Themes of past weeks’ updates.. running-geek, golf-geek.. trance-geek, well almost, but it was a bit rainy on Sunday..

• Monday, good news: Frogfoot and Amobia to get IECNS licenses, drinks at Neighborhood bar.
• Tuesday, lunch at Caveau at the Josephine Mill in Newlands, we kinda started a peering point (again), a wet and windy Mouille Point run with Lindi, drinks at La Vie for George’s birthday, met a tshirt designer.
• Brilliant Zapiro cartoon about O.J. Zuma.. presumed guilty in the “pantoffel” justice system.
• Wednesday, upgraded my (7) blog farm to WP 2.6.2, Amobia exco meeting/dinner at Jamaica me Crazy, mid week trance party at Roots in Obs.
• Thursday, house shopping in Fernwood and De Waterkant, lunch at Waterkant Village Cafe, WineX, Asoka, met somebody from Zeeq.
• I seem to be on a successful retox program - it’s safe to say I’ve had at least two drinks every night for the last 2 weeks.. then again I know somebody who can claim a 5 year retox program. “The price you pay for the life you choose” — used to be on the wall at Caprice, Camps Bay.
• Friday, UCT GSB talk, milkshakes with Mia and the ~ex-wife in Somerset West.
• Saturday, Biscuit Mill Market with Cath, Parri and Georg, watched My Blueberry Nights (Natalie Portman), one of those relaxed white wine afternoons, gym, swim.
• I made up my mind: The Darjeeling Limited mostly sucked, but Hotel Chevalier was enthralling.
• Sunday, pondering an early morning (rainy) Earth Dance mission, gym, swim, Vida, watched Finding Nemo, Waterfront.. maritime museum, toy store, frogurt, scratch patch. Dinner at the Mexican Kitchen in Long Street, fajitas and margaritas.
• Try some pineapple and cinnamon with your next shot of Tequila.
• 250th Crackbook friend.
• This week is iWeek 2008.. I’ll be in Joburg from Tuesday to Friday.. representing WAPA, Amobia and Frogfoot. Will try to keep you up to date on interesting happenings. A good opportunity to use the GPS features of my new phone.

Have a fun week crazy kids.

My first week in the new house in Obs. A week without internet access at home. I’m starting to miss my feed reading.

It’s an interesting change.. living with other people, cooking, TV, Xbox.. (shock, horror) and cats: Henry (female) and Tiggy.. sometimes I even give them food. I seem to be living out of a bag.. very Fight Club. Moving again at the end of the month.

Out of the old comfort zone.

Fuck it, Dude, let’s go bowling — The Big Lebowski

• Monday, DA MP meeting, packing and moving, Scrubs, visited 3 driving ranges, went ten pin bowling, Beluga, Teazers, Mavericks, in bed by 21:00, home by 22:00, Ok, only kidding.. about the in bed by 21:00 part.
• Tuesday, made myself Maltabella Porridge.. breakfast of champions, Scrubs, packing and moving, house shopping in Devils Peak, beer and pizza with friends.
• Wednesday, Maltabella, Scrubs, house shopping in CBD, lunch at the oldest pub in Cape Town: Perseverance Tavern, visited the Ferarri showroom, picked up my new Nokia E71, River Club driving range, dinner with friends.
• The final moments of the last episode of the first season of Scrubs is awesome. I just love Dr. Cox’s sarcasm. My hero.
• Thursday, configuring and syncing my E71, 4km run, River Club to hit a few balls.
• Friday, Stellenbosch to visit an old friend, golf at Devonvale with Parri and Schalk, Tea and scones with Mia and the ~exwife at Lourensford.
• At this point it must be noted that I don’t like golf and I only play about one real game of golf per year, but I can see why there are so many golf widows… and to be fair, golf-widow is better than playstation-widow, I guess.
• Saturday, Maltabella, gym, swim, Deep Park with Cath and Parri, home cooked dinner. It’s not easy keeping an eye on Mia with all the groovy Cape Town yummy mummies around Deer Park.
• At Deer Park a little girl asked: “Are your dogs friendly?”.. and a boy responded, “The ones at my mom’s house are”. Seems a large percentage of young children have the concept of mom’s house and dad’s house.. it’s the norm. Get with the program.
• Sunday, gym, swim, Sinn’s icecream, Caffe Neo, Mouille Point playground.

See you at iWeek and the GeekDinner.

ps. Pics at the usual place.

Week in the life of Joe..

• Monday, early blogging and (last) sunrise panoramic from my current pad. I’m moving soon. Lions Head, TT test drive, WP 2.6.1 upgrade, Chandler 1.0 desktop and server upgrade, Jono birthday party at Jamaicamecrazy, drink with Georg in lower main road Obs.
• Tuesday, gym, hair cut with Bianca, civic centre visit for car license and to cancel my electricity. There is a nice spot to stand and eat lunch just outside the civic centre that has a good view of the mountain. Spinning class for a change, Asoka jazz night (as usual).
• Struggling a bit to bench 110, let’s hope I don’t kill myself trying.
• Wednesday, corporate governance forum at the Radisson, cable car run, SA|UX meeting at Limoncello, nice seared tuna.
• Small world, turns out Mia’s babysitter is 1deg of separation away from the Web2 geeks.
• Thursday, watched pretty much the only Olympics I’ve seen.. woman’s beach volley ball, very entertaining. Run in Mouille Point.. cold, wet, windy, waves breaking, salty spray in your face.. awesome.
• Been enjoying the new Roisin Murphy album.. Overpowered, it’s better than Ruby Blue, and helps with my little issue of not wanting to listen to Statues anymore.
• Friday, lunch with Jonathan, Mia time, braai with friends.
• Saturday, WordCamp, rugby, Signal Hill, watched Finding Nemo.
• Sunday, watched a collection of Pixar short films, gym, swim, afternoon nap, Neo, Mouille Point playground, Obz Cafe, watched Die Hard 4.

Have a fun week.

I attended WordCamp yesterday. Only managed to see two presentations, but it was worth it.

Justin Hartman talked about the disruptive force of WordPress and Open Source in a large media business. Seems the simplicity and intuitiveness of the backend authoring interface was a key part of the success they had in getting their team to adopt WordPress. I had the same experience with a few non-profit WordPress projects.

Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress and Automattic talked about Open Source business. He’s a very good speaker and an inspiring person. All about openness.

I few ideas I liked:

• Capitalism, freedom and openness.. scarcity and abundance business models can all co-exist.
• WordPress has a hybrid / dual business model: wordpress.org and wordpress.com. Copyrights belong to Matt and the code is open source, which results in a successful commercial business which does not own the software it creates.
• I enjoyed their ideas about very selective advertising on wordpress.com. If you run Firefox you don’t see ads.
• He talked about how, as with children, it’s easier to promote and reward good behaviour that punishing bad behaviour… and get busy making more bloggers (-:
• Money is a bad motivator.
• Your content belongs to you. Insist on openness and data portability. Be very careful when putting your content in centralised proprietary systems. This idea really resonated since I’ve been thinking about life caching and personal information gathering lately. Will the content you generate and harvest still be around in 10 years.. are you in control? Avoid content roach motels.. your content checks in, but never checks out.

Lastly.. and sadly a bit of criticism. The event organising could have been better, especially just after the keynote talk. I was really enjoying the Q&A session after Matt’s talk. Then it all abruptly ends and a herd of strangers stampede the place. That sucked. No communication as to what happens next.

I phoned one of the organisers last week, asking them to more clearly explain the lunch plans on they website. There was a 2 hour lunch break in the program, so I’d say it’s kinda important to know.. is the lunch sponsored, do you need to pre book, what are the food options, where is the lunch etc.

Maybe it just annoyed me more than others because I had to keep the eating patterns of a 2yr old in mind. Anyway, turns out you had to book your food earlier that morning.

So, please, in future… insist on exclusively reserving a venue for a conference like this, especially a social media / networking event and communicate the logistical details clearly.

Thanks for bringing Matt to Cape Town.

Somebody once told me, there are two ways to buy a car. One, with your head. Two, with your heart.

I somehow managed to get a meeting date mixed up on Monday, so I found myself in the waterfront area. I passed the Audi showroom and remembered Cath telling me she did not like the interior of the R8.. so I figured I would investigate.

The new A4 looks pretty cool. A5 is nice… but, on a perfectly sunny winters day in Cape Town a convertible is simply the most fun. Sunglasses required.

I took the new TT 3.2 Quattro V6 Roadster for a test drive, a black one.. very very nice. Beautiful day for a drive down the M3 to UCT and back around De Waal drive.. which must be the second most fun road to test drive a sports car on.

Around 2003-2005 I was driving the previous model TT Roadster. As I told Igor the friendly sales guy.. it seems when you have a child, the sports car must go, but then you become a single dad and you figure.. what the hell, two seats seem just fine.

Some things remained the same. It’s a beautiful car, all about design. It feels solid. It vaults out of corners like only a quattro car can. It’s an awesome everyday sports car and it’s exciting to drive.

I noticed a few changes in the new model. The rear wind shield is not glass any more. The soft top roof is now fully automatic. The new rear spoiler and 18″ wheels are a nice touch. The 184KW V6 engine makes a deep purring noise and the DSG S tronic is very responsive in sports mode across a wider range of engine rpm’s.

Probably very good value for ~R540k.

“Other guys snort for it, jab a vein for it — all you gotta do is jump.” — Point Break

Now, the best road for a car like this is the one between Gordons Bay and Bettys. I remember sleeping over at Bettys one evening but having to drive back very early for a meeting in Cape Town. An empty road just after sunrise is great fun. I’d say the most fun one person can have in a car.

I used to think life was about food, fun, friends, Cape Town in the summertime and a TT with some Morcheeba as a soundtrack for life. Ok, it’s shallow and maybe seems a bit gay. But it’s good fun. No real harm in thinking like that when you are 25 I guess.

I asked about an R8 test drive, but Igor says they only let people test drive it if they are on the waiting list to buy. An 8 months wait and a ~R100k deposit it seems. I guess it’s a nice way of saying “nope, sorry we don’t trust you with our 1.5 bar automobile”.

Over lunch at the Radisson yesterday, I had a chat with somebody who has driven the R8. He figured it’s not really a car you want because it’s just too fast and aggressive.. you’ll just end up killing yourself. Maybe.. but you simply don’t think like that if you’re the second type.. the person that buys a car with their heart.

ps. I like the interior of the R8.

We interrupt our regular geeky programming to talk parenting.. actually I’m looking for a backup babysitter (n+1 redundancy) and toddler friendly outings. Maybe you know of a list like this? Cape Town Kids looks interesting.

Babysitter:
Looks like Mia is going to have her first babysitting experience this Saturday (at age 2.4). Dad is going to the rugby. Found a good babysitter through friends, but I figure I need a backup. Let me know if you know of somebody.

Toddler spots in Cape Town.. some of the places I like:

• Wembley Square
• Deer Park Cafe, in Vredehoek
• Paradiso, in Kloof Street
• Manna, in Kloof Street
• Mouille Point
• Signal Hill
• Glen Beach

I guess I’m looking for places where you can have lunch/brunch on a Saturday/Sunday, a glass of wine, chill with friends and know that Number One is safe and entertained. What’s your favorite Cape Town kids spot?

..well, kinda

ETA for the Cape Town Teraco datacentre is end of January 2009. We are now taking orders and we are offering an early bird discount.

Contact me if you are in the market for datacentre space.

Teraco is the first South African company to offer datacentre facilities that are vendor-neutral. Our first facility in Great Westerford, Cape Town will raise the bar on the security, redundancy and efficiency of colocation services. This new datacentre will be a dense hub of connectivity and an open market to drive the growth of ICT services at a new pace. Teraco is a business focused on a single goal of building high quality datacentre environments. We create platforms for our customers and partners to add value, innovate and focus on their core businesses. Inside a Teraco facility you will find: Carriers, ISPs, Peering Point(s), Voice Exchanges, Storage Providers, Managed Service Providers (BC/DR), Corporate Businesses, Content Providers and Hosted Application Service Providers.

We are actively working on securing location for Teraco in Joburg. Naturally finding a site with enough electricity is the challenge. We’re busy looking at a site close to the airport at the moment.. but if you know of nice sites with ~8MVA available give me a shout.

I met with a major mobile content provider yesterday about taking space in Teraco CPT. A 14 cabinet deal. Impressive growth in the mobile space. They have nice toys.

See you at iWeek is September. With a bit of luck we should be taking orders for our Joburg site by then.

Some people Twitter, I batch my news and bullet-blog..

• Monday, had a few Tanqueray no. 10 Martini’s at Relish. Seems I’m going to be on the board of Section 21 company, that’s a first. Met Jaco from Pangea.
• Tuesday, Sushi, watched Hancock, Jazz night at Asoka and a rather random 29th bday party for Matt.
• Matt figures I’m an INTP personality. It’s a nice model. Simple, well structured, good story, but may also be an easily workable falsehood. I’ll read about MMPI next.
• Wednesday, creative writing, lunch with Jonathan at Greens. Typed up this WAPA secretary job spec. Went for a run along the cable car road. Took a few nice sunset panoramic photos.
• Thursday, house shopping in Higgovale. A run along the Mouille Point promenade. A burger at Da Vinci’s on Kloof and Asoka again.
• Friday, House shopping in Camps Bay. Time with Meebs. Earl Grey tea with the ~ex-wife at Paradiso.
• Saturday, gym, swim, Knead, Deer Park, afternoon nap and a nice braai at Georg’s place.
• I can bench press a bit more than my body weight again, seems to take about 3 sessions with reasonable intensity to make progress.
• Sunday morning, Lion’s Head at 9:00 with Jono. Climbed up to the top with Mia in a baby-backpack. If you ever need motivation to lose ~16kg try climb a mountain with a 2yr old on your back.
• Sunday afternoon, Bloubergstrand with Georg, Blue Peter, walk on the beach, fish and chips and white wine at a nice beach front restaurant. Mia ran all over the place and made a few friends and enemies. She does not like to be pushed around.. *grin*. Ended up at Fandango’s.
• 200th Crackbook friend.
• See you at the Cape Town bloggers party on Tuesday night.

Man, I’m stiff today, but I figure the photos are worth it, no pain no gain… have a fun week.

I figure I need to find a new place to live. Not that I’m really unhappy with the current place in Gardens, but it’s no fun staying in the same place for more than 2 years.

I figure I’d try a blog post. Maybe a bit of social networking can help me find a place. So, let me know if you know of something nice to rent in the city bowl or surrounding areas.

I have to be in a new place by 1 September, so I need to find something pretty quickly. I viewed a place in Higgovale yesterday and a place in Camps Bay this morning. Both nice, but I’m still looking around a bit.

First, a long detour..

I guess what I should really be doing is finding a place to buy.. but I figure that’s a 6 month project.

I realised something (blatantly) obvious this week as I was taking panoramic pics from the side of Table Mountain. I though to myself.. I really have a lot of photos of Lions Head.. and then it dawned on me..

I’m pretty comfortable in Cape Town. Maybe I should live here. Does that sound a bit strange? I did mention it was obvious, remember.

“Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.” — Heat

Maybe I used to think like this.

I don’t really see myself moving away from CPT or SA soon. Sure, it would be cool to travel more, but you need a base.

I realised I need to take a longer term view at some point. I guess the thought of a 20 year mortgage will have that effect. Up to now I’ve kinda had a week by week view of the world, always following the next interesting and exciting idea. INTP again.

Maybe not the most fitting thought pattern for a (single) dad. Time to grow up I guess.

At the end of a long conversation, my ~shrink recently told me.. in summary.. “you’re a little boy”. It’s just plain annoying when people are right about little details like these. I suspect most of my friends know this, but tend to humour me.

I guess 6 months is a good time frame for growing up. We’ll see about that.

Back to the details.. the ~spec:

• CBD, Gardens, Tamboerskloof, Higgovale, Camps Bay areas
• 1 or 2 Bedrooms and secure parking
• Cottage or loft apartment
• Close to Lions Head, Mouille Point, the gym, the office…
• Would be nice to have line of sight to the Gardens Centre for Amobia connectivity.
• Bit of a garden and parks close by for Meebs
• Child friendly and safe

You get the idea.

Time to browse the local gumtree listings again.

..things I write which I kinda know only friends read. Yes, it’s a bit sad, especially when I assume they read these posts.. I skip the “how was your week” stuff in conversations and move along to the “what does it all mean” parts.

• Monday, had lunch at Rhodes Memorial with Jonathan and visited the the Old Cape Town Zoo.
• Turns out Mia had chickenpox over the weekend, at least the worst was over by Tuesday. She’s a tuffy.
• Amobia’s touch rugby team, won 10 - 4 in the final.
• Turns out I’m a hero (implicitly), maybe I’ll get myself a “single dad” tshirt.
• Tuesday, Lions Head. Put on my (mildly gay) long running tights and went for a run along the table mountain cable car road. Had sushi. Watched Get Smart. Nice movie, had a few good laughs.. man, Anne Hathaway is hot.
• Wednesday, Frogfoot office move.
• The VANS self provisioning case was heard in court 29th-31st.
• Watched The Dark Knight. I enjoyed it. It’s a bit more James Bond than Kung Fu like the the previous one was.. and the penthouse was a bit more American Psycho, but I still like Batman Returns. Inspired me to wear my Vivienne Westwood shirt the next day.
• Thursday, Web Africa brand launch at Relish and GeekDinner at De Capo with Cath. Met an interesting tailor who made suits for a number of presidents. Now I know where Fabiani sent my jackets.
• Met Charl and Jade at the GeekDinner. Big thanks to Perdeberg wines for their GeekDinner sponsorship.
• Friday, blogging. Gym.. trust me, newby parents need strong lower backs to keep up with a 2yr olds. Mia. Tea with the ~ex-wife at Manna. We’re working on being friends. Like the Joker said in The Dark Knight.. I was “like a dog chasing a car.. wouldn’t know what to do with it if I finally caught it.”
• Saturday, watched parts of Babe for the 14th time. Stellenbosch Wine Festival with Georg and Mia. Long, busy, crazy day. Bumped into Max.
• I love Vanilla Tea and honey on a laid back Sunday morning.
• Glen Beach for a bit of sunshine and a few photos. Maybe I’ll see you at Fandango for some jazz at 20:00.

Thought for the week..
“the real breakfast of champions is a low information diet”

Cape Town is one awesome city.. this was a recurring though as I ran along the cable car contour road this afternoon just before sunset.

A friend has this theory that Cape Town is the new New York. A coastal city and a gateway to Africa. He predicts the same rapid growth which NY experienced in the early 20th century.

Everybody seems to agree that Cape Town is a great place to live. I often talk to people who really want to live here. Usually people from Joburg or London. The snag seems to be that they believe it’s not easy creating a sustainable life and career here. I wonder if it really is “too small”, as they usually say or if it’s just hard and takes time finding some momentum in the business/career world (community) here.

Makes you wonder what percentage of the people you see driving those big expensive cars created their wealth here and can make a sustainable living here. Maybe Cape Town is the SA summertime capital of middle aged retired tourists. Could be.

What’s my point?

Well, I believe that especially in Cape Town “assets” of social capital, like friendship and business networks are of more value than traditional assets like the fancy house and car.

In some ways they are more sustainable and it’s just more fun being part of a community and having an impact on a time and place around you than being a tourist. History and familiarity, like knowing the coolest little cocktail bar that’s perfect for a Monday afternoon.

Maybe Dr. HST said it best..

“San Fransisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run… There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda… You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning… And that, I think, was the handle — that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting — on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark — that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”
— Hunter S. Thompson

Joe’s weekly bullet list update..

• Monday, ISPA INX workshop.
• Tuesday, 1/2 price cocktails at Julep, off Long Street. Bumped into Sam Finnemore. Drinks and snacks at Sidewalk Cafe in Vredehoek for a birthday.
• Wednesday, Lions Head. Another INX workshop, more about CINX (Cape Town Exchange) this time.
• We’re sold out of all Blio PBX devices from our first production batch. The next batch should take about 8 weeks to manufacture and will have all the regulatory and certification tickboxes ticked.
• Wednesday afternoon, Mouille Point. Funny how some things don’t change. Happy Hour Pizza at Roots in Obs.
• Thursday, full day Teraco board meeting. Teraco series A funding. Walked up Lions Head.
• Thursday evening, dinner at Riboville with the Teraco investors. Riboville is an old bank converted into a restaurant with a wine cellar in the old vault. Best fish I’ve had in while. We were seated in the old bank manager’s office.
• Friday, time with The Mia. Visited Will in Somerset West. Mia locked us out again, in a new way. Visited Signal Hill.
• Friday night, planned to attend Georg’s birthday dinner at Harbour House, Kalk Bay and it was supposed to be Mia’s first babysitting experience but Mia was sick so we stayed at home.
• Saturday, gym, swim, Deer Park cafe. Btw. the service at Deer Park sucked.
• In the birthday spirit.. drove to Table Mountain along the cable car road and had strawberries and Pierre Jourdan champers on the mountain side with Georg, Kirsty and Jess. Mia has always loved strawberries.
• We visited Erf 81 (the crazy farm in the middle of the city), puppies, piglets, duckies, chickens, horsies, goats, sheep. Scrubs.
• Mia likes The Cure.. mostly the songs Friday I’m in Love and Love Cats.
• Had strawberries for breakfast.
• Sunday, gym, swim, Knead.. where the service was excellent. Mia had strawberry juice. Mouille Point for a bit of running around and playing with a ball on the wide green open spaces.
• Sunday night, dinner with friends. I suck less at Scrabble now. Awesome berry dessert.
• Hoping the Nokia E71 will finally be available in SA soon. I need a new toy.
• I love Cape Town.
• See you at the GeekDinner on Thursday.

Idea for the week: “cheat life”. Have a groovy week crazy kids.