired!

Posted by sarah | comments (3) | personal

jun 06 2005

amazing

on saturday morning i headed to the traffic department to renew my car licence. i have no idea when the place actually opens, there's times on the door for monday through to friday but no times anywhere for saturdays. so i get there after 8:30am, because i know it'll be open and i don't have to wait around, because it's one of the things i really really hate, waiting...

i park, i walk in, go to the counter, produce the renewal slip paper i got in the post, pay, wait for the licence to print out and leave. i spent all of 5 minutes there and that is bloody amazing! that has never ever happened to me and i hope it will again but i have my doubts.

i wanted to post a pic of the storm that was about to hit cape town last week, but i didn't. here it is now:

on sunday ed and i slept in... it's the law. then we met up with clint and wendy at blue peter in the afternoon, it was a very sunny day, although it was kind of chilly too. i had a humungous burger, chips and some pizza (and some beer). what a pig i am! i was starving and damn full after all of that.

we then headed to melkbos beach and spent some time playing ball and chilling on the grass there, pics:

Posted by sarah | comments (2) | chillin', personal

jun 03 2005

finally

i wanted to blog first thing this morning, mainly because it feels quite dull / dead on the blog, but our web connection was down until about a few minutes ago...

so here goes...

winter has kicked in and it's been raining alot, it's good, real good. i believe the dam levels in the western cape are rising but not as fast as i would've guessed. they were at about 27% and now they're at about 35%. i reckon the "collection" of water in our dams is not very effective because it's been raining alot, i would've expected levels to be somewhere near the 50% mark. maybe after this weekend it'll be a little closer to my guesstimate?

i've been busy updating ed's website with new pictures and implementing a better way of filing all the pics of their work.

for my b'day i got a bass guitar from ed and i've been practising on that when i get home in the evenings, it's quite simple and hard at the same time... i have yet to acquire a tutor and am currently learning the basics from a book that ed also got me for my birthday.

i've got to finish ed's web pages, so i'm going to dash...

Posted by sarah | comments (1) | personal, web

may 23 2005

what a weekend!

it all started on friday, a good night to go out and have some fun. ed and i made some arrangements to meet up with a few people in town and play fussball there for a change.

we never made it to town though because on our way through sunset beach (between table view and milnerton) we came across friends of ours due to meet us in town in a car accident. it wasn't very nassty, but it definitely wasn't pleasant. their car is buggered and they've only had it a week! luckily, the other cars' passengers are also fine, nothing serious (abit of whiplash)... it was a bit of a freak accident, the other cars' tyre had just blown out and our mates, as much as they tried to, couldn't avoid a smash.

i then got a hold of friends we were due to meet, to let them know that we wouldn't make it. i couldn't get a hold of paul and adriana though and simply assumed that they were all partied out and had gone home...

the next day, adriana calls to apologise for never pitching or returning my call, her bag got stolen when they were eating out in camps bay, before they were going to met up with us.

friday the 13th had struck, a week late though!

saturday was alot better. sunday was the cherry on top. ed and i got in the car on a mission. firstly, stopping at bayside to say hi to vinnie. as we leave bayside to meet up with lloyd, we notice people pointing and looking and moving towards the intersection on blouberg rd. i'm like, uh oh, something is going down and it can't be good!

wait is that vinnie chasing a guy across the busy intersection? next second there's a cop car and they've got the guy. next second the security guy has got the guy by the shirt, that i can see he is going to worm his way out of. next second he has done just that and he's escaping to melkbosstrand... vinnie (and others) are on the run again. this time the cops get the guy and keep him in custody, a good idea.

it turns out that as we were leaving the complex, one of the cleaners at ster kinekor caught this guy in the staff room stealing stuff out of the lockers (there's a gap at the bottom that one can forcefully pull items through if they are determined enough). vinnie, the projectionist and various security personnel gave chase (and got their man - a kid who has been caught for the 3rd time this week...)

after that action, ed, lloyd and myself went to green point stadium market to get an african drum for a friend of his in germany who has been helping lloyd with producing his music. a very nice idea and gift. note: don't get a carwash there, they do a terrible job!

ed and i then went and played games at tygervalley and ate tons of junk food. then we headed back to bayside, but the movie we wanted to see wasn't showing so we found out more about the earlier robbery attempt.

with nothing much else to do at 5pm on a sunday afternoon, we headed home, got some videos and were about to settle in for a quiet evening...

we get home to find adriana and paul there, visiting with both their dogs. our quiet evening turned into quite a party, a late night take-out and plenty of drinking. we got to bed late and i never made it through the first half of the first dvd...

funny enough, today, i don't feel like i've been hit by a train or a bus! and that's always good.

Posted by sarah | comments (4) | chillin', personal

apr 25 2005

winter

has shown itself this past week and abit. about 2 weeks ago we had the worst traffic because of the (much needed) rain. it came down long and hard, and ofcourse the drainage systems were pretty blocked so there was tons of flooding in the roads and basically everybody had to stick the main (tried and tested) routes... i was stuck in traffic for just over 2 hours, that's got to be the longest i have sat in traffic for years!

anyway, winter is indeed moved in really fast, we didn't really have much of an autumn. as much as i hate sitting in traffic, i don't mind the rain one little bit. we really need it right now in the western cape and i'm seeing some changes to the landscape; little roadside pits of water are looking like mini-dams (and smell less now), the lagoon i drive past everyday is looking much better and the grass is definitely greener.

i finally got around to adding the other jo'burg pics that i forgot to copy from the camera and i updated the post i made.

i also added lauren's baby pic.

ps. lloyd don't worry too much about it being winter here, because it's not really kicked into high gear yet, apparently it's going to be over 30 degrees later this week!

Posted by sarah | add a comment | personal

apr 06 2005

have you checked the oil?

i've been in jo'burg for a couple of days. i had thursday, friday, monday and tuesday off in order to go to a friend's wedding and meet alot of the family i've never met and say hi to the ones i have met!

ed and i flew with kulula.com and the cape town leg of our journey was pretty 'exciting'. 30 mins into the flight the captain came over on the intercom and announced that we were turning back to cape town because there seems to be a problem with the engine, he's sure it's nothing but he wants to make sure. we will be able to land safely if it stops working, yadda yadda. ed doesn't hear the announcement and only when we're turning around does he ask whats going on. i tell him: the captain said there might be something wrong with the engine but we'll land fine if it stops working, not to worry. what! oops maybe it's not such a cool thing then, but the captain sounded so calm about it that it didn't seem like a major thing to me.

anyway, there were a few emergency vehicles chasing after the plane when we landed in cape town. that was kind of spooky and scary. 1 hour of flying and 1 hour of sitting on the ground later we finally headed out to jo'burg, arriving 2 hours late.

we got 3 different explanations for the 'problem': 1. the captain's instruments indicate no oil in the one engine, but the maintainence instruments show there is oil. 2. there is no oil in the engine, the maintainence instruments are wrong (didn't check the dipstick i guess?) 3. there was oil in the engine all along, we would've made it jo'burg fine we are told.

um, who really wants to fly on plane with faulty instruments? we had no choice though, get off the plane and pay for another ticket was the scenario. we did get vouchers when we landed in jo'burg though, sort of a leap-of-faith thing.

spent thursday at my sister-in-law, checking the progress of the baby (due in may/june), met the sperm donator aswell.

friday we spent with mom and dad-in-law, saw the groom, gave him some tips etc.

saturday we got lost (only a little) on the way to wedding, it started at 9am and we got there at about 9:10am. hung out with some of ed's old chommies and drank a little too much. missed seeing some other friends and ended up spending another night at my sister-in-laws spot.

sunday we had a braai in the rain (under a lapa might i add), later we met up with louis and ursula and then retired at kenneth's spot (the groom, he sponsored his place while he was away on honeymoon) for some much needed rest.

monday we met up with rene and got some sound advice for ed's business, we reckoned we could've left that evening because we'd pretty much covered all the bases.

on tuesday we left, not before we quizzed one of the flight attendants about the oil in the engines. exciting stuff i tell you!

surprising stuff i noticed about jo'burg (and it's people):
- they check your car ignition at some shopping malls / centres, to see if you're driving with the keys in it or not. we had keys in our ignition, so the boom attendant let us through
- i even saw a watch tower at one of the shopping centres
- people apologise when you show them that you're cross that they're driving like a 'nana, some even pull over and let you pass
- one person didn't bother much when we drove into his mirror after failing to stop lekker in the wet weather (ed's a bloody good driver by the way)
- there is so much space for parking at places
- traffic jams on highways on sundays
- well organised roads
update:
- roadside diners
- security... lots of it

i'll add more as i think of them, and the photo's are here!

Posted by sarah | comments (2) | chillin', personal

mar 29 2005

a long lazy w/end

ed and i went away to clanwilliam this easter and had a wonderfully relaxed w/end. lots of food, drink, late nights and even later mornings. the weather was pretty damn cool too. we also bought some more pellet guns (the plastic pellet type) and the boys shot the crap out of each other, with a few choice shots from the girls might i add. check out the pictures

driving back was a bit of nightmare and the route we took is highly unrecommended if you're not driving a bakkie or 4x4 of some sorts. we decided to go through lamberts bay and head along the west coast... alas there are few tar roads and many gravel ones that aren't good for big cars like combi's. we ended up breaking down 3 times.

a journey that should've been no more than 2-3 hours took more than 6 hours. we eventually got stuck just outside of piketberg (so much for the coastal route) and had to wait for help in the form of elkart having to travel all the way from melkbos to simply give us a jump start... sheez! nobody stopped to help us, which doesn't say much for mank-ind.

this left us running mighty late for dinner with dyan, vincent, melanie, sharon and gareth. which was scheduled at 7:30pm, round about the time we finally got the car started again. we finally got to dinner exhausted, thirsty and hungry at 9pm.

if you're in the table view area, you must give colours a try. it's above mimmos where the old saddles used to be, just before countdown and doodles along the beachfront.

Posted by sarah | comments (2) | chillin', personal

feb 13 2005

happy bday to us!

early this morning at roughly 4:30am... the hubby and i got dressed and went down to the beach with some champers, orange juice and a blanket. not any beach might i add, we went to the spot where we got married a year ago. to watch the sunrise and spend a moment or two celebrating our anniversary together in a peaceful and beautiful place.

Posted by sarah | add a comment | personal

feb 03 2005

i'm well chuffed

i've been a busy little bee in the background the past few weeks. i've been reluctant (for obvious reasons known only to me) to mention it, but i've made some good progress and i'm darn happy and wanna just tell somebody (after all these days of slogging).

during my 2 weeks leave i spent 1 week learning the theory of java. the next week i was back at work and keen to start trying out some stuff, but i never had the time, it was chaotic and busy. then i had another week off and i tried to focus on learning the language and the concepts but it was hard to focus when the sun was shining outside ;)

so far this week i have had some time to explore and i'm overjoyed. i've got an assignment from the course that has to be handed in next week and it's all falling into place. when it's done i'll put it on the site so you can see what i did.

i've also been thinking about adding search functionality to this website. but i'll only start scoping that out after i've finished my java project.

in the meantime here's an addictive little applet that gave me plenty of insight into buttons and arrays: pairs (not my work by the way. also, i tested in mozilla and it doesn't work, so check it out in internet explorer folks!). you'll need the java plug-in to view it and java enabled on your browser...

and today is thirsty thursday, yay!

Posted by sarah | add a comment | personal, tech

Jan 06 2005

my car and i

so there i was, cruising along beach road in table view on my way to work. minding my own business, checking out stuff... everything but the road in front of me and not a second too early (or is it late?) either. the kind driver in front of me had stopped at a pedestrian crossing and i was about to say howzit to the rear end of her car.

screeeeech, a little sideways on the road (and off the road) plus alot of smoke from the burning rubber of my tyres.

the pedestrian gave me the evil eye and the kind driver sped away. i turned back onto the road, hoping that i'd pay more attention since i was wide awake now!

other road news: it happened awhile ago but it's been bugging me. who is the feather-plucker that decided that the 'slow' lane from table view to milnerton needed all that patch work? i think they've actually made the road worse and since i don't like to get speeding fines, i find i drive in the slow lane quite abit. it's just completely doff and bumpy, what a waste of our taxes!

thanks to coda for pointing out the dubious going-on's at musica digital. i'll wait for the mozilla friendly version...

Posted by sarah | add a comment | music, personal, tech, web

dec 23 2004

tis the silly season

and thank goodness i did my shopping weeks ago!

not that i would have time to spend pushing, shoving, biting and other frantic late shopper stuff in any of the retail outlets... i've just been too busy!

i am at work this week... thinking that i'd take it slow, work on some private stuff and maybe even nap abit because it'll be quite dead at the office right? hahaha hahahaha haha ha

it's been so poop busy, clients wanting stuff now, before the end of the year! tomorrow (christmas eve day) i have two other jobs that need to be done. today i can't even upload changes because our service provider doesn't like my ftp program (actually it's a little more technical than that, but i won't get into)

anyways, last week i went to me 10 year matric reunion and it was blast to see my old school mates. it's amazing what some of them are up to. i posted pics in the gallery, i am expecting vanessa (event organiser) to post some of her pics but i'm not sure when that'll be!

before i sign off... a special note to all my friends and family: here's wishing you the safest, bestest, happiest christmas and new years, all my love,

Posted by sarah | add a comment | personal

dec 10 2004

another move

last week thursday we packed up our computers at work and on friday the movers moved the goodies to our new offices in observatory, while most of the staff took the day off.

i've been pretty apprehensive about the relocation of the offices but i'm experiencing a better a commute so far, it is the beginning of the holidays so i might be jumping to some really positive conclusions about the new commute.

all i know is that as i sit here and type this, and as i glance over the golf course at the river club at the m5 and see all those cars constantly piling up to get onto the n1, is that i'll probably never take the m5 to get to and from work. going through salt river is working pretty good for me.

next wednesday evening i'll be going to my matric reunion, it's in melkbosstrand (bonus) at the seafood lapa. i'm sure when i was fresh out of school i scoffed at the idea of a 10 year matric reunion and now i'm pretty excited to be going... hmm, i guess i'm not really the rebel i thought i was?

details: table view high matric '94 pupils 10 year reunion at seafood lapa on the 15th dec from 7pm onwards. vanessa sinden is handling it and you need to contact her for bookings before or on the 11th dec

Posted by sarah | add a comment | personal

nov 24 2004

property update

ed and i have finally found something nice... this actually happened about 2 weeks ago. we went out to langebaan and viewed some properties, mainly vacant land with body corporate's that have rules on what type of building to build and colours to use for the exterior walls and roof... arggh

cape dutch is so bleh and it's a pity that this is the way that it seems to be going in langebaan.

anyways, after finding out that we could've had 2 prime pieces of land about 8 months ago for a about a quarter of what 1 costs now (ouch that hurt) we finally found a huge erf (with a body corporate) about 2 blocks away from the beach that one would call a bargain. simply because it is.

the seller has accepted our offer and we are in the process of getting ownership. yeeha. cape dutch style here we go... bleh ;)

other than that we've been terribly busy visiting mates and having a really good time, helping mom clear the clutter and also helping get her place looking like a million bucks. time consuming and back-breaking stuff. more a little later and the pics are coming soon...

Posted by sarah | comments (21) | personal

oct 28 2004

on the move pt.2

so yesterday ed and i viewed a property in parklands, very close to the spar and planet fitness in parklands. it's well nice and has tons of potential. the price is not right though so we're going to offer less than the asking price which apparently is less than the seller originally wanted anyway. i'm just not mad enough to go for some the ridiculous asking prices at the moment.

we'll see what happens.

and yes, it means we didn't eventually go for the property in yzerfontein. but we do dream of owning that much land one day :)

i read an article today that said the bubble is about to burst in the property market, but they have failed to let us know when that is going happen. i didn't want a definite date but they could've said somewhere around january or something to help some of us out you know?

i have tomorrow off. in the morning i'll be visiting the dentist (after about a year) and then i'll be moving ed and myself out of simon's pad into my mom's which is currently getting abit of a makeover - instead of carpets the bedroom is getting a lamented wooden floor... nice.

Posted by sarah | comments (2) | personal

oct 26 2004

on the move

after some thought and procrastination, ed and i have decided to move on and leave my boet to have some time to his girlie uninterrupted.

it's been pretty cool housesitting for him. we are temporarily moving to my mom's to help her out abit (and she'll be helping us too) until we can find a suitable place for ourselves. more than likely it'll be in tab-le-view... oh, the horror of it all!

this time next week it's the american elections and i don't know why i'm so interested but i have been following the polls, the electoral polls, the debates and pretty much anything that has the words bush or kerry in it. it's very disturbing for me to see so many people supporting bush. all those americans getting the wool pulled over their eyes...

nassty! we played fuessball with your boetie the other night. i couldn't stop laughing because you guys pretty much play the same way... it was good :)

Posted by sarah | add a comment | personal, politics

oct 19 2004

property

a big congrats to kaptain for the approval of her offer to purchase in royal ascot. nice!

ed and i are also almost property owners! on saturday we went and viewed a big piece of land in yzerfontein. we put an offer down and on monday afternoon we found out the seller has accepted our offer. now we too have to sort out a bond and accept the body corporate 'rules and regulations' before we are fully fledged property owners. :)

it's a big step and i'm pretty much in 2 minds about it right now. there is a lot of planning and work having to go into all of this... we don't quite have our grubby paws on the property, so lets not get ahead of ourselves just yet.

Posted by sarah | add a comment | personal

oct 12 2004

almost no-one left!

on saturday we hosted a farewell party for derek, who is leaving our shores on thursday to have some fun, fun, fun in the uk. the pics have been posted in the 'misc' gallery, so hop on over and check them out.

i got a funny video clip of the current president of the us of a in my mailbox this morning. it's not very big, so have a look and a good ol' laugh at how he explains what "tribal sovereignty" is.

Posted by sarah | add a comment | humour, personal

oct 05 2004

change

hmmm, it's been quite a couple of hectic weeks here in sarah-land. it's been a challenge coming to terms with our offices moving in december to black river parkway, right opposite the river club (observatory). the commute there is not going to be pleasant. it sucks because i have just perfected my route through to town... now we go and move (did some-one scream "murphy's law"?). so i'll have to sort out my route to obs now and no, the m5 is not an option unless you are suicidal! it seems more than likely that i'll be commuting through to town and then back-tracking through woodstock via the m4.

i have changed the look abit here on phunkd. you guessed it... i get bored easy and have far too much time on my hands. not that i'm sitting around doing nothing folks, i am messing around with photoshop and trying to be more creative.

this w/end was a blast, although somewhat tiring and painful. we played fussball till the wee hours of the morning on friday. saturday morning ed and i went to gawie's farewell (he's off to new zealand on thursday) and we had a chance to wakeboard while we were there. i am major unfit i guess because my right leg hurts real bad from the strain of trying to stand up (it took a couple of water-splats to get it right). it was great fun, we are definitely going to do that again!

simon arrives tonight, after being away for about 2 months. we're going to the airport to welcome him home, abit of a surprise happening there (i'm not sure if he reads the website so i won't say what, but will post pics soon)

Posted by sarah | add a comment | chillin', personal, ranting

sep 28 2004

a tough week

so far it's been a hectic week for both ed and i.

yesterday i was abit upset because of the crappy work i've currently been doing. converting pdf's into html. it really sucks, there really is nothing worse. after all the training i've been doing to get to grips with sql server over the past 3 months (aswell as investing in textbooks) and also php (this site is a good example of my progression in that direction). it's like i've been told to mop the floor and although i have a mop, i have to get on my hands and knees and scrub it! uuuurgh.

then this morning ed and i were woken by a call from one of his clients. it seems that some-one has taken some earrings and a chocolate from his wife's draw in the bedroom and also fiddled with the alarm system. this is very uncool. it's put him in quite a position. firstly, his staff could be untrustworthy and secondly, he could lose out on getting paid for services rendered. he went to the police station to sort it out this morning, hopefully this will get sorted out.

i know i once accused our domestic of misplacing some cd's of mine and it was unfounded because i later discovered that i had infact lent them out to a friend (she never forgave me for that). so i am hoping that it's not actually a case of theft but rather some forgetfulness...

tonight i will have a cool, large spiced gold and lemonade and hope that the rest of the week turns out to be better than it has been so far!

Posted by sarah | add a comment | personal

sep 22 2004

a welcome warmth

yesterday was a beautiful warm day in cape town, with a max temperature of 27 degrees. although it's not going to last... today saw the arrival of another cold front, it's currently overcast but not cold.

i left work a little earlier than normal and got stuck in a bottle-neck thanks to an accident on n1 coming into town, no doubt the rubber-neckers were causing the huge delay. so i hoped off and went home via the scenic beach road routes, which was flowing rather nicely. the sunset was awesome and i had to stop and take some pictures. when i finally hit melkbos, i went straight to the beach at 1st avenue and snapped some pics there too, below is a small panoramic view of the sunset i caught there.

last thursday i uploaded alot of pictures from our w/end away in bot rivier, which was very cool. ed and i are going to try and get our asses out there this w/end, to possibly look at investing in a holiday home.

i will be working on getting my other scenic, sunset pics into a gallery asap.

Posted by sarah | add a comment | personal

sep 09 2004

thirsty thursday

yup it's thursday. one day closer to our w/end away. yippee!

normally we would have a thirsty thursday night at the house. anyone and everyone is welcome, you drink and socialise on a week day night at our spot. nothing too hectic (i'd be lying if i said that they were always tame though), have some drinks, play some pool and chill. i think it'll be cancelled tonight though. ed and i are tired, we stayed up until about 1am this morning trying to sort out a portpholio for his bic and kitchens business...

it's frustrating working into the wee hours of the morning. deadlines suck too.

i reckon i need to get better at taking pics. all i think that is needed is more 'pratice', take pictures as much as possible. mission this w/end: take a poep load of pics! and possibly sort out as many as possible so i can upload them to the gallery!

Posted by sarah | comments (2) | personal

sep 08 2004

another friend leaves

tonight ed and i will be going out in 'celebration' of dyan leaving for her cruise ship again. it's not so much a celebration i guess as it is a last chance to see her and wish her well (aswell as show all our sa bound friends that we do actually go out and socialise).

lauren left on sunday to return to her yacht, i think she went to barbados. i'm hoping i wasn't listening too well (and it was actually some other tropical island paradise starting with a b) because a hurricane passed through there yesterday / last night. i'll call her folks and check.

on the other side of the pacific, japan is getting quite a pounding too. they actually have been hit by a few tsunami's!

Posted by sarah | add a comment | personal

sep 03 2004

increased activity

i've spent the past 2 days editing, changing and securing phunkd in order to have some friends and family become regular bloggers here, hopefully they are interested.

so far so good. i just need to get them to register, get some dodgy pics of them (and myself) and then we're ready to rock 'n roll.

i will be trying my damndest to get baby pics of all the registered bloggers, including myself. you'll notice that the author of a blog post (currently only mine is there) is clickable now, this will take you to a page with a run down on that blogger, with links to all the other bloggers.

tonight we'll be having some fun as we are hosting a farewell party for lauren (hopefully a future blogger here) at our place. chicken / beef stir-fry, a film preview and lots of loud music. it should be pretty good!

Posted by sarah | add a comment | personal, social networks, tech, web

aug 30 2004

progress

on friday afternoon i got my car back... all fixed for a fraction of the price the authorised dealers would have charged me!

now i'm thinking of keeping the thing!?

the guys who fixed my car informed me that they tightened / replaced some stuff relating to the aircon. the aircon guy told me about a month ago that my evaporator was gone and he'd get back to me regarding that (he never did). so after hearing that there were some nuts and bolts tighten / replaced / fixed regarding that, i went back to the aircon guy and insisted on a regas. he was adamant that it's the evaporator, cause it's leaking in the overflow. er, overflows are supposed to 'leak', did he think i was stupid or something? is it because i am chick that he tried to make me believe that? whatever...

anyways, straight after the regas, we hear a loud hiss... hmmm, could that be the sound of a gas leak? hehehe blocked him good and proper. i spent R1500.00 fixing the aircon in february, and it never seemed right to me that straight after fixing one thing another would conk out. so it's still under guarentee and aircon guy has to fix it! lekker.

the weather was very cool this w/end and i spent most of saturday tending to simon's much neglected garden. a good mow and tons of (borehole) water made a huge difference. now i'm on a mission to try and get everyone to not park their cars on the lawn as much so that it really gets nice and lush.

i was well knackered after that, it felt like i had run a marathon. so i spent the rest of my w/end chilling. i hope the weather is wicked next w/end too.

Posted by sarah | add a comment | personal

jul 21 2004

a new arrival

about 2-3 months ago ed and i ordered a huge lounge suite (pic to be added soon in the gallery) to be made to our specifications. the price tag was alot less then buying the same thing at a discount furniture store. the service these guys offered though has been terrible (even for cape town standards)...

so last week, no wait the week before that, they call and say "hey, your lounge suite is done, we'll deliver on friday". so friday comes and by 10am there's been no feedback from them whatsoever. ed's been trying to get a hold of them since 8am. finally at about 11am some-one answers the phone. he is then informed that the lounge suite is actually not ready because the lady on the phone has been away for 3 days and the power has been off for 3 days too! well, thanks for letting us know. ed's organised his day so he could be there when they deliver. that means he hasn't done any on-site work, collected client's orders or done any quotes. total estimate of money lost: R1000.00.

alright, we'll leave it for now...

then on friday (last week) i get a call. the lounge suite is ready now. really? really. so i go and view it. i confirm that it'll be delivered by 11am the next day (saturday). i also ask to speak to the manager. i'm told she's not there and she might only be in on monday. ok so get her to call me when she's in, be it tomorrow or monday morning... i want to discuss maybe getting a discount for the inconvenience they caused the week before.

saturday morning i rush to the bank to get the remaining cash for the lounge suite, we put 50% down as a deposit. they don't take cheques (only if they're bank guarenteed). i get back to the house at around 9.30 and start making room for the new lounge suite. old futons are removed, taken apart and ed's sleeper couch is taken out onto the porch. this was all done a little before 11am, deadline for the arrival of the new lounge suite.

11am comes and goes. by 12 i phone them to find out what's happening. oh the driver hasn't arrived yet and they don't know when he'll be in. ah hello, why didn't you call me and let me know? why do i have to constantly chase you to get answers / info? now i am mad and want to speak to the manager. give me her cellphone number. no we don't do that. well get a hold of her and get her to give me a call. ok. they do that apparently and they call me to let me know. later they call to say the driver is there and that they are loading the lounge suite. that's at around 1pm. i expect them to be at my spot at around 2pm. 3pm they arrive.

in the meantime i have decided to deduct 10% and delivery off of the final payment. then my mom arrives and reckons i shouldn't pay them at all and says "you never give delivery guys cash". okay cool. but when they arrive i crumble... i'm going to go to hell for this i think. you can't not give them their money? naughty naughty. after abit of a panic my mom writes them a cheque for half the outstanding balance (hubby had the cheque book) and we give it to them in an envelope and send them on their way.

monday afternoon, not first thing in the morning, i get a call from some-one at the company, couldn't hear their name (abit of a mumble). so i call back a little later and speak to the same person i've spoken to throughout this. she mentions nothing about the cheque or the outstanding amount, i ask to speak to the manager. surprise, she's not there. she'll be in the office at 2pm. i call back after 2 and am told she's still not in the office, but a message is taken this time and she'll call me when she gets in.

it's wednesday, late afternoon, and i have yet to hear from anyone at the company. what do i do now?

Posted by sarah | add a comment | personal

jul 15 2004

more bad spelling

found on upsaid.com:

"This change will not only be a releaf for the server, but it will also give us the chance..."

have you seen any simple, bad spelling mistakes?

on tuesday my books that i ordered from amazon.com finally arrived. faster and cheaper then anyone in south africa could offer me. exlcusive books (approached and ordered at the beginning of may) told me to expect one of the books to arrive at the end of july, they didn't have the other book.

kalahari.net was too pricey.

so now whenever i have a spare moment i am trying to learn sql server 2000, stored procedures and xml programming... all before the end of august. doable i hope? today was my first serious day to check out the sql server 2000 book and it's helping me understand it but i'm feeling rather mind-numbed. good thing i have to stop the studying to compile a website, hooray!

it was funny when i opened the package at my mom's place, the first books' title threw her off abit... she asked me if it was a reference book for the bible. err no mom, it's a programming book. (title: microsoft sql server 2000 bible)

Posted by sarah | add a comment | bloopers, personal, web

jul 08 2004

the shortest day

yup, the shortest day in the southern hemisphere came and went. the cold is still here but i'm starting to catch awesome sunsets on my way home from work again, up until quite recently it's been pitch black!

i added the pics from ed's 31st to the gallery... i'm stumped as to why i didn't add my b-day pics... did we take any, i don't remember but i will check the laptop?

i see that quite a few peeps are redesigning their websites. i can't wait to see the new designs... and once i see them it's likely that i'd wish i was a kick-ass designer just like them (hurry up guys!).

fahrenheit 9/11 is due for release here in sa at the end of the month and i am way keen to see it when it does hit the circuit. i went and saw bowling for columbine at the cinema and really enjoyed it. the michael moore website has been serving something like 30 million hits a day since he added the movie trailer (i have a very crappy dial-up and have yet to see it) and he's even got his own blogger now

Posted by sarah | add a comment | personal

jun 25 2004

sniffles

i recently caught a really mild cold from my hubby, one day of grogginess (really feeling miff) then one day of clogginess (all blocked up) and now i have a few sniffles, abit of a scratchy throat and whenever i swallow, an irritating click in my right ear... *sigh*

it's going to be a bloody cold w/end here in cape town and i wish i could just hibernate the whole time. but saturday morning will be spent standing in a queue at the traffic department trying to get the damn liscence disc for my car. which i paid for already but they didn't give to me because the arse who bought my last car (good ol' heap o' junk) had failed to register it in his name, so it was still in my name... but that's all been done now and i can get the disc but have to spend saturday morning doing so!

then saturday evening is ed's 31st birthday party. a 5 piece birthday party. how it goes: everyone has to bring 5 pieces of clothing that they normally wear in a bag with their name on. when they arrive we take their stuff away, place it under a huge blanket. later after a few drinks people must randomly pick a bag from under the blanket and proceed to change their clothes for what's in the bag (this can be done in private if they so wish, actually i would prefer it). the result should be fun...

tonight i am taking the lucky hubby to dinner at a lovely spot in town for some chocolate meat... mmmm

Posted by sarah | comments (1) | personal

jun 21 2004

lazy days

i had most of last week off, thanks to a stragetically placed public holiday and taking leave at the right time. it was a welcome break from the office after all the chaos that's been happening there lately...

yesterday i finally managed to get the skydiving pictures up in the gallery (about a month after flinging ourselves out of a plane at 3000 ft). we have to go soon in order to not go through the training again, but the weather hasn't been on our side and although i've been having a break ed's been super busy. hopefully we'll get a chance this saturday, before his 31st birthday party later on in the day.

i am so chuffed with my blogger. in the past i used to copy and paste the front page into a new page and specific folder then check all links (incl. pictures) and do the whole "../". then i would create a link and blurb in the archives page and then i'd update the front page and when i was finally done i'd upload all the changes. whew! now i go to me blog page, type some stuff, hit "add" and there it is!

i should've done this a long time ago.

Posted by sarah | add a comment | personal

jun 14 2004

laptop blues

i tried to work this w/end... on this website ofcourse to have it all up before monday morning. ha!

my laptop had other ideas, or should i say windows xp. i struggled and got nowhere trying install apache and php to run on it. i am still stumped... so my mission is to get that working before i continue with more development for this website, although i am not too sure what else i'd like to add to this web thing i currently have... oh i remember, comments to my blogging? hmm

Posted by sarah | add a comment | personal, tech

jun 11 2004

june fever

well finally... the redesign i've been mumbling about. still lots to do in the background though.

the nice thing is that finally got off me lazy butt and got this site to be a lot more dynamic and i updated the portpholio page. whew. all in a couple of days!

i still have to escape single quotes and double quotes in the blog tool, will get there, more importantly it took ages to just move the gallery across, i think i did something wrong along the way because i ended up having to start all over when i got no database connection. it was really strange because all i changed was a 'cosmetic' thing and it shouldn't have buggered it all up?

i hope you all like the new look, i still have to make the random pic actually random and add a comments tool for this blog... bear with me, should be done by the end of the year!

Posted by sarah | add a comment | personal, web