Hairy Experiences

The Flood

2010-04-09T16:24:00.000-07:00

This past winter has been a generous one with regards to snowfall. Just weeks before Spring, she was kind enough to drop 36 inches of the white stuff over the weekend. So much so, that New York declared a state of emergency.

It was to be the last hurrah because 2 weeks later, came the rains. The rain started on the Friday after 3 days of beautiful 60 degree plus weather. It continued through the night into the Saturday. Around 10am in the morning I received a text from our Fire Chief, saying that the water was 3 feet below the towns’ bridge and rising fast. He was calling on our towns’ swift water rescue team to be ready to go. With all the snow starting to melt and the relentless rain we were going to have a “fun” weekend.

I had a birthday party that Saturday evening which we headed out to. We arrived at the party and were welcomed by my pager going off. This was to be the first of many that evening. On the third incident, I decided that we had to leave and that I was going to try get through to the fire house to stand by. I swung onto Route 17, to head down to the fire house and was greeted by a police car pulled across both lanes. When I asked why he was there, he said that the road was closed due to flooding.

I took a detour over the mountain and after fording three really deep pools I made it Sterling Forest Fire Company. On walking in I received the usual torrent of banter about my not making the last calls and thanks for “finally” showing up. All in good fun of course. Within 30 minutes of my arrival the tones rang out – 2 vehicles trapped in the water on 17. We were on the road in minutes and on scene five minutes later. This was the first time I realized how bad the flooding was.

Route 17 was under a torrent of water that was flowing across in front of the police station into the Ramapo River. Huge logs, trash cans, and all manner of flotsam were being swept across the road like toys. Sure enough, right in the middle of this torrent, were two vehicles. Two of our guys donned the ice rescue suits*, connected rescue ropes and waded out to the cars. Thankfully the occupants had already escaped and reached dry ground, well… ground that had only been rained on… wasn’t underwater… you get the picture. We returned to the fire house and repacked the ropes.

Not long after, the tones sounded once more – vehicle in the water, potential water rescue! We were out on the road within a minute. This time, I donned the ice rescue suit whilst we hurried to the scene. When we got there, we saw a woman trapped in what was to become the deepest pool of water in the area over the next few hours, inside her Hyundai. Our fire truck had at least 4 foot of clearance before water would hit the air intakes so we drove straight into the puddle right up to her partially submerged vehicle. With ropes connected to our ice-rescue suits we jumped onto the roof of her car, ready to pull her out through the window. Within 40 seconds we had the poor lady out of her car, into the truck, where she was now warm and safe. We were all happy with a very slick rescue.

In the early morning on the Sunday we responded to another water rescue – a vehicle with two passengers. On arriving at the scene we saw a white Lexus with a woman hanging out the passenger window. Like a well oiled machine we went into action again. We reached the car and started preparing to remove her to safety. She seemed to be on her own. We asked if she was the only passenger, she said no, it was herself and him. We looked inside again and couldn’t see anyone. “Who?” we asked. A deep voice responded from the rear of the car, “Me”. It turned out to be a huge 6’5” 225lb man that was sitting in the trunk. We weren’t going to be able to carry this guy. Once we had everyone to shore, her carried, him walking, we were about to get everyone onto the fire truck when another water rescue call came in.

This time it was for a silver, Mercedes Benz. As we approached the car, we noticed headlights of yet another car in the middle of the “puddle”, only the lights were moving… sideways. It was a blue pick-up truck, and it was floating off the road into the swamp. We left the Merc driver where he was and moved to the truck. As we laid hands on it, it floated away. Not a single wheel was touching the ground and the driver was still inside. I held the vehicle in place, whilst my partner pulled the occupant out through the passenger window. We carried him back to the fire truck, and turned around just in time to see the truck sink under the water like a stricken ship. Gone!

The strangest thing is that many of the folks we rescued, said they saw a car make it through coming the other way. Either these were phantom cars or the head lights of the other cars that were stuck in the puddle coming the other direction. Even more interesting is that most of them were afraid to leave their windows open because of the rain … ummm … don’t know if they noticed the foot wells full of water or perhaps the lake the car was floating in the middle of.

In all we made 9 rescues that evening, and responded to 3 accidents. Throughout the night we had call after call, mostly for people who had circumnavigated the police barricades and tried to cross the “puddles”. From Mazda Miata’s to Dodge Ram’s they all succumbed to the freezing water.

* Ice rescue suits are puffy water proof dry-suits with fitted gloves and boots that make the wearer look like a mixture of the Michelin man and a Gummi Bear.

Fire Fighter 1: The Campfire

2009-12-20T11:06:00.000-08:00

In the last third of our course we started our much anticipated live burns. The first was car fires which I will get into at some other time, second was "the campfire".

On the fire ground of the Orange County Fire Training Center there is a burn building called "the Taxpayer". It's a three story house built out of fire resistive concrete and able to withstand extreme temperatures. Our campfire was to be held in the first floor. Everyone was excited and you tell there was a little apprehension in the air.

The entire class including instructors, were dress in full turnout gear and masked up. This was going to be our first introduction to what fire fighters call "the beast". Our instructor asked to us to file into the first floor of the Taxpayer and form a semi circle from one corner of the room to the other. In the middle of the semi circle, 10 ft away against the far wall was a massive pile of hay and wooden pallets. Once everyone was in all the windows and doors were closed tight.

Our instructors fired up a red road flare and touched it to the piles of hay. The fire started licking up the side of the pile and pretty soon we had a good fire going. As we all watched the smoke started spreading out across the ceiling and we were given the command to go on air. Pretty soon all we could hear was the familiar Darth Vader clicking of the low pressure regulators and the roar of the growing inferno in front of us.

As we were kneeling it took a minute for the smoke strata to reach our head height and pretty soon we could see nothing. We were told to lie prone on the floor. Ahhh, I could see again but not for long. Within minutes I could see nothing. I couldn't even see the fire, just an vague orange glow through the smoke. We were told to get to our knees once more and suddenly I could see how big the fire had become!

The flames were spreading out 10 feet in every direction across the concrete ceiling. I could now feel the heat prickling through my turnouts. The air in our SCBA's (air packs) was getting hot and I could smell burning rubber. This was coming from the hoses on our packs starting to deprecate in the heat. At this point one of the instructors shouted that it was getting pretty hot where he was. The heat was like an impenetrable wall that was all around you. With huge relief we were given the order to clear out. We crawled out of the oven and unclipped our masks. All the metal clips and parts of my gear were untouchable they were so hot.

On asking what the temperature was in the room, our instructor casually says "About 1000 degrees"... wait, WHAT?! That's in Fahrenheit, so it's about 537 in Celsius. Considering that I usually cook stuff at 350 degrees F in my oven, I was absolutely amazed we didn't get cooked. It was an incredible experience and one that I hope we can do again one day.

Fire Fighter 1: The Maze

2009-11-20T07:27:00.000-08:00

I've been in class to get my Fire Fighter 1 certification for the past 2 and half months. Life has been crazy because it's been after work from 7pm to 10pm, even 11pm sometimes. So far it's been an absolute blast with mostly great but some downright “scary as hell” experiences.

The maze was was one of the "scary as hell" experiences and was the only time I've felt real fear on this course. The first night we traversed it, we were on air through our SCBA's (Self Contained breathing Apparatus, our air pack). The maze is dark and enclosed but we could still see vague shapes in the darkness. We had to climb through windows with chains hanging in them, crawl through tires, up stairs, down stairs and finally through a 15 ft piece of ventilation ducting. My partner and I (you always navigate in pairs in a burning building) did it in about 10 minutes and with plenty of air left in our cylinders. Lot's of fun. The second time we went in, 2 nights later, not so much...

On the second evolution we did what we thought was the same exact maze, except we were blindfolded this time. The first half of the maze remained unchanged and my partner and I successfully navigated the various tires and windows easily. We then came to a raised section that used to have a floor but now was just beams...ummm, guys, where's the floor? Not there, just a 6 foot drop into a hole - I think. Remember we're blind at the moment. For some reason I am now down to 25% of my air from the stress. Finally after getting through all that we come to the ventilation ducting.

Thank God, nearly done.

Boy, was I wrong. I go through first, and half way through the shaft I get stuck. I can't move forward, so I back out a little and try again. No dice, there is something in the way and I can't figure out what. My partner can't hear me shouting that I am stuck so he is trying to move into the vent behind me. I try to move back again and this time my face piece gets ripped off my face by the obstacle. Air escaping all over the place. Panic sets in as I try to rapidly recover my face piece.

I finally get my face piece untangled from what I now know is a rope strung across the shaft to ensnare would be fire fighters. Once my mask is on I take 2 deep breathes and my low air alert stops making noise. This only happens when you have about 1 minute of air left. I go into the shaft again and this time I get under the rope and out the other side. Now my partners turn...

He gets his air pack stuck and can't get it free of the rope. My face piece is now sucking to my face because I have no air at all now. He starts to panic a bit so now I crawl back down the vent shaft to unhook him and finally I get him free and we get out of the maze. I couldn't rip the damn face piece off my face fast enough, sucking down the night air like it was going out of fashion. As we were the first to go through, we got hear the shouts of “I'm stuck! I'm out of air!” coming from the vent shaft. I was so glad this wasn't a real fire...

Once all of us had made it through, I felt for the first time, since starting this course, that I'd taken a big step to becoming a real fire fighter. After this class we lost a couple of members, realizing fire fighting maybe wasn't for them.

E*TRADE, a Lesson in Stupidity: Episode 1

2008-11-28T09:34:00.000-08:00

Although I've had an E*TRADE account for some time now, I have decided to close it down. The reason I am shutting it down is because they have quite possibly the second worst service I have ever experienced. The worst was a waitress in a restaurant in San Jose, CA.

Let me back track a few months to where this all started. Our story begins in sunny June of this year when I decided to make a small deposit of $20 per month into my account as an initiative to save money. For a variety of reasons, when E*TRADE's system tried to pull the funds there were insufficient funds available and the transfer failed. This happened for 2 recurring months and E*TRADE notified me that the auto-transfer was being discontinued. No biggie, it's what I expected.

A month or so later, I needed to pay of some hefty credit card debts to avoid finance charges and decided to sell everything in my portfolio which I was able to do successfully. Now the fun begins. E*TRADE happens to have this service called BillPay which you have to enable to use. I apply for BillPay to be enabled and after a couple of days I get a response saying everything is hunky dory. Go pay your bills to your hearts content which I proceed to do. I send out a couple of payments which will take about 5 days to send. I wait for 7 and go into the system only to find that the payments were unsuccessful. Why? Well, I got this message telling me what the issue was...

Your online request to pay $xxxx.xx to CHASE MASTERCARD & VISA from xxxx-xxxx could not be completed. This could be due to technical difficulties, incorrect bill pay setup, insufficient funds, or other reasons.

Ummmm, so what was the reason? Basically, E*TRADE has no idea why this failed, so I call them. After sitting on hold for what seems and age (15 minutes), I get a customer service rep. Let's call her Wanda. Wanda tells me she has no idea why the BillPay failed and that she will need to put this in for investigation. I get a 20 digit reference number and I'm told that E*TRADE will call me back within 2 days. So I wait... no phone call.

Whilst I was on hold previously I was bombarded with ads saying that I should try E*TRADE's online help center if I want a speedy resolution to my problems. After day 3 of radio silence I decided that I would try out this amazing answer to all my problems.I jump online and proceed to explain my problem in detail. With lightning speed I get ... no, sorry ... I get nothing.

So I call back and get a new customer service rep. Let's call this guy Dave. Dave, tells me that the reason my BillPay failed is because my account is locked. "This can't be" I cry out in disbelief, "I've been selling stock as if the stock market was crashing around me in flames without a problem!". Dave confirms that it is definitely not enabled. "Why is it disabled?" I ask curiously. Dave, tells me it's because I owe them $40. Assuming this is a finance charge for the 2 failed transactions, I ask Dave to take the fee from my brokerage account which has more than enough cash in it to cover this nominal fee. "No, this won't do", says Dave, I have to wire in the funds before he can unlock the account. Now here is the clincher, the funds are not for finance charges, this is the two, $20 amounts E*TRADE tried to unsuccessfully withdraw from my bank account. wtf? To make this even more ridiculous Dave says that E*TRADE will pay for the wire transfer fee - $25 to be exact.

Let me get this straight, E*TRADE is going to pay $25 for me to transfer $40 into my account so I can take it out again to pay bills? Hmmmm, I wonder why their share price is sitting at just over a buck?

I finally get the wire sorted out and my account unlocked, all the while I have been sending a message each day through the "amazing" online help center asking if anyone is actually working there. No response. I am now picturing tumbleweeds and desert sands in the support desk offices. I pay my bills. Tantantantaraaaa! Big fanfare, drum rolls.

No, this is not over...

Vegas Vampires

2008-08-21T18:07:00.000-07:00

On many occasions I try and hunt down the worst movies I can find on television. I have found some pretty bad movies but "Vegas Vampires" takes the cake.

Some movies go out of their way to capture a spectacular event using one camera without a cut. Take "Children of Men" for example. They have an entire 5 minute scene with 100's of extras orchestrated to produce one of the most impressive "One Take" scenes I've ever scene (ha ha get it... phew). Vegas Vampires is impressive in the way that EVERY scene is a "One Take".

Clearly it's a monster pic, so you're expecting something disturbing and scary. VV (as it's friends like to call it) delivers disturbing... but not in the way you think. I'm not sure if it was the dopey vampire dance or the incredibly crap script that I found scarier.

Another plus was the horrible* acting. Lines like "I'm your wife now" and "what the f**k" delivered with the passion of a socially inept wine cork with a bad lisp on Prozak. The good thing is that the plot was brilliant...wait...what? Unfortunately this too, had the consistency of a wet blanket. Just in case you were confused lines like "He must be a creature of the night" are repeated multiple times. Awesome, thanks!

Attention to detail is fantastic. It seems that Vampires can be killed using bullets, unless they are on the street. In which case you need to use a form of Karate with a lot of yelping and whooping.

One has to commend the set design. One scene included a binder and a pot plant; the plant being possibly the best actor in the entire production. Another notable feature of this film is the fake teeth. Apparently vampires have a serious overbite problem, so much so that only a couple of them can actually talk (the others are dancing around triangles). An orthodontists dream species.

What was the saving grace of the entire movie, you may ask? Well that depends. If you like boobs then I guess those. If not, then when the movie ends. Watch out for Navy SEAL Ninja Nun and the riot police.

* Did I say horrible? I meant awful, dreadful ... more synonyms here.

911 Emergency

2008-06-08T15:32:00.000-07:00

Ethan wanted to call 911 the other day. Had he been allowed to, the call would have gone something like this...

911 Operator: "Hello?"
Ethan: "I have an emergency!"
911 Operator: "What is your emergency?"
Ethan: "I have no-one to play with"

As you can imagine this would have gone down well, so we decided not to let him call.

Ethan Logic

2008-05-24T10:08:00.000-07:00

As many know, my son Ethan has a rather unique outlook on things so I thought I'd share a couple of gems regarding life according to him:

Apparently

you have a nose to store boogers in it.

He can't drive because he doesn't have a drivers license. When asked why not he said

I have to go to boating school to get a license

not because he is only 3 feet tall and can't even see over the wheel, let alone reach the pedals.

Why boating school you may ask? Well, that's where SpongeBob Squarepants goes for his driving lessons.

Ethan Speak #2

2008-04-19T14:03:00.000-07:00

I was having lunch with my 5 year old son today and he was telling me about vampire bats and how they actually "resist" but vampires do not. We then moved on to Star Wars and talked about Jango and Boba Fett who are apparently "bouncy" hunters

The little language of Ethan

2007-04-16T10:51:00.000-07:00

I love to talk with Ethan these days. Yes I said talk with, not to. He has become a real little personality, following in his brothers talkative footsteps albeit rather one sided and around one subject - Bia-yickels (TFES*: Bionicles). He told me yesterday that he loves blahnahs (TFES*: Bananas) and constantly reminds me that HE is not cute, BABIES are cute. Now we have the Bia-yickelMooovee (TFES*: Bionicle movie on Lego.com) on the pewter (TFES: Computer) which keeps him fairly occupied for a while.

So if you ever want to spend a solid 4 hours listening to someone else do all the talking ask Ethan about his Bia-yickels. The story will go something like this... 'And the little guy and the white guy and my movie...'.

* Translation from Ethan Speak

50 cent, Eminem aint got sh!t on me!

2006-12-24T20:27:00.000-08:00

I am possibly the worst wrapper in history. Presents that is. Give me a simple box and I guarantee you I'll wrap it in the worst way possible. It'll look like a helmet or a violin but definitely not a box

Catch the ball, Win the game!

2006-12-24T16:10:00.000-08:00

Being a Dad in the United States, I have been trying to get acquainted with the national sports so that I can share in my boys learning experience, and maybe teach them at least one thing that will help them succeed. I have really been getting into American Football. So much so, that I am actually watching a game while I type this.

I believe the first step to becoming 'US Sport Dad' is to have all the proper equipment, so I bought a regulation size football yesterday. This afternoon, Chris and I went out into the garden to throw it around for the first time. The thing with a regulation size football is that it is about 2 times the size of my sons head and about as long as his arms. This combined with still to be learned co-ordination led to a lot of falling, crying and a little laughing.

As you can imagine the first pass beamed Chris right in the head knocking him clean over, so I decided to tone it down a bit and throw softer. Brave face, no crying though. One of my softer throws hit Chris square on the finger tips. Brave face forgotten, big tears. After some tickling, a mock tackle and rolling him around in the grass he reluctantly agreed to try again. That's my boy!

Of course a pass or so later, a direct hit! Smack in the face. More tears, a nice red mark on the forehead and football has lost it's charm. At least for the moment.

Silly Money

2006-11-07T14:54:00.000-08:00

When you hear that Bill Gates is the richest man in the world and that he is worth $50 billion dollars it's very difficult to imagine the true scale of that amount of money.

Here is a little calculation we did to put it in perspective. Let us say Bill gets really hungry and wants to order a standard $1 dollar hamburger from McDonald's for every dollar he has. Supposing the 30,000 McDonald's locations worldwide are all waiting and have enough stock to complete the order.

In order to fulfill this order within a year, every franchise around the globe would have to work to produce a hamburger every 18.9 seconds, working around the clock, every day of the week.

Now that's an appetite!

You know you're a parent when...

2006-10-26T09:38:00.000-07:00

... you try to put your right shoe on in the morning and impale your toe on a hotwheels car.
... you can't put your other shoe on because it's full of ball bearings.
... you open your gym bag and find a Spiderman, 3 hotwheels cars, a sponge and a plastic elephant.
... you find yourself saying 'I really don't think you should eat that 6 month old Cheerio you found behind the computer'.
... your car has a pop gun under the passenger seat.
... your favorite TV shows have changed from 'Deadwood' and 'The Sopranos' to 'Sponge-Bob Squarepants' and the 'The Fairly Odd Parents'.
... you get into bed, only to lie down on the surprisingly sharp and pointy Spiderman you found in your gym bag this morning.
... a simple trip to the bathroom at night, turns into an objstacle course of toys that a Navy SEAL would be afraid of.
... you can completely understand half words with no vowels and pronounced with a latteral lisp.

Inactivity for the young

2006-10-18T09:48:00.000-07:00

Every week I hear more reports about how obese kids are getting and what a huge issue it is. There are constant questions asking how we solve this problem.

Well one sure fire way it isn't going to be solved, is if kids are stopped from playing games that involve running around. This school in Boston has banned tag! Why?? They are worried that kids may get hurt. If that's the case why don't they bubble wrap every conceivable sharp object in the classrooms, bathrooms, hallways, streets, buses and roads home! In all the times that we played tag as kids, and they were plenty, we never had anyone suffer more than a scraped knee or a grazed elbow.

In the video news report linked to in the article below, the school is quoted as saying that the kids have plenty of other activities to keep them busy during recess. I'm guessing these activities are things like 'sitting on your butt' or 'eating food'. I may be mistaken but I thought these were the reasons why we have so many obese children, but what do I know.

Please someone stop this insane endeavor to shield our kids from everything. Parents need to be able to accept that sometimes accidents happen and you don't have to sue for every scrape your kid gets. The school needs to grow a pair and stand up for kids freedoms and their right to be kids, instead of cowering like a beaten dog.

More on this ridiculous topic here.

Rising water prices!

2006-10-10T07:59:00.000-07:00

Rising gas prices are the least of our worries...

Check out Bling H2O

Why do it?

2006-10-02T10:14:00.000-07:00

There are many things you can do with a Saturday. You can sleep in and spend the day lazing around (not normally an option for parents). You could come home from Fridays party. You could go do the weekly shopping ... OR you could get up at 4 in the morning to drive 2 hours to row 3 miles up a river and back down again in the freezing cold.

Guess which one I did this weekend? No I didn't have a hangover, go shopping or sleep in. I rowed. It was possibly one of the most painful experiences I've had in a while. The actual race lasted just over 20 minutes during which time I developed blisters on my callouses, numb legs, blisters on the afore mentioned blisters followed by blood blisters under all those blisters. So I'm sure you're asking why I'd subject myself to this agony?

I can't really answer that question with a direct 'Because the future of world peace depends on it' kind of answer. The answer is in moments that I've experienced over the last few months of rowing that can't be had any other way.

Early last spring, we were rowing in the icy morning cold and had rowed a 4 (a boat that requires 4 rowers and an optional Cox) out into the middle of Greenwood Lake. We were without Cox which added to the moment as there was nobody shouting at us for a change. This is a good thing in itself.

After rowing for about 30 minutes we paused to rest. Nobody said a word. We were surrounded by a mirror of water, the sun rising over the Appalachians, a faint mist hanging about 5 inches above the water. We were the only boat on the lake at 7am. It felt completely surreal, and finally Simon H broke the silence saying 'We are but players on Gods stage'.

I was lucky enough to experience that again this week, this time with a back drop of the oranges and reds of fall instead of the green shoots of spring. As an added plus we were rowing as the sun rose, painting a river of gold on the surface of the lake.

For these moments, is why I do it.

The Best: Use of Treadmills Ever

2006-09-26T14:21:00.000-07:00

This is possibly one of the most imaginative use of treadmills ever. This is OkGo's latest music video. Brilliant stuff!

Click here to see it.

Fly Guy

2006-09-22T08:17:00.000-07:00

I thought this was really cool! It's amazing what folks can do if they have the time...

Fly Guy

Sir Richard the Green

2006-09-21T17:08:00.000-07:00

I'm sure you've all heard by now that Richard Branson has committed to invest $3 billion over the next 10 years to help fight the fight against global warming. As you can imagine this kind of money can make a huge difference if used wisely. Listening to the radio on the way home from work it was amazing to me at how many folks that called in, dismissed this investment outright as a 'going nowhere waste of cash'.

To all those that think this money is going to end up in the toilet, I give you these thoughts:

1. Richard Branson started with a tiny, basement magazine and has ended up creating one of the most successful businesses in the world. You don't think that maybe, just maybe, he has a plan for this money?

2. As this investment clearly has some capitalistic gains driving it (see paragraph on Carbon Footprints), we all saw what a mere $10 million did for cheap space travel. If you don't remember, click here

3. In order for private enterprise to raise awareness in this day and age, you have to make a big splash to be noticed. If this doesn't wake some folks up to this issue, I'm not sure what will.

That aside, an ominous thing, aside from the fact that we may be slowly simmering on a planet sized stove, is that this points to some serious problems with our current, seemingly paralyzed, governing bodies. We've seen it before ( Disease Possibilities are Expensive, 01 Nov, 2005) where the government fails to spend the money where it counts, deciding instead to invest billions into wars in countries that now hate the US because of this 'investment' in their freedom, or defeating the bird flu epidemic that never happened.

Are we at a place where the government is becoming less for the people and more for the few? Why does it take a private citizen to commit that kind of money to combating this issue?

The good thing is that the presidential elections are just around the corner so I'm sure we will be hearing all sorts of promises that no one intends to keep.

Cheers Steve!

2006-09-05T16:56:00.000-07:00

It's wierd how the passing of someone I have never met can make me feel completely glum. That can only be due to Steve Irwins amazing personality and commitment to wild life and his family.

Cheers Steve, you will be missed.

This image and more here...

The Worst: Music Video ever...

2006-08-28T19:19:00.000-07:00

I had to share this with everyone. It's folks like this that give all those struggling directors and producers out there hope.

Click here to see it.

New Secret Weapon in the WOT!

2006-08-16T14:28:00.000-07:00

So it seems that the US military is looking to large corporates for help in the 'War on Terror'. A large computer company has developed this terrifying new weapon designed to look like a common laptop...

For a more in depth look at this new weapon click here.

The Shame!

2006-07-15T10:19:00.000-07:00

I am sitting here in a state of utter frustration after possibly the most embarrassing performance I have EVER seen from the South African rugby side, the Sprinboks.

49 points to 0!

It would have been bearable had it been an inspired performance from Australia, but really, they only played an average but consistent game. It felt like it was South Africas 5 verse the Australia's 25. From the moment I saw the Boks run onto the field I knew there was something up. They strolled onto the pitch with their heads down as if they were beaten already.

The point at which I knew all was lost was when the South African coach pulled off the only player who did anything for the side, Ndungane. He was the only player during the game that gave the Australians any problems and actually made tackles. I must admit that Du Preez was a breathe of fresh air, saving SA from an even more embarrassing defeat by being there to hold the ball of the ground for 3 'almost' tries.

So what is the way forward for SA rugby?

The SA rugby board need to let the coach be the coach. Politics cannot play a part in the decisions as to who gets picked for the team. If it ends up being an all green, pink, black or white team then so be it. So long as the best players are in the team when the game is on. There has been a huge furor in SA regarding the coaches picks for the team with the governing bodies getting involved and overthrowing his decisions. This cannot happen if you hope to form a cohesive team and maintain its morale.

As the coach, I'd consider shaking up the team. Get rid of some of the old guard and play younger, enthusiastic players. While Os du Randt has been a pillar for strength for SA he is way past his prime and is someone who will always need to be 'subbed'. Play a player who can play the distance, so that, as a coach you have some options later in the game.

Ricky January shouldn't even be on the field. I haven't seen anything from him in the 5 internationals I have seen him play, that says to me that he is world class material. His replacement Du Preez had way more heart and imagination, and was able to complete a pinpoint pass, which is vital in a scrum half.

Again I say, that it was an embarrassing performance and I expect a lot more from a South African rugby side.

To live by...

2006-06-13T19:16:00.000-07:00

"... when the Olsen twins tell you, you've something wrong, you are way f@#ked up." quote from some guy on TV

Black Picket Fences

2006-06-06T09:09:00.000-07:00

In the words of Penn & Teller, "... and then there's these @ssholes"

I always find it strange that supposedly religious God fearing folk find it in their hearts to persecute their fellow man for being different. Take for example, the members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas. These guys think it's a good idea to attend the funerals of fallen soldiers just so they can picket and spread hate for homosexuals.

Very classy guys, very classy.

How can someone feel vindicated after shouting and protesting on the occasion, of what for a family, can be a devastating day? What makes me even more incredulous is that they do this in the name of God. Although my bible knowledge is a bit rusty, I seem to remember phrases like 'goodwill to all man' and 'turning the other cheek' etc. I must have missed the section that says 'Go and piss all over a dead soldiers grave'.

Read the article here

Where's the Tooth Fairy?

2006-04-07T08:38:00.000-07:00

I have just returned from one of the most memorable experiences I will ever have in my life. Memorable because of pliars, needles and chisels. What was I doing you may ask?

I was having my two rear molars and wisdom teeth yanked out of my head. I would have to liken the experience to watching the same episode of 'Days of Our Lives' on repeat whilst someone drags their nails across a chalkboard. Two of the teeth needed surgical removal which added to the flavor, which is kind of 'coppery'. The good thing is I could stand to make a couple of bucks off the tooth fairy. So if you ever feel like spending two and half hours lieing down whilst someone chops and hacks at your mouth, this is the way to go.

I'd highly recommend taking your happy place with you.

Hairy Experiences gets a make over

2006-03-30T13:23:00.000-08:00

After many delays I have finally updated the look of Hairy Experiences. Please take a few minutes to check it out and let me know your feedback.

The line in the sand

2006-03-24T14:22:00.000-08:00

I received this link to an article from a friend of mine. It seemed pretty harmless at first but after thinking on it a bit I realized how flawed this really is.

To summarize the article, it's regarding being able to arrest people or fine them for being too drunk in a bar. Being a man that has been one of the drunkest guys in the bar a few times, this worried me a bit, but I could see the logic behind it. In my finest moments I have done some dumb things including jumping from buildings. Granted the end result wasn't anything like the kid mentioned in this article who missed the swimming pool and died. I managed to walk away, or rather hobble away, on a broken foot. Stopping this sort of stuff is a good thing, believe me.

The thing about this law that really bugs me is that it is enforcement based on opinion. Take robbery for example, there is a finite line that, if crossed, means you are robbing someone. If you decide to break someone's car window, and pull out their stereo, that's robbery. There is no grey area here. However with this new legislation, how drunk is too drunk? If the police officer decides he doesn't like the way you look at him as he walks into the bar, can he arrest you if you've had 3 beers? If you dance really badly, does that count as "not having the normal use of mental or physical faculties"? Does it matter that the drunkest guy in the bar is sitting next to his dead sober friend?

They do mention that the arresting officers can perform a field sobriety test but it is not required. This is the only thing that can fully measure how drunk a person is yet it is not required? People are always going to do stupid things, we are never going to stop that, no matter how many rules and laws are wrapped around controlling our behaviour.

I do not condone drunk driving at all...

... but I do feel that this is not the way to stop it. If a guy leaves the bar walking on rubber legs, drooling, slurring, without a sober friend to help them get home, then the police have every right to act. It seems like the line keeps getting rubbed out and redrawn biting further into the side that our freedoms are on.

See the article at Chron.com

Air Pollution

2006-03-20T18:35:00.000-08:00

I was watching Fuse this evening, the 'New MTV'. They were playing a series of videos for a variety of bands. One video came up that represents everything that is wrong with the music industry today. It wasn't a badly made video, or a bad song in anyway, it was just that there was absolutely nothing original about it. It was a pure product of the close minded music machine that is dominating everything that we hear these days.

'The Killers' came out a while back with a pop, energetic 80's sound which was great. It was a unique sound and had a lot of drive behind it. Good for them. I don't believe they will ever be one of the greats that people will look back on, but at least they had some originality.

The band I saw this evening was called 'The Editors' and if you closed your eyes would think it was 'The Killers'. Surely all the big music mega-companies could put aside a little of their cash that they have locked up in suing kids for downloading mp3's, and put it towards finding real talent. I have seen so many fantastic bands in clubs throughout New York City that can stomp all over some of the drivel we are forced to listen to on radio. I would guess 9 in 10 bands being released to the market are playing formulaic, fits the mold music ... basically playing cover tunes with different words and notes.

New York is one of the hubs of fashion, music and the performance arts, yet the radio stations that pervade the air waves are as tepid as the backwaters of the Hudson.

Toby Tobin remembered

2006-03-17T09:33:00.000-08:00

Thought I'd forward post this story as it is truly an amazing tale about a seemingly ordinary person who turned out to be extraordinary. This is from the memoirs of Toby & Daphne Tobin, dear family friends of ours. Toby was a glider pilot during World War 2 and passed away late last year after a long successful life in peace. He was always a resolute, honest man, but with a humorous twinkle in his eye. I guess seeing the destruction and mayhem that he did makes normal life seem amazing, even in moments that for us may seem intolerable.

Arnhem

"In August, with our lines of communication becoming very extended and the Germans having consolidated and putting up heavy resistance, it was felt that the Allies could get bogged down on the West side of the River Rhine through the coming Winter. In an effort to avoid this a massive airborne operation was planned to take the three bridges over the Rivers Maas, Waal and Rhine in Holland, allowing our armies to storm through into Germany and the industrial area of the Rhur. If this could be achieved it was felt the Germans would capitulate and the war in Europe would be over. September l7th was finally decided upon and the Americans were to drop on the bridges over the Maas and Waal at Nijmegen, which were only a few miles ahead of our advancing armies, whilst the British lst Airborne would go for the bridge over the Rhine at Arnhem, which was about 40 miles further on into enemy held territory. Although we had plenty of gliders, the number of tug aircraft available was very limited, so it was decided to have three drops on l7th, l8th and l9th. Then, as there were limited dropping zones around the city of Arnhem which is a forested area, and also to avoid heavy civilian casualties in the city, it was decided that we should drop on open moorland west of the small town of Oosterbeek, eight miles from the bridge. My glider was loaded with a Jeep and trailer full of ammunition and six men of the Border Regiment, and we took off at +- 09.00 hrs. on l7th September, on the first drop. There were thousands of aircraft in the air, a sight impossible to describe. The weather was clear and we encountered only light anti-aircraft fire crossing the coast of Holland. We met with some resistance over the dropping zone and a few gliders and tugs were hit, but the drop was successful. I released at about 2,000 feet, having identified my exact position , and made a good landing right on target. Gliders and Paratroops were pouring in and, as expected on such an operation, there were some horrific crashes. Enemy resistance was mainly small arms fire and we were able to consolidate off the dropping zone and head towards Oosterbeek, where Divisional H.Q. was established in the Hartenstein Hotel.

We learned afterwards that the Americans met little resistance over their dropping zones, took their bridges quickly, and were relieved by the British 30 Corps within hours.

I will not attempt to go into details of the next 9/l0 days, but will summarize to the best of my ability. Unknown to us there was a German Panzer Division (S.S. troops, heavily armoured with tanks, mobile guns etc.) camped in the woods around Arnhem and servicing their equipment, having been withdrawn from the front. They were obviously ordered to get operational immediately and defend the area. Within hours they had sealed off all the means of advancing from Oosterbeek to Arnhem. A small force of approximately l00 men, mostly Paratroops and a couple of Glider Pilots, had got through to the bridge and taken the southern end., but no more of us were able to get through to support them. They fought gallantly for 5/6 days before they were practically annihilated Only a handful of them survived as prisoners of war, after they had run out of ammunition, food and water. The second and third drops, and the supply drops, were delayed due to poor weather and when they did come in they encountered heavy anti-aircraft fire. On the ground the enemy were closing in and picking them off as they were landing. The sky was full of burning aeroplanes and gliders. We were being bombed, shelled, mortared and strafed by enemy fighters constantly, day and night, as the Germans squeezed our perimeter smaller and smaller.

On the second day I was with about ten others, mostly Glider Pilots, trying to get through to the bridge when two German fighter aircraft attacked us. We took cover in some trees in the driveway of a big house, but they had spotted us and came in very low and fired rockets into the trees. When they left and the dust had settled I was shell shocked but uninjured. Eddie Richards was lying alongside of me and I nudged him but then realised he had been hit and discovered he had a massive wound in his chest. I packed a field dressing over the wound but I felt sure he was dead. According to the Roll of Honour he did not die until 24th/25th September, at the end of the battle, so perhaps he was moved to a first aid post and died later. He is buried in Oosterbeek. My memory of this incident is confused but I believe I was the only one to walk out of those trees. I did visit Eddie’s parents when I eventually got back to England.

We had taken in some small anti-tank guns, mortars etc., but otherwise we only had rifles, machine guns and hand grenades. We managed to destroy many German tanks and vehicles before our heavier equipment ran out of ammunition, or was blown away. Airborne troops are only equipped to survive for +- 48 hours after dropping, and we had been told that 30 Corps would relieve us within this time. In fact, the Germans managed to hold them down on the road between Nijmegen and Arnhem and they were unable to get through. It was one of the bloodiest battles of the war. Both the Germans and the British lost many hundreds of men. Many of my friends and comrades died alongside of me and, looking back, it is a miracle how any of us came out of it alive. I had a cigarette tin in the left hand breast pocket of my jumpsuit, and a large piece of shrapnel got lodged in this, but I had no physical wounds. In no small measure I am sure it was the tough training in Tilshead that made us both physically and mentally strong enough to keep on fighting. After 8/9 days our perimeter was only about l50 metres in diameter. The tiny town of Oosterbeek was virtually blown off the face of the earth. I was in the cellar of a bombed out house with about 6/8 others, mostly wounded, with German tanks standing outside pumping shells through the remains. Eventually the door to the cellar was kicked in and a German soldier shouted “Raus Raus”. I have ever since wanted to meet this chap, as I wonder why he did not drop a grenade down the cellar stairs. ( I was now a prisoner of war)."

From the memoirs of Toby & Daphne Tobin

Pictured here with British paras at the commemorations at Arnhem/Oosterbeek 2004:

Image courtesy of www.mvt-essex.org.uk

Getaway Silliness

2006-03-15T07:36:00.000-08:00

On my way into work this morning I was in some fast moving traffic and noticed a big dump truck in the slow lane. It was carrying a load of sand and had a sign on the back saying 'Construction Vehicle. Do not follow.'.

If I was a bank robber, this would be my choice of get away car/truck. The cops would be completely trumped by the 'Do Not Follow' sign.

Chef leaves South Park. Umm check please!

2006-03-13T14:41:00.000-08:00

Every day I see blinders that folks wear that allow them to see what they want to see. If they happen to see anything out side of their narrow vision they get upset and annoyed. Not sure what the deal is with Scientology but lately it has come under some scrutiny due to Tom Cruises bizarre behavior and complete intolerance of respective professions such as psychiatry, saying that people who go to shrinks are wrong and that it is morally wrong and blah blah blah. I will dig up some more info on this so I can speak to it further.

Today yet another intolerant Scientoligist has surfaced in the form of Isaac Hayes, the voice of Chef in SouthPark. He quit citing that Southpark writers had crossed the line of tolerance and bigotry. This is after being in the show for years through plot lines that make fun of Christians, Jews, Mormons, different races, other countries, celebrities, politicians, dictators, Satan, sexual orientation, body functions, peadophiles, psychotics, caffeine addiction, the social hierarchy and more.

Not one word out of Mr. Hayes.

Until...

... they made fun of Scientology including appearances of Tom 'Crazy about Scientology' Cruise and John Travolta, that he up and quit. Up until that episode he was quite happy to cash checks and live the good life whilst making fun of everyone else's religions and beliefs. In the words of Trey Parker in this article, 'He wants a different standard for religions other than his own, and to me, that is where intolerance and bigotry begin.'

Read the full article here at Yahoo! News

Fervours destruction

2006-02-21T15:01:00.000-08:00

Gray area? Where? Sorry everything is in Black and White.

If you have been reading the news lately you will have seen a huge uproar in Libya regarding a Minister Roberto Calderoli and his t-shirt. He appeared on Italian TV wearing t-shirt emblazoned with a cartoon that satirized the Prophet Muhammad.

Whilst I agree that this was in poor taste for a Minister considering it is a known sensitive issue, I must ask; why was it necessary for 10 people to be killed because of it? On top of that, a cleric in Pakistan is offering 1.5 million rupees and a car for the assasination of the cartoonist who drew the cartoon in the first place. Personally, I thought that killing Free Speech would be worth at least 3 million rupees, a car and a hot tub.

How does this make sense when all of the Prophet Muhammad teachings are of peace and love of your fellow man? I didn't see the bible belt of the USA jump up and hunt down the cast of Dogma after the movie was released. Sure, they voiced their distaste and asked that it be removed from the circuit, but that is where it stopped. People need to voice their opinions, if you disagree you cannot resort to violence to change their minds.

One of the interesting things about this whole situation is that there are claims that the Dutch newspaper that originally printed the cartoons, had previously refused to print cartoons make light of Jesus and the holocaust. If that is true, and so far I have not been able to find any evidence to corroborate this, then printing the cartoon was definitely a bad move on their part. You can't have a sieve that catches only select ingredients.

"You do not do evil to those who do evil to you, but you deal with them with forgiveness and kindness." a quote from the Sahih Al-Bukhari (Found this quote on muhammad.net).

To see some of the articles I have been reading click here for the T-Shirt and here to make a quick buck.

Money vs Miracles

2006-01-30T19:21:00.000-08:00

Whilst I have been working, my wife has been watching a show on TV called Dr. 90210. The show is about plastic surgeons in Beverly Hills and in this episode featured one of the most vain, pompous, superficial people I have ever seen. The mans name is Dr. Matlock and every single word out of his mouth is about himself and how much he spent to buy some suit or car or dumb gadget that no one cares about.

He must be a really cool guy to be friends with. Just think, you could hang out all day listening to how much his new shoes cost or even better, he could tell you how great he looks in a tank top and sweat pants. The amazing thing about this chap is that he probably thinks this is really impressive and that we are all oooing and ahhing. I personally think it's more along the lines of grrrr but hey, maybe people are actually impressed that he spent $800 on a shirt that looks the same as a shirt that costs $50.

In the same episode the main star of the show, Dr. Rey, spent the entire time in Mexico doing pro bono work to help under privileged folks. All of these people would never have a hope in hell of fixing some of their problems. He was fixing children's cleft lips, removing tumors, separating fingers and more. It was amazing to see.

Which of the doctors do you think had the most fulfilling week? When it's all over and things are said and done, do you really think that people are going to remember how much your suit cost. Or do think that maybe, just maybe, they'll remember how you allowed their son to breathe and eat properly again?

Nuclear Neighbors

2006-01-17T12:19:00.000-08:00

Any of you reading the news these past few weeks would have seen the emergence of a new threat to the free world. Iran has re-instituted its nuclear research and development program, and said “Up yours” to the rest of the world. Ok, so not everybody, just the countries that already have nuclear weapon capabilities and don’t want everyone else to share in the joy of being able to destroy the world at the push of a button.

Personally, I think that nukes are a bad idea and we would be better off without The Bomb. Now nuclear power, that’s a different story. Well maybe.

I wonder if this action is going to be the case for every country that starts its own nuclear development program. Surely everyone is going to want to take a crack at developing a nuke when their country has a bit of spare change to foot the bill for the research. The biggest question really is this, how does one stop this problem once and for all? How do you get people to unlearn what they have learned? Nuclear power is an efficient and cost effective source of power which could help a lot of impoverished nations supply much needed amenities to their populations, yet with a little work and a lot cash can become the deadliest force yet built by man. Quite the conundrum.

Aside from all that, I can’t help thinking how this was the way the Iraq war started. Maybe someone at the CIA screwed up and spelt Iran wrong. That would explain all the sheepish faces when it was announced that there was no evidence of nuclear weapons development in Iraq… 400,000 troops in Iraq saying ‘Where are the nukes?’; one Special Agent in Iran saying ‘Where are the troops?’. It could be that or possibly a game of ‘Tag Team Enemy of the World’.

Land of the Free

2006-01-10T14:21:00.000-08:00

Censorship, Phone taps and Opened mail.

The United States of today has some similarities with the South Africa of yesterday. Growing up in apartheid South Africa, everything we saw and heard ran through a board of censors before it ever reached the public. You couldn't read a newspaper or a magazine that hadn't been censored.

Everybody knew that the government was watching. Illegal phone taps and opening mail where all common practices in what was the archaic regime of the South African government. Does this sound familiar?

President Bush authorized the NSA to monitor any international calls. That might be a bit of an invasion of privacy but hey, what do I know? It turns out that mail was also being opened in this, the War on Terror (a war that cannot ever end)

When you see the FCC watching and censoring everything we see and hear, George listening and reading everything we send or say, does it really feel like the 'Land of the Free'? I think this mantra should be modified to be 'Land of the Free*'.

I love living in the USA and all the ideals that it was built on. I feel like we lose a little of what makes America great every time the powers that be encroach on our privacy.

* Freedom doesn't include:
Speech, international phone calls, medical aid, opinions, naked bums on TV, letters to Mom, choice or civil rights.
Does include:
Frivolous law suits, invading other countries, mass media hype and blatant lies.

A bigger shell

2006-01-07T15:12:00.000-08:00

This week has seen another flare up in the debate regarding the troops in Iraq not having adequate protection. The primary focus of the debate this week is the lack of peripheral armor around the ceramic plates in the soldiers body armor. The studies are showing that as many as 80% of the lethal torso injuries incurred in Iraq could have been prevented by sufficient body armor.

This may or may not be true. I don't think there is such thing as a preventable death in war. Body armor makes it less likely to be killed but not impossible.

Consider that a soldier will be carrying a 8.3 pound (3.77kg) assault rifle, a further 3 pounds of clothing and boots, 4-8 pounds of ammunition, 8 pounds of webbing and 16.4 pounds (7.4 kg) of body armor. Add a couple of extra 4 pound (1.8 kg) plates to cover those currently unprotected places and you have one seriously heavy soldier. You also have to factor in the heat of the Iraqi climate.

If you add more armor you slow down the soldier, making him a sitting duck as he lumbers across open areas. So he won't be killed by the round that hits him in the chest, but he may be killed by the 3 or 4 subsequent hits that he would have avoided had he been faster.

The advantage has ebbed and flowed between machines, gadgets and tech versus the basic human being for as long as there has been warfare. For every strength there is an exploit or one just around the corner.

The thing about war is that people die. The only way to prevent these guys from dying is to pull them out of Iraq and end the war.

Article in Forbes

Wild West, New York 11004

2005-12-30T10:43:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you just have to admit that some people are just plain stupid. This tragic story revolves around a soldier firing off a pistol in Queens NY, home to millions of people, and killing a mother as she stood at the window of her apartment. Story here.

How can a soldier of all people do something this idiotic is beyond me, but it is not by any means an isolated event. I would like to relate a similar incident which did not, thank goodness, have the tragic outcome of the above story except for some minor injuries.

As part of my basic training I was taught how to operate the R4 assault rifle. It fires the same rounds as an M-16 and is just as deadly. When we eventually arrived at the shooting range to fire off our first live rounds, we had spent the last 4 weeks sleeping with our rifles and having safety drills drummed into our heads.

The first rule is:

- Don't point the weapon at anyone unless you mean to kill them.

The rest of the rules go something like this:

- Don't hand over a loaded weapon without unloading it and checking safety is on.
- Always walk with the safety on
- Never fire a weapon into the air in a residential area
- Be aware of where you are at all times when firing
- Never turn around on a firing line

Back to our first day on the shooting range. As we lay down to start firing we were told that if we had a jam, although we had been trained to fix it we should call a Corporal over to supervise, and by no means to ever get up off the line. So we start firing at the targets from a standing position. Within a minute of the commencement of firing a couple of us experience a jam.

The one soldier shouts for the Corporal and remains aiming at the target, the other decides to turn around before he shouts out 'Corporal'! This causes the entire line to hit the deck as he waves his assault rifle around, pointing the business end at our midriffs. Our Corporal promptly runs up to the offending soldier. Grabs the rifle muzzle pointing it to the ground and breaks the soldiers jaw, with one of the most thunderous punches I have ever witnessed. We were all glad that this guy had removed from the firing line, because, had this been a real life situation he could have killed us instead of the enemy.

Needless to say he was busted to desk duty never to hold a weapon again. Thank God.

Let's return to the soldier in New York. He deserves what he has coming but don't you wish that the friends he had been hanging out with, had done what my Corporal had done to our resident stupid soldier? Just think we would have a happy, whole family and one slightly hungover, really sore soldier who had learned a valuable lesson.

Medical Aid or extortion?

2005-12-28T14:30:00.000-08:00

Every presidential election we hear the candidates talk of how they will reduce medical aid expenses by cutting down on flagrant lawsuits and by cutting drug costs, to name but a few approaches. I can't see how this can happen without some one taking a good hard look at the extortionist behaviour of the medical aid companies.

My family recently received a bill from our medical aid provider, citing that we owed them $2500 for our eldest son, Chris. Now if this had been a bill for say, an appendectomy, which would require a skilled surgeon, anaesthetist, nurses, hospital recovery room and the plethora of anti-biotics, I wouldn't have been too surprised by the bill as we have a 12.5% co-pay with our provider. The funny part (not funny ha ha, more like being-punched-in-the-nose funny) is that this bill was for an ambulance ride, paramedic driver and a nebulizer application for a 5 year old. All in all I can't imagine this would cost in the region of $20,000 which, if you work out the amounts, is what the Medical Aid was saying they were paying.

Our response to our provider was a very polite, up yours, we are not going to pay this until we get an itemized break down. The medical aid then suggested we pay them the $2,500 and if there turns out to be a gross overpayment then they would refund us the money. Likely story, I can just imagine how much fun it would be trying to get that money back from them once they had it. So we said no, we are not paying until we get an itemized breakdown of all the costs involved. We were told they will get back to us as soon as possible. By getting back to us they meant a week of radio silence and a bill that arrived today for the 'correct' amount of $200... with no apology or explanation.

Now this can only mean one of a few things,

The extra $18,400 was added as a joke and they wanted to see how much we would laugh when they told us 'Only Kidding'

The 15 extra doctors that were required to make sure the nebulizer was applied correctly were actually not there on the night in question, but were in fact, at a tea party in Wigan, England

They didn't think we'd notice and just took a chance

The Medical Aid company is being extorted by the hospital in question

To put it in perspective:

A 'boob job' which would require a skilled plastic surgeon, nurse and an anaesthetist, costs in the range of $3,500 to $10,000. This simple hospital visit cost $20,000?!!

I am sure this astronomical amount is not an isolated case and should never be tolerated. I am blessed with a wife who is tough as nails when it comes to dealing with situations like this but not everyone is, so there are probably a lot of folks out there who have been robbed of their hard earned cash for things as simple as a general check up.

Strike that Transit worker.

2005-12-23T06:20:00.000-08:00

I like to think that Christmas is a time of giving. You, the transit worker, obviously understand that as you have given so much these past few days.
You gave people the opportunity to walk in the freezing cold. You gave them the opportunity to sit in horrible traffic. There is nothing better than paying an $8 cab fare instead of a $2 train ride, you gave them that too.

Thank you; please know that while I sat in traffic I thought only of how you have suffered with your $60,000 annual salary for changing light bulbs.

I understand that you need that new car, so I praise you for selflessly bringing the city to a grinding halt the week before Christmas. Thanks again.

Next time you decide to go on strike, why not spend some time relaxing away from the stress of it all and cuddle up with a nice book. You might want to try these titles:

Scrooge by Charles Dickens

The Grinch that Stole Christmas by Dr Seuss

These are great reading and may help you feel better about making this festive season a one to remember. A season of giving, friendship and love. Oh, sorry I nearly forgot to include selfishness, callousness and hate.

Please think of this as my way of saying thanks, you rock!

Environmentally unconscious: Fords Everest

2005-12-15T11:01:00.000-08:00

When the Chairman of Ford sits down on television and tells you that Ford is devoted to a cleaner environment and more efficient cars, what does one think of? New hybrid engines, fuel cells, solar power, hell, you might even go so far as water power! Well apparently the way towards a healthier planet is a BIG, no sorry, not BIG. A HUGE SUV!

Ford is currently building a bigger version of the Expedition which is nicknamed Everest. Of course, the actual name will be something like Expedition EX, because we wouldn't want to draw attention to its massive size by naming after the tallest mountain in the world.

Now don't get me wrong, I have no problem with the bigger vehicles available but it seems that someone at Ford forgot to tell their Chairman what they were doing. Possibly he didn't get the memo; maybe he was having problems with his TPS reports that day.

You can find some more details at Forbes.com

Sad news

2005-12-14T14:21:00.000-08:00

My dear friend, Andre's dad died this past Monday.

He died from cancer at the still too young age of 64. I have a hard time hating things in life but this disease really gets me.

A poem that really stuck with me from school, coming back in force when my dad lost his own battle to overcome cancer, was "Death Be Not Proud". I have included it here below for your perusal. It was a comfort to me in one of my darkest hours.

Death Be Not Proud
by John Donne (1572-1631)

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

Poem sourced from: About.com

My prayers go out to the Boshoff family.

If you want a little more info about this disease or want to donate towards research to help find a cure, click below.

LiveStrong: Lance Armstrong Foundation

Democrazy at work!

2005-12-13T10:56:00.000-08:00

I'm confused. I thought that elections were all about voting for a person and party that best represents the ideals one is looking for in a leadership role, such as an appointment to parliament. It seems that some folks don't really understand the idea that, if you don't like the one condidate you can always vote for the other guy!

Apparently this is true of a bunch of masked 'Fatah movement' gunmen that stormed the election offices in the Gaza strip today. The reasons cited were "they were upset with the candidates whom Mr. Abbas and the Fatah leadership plan to enter in the election" (NY Times). They were obviously not totally convinced that the candidates were the wrong ones as all they did was lock the doors, hang out on the roof and then go home. Hopefully they got some good tanning in up there.

I'm sure there are better ways to get ones point across, such as negotiation, email, letters, petitions etc. I fear that this was a relapse into what could possibly be called a Middle East strenuous negotiation of unclear and misunderstood principles, or it could be good old fashioned terrorism. I'm not too sure which.

Behemoth Big Brother invaders!

2005-11-26T07:42:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine forwarded me this article which I must say is the most ridiculous thing I have read in a while!

Wired Article

If you don't have time to read it, the short and sweet of it is that Sony BMG has shipped software with it's CD's that automatically installs, what in all aspects equates to a virus on any PC playing the CD, without the users permission or knowledge.

It is 'software' (malware might be a better term here) for tracking copy right infringements. They have repeatedly lied about it's purpose and specs saying it doesn't phone home when it does, pretending it isn't there when it is etc.

This is the reason big companies run into problems. The amount of time Sony BMG have spent developing rubbish like this could surely be better spent finding new areas to generate revenue for themselves and the artists who's 'best interests' they represent. The bad publicity and the millions of dollars lost in recalls, law suits and credibility are going to hurt thousands upon thousands of people indirectly.

Media Companies:

2005-11-08T08:39:00.000-08:00

...and in the darkness bind them!

I know this is an odd blog article but this was something that was brought to my attention recently and I really thought it made sense.

It seems that in my experiences working with Ad agencies all over the globe, there is no system out there that can please all the parties involved in delivering an ad to the consumer.

If you build a system for the creative team, the analysts will hate it. If you build a system for the analysts, the creative folks will hate it. The very tasks that the various roles perform make it almost impossible to find a common ground. However if you look closely at the process of delivering an advert, you can find something that is consistent throughout, no one does anything without the media companies data. The media planning provided by media companies, such as OMD and PHD of Omnicom Group, is the foundation on which any successful ad campaign is built.

The media plan drives everything from how much money do we need spend, did we actually spend, to how big is the creative, who are we showing this to. Without these critical details and more you would be putting adverts for snow in front of Eskimos at exorbitant costs. These details have enabled folks to build systems that can drive the entire process from start to end, creating a common platform for all the people involved to communicate and share as the campaign evolves.

I plan to expand on this over the next few days so please keep checking for updates.

Disease Possibilities are Expensive

2005-11-01T10:01:00.000-08:00

On reading the news on Google this morning 2 articles under the Health section caught my eye. They were...

Bush seeks billions for bird flu threat response

On a Crusade to End Malaria, Gates Pledges $258 million

I decided to read a bit further and what I read made me sick to my stomach. The first article is about George Bush asking for billions of dollars ($7.1 billion to be exact) to prevent a possible (yes POSSIBLE) pandemic outbreak of bird flu.

The second article is about Bill Gates giving of his own money, not taxpayers money, to help aid research to finding a cure for malaria.

What is wrong with this picture? On the one hand you have a possible threat that hasn't materialized yet and on the other you have a disease with a death rate equivalent of "seven jumbo jets, full of children, crashing every day".

Now I totally understand that money should be poured into prevention of a pandemic because as we all know it can be extremely deadly (the Spanish Flu killed 20 million across the globe) but malaria kills a million people and sickens 300 to 500 million every year! It seems our priorities are messed up if we can spare hundreds of billions of dollars fighting a war in Iraq, tens of billions to rebuild New Orleans where 3-4 billion would have sufficed, and now 7.1 billion to prevent an outbreak that has not happened yet.

My point is this, we pay our taxes, we should care where the money goes.

Religious fanaticism.

2005-10-31T05:42:00.000-08:00

What the hell is wrong with people?

Every day I hear of someone saying how they need to wipe out so-and-so, and kill the heathen infidels, all of this in the name of some or other religion. What for? Over a tiny little chunk of old musty ground that has nothing other than a bunch of crusty old relics?

It seems like a few have the ear of many and are leveraging the hell out of it.

Religion is about a way of life with guidelines and rules that help keep people focus on doing the right thing. These rules have been twisted and used by men to achieve their own subverted goals.

Religion isn't about a dusty old wall or a beautiful old church. It's about the spirit and energy that helped build them.

Religion is not about feeling superior over others. It's the feeling of good will and peace that you have when you feel whole.

Religion is not about who's right and who's wrong. It's about patience and understanding.

Religion is not an excuse to fight. It's a excuse not to.

If someone doesn't believe what you believe, then tough, deal with it. People have the right to choose. Let's all try to be a little more tolerant and little less judgmental and we'll all get along just fine.

Geek Squad Agents, the new Postmen?

2005-10-30T18:52:00.000-08:00

Whenever there is a kid in the family that doesn't look like either of the parents, or any of their siblings, we refer to that child as the Postmans child.

Do you think one day they may be refered to as a Geek Squad child?

Well at least they'll be bright

Ghost stories

2005-10-30T18:28:00.000-08:00

Now that Halloween is here TV has nothing but ghost stories. Some of these stories are pretty hectic with people going insane, selling their homes etc. So in the spirit of things I wanted to share a story of something I experienced in our previous home.

My wife, new son and I moved into a house in Port Chester, NY. It was a beautiful home of fairly new construction so you wouldn't expect it to house any spirits of any kind but hey, you live and learn.

So before I continue let me just tell you that I like to think of myself as a fairly rational person with some minor eccentricities. Before we moved into the Port Chester home I didn't really believe in ghosts and would have considered myself a skeptic.

And so we continue...

Within a couple of months of my sons birth I started feeling like I was being watched every time I walked up from the basement or the middle floor. At first I thought this was just a case of the heebie jeebies but it happened night after night as I turned off the lights and headed to bed. As this continued I became more and more convinced that there was someone there, even when I looked and there was no one. I was convinced it was a little girl.

One night while getting Chris dressed after his bath he fixated on a spot over my shoulder and smiled. I looked at the spot he was fixating on and saw nothing, but he was definitely staring at something.

Chris would go to sleep around 7pm and would fall asleep almost immediately. This would leave Kim and I a blissful few hours of piece and quiet before we too would turn in. One evening while we sat there enjoying a TV show, I heard Chris running around upstairs (he was about 2 and a half years old at this stage). I was delegated the responsibility to go and put him back into his bed. When I arrived upstairs I found it quiet and upon entering Chris's room found him sound asleep. This was something new! Every so often over the next year this would happen every now and then.

The final proof for me that there was something haunting the house was probably one of the scariest experiences I have ever had. One night after Kim and I had gone to sleep, I woke up bolt upright in bed in a cold sweat. I had no idea what had woken me up until I looked at the closet. I turned just in time to see a figure walk into the closet. At this point I thought we were falling victim to a robbery. I grabbed the Mag-Lite torch from next to bed determined to ponce on thewouldl be robber when he exited the closet. After waiting for some time and hearing nothing, I climbed out of bed to investigate closer. On inspecting the closet I found no one.

This freaked me out.

There was no way for someone to leave the closet without me seeing them and no other exits. It took me hours to fall asleep after this experience.

Looking back on these experiences I am still convinced that there was a ghost in that house and I think I believe in them now. There ends my ghost story.

The Art of Clearing Leaves

2005-10-23T13:20:00.000-07:00

After standing the yard with a leaf blower strapped to my back, ear plugs in ears and a cool breeze blowing in from the lake, I realized that there is an art to getting the job done painlessly.

It involves 2 rakes, a split pole fence and great neighbor's.

My boys are 5 and 2 years old and love being outside when I am working the garden. Whilst I was blowing the leaves into a pile they helped by standing in front of the blower until I pointed it at their faces and they'd run away screaming. Once I had the leaves in a pile they proceeded to jump into and role around in said pile. This is where the split pole fence and great neighbor's comes in to play.

Our neighbor's have 2 awesome little girls who have become good friends to my 2 boys. They were watching the fun through the fence with a look of envy on their faces. Of course they were welcome to join my two and promptly came over with a rake of their own and proceeded to rake up every leaf they could find. All in the cause of creating a HUGE pile of leaves.

SO now I can sit back as the garden gets cleaned up. The beauty of this whole situation is that, what was a chore for me and something that I am sure I would grow to loath, was a major entertainment event for the kids. They found the fun in an otherwise mundane task. Therein lies the art that is clearing leaves.

Browsers ... the spawn of Satan?

2005-10-18T21:33:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I really am at a loss for words when I run into an unfathomable browser bug!

Going back in the day there is the old add a carriage return to the last form element submitted in IE, or the can't populate tables using innerHTML (IE again) or Mozilla double posting form submits if an image is not there.

These bugs, or what I like to call opportunities*, have caused me much grief and numerous sleepless nights because some developer decided to cut a corner or couldn't be bothered to hunt the bug down. I'd like to thank those developers for giving me an example to shy away from. A shining dark at the end of the light tunnel.

* Opportunities to become a better developer by debugging weird browser inconsistencies.

The vicious planet

2005-10-11T17:50:00.000-07:00

I have been reading the news and following the tragedy that has unfolded in Pakistan. Those poor folks. Not only have they been decimated by an unwanted and highly unnecessary civil war but now this!

The earthquake was so powerful it completely removed whole villages from the face of the earth. There were people that the earth just plain swallowed up, removing them from existence. It doesn't seem like that should be even possible.

I pray for all those families ripped apart by this disaster.

It's raining morons

2005-10-07T20:31:00.000-07:00

The best thing about the rain is it makes things grow. The worst thing about the rain is it brings out the moron drivers.

I was on my home from work on Friday night after being stuck in the most horrendous traffic I have seen in a while. I was in the fast lane, doing a considerable clip considering the torrential downpour (65mph). As I am passing a guy (Mr DrivingRespectably) in the middle lane this complete idiot comes screaming up his backside and narrowly missing crashing into him. He starts honking his horn and flashing his lights, as if to say "Hey, get off my road!". Let's call this idiot, Mr InconsiderateMoron.

Mr InconsiderateMoron promptly swings into the fast lane behind me and proceeds to drive as close to my rear bumper as he can get, flashing his lights at me all the while. Being the kind guy that I am, I decide that he wants me to slow down so I rein in my speed to 50mph. Mr. DrivingRespectably sees what I am doing and slows down accordingly, effectively boxing in Mr InconsiderateMoron. This makes Mr InconsiderateMoron a little upset and he uses every trick he can muster to get past us.

Eventually, he makes his way past us and decides to wind down his window and yell obscenities at me, saying things like "Hey, you wanna pull over and fight?!!". So I oblige him by pulling into the lane behind him. Of course I have no intention of getting out of the car to fight this guy but as luck would have it, he chooses my exit for the prospective show down. Turns out it is his exit as well.

He pulls over onto the exit and realizes I am still following him. Suddenly he takes off at a rapid rate trying to get away from me. The beauty of this situation is that he is driving this beat up old Honda with biscuit wheels vs my nice wide, low profile wheeled, sports car. This basically means that any corner he can take, I can take better.

He proceeds to try and out run me, and turn after turn chooses the exact route I take to head home, so I continue to follow him. At one point he almost loses it on a bend in his frantic effort to out run me. What an idiot.

I eventually gave up chase and let him know by flashing by brights good bye as he careered off ahead of me. I hope that he realizes that this could all have been avoided if he had just been a little more considerate.

We all share the roads and we are all responsible for all the other drivers on the road. Mr InconsiderateMoron, I'll thank you for not driving like an idiot in future.

Sleepless and the Lost City

2005-10-07T09:51:00.000-07:00

I had my first trip to the Lost City this week, Atlantis, Georgia. Ok, so it's Atlanta but I really enjoy the groan of disgust from Atlantians when I refer to their beloved city as Atlantis. Great folks all round, believe me. I never met so many polite and courteous people. Even a 300 pound, 6ft 7 guy said excuse me before slipping past me at a restaurant.

The flight back was fairly uneventful but was delayed as all American airlines are. I finally arrived home around midnight to find my bed occupied by my beautiful, 5ft 6½" wife (occupying 4.37% of the bed) and my youngest 3ft 2" son (occupying the other 95.63%). My wife relinquished her 4.37% to me so that I could look after E. At 5am this morning he decides to wake coughing and spluttering. I gave him a glass of water which he promptly spilt all over the bed. So I went to Plan B, Cough Medicine. At the instant of contact with his lips, he threw up. Lovely!

So we moved E back to his bed. Which meant that K and I ended up sleeping on the couch in the lunge. Really comfy!!!

Don't under estimate the power of small children to completely take over your evening and ruin your sleep! They have this immense power that slowly deminishes as they get taller.

Inconveniently Dead

2005-10-05T06:07:00.000-07:00

In this busy, busy world we live in it seems that inconvenience and celebrity rank a lot higher than human life in the news.

Last night as I sat and watch the news I was amazed at how callous and superficial the breaking news was. This was the local news so it pertained to the NY area but still, come on!

The first story was that Lindsey Lohan had another car accident. Really, was anyone hurt. No? Oh so it was like the thousands of other car accidents exactly like it that occur across the nation every week. I can understand why the fate of an actress's car (the only casualty) in Los Angeles (2805.7 miles away from NYC) makes headline news!

The second story that followed directly after this was that of a fuel tanker that had exploded in the Bronx. Now this is fairly sensational so I could see this as being the headliner, but NOOO, Lindseys bruised knee is of much more interest. What really got me about this news story was that it wasn't about the poor soul that was burnt alive in the fireball, it was about how inconvenient it was going to be for all the commuters this morning!

Heaven forbid the searing death of a human being should inconvenience the folks driving to work! How heartless can a news channel be? The story rambled on about broken concrete and how much damage the fire caused, and right at the end, almost aside, a mention of the mans name and age.

My condolences go out to the drivers family and my disgust goes out to the news dictators of America.

Kim's site is alive and kicking!

2005-10-04T18:12:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to sorting out Kimmy's site and blog. You can check out her site at www.kimcharalambides.com and her blog here.

Waking to dead comics ... cheers Ronnie

2005-10-04T14:22:00.000-07:00

Been working flat out for about a month now, pulling some serious G's coming round the turn of the night, only to be greeted with another one. Today is no different. When to bed at noon today and slept till 5. The good news is that I am paying more on my car insurance after changing to Geico ... and getting 2 speeding tickets and a licence suspension!

People think I am pretty f**cked working like this but it's not worth doing, if you don't go all the way. Life is short so push it while you can! Drive fast, work hard, drink plenty and be merry!

Ronnie Barker died today. He was one of my favorite comics, growing up in the 80's. South Africa always seemed to have a influx of British humor and him and Ronnie Corbett were among the best in the business. I was lucky enough to meet Ronnie Corbett. Probably one of the shortest guys I have ever met but with an immense personality on stage!

A 'Two Ronnies' piece that has stuck with me over the years is the Mispropunciation of Worms. This is the affliation that strokes money a poor passion. I dope to be elbow to tell you more won day.

Once more I blog!

2005-10-04T03:09:00.000-07:00

So this is the second blog I have created today. It has been riveting stuff and really makes life a lot better... YEAH RIGHT!

I am tired and cranky, give me a break.

I am hoping to relate stories of madness and mayhem as this blog evolves.

CYA soon

Grandpa

2004-10-10T12:50:00.000-07:00

My Granddad died today.

I am leaving on Saturday to go through to South Africa to see him and so he can see Ethan for the first time. To late it seems.

I can't believe it. I feel like I am stranded out here sometimes. I miss my family much.

Remembering Ray Charles

2004-09-23T18:45:00.000-07:00

So I popped onto Google this morning and they always have those pics in the logo for special occasions and today one of the o's was replaced with Ray Charles, being his birthday and all.

Why do I feel such loss when I think about this guy who I never knew but know his music so well. Anyway it seemed odd that just seeing this simple drawing of his face in full swing would evoke any emotion in me whatsoever.