The ramblings of a Caucasian African American
Friday was spring tide so yesterday at low tide we went to Middle Beach in Kenton to mess around in the rock pools. There is a massive pool there (pictured here) that is just wonderful to swim in. The water was very nice and it was hot enough so I couldn’t resist getting in. I tried to convince the old ladies I was with but they left their swiming gear at home so they couldn’t join me.
Check out some more Middle Beach photos.
I loved the first 2 books (Wolf Brother & Spirit Walker) in The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series so I was looking forward to the 3rd one – called Soul Eater. Unfortunately it didn’t really rise to my expectations. I can’t really put my finger on it, but the story felt a little thin. Also I loved the forest stuff in the first books – the author described everything so well you could feel it, but Soul Eater is set more in the icy world of the North. And I didn’t get the same atmosphere.
Having said all that, I will certainly read the next one!
Awesome Freebie: I don’t know how they managed to swing this, but they got Sir Ian McKellen to read Wolf Brother, the first book, and best of all you can listen to it for FREE! Just go to The Gaurdian’s Wolf Brother site and download. Good job Gaurdian!
I have just updated the Bushman’s River Mouth homepage to show a 3-day weather forecast. This data is ‘live’ and pulled via an RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feed from BBC. Sofar the forecasts have been very accurate. I’m still trying to get an RSS feed of the tides, but sofar the closest match is for Durban. But I will keep on looking.
So please check out the Boesmansriviermond weather. This weather obviously applies to the surround (Kenton-on-Sea, Boknes & Cannon Rocks) as well.
We just saw the brand new Mercedes C Class outside our shop. It is so new it has not even been priced yet in this country nevermind released. I must say it is a beautiful car! I’ve always been a fan of Mercedes since my dad had the W126 (the best selling shape Merc has ever had) 260E. But in my opinion Mercedes-Benz have lost ground to BMW and Audi in terms of design over the last decade or so. I can gladly say though that this model makes up for that.
People coming in and out of our shop all noticed the car – I wonder how many coffees we need to sell for me to be able to afford one? 🙂
Generally speaking I like liked Jeremy Clarkson. I thought the furore when he destroyed a very old tree a couple of years ago was justified but I thought that maybe he just made a mistake. I couldn’t give a toss if he calls a car “gay”.
This week though he went too far. By ignoring the advice of their guide Clarkson and his crew literally tore up the Makgadikgadi salt pans. They say they “employed several environmental experts who advised us on where we could and couldn’t go”. We’ll it certainly doesn’t sound like it to me. Anyone from this region knows that you drive only where you find tracks. It is a fundamental that you learn it conservation 101 for heaven’s sake!!
I’m very disappointed in the Beeb’s reaction. On the one hand they promote heroes like Sir David Attenborough who fights for conservation but on the other hand they back Clarkson who destroys what needs to be conserved. I think this undoes some of the great work done by the BBC.
The best thing would be if someone literally beats Clarkson like a runaway slave – it seems that is all he understands. Given the opportunity I would oblige and he won’t call me a “pre-menstrual bird” afterwards.
This weekend we had the inaugural Boesmansriviermond BigBash. The idea being to have a party for people our age in and around Bushman’s. We organised it a bit late and not for the absolute best time (in the school holidays) so many people couldn’t make it, but despite that everybody that was there had a good time including ourselves. We have learned a few things though so in 2009 we’ll plan it better.
Read more about Bushman’s River events.
There was great excitement today when Karen Zoid and a group of her friends/relatives spent the afternoon in The Red Apple, our coffee shop.
For foreign readers of this blog, Karen Zoid is a very well known Afrikaans rock singer.
Today when starting Adobe Photoshop Lightroom was told that Lightroom 1.1 was available for download (at the Lightroom website). Being the technofile that I am I downloaded and installed instantly. Install is painless. By reading the release notes I was wondering if there was going to be much different because they make it sound like the improvements aren’t that much, BUT I’m happy to say that after an initial look I’m very impressed.
I’m quite fussy when it comes to UI and I thought the initial release’s UI could have been better. It seems they also thought so; the look and feel in 1.1, particularly of the Library module, is just so much better. The metadata browser (a tool I love using) now is more powerful because it includes more fields. They’ve also made improvements in the histogram and setting keywords and metadata.
Still in the library module; an awesome new feature is the painter tool. Although this sounds like something graphic it is in fact a very useful tagging tool. Instead of selected your photos first and then applying keywords to them you can now do it the other way around as well by setting a keyword and then applying it to individual photos; very useful.
There are some UI improvements/additions to the Develop modules as well like the Clarity slider – according to Adobe it “adds depth to an image by increasing local contrast”. I’m still playing with it but I’ll update this post when I have more info.
The whole app is nicer to use, but the biggest improvement in my opinion is performance. For instance: thumbnails now render much quicker and searching or setting metadata is pretty much instant – the whole app just feels much more responsive. In a previous post I complained that performance was the one thing that did put me off so now I’m a happy camper. I urge users to get this free update; you’ll thank me afterwards. 🙂
Well done Adobe!! And great expectation management!
More thoughts/tutorials about the update from:
Ek en Lené het so ‘n paar maande terug besluit om huis te bou. Ons is gatvol gehuur – ons moet in en uit oor Desember en ons betaal net ‘n ander ou se huislening af.
Die erf waarop ons gaan bou het ek kontant gekoop vir ‘n appel en ‘n ui terwyl ons in Londen was. Dis ‘n lekker groot erf (1209m2), hy kyk Noord-Oos (perfek vir die son) en hy’s relatief plat. Ons het die erf skoon gemaak (maar die meeste bome gelos) en ons was in ons noppies om vir FD Theron as argitek aan te stel. FD Theron het ‘n baie goeie reputasie in die omgewing en daar is ‘n bietjie van ‘n status aan ‘n FD Theron huis – vir Lenê se onthalwe 🙂
Ons kyk na so ±200m2 huis met 3 slaapkamers, 2 badkamers, ‘n dubbel-garage en al die ander mod cons. Ons wil die huis agter op die erf hê sodat ons die grasperk voor kan maksimeer en ons wil probeer om nie dubbel verdieping te gaan nie.
Sovêr het Jaap Stricker (van FD Theron) vir ons baie goeie werk gedoen, maar ons spook en spartel nog net om die huis agter in te pas. Die erf is ‘n bietjie nou agter so dit maak dinge moeilik, maar ek is baie gretig om dit reg te kry want ek is oortuig daarvan dat dit die erf se volle potensiaal sal uitbring. Dit sal dit ‘n great huis maak om in te lewe en in my opinie sal dit ons belegging verder konsolideer.
Ek moet myself keer om nie te opgewinde te raak oor die huis nie – as jy te veel in die lug is oor die goed vergeet ‘n mens partykeer goed!
Yesterday my sister, her husband, Lené and I took the kids to Tamjazi, a petting zoo/coffee shop outside of Alexandria for some R&R.
Here Elke is just about 9 months old. I’m proud to say that the frown on her face was inhereted from me!
Attie Heunis's Journey 