Be awesome. Do epic shit – before you die…

• Monday, gym with Werner, Mia and I went to get the 2nd half of the Ferrari LEGO cars collection, Mia and I went to Marianne Wine Estate to fetch my tripod (misplaced at Aiden’s wedding), quick wine tasting to miss the flash rain storm, got a bottle of the Cab 2008, watched Raiders of the Lost Ark with Mia after we established that this was my favourite Indiana Jones movie – Marion is probably also the hottest leading lady in the series.
• Tuesday, we watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – good idea to watch this right after Raiders of the Lost Ark, gym, swimming, Mia watched Temple of Doom, sunset walk around Stellenbosch and some tempura calamari at Genki – Mia liked the Edamame beans.
• Wednesday, gym with Werner, Mia went to gym holiday camp and won a cap for best colouring in work, swimming with Mia, sauna, we started building the 2nd half of the Death Star (finally), last Gust meeting of the year at Brampton, the first Street Soiree of the season (Church st) – the usual chalk art on the street – we drew a few rockets, a Death Star and a Star Destroyer.
• Thursday, tag team LEGO building, gym, swimming – Mia did the 25m freestyle in 25sec, lunch at Greengate, listened to a lot of Fleetwood Mac with more tag team Death Star building – built about a 1/4, sunset walk, a game of chess and pizza.
• Friday, swimming with Mia – her freestyle technique is coming along nicely, lunch at Greengate, Choc99 ice cream, dropped Mia at her mom’s house, Brampton with Jan and Adele, Balboa with Paul and Dennis.
• A nice swimming technique video I found. If this tech startup thing does not work out I can always become a swimming coach.
• Four days of not using my car.
• Seems I really did not have much luck with finding a wedding date. Fairly common among the League of Emotionally Unavailable Gentlemen I guess.
• Saturday, watched Looper – epic movie, Werner and Janette’s wedding at Knorhoek.

• “To life.” — a toast to the wedding couple.

• Croquet rules.
• While building Lego Mia asked me.. “do people know when they are going to die?” – which kinda became a theme for the week. Look at the next two points! I event updated my blog tagline.

• “Because we don’t know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustable well. And yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. — We Are Only Human.”

• Be awesome. Do epic shit.

• “Hashtag middle class problems.” — Paul

• Tune of the week: Next Girl, The Black Keys
• Sunday, woke up at Knorhoek Guest House, an hour of photo processing, backups, shuttle to the airport, flight to Durban.

Have a fun week, crazy kids. I’m kinda on holiday now.

Werner’s bachelors weekend…

• Monday, all kinds of admin, Mia and I went shoe shopping – had to visit 6 shops to find her some summer shoes (Havaianas in the end), sunset walk to Coetzenburg with Mia.

• “The child is organised Royal Tennenbaums style.” — Naulene, when I asked if she was aware of Mia’s waterworld outing.

• Tuesday, Bircher muesli with fresh berries – Mia’s favourite, school run, car wash, moar month-end admin, afternoon swim, Hussar steak and chess with Mia, watched Pirates.

• “The higher up you are in the company the more you become the company’s bitch.” — something Jonathan said recently about crappy admin and things you don’t really want to be doing.

• Wednesday, school run, Mia’s last day of school for the year, fetched Leopold from the airport, meeting day at Die Volkskombuis, Waterblommetjie bredie and Bobotie for lunch, a walk around Stellenbosch with Mia, Chimichurri burger at Basic Bistro – try it.
• Grade 1 is a crazy year: they go from not being able to read to reading, playing hockey and swimming galas.
• Thursday, watched some Clone Wars, first watermelon of the season, swimming – Mia’s first 100m swim, squash vs Werner, some Star Wars Lego building.
• Friday, swimming with Mia, dropped Mia at her mom’s, Deloitte meetings, drove to Hermanus for Werner’s bachelors weekend, braai.
• Saturday, breakfast at the old harbour, Creation Wines, Ataraxia Wines, lunch at La Vierge, sunset walk around Hermanus, general bachelors mayhem with Werner, Jan, Harry, Ben, Philip, Gerrit etc, lots of fun.
• Note to self: go explore more wine farms in the Hemel en Aarde valley.
• Sunday, explored Hermanus and bought two Dr Suess books for Mia at a street market, fish and chips at the Kleinmond Harbour, ice cream, coastal road back to Stellenbosch, photo processing, watched Seven Psychopaths – which becomes pretty boring towards the end, babies don’t sleep this well.

Have a fun week, crazy kids.

Mia’s first swimming gala and choir performance…

• Monday, up early, blogging, hair cut, 1km swim in 17min – not great but getting closer to a respectable time again, squash vs Werner, sunset walk around Stellenbosch, bumped into Paul and Elsebe walking past Brampton, supper at Apres with Paul – who just returned from a post-weekend blood transfusion, cheesecake.

• “I fall in love five times a week.” — Paul, about the waitresses at Apres.

• Tuesday, Bircher muesli with fresh berries, 1km swim, Mia’s year end school awards ceremony and her first choir performance.
• Gust Pay was selected as a finalist for Midemlab 2014.

• “Luck is a long mislabeled phenomenon. It isn’t a force, or grace from the gods, or an enchantment from fairy folk, but the measurable output of a group of predictable behaviors. Randomness, chance, and the noisy chaos of reality may be mostly impossible to predict or tame, but luck is something else. According to psychologist Richard Wiseman, luck “bad or good” is just what you call the results of a human being consciously interacting with chance, and some people are better at interacting with chance than others.” — about Survivorship Bias.

• Wednesday, Mia’s first swimming gala – she swam breaststroke and backstroke, Naulene and I took part in the 4x25m parents relay – we came 3rd, at least it was a close finish and we were 3rd from the start, I think Mia enjoyed the day and was happy that her mom and dad took part in the parent’s race, back to Stellenbosch, Founders Club meeting at The Odyssey Gastropub on Bree St.

• “Nobody is dying of cancer here.” — Jonathan, quoting me circa 2003/04, about drama in companies. Kinda cool when a gem of wisdom makes it back to you when you need it.

• Thursday, Gusted a red latte at Blue Crane, managed to get my phone’s Notes, Contacts and Calendars to sync again – had to install OSX Server, sunset walk around Stellenbosch.
• Friday, getting ready for Kinky Disco, Brampton, Apres burger with Paul, Balboa (the new bar where St Peppers used to be).

• “We shoulda had some gum for this mission.” — Paul

• Saturday, Kinky Disco at the Ostrich Ranch – fun day, all the Gust tech worked well, how good was that Depeche Mode track at the end of Bruno Morphet’s set?, some late night ninja roof climbing to cut cable ties from a wifi grid with Etienne.



• Sunday, sci-fi day, watched Oblivion – pretty good, if Apple became the Borg it would look like that, photo processing, watched Total Recall – not bad, watched Lockout – entertaining, nap, watched Searching for Sugar Man – good movie.

Have a fun week, crazy kids.