how to fool security

So the security guys know me pretty damn well now. Come to work everyday for many moons and the faces become rather familiar. They feel for me when i pop in over the week-ends to get stuff done and dig it that i ride to work fairly often too.


Clearly some suit in an office above me sent out a directive, because now we all get checked for our access cards on arrival. Remember we're military stuff here, so it's supposed to be top secret, 'no unauthorised access' to get in the buildings anyway. So I walk through the gate and Joshua holds out his hand as if he's got an access card between his thumb and forefinger. It's an obvious way to say, 'show me your card, please'.

(it'll be much easier if you think about guys trying to tell stories about the size of fish they caught right here). This morning I took both hands and held them a foot apart, and said:
“hayi, madoda. wena makhwenkhwe, Joshua?” and i then changed my hand to 'holding the access card' and pointed at him.

Sello and Piet (the other two guards at the gate) just canned themselves. I walked straight past with them not noticing that i'd left my card at home.

Some of the whiteys out there might need an explanation, but i hold no responsibility to the accuracy of these facts:
madoda – post initation, ie. A Man who has come of age
makhwenkhwe – pre initiation, ie still a boy. If a Xhosa male does not go through his initiation ritual, then he can still be considered a makhwenkwe, no matter what the age.

It's a great way to get rid of the car guards, but doesn't seem to work on the Congolese dudes.

Elgin, we have a problem

RTD wishlist

So you might have noticed that I got found by these guys pretty damn quickly after I posted this. Not sure what they do all day, is google really watching me?

snapshot of carbon neutrality from my bike

Anyway, it seems like they're listening and they take their CARBON NEUTRAL (just put that in so it lights up their search engine) pretty seriously. Yes, you can save the planet by selling hemp t-shirts. Yes, three thousand people driving 100km will be offset by a grove of olive trees IF you recycle their waste. BIOdiesel is apparently not hogwash. ok, sure i believe you.

But whilst i have their attention, for what it's worth lets get that varied wishlist in:
KidofDoom
Perez Perez Perez
Harris Tweed
Karen Zoid
Dan Patlansky
Japan and I

and locals
Jacsharp (saw em last year for the first time)
Delta Blue (they still around?)
Valiant Swart
Boulevard Blues
Tait

and for the comedy slot, those 12th Avenue clowns


That's all for now, and if you hippies care I rode to work today.

l8test technology

So the one bonus about working in a hitech firm is that I get to see the next way the spietkops scnhaai us with speeding fines and cameras.

And no, I don't get exemption from paying them (but do have one outstanding - who shot the sheriff?).

Now this vehicle has been driving around our parking lot. The three cameras read the licence plates and checks them on a database realtime. Then they clamp you if you're an offender.


oh, and it has a killer sound system too.

The floral mystery, parth three

ok, so the first time I got in for free, so it was acceptable. But they pushed it last year, and i feel silly for going back for more!

The first music festival to actually work in cape town, is back!
Rocking the daisies - my gripe is that i still have yet to see any daisies there. this year its 3-5 oct, and again at Cloof wine estate

You won't find any band lineups there, but I'm on the inside, so will give you the prelim list:
ALAN FUNK, ETC CREW, DIRTY SKIRTS, NUNGARIN, BED ON BRICKS, AMA AMBUSH, AKING, FIRE THROUGH THE WINDOW, SON OF A THOUSAND BLUES, TAXI VIOLENCE, JULIA JAKOBSEN, TIDAL WAVES, HOT WATER, GOLDFISH, 7th SON, NAPALMA, UNIT R, NEW LOUD ROCKETS, MAMA KNOW NOTHING, SPOONFEEDAS, PLUSH, GODESSA, KOLO NOVO MOVIE BAND, 340ML, FARRYL PURKISS.

maybe there's some up country stuff to be added later too.

unfortunately it puts me in a quandry of sorts, as I'll miss out on both Lourensford MTB Classic and the Voet Marathon. But it's an easy choice, gotta go find that tent of mine.

the do try push the whole green earth bullsh1t thing, even going so far as claiming a 'carbon neutral' festival. 3000people driving 100km to go watch some bands? last year they gave us hemp tickets (and a paper receipt) and some hippie with grey hair planted a few olives. erm, can we listen to the band please? shot.

Allez allez

ok, so i'm going to be sick tomorrow afternoon. I'm pretty healthy, (despite the few cuts and scrapes on knee and elbow from a loss of concentration over the week-end, tar hurts!) but sometimes you need to make an excuse to get out the office to do something more important.

the road goes up there

Mine is to watch the biggest showdown on bikes we'll see in a longtime - the slog up Alp D'huez. It's a mythical climb and every cyclist wants to win this stage. It goes up three monster mountains.



Col du Galibier, Croix-de-Fer and L’Alpe d’Huez that are among the most daunting climbs in the Alps. This stage could well decide the final outcome of the race because the riders will have been in the saddle six hours before coming to final ascent. The 13.3km, 21-turn climb to the finish at L’Alpe d’Huez (population 1,700) is a classic, averaging 8.6 percent, with the second kilometer the steepest at 11.2 percent.

ouch, i think suikerbossie has only 15% of that altitude gain. no need to worry about the whole drug story thing, none of these guys are on pronutro

A thousand words

ok, so i don't have the permission to use this photo. It's well rather,........ I 'll just shut up and now and you decide.

my friend gus

Yes Tim, you have a problem

Well if you go to the right side of this screen you might see a link to my pal Tim. Don't bother following that link(and improve his analytics from single digit hits), he hasn't posted anything for 2 months and is rumoured to be:
a)dead
b)working on a mine in frozen northern canada.

personally that's a tough choice right there, innit?!

anyway, he's proud of his Salomon shoe collection, so proud he even wrote about them
here. {F@#k there i go and quadruple his ratings with that link}

naaaice

Anyway, i laugh at his k@k collection. My Salomon shoes are way cooler than yours Biltong boy. That's a pair of snowclogs on the left, best shoes for snow walking.I'm not just saying that, they frikken rock, and I'm standing whilst everyone else has slipped all over their nana's. In the middle you have my snowboard boots, and on the right, the inners (i did that to make it look like three pairs...sneaky)

as you can imagine, i think Tim's collection do more km's than mine

hi tech biking

next time you play poker look at the back of your card whilst small blind is weighing up his 7-2 unsuited. See how little the bicycle has really changed in 100 years (if you not playing with bicycle cards, then tell the host not to f@#k around next time).

of course there have been some huge advances over the years, and it looks like we might be facing the next one. It's been toyed with over the years, but just like flat screen tv's it seems to have been done right.

looks normal?

I'm talking about electronic shifting, i'm sure the suits at Shimano will call it "ride by wire" (because E-dura-ace is just too kak).
The big thing is that they are actually using it at the Tour.

and the back

will it work? well the one guy did get stuck in his 53-14 gear ratio the other day and they had to give him another bike!maybe the batteries were low. it'll be a fair while till we see these in your LBS

Check it out
here
and here

more muizies than the soopertube

so there's been some moaning about the recent lack of deep south content. It's winter for pete's sake (incidentally ideal surfing time).

So I'm gonna show you the latest surfboard to be born into the house. We've got some dutchies right now, and they are now into the whole surf vibe solid, i skeem. Three new custom boards, and this is the latest - what a beauty:



of course the irony it's a shortboard, which won't see much of muizies rollers but that's mere details.

currently doing its sea trials at J-Bay - naaaice!

Snow business like snow business

So we ran away from the sea, and strapped on a board of a different type.

ski bums

unfortunately the camera and me, did not spend the whole day together, but it's hard to take photos of powder anyway. yes pow pow pow.

Gav on the bunny slope

unfortunately there's a snowboarders/skiiers stand off and we couldn't use the lift. You EARN your turns when you hiking, lets just not tell physio why i am so sore today!

of course the location is top secret (thanks racerchicky), and requires some serious driving skills to get there. {anyone know if the 'diff lock' button in the isuzu bakkie is active or passive?)

bizarre problemo

so knysna hippie girl sms's me the other night really late.

'i just won a sheep, what do you do with a whole sheep?!'

 

well like duh, SPITBRAAI!

 

It appears she is actually in Knysna, and this is what they give out in nightclubs instead of drink specials. So all we really need is a bakkie coming home from the forest marathon this weekend. Anyone?

 

That's much cooler than slagging the thing there and putting it into mulitple coolboxes.

 

--
__/\/¯¯¯¯¯¯\/\__
No sympathy for the tubed

and we're back!

and running two blogs, for now!

yip, the race was awesome, so plenty of material there still to get out.


otherwise check out this bad business. the whole olympic sailing venue has been hit by the green glob....some algae crap that even the army has been called in to clean up!