Valerian, Drambuie and a Royale burger…

• Week of 24-30 July. Shorter than usual post.
• Monday, woke up in Sea Point for a change, fasting day 8, office, meetings, had to go buy a new keyboard at the Waterfront, VitB shot, afternoon promenade walk, nap, catch up chat with Wouter.
• Tuesday, office, Georg’s birthday drinks at Van Hunks.
• Wednesday, fasting day 10, office, omelette for lunch at Knead with Heleen – first meal in ten days, had a big hand full of supplements, supplement shopping, some server admin, dinner at Cath’s house with Georg and Heleen, a Drambuie at Harvey’s.

• “Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K. Hessel’s life. His breakfast will taste better than any meal you and I have ever tasted.” — Tyler

• Thursday, office, a burger at Royale with Jonathan.
• Friday, gym, office, smoothie with Heleen, found 4l of Camphill milk, fetched Mia, quick Stellenbosch visit, tea at Melissas, we watched Valerian in 4DX at the Waterfront – very entertaining.
• Saturday, made Mia some breakfast, backups and upgraded my Debian laptop while Mia got stuck into a Neil Gaiman book, nap, flowers shopping with Mia, we went to Diabi’s birthday at the Italian Club – very good veal limone and spaghetti dish, Drambuie and tiramisu – probably the best I’ve had in Cape Town.
• Sunday, played with Postgres.app and Docker and GitLab and pipenv and upgraded Python to 3.6.2 in a few places, Mia had a stomach bug so we pretty much just chilled at home, sunset glass of wine and pizza with Paul at La Vie, watched The Dark Knight Rises.
• Tune of the week: Counting Crows – Holiday in Spain

Have a fun week, crazy kids.

Fasting for fun and fat loss…

• Week of 17-23 July.
• Fasting week. Jacques challenged me to a 10 day fast. Previous record was 6.5 days. So, I think I can eat again on 27 July. The plan is to lose 10kg of fat in four weeks.
• Monday, fed the dog and cat and made some cinnamon bulletproof coffee, office, Vodacom meeting, coconut oil with ginger and green tea, extended sunset promenade walk with Heleen, 20k steps, ended up at the Waterfront and had some mint tea at Melissas, crazy happy dog greeting.
• Tuesday, fasting day 2, gym, office, I cleaned my (external) keyboard – and then five of my keys stopped working – argh! – lunchtime walk, wrote a quick blog post about How To Get Lean, took Romeo for a walk on Camps Bay beach, wrote a blog post about Social Media Sanity.
• Wednesday, gym, swim, published a blog post about the gym – Virgin Active Muppets, Audi visit, office, lunchtime walk with Heleen, rainy afternoon, a mint tea at Beluga.
• Interesting read: A tale of two beautiful women.
• Future proof your body.
• Thursday, fasting day 4, bulletproof coffee, office, lunchtime walk, evening swim at the Silo gym.
• I wrote a post about Fasting for Fat Loss. If you are interested in some of the details of my current fasting routine.
• My More Life Labs site looks a bit more pretty now.
• Listen to The Future of Education.
• I published a bunch of blog posts this week. Must be the ketones in by blood.
• Friday, the cat woke me up, office, dropped a school bag off for Mia, catch up with Dirk and Dave in Stellenbosch, quick catch up with Jaco.
• Saturday, 12k steps walk with Heleen and Romeo from Sea Point to Clifton and back, mint tea at Seattle Coffee co with Heleen and Romeo (who had water), nap, watched The Odyssey at the VIP Waterfront cinemas – very cool movie… note no self: watch the old Jacques Cousteau movies.
• When fasting I seem to wake up feeling more rested, and my head seems clearer. I often wake up with some pretty good ideas.
• Sunday, fasting day 7, Hout Bay beach walk with Heleen and Romeo, we picked up some trash on the beach (human WALL-E), Gardens Centre, epic nap, last day in the Bakoven house – it was a very cool three weeks – said goodbye to Romeo, sunset promenade walk, general Sunday night cat-typing and watched some Netflix documentaries.

Have a fun week, crazy kids.

Bakoven, Oudekraal and Thai Green Curry…

• Week of 10 to 16 July.
• Monday, made breakfast for Mia, Discovery shop to get Mia’s latest health stats, smoothies at One Juice, quick Heleen visit, dropped Mia off in Sea Point – she watched Forrest Gump, office, fetched Mia, took Mia to Jacques’ house and had a mid-week braai, night cap at Sotano with Heleen – chats about social media I think – I was mostly distracted by active wear, I was greeted by a super happy dog when I arrived back home.
• Mia is now… 11yo, 163cm, 53.6kg, 23.1kg muscle.
• Mia went for an Afrikaans learning day or two. Her latest Afrikaans marks are somewhat embarrassing.
• I currently post around 1 photo per day to Instagram or FB, and I post 10 photos per week to my blog. I used to have this idea that I wanted to publish a million photos, but somehow my current rate of photo publishing seems enough.
• I met Heleen for the first time, Tuesday, a year ago at Strolla.
• Tuesday, office, dev meeting, windy afternoon, food and flowers shopping, cooked a roast leg of lamb and some veggies for Heleen with a nice Malbec, browsed some old photos and listened to classical music, time well spent.
• I really missed fibre internet at home this week.
• Wednesday, office, meeting at Knead, late lunch with Mia, Jacques and Charlotte, sunset promenade walk with Mia and Romeo, quick Heleen visit, roast leg of lamb eating round two, 12yo single malt with some contract editing while watching The Fast and the Furious 7 with Mia – rather moving ending.
• Found this again, from around 2007, fun project.
• Thursday, worked while Mia watched Stardust again, Georg took the dog for a 2h walk around Table Mountain, Gardens Centre ingredients shopping, I cooked my world famous Thai green curry for Heleen, Georg, Jacques, Matietjie, Charlotte and Mia, fun evening, time well spent.
• Heleen has a new blog, so I added her as a friend on my blog. Not nerdy at all. I’m a little nervous she’s going to overtake me with the Truman Show blogging soon.
• Friday, we had big plans to take the train to Simonstown, but Jacques woke up with a small cut in his eye so we ended up at Mediclinic, I took Mia, Charlotte and Romeo to Beta Beach – super low tide and we pretty much had the beach to ourselves – they played in the puddles and moved starfish around – I really love Bakoven, omelettes and fresh juices at Bootleggers (pretty much my birthday in reverse), nap, a sunset walk and swim around Oudekraal beach with Mia, Charlotte and Romeo, pizza night with Jacques and Marietjie, we watched 21 – good movie, I drove Jacques to the Sea Point BP to fuel his nicotine habit, in bed fairly early, photo processing.
• Saturday, grapefruit, watched The Pink Panther (recent version), braai at Dirk’s house with a Polish Vodka tasting – good fun – I tried to get Mia to watch Dr Strangelove, very rainy drive back to Cape Town, Mia and I watched a part of Ant Man – not bad.
• If you have an Apple Watch, install Pedometer++ so you can see your daily step count on a watch face.
• Sunday, up fairly early, reading, compiled a list of blogging notes, brunch with Mia at Bootleggers in Bakoven – end of my holiday time with her – it’s been a fun two weeks, Naulene fetched Mia, 3 hour epic nap, a glass of wine at La Vie with Heleen and friends, my backup toothbrush ran out of battery power so I went home and had a chat with Wouter, supper at Aris Souvlaki with Heleen, the usual super happy dog greeting, photo processing.
• Tune of the week: Plainsong – The Cure – Disintegration

Have a fun week, crazy kids.

Pro dog walker, house sitter and podcast listener…

• Week of 3-9 July.
• Birthday week. Holiday week with Mia. Cooked a few roasts.
• Monday, I made Mia some tea, breakfast and vitamins, Mia watched MIB2, backups, protein flapjacks, walked to gym, swim, Green Point Park walk, sunset Glen Beach and Camps Bay walk with Mia and Heleen, supper at Col’caccios with a nice Tokara Chardonnay, house sitting in Bakoven.
• I’ve discovered some limitations with my Truman Show blogging.
• Tuesday, my birthday, chilled morning, Mia watched Titan AE, omelette at Bootleggers in Bakoven with Mia, a walk around Beta Beach, spent some time just lying on our backs on the big Bakoven rock in the winter sun, Little Beta Beach visit, Mia and I had our hair cut at Wim Coiffeur – birthday haircut – always a good idea – Mia enjoyed it, took Romeo for a walk (the dog) – 2x up and down Camps Bay beach, some birthday bubbly with Heleen and Paul, birthday dinner at Hussar Camps Bay with Georg, Paul, Mia and Heleen, epic wines, cake (which Heleen baked) and Talisker, awesome evening, thank you, time well spent.

• “Feeling sleepy, full of wine. Fall in bed, just in time.” — The Lightning Seeds – Perfect.

• “Author Chuck Palahniuk first came up with the idea for the novel after being beaten up on a camping trip when he complained to some nearby campers about the noise of their radio. When he returned to work, he was fascinated to find that nobody would mention or acknowledge his injuries, instead saying such commonplace things as “How was your weekend?” Palahniuk concluded that the reason people reacted this way was because if they asked him what had happened, a degree of personal interaction would be necessary, and his workmates simply didn’t care enough to connect with him on a personal level. It was his fascination with this societal ‘blocking’ which became the foundation for the novel.”

• We’re making pretty good progress with Mia’s geeky movies education project.
• Wednesday, took a day off (and offline), cake for breakfast, watched The Devil Wears Prada with Mia, coffee with Paul, photo processing and caught up on some Pocket reading, nap, Mia watched Mimic, we took the dog for a walk on Llandudno beach – nice sunset, food shopping in Hout Bay, I cooked a roast chicken for Mia and Heleen, last of the cake for dessert, time well spent.

• “Jesus in jou hart en Jordan Peterson in jou ore.” — Jacques

• Thursday, we made a new Octotel app live – ISP portal, breakfast with Mia, I sent Paul a Pocket Casts app for his birthday, worked a bit in Sea Point, introduced Mia to Sababa lunches, catch up with Dan, quick catch up with Heleen, a smoothie at gym with Mia, food shopping in Camps Bay – I’m getting into this cooking thing, walked the dog around the neighbourhood, photo processing, epic sunset with some pink bubbly, I cooked a lamb and veggie roast for Mia and Georg, Talisker and dark chocolate.

• “Truth peddling is dangerous business.” — Jacques

• I’ve rediscovered Hacker News. Trouble. Thanks Johann.
• Friday, I made breakfast for Mia, the dog and the cat while Mia watched Short Circuit, Hout Bay beach walk with Mia and the dog, early fish and calamari supper at Dunes (dog friendly), watched a bit of the last Terminator movie, Paul’s birthday dinner at Yuzu – Kloof Street – nice chats with Philippa – I introduced her to Jordan Peterson.
• Saturday, WordPress site tinkering while watching Beverly Hills Cop 2, Camps Bay shopping, I cooked a chicken and veggies roast for Mia and Heleen, lazy day, we watched The Big Short – very good.
• I keep thinking: there is no such thing as free will. Everybody is just a function of their nature and brain chemistry. Moist robots trying to understand their code.

• “The truth is like poetry – and most people fucking hate poetry.” – Overheard in a Washington D.C. bar by Michael Lewis, author of The Big Short.

• 20 ways to turn your life into a Wes Anderson movie. No 5 is funny.
• Sunday, rainy morning, braai at Jacques’ – we took Romeo along to play with Jacques’ dogs – which worked well – he was nice and tired later that evening, Jacques gave me a chilli plant, watched Ghostbusters (2016) with Mia, in bed early, babies don’t sleep this well.
• Since it was my 40th birthday this week, I’ve been working on a list of notes for a blog post, some life wisdom kinda things: Advice I would give my 30yo self. Should be out soon.
• The album of the week should probably be by James Blunt – because the car we drive the dog around with only has one CD in it, but…
• Tune of the week: The Lightning Seeds – Perfect

Have a fun week, crazy kids.

Winter and hibernating…

• Week of 26 June to 2 July.
• Health week, getting back to gym.
• Monday, school run – listening to Wow in the World podcast with Mia – not bad, gym, office, bit of a debate about my recent blog post on geeklist, sunset promenade catch-up walk with Nick – bumped into Heleen, La Vie dinner with Georg and Heleen.
• Derek Sivers on parenting.
• My loss.
• Tuesday, office, dev meeting, promenade walk with Heleen, gym, swim, Myog with Michael, sunset promenade walk, did some reading about Docker and Moby Project.

• “Work ethic, taste, integrity, curiosity.”

• How to Pick Your Life Partner – Part 2.
• Wednesday, gym, swim, Heleen visit, office, supplement shopping, Museum night at the Waterfront and a visit to the underwater photography exhibition with Kirsty, Moules Marinieres and a Rustenberg Bordeaux red at Den Anker, fun evening.
• Thursday, did some reading about Proof of Work vs Proof of Stake blockchains, office, catch up tea at Blue Cafe with Michel, nap, dinner and Evita Bezuidenhout show at the Theatre On The Bay with Georg and Heleen – good show, very funny.
• With no power…
• Stating the obvious, but you really want to position yourself to benefit from technology improvements. Lots of people don’t.
• Friday, office, dev meeting, fetched Mia – start of the school holidays, the usual biltong shopping, pizza and red wine at Piza e Vino with Dirk and Dave, sunset promenade walk with Mia.
• There is no such thing as free will.
• Saturday, matcha flapjacks at gym, squats, swim with Mia, epic lunch and some Glen Carlou Charonnay at the Camps Bay Retreat with Mia, Georg and Kirsty, Glen Beach walk with Mia, La Vie with Jonathan – chats about blockchains and antenna designs.
• Sunday, up fairly early, tinkered with a WordPress site, brunch with Mia, Wouter and Zander at Clark’s – good value, good vibe, rainy promenade walk with Mia, watched Despicable Me 3 3D at the Waterfront with Mia and Heleen, a visit to Dennis and Hugo’s house, early supper at Melissa’s / Mantra Cafe in Camps Bay – good food, watched Jack the Giant Slayer with Mia – not bad, watched more Full House, time well spent.

• “Let the bad times roll.” — Despicable Me 3

• Tune of the week: Fleetwood Mac – Seven Wonders

Have a fun week, crazy kids.