Yzerfontein

I mentioned in a previous blog that I purchased a Toyota Yaris Spirit on Saturday, but while taking it home I realised its odometer was stuck at 9km and the speedometer didn't work! Today I drove it to the local Toyota dealership. The chap there stuck his hands deep in the engine and after a few minutes of wriggling around had reconnected what needed to be reconnected.

But this got me thinking about how easily my supposedly new Toyota could have been driven around by the Toyota dealership without any mileage on the clock - for a quick joy-ride to Melkbos, to Yzerfontein, to the 7/11 around the corner, used for a quick demo ride for another client. If it had, say 800km on the clock, a new client would naturally kick up one hell of a fuss and (rightly) argue that this was in fact a second-hand vehicle. Much easier to disconnect the odometer and show the client a low odometer reading.

Waking up early on Sunday morning isn't lekker - I find the pain isn't so bad if the reason for waking up early is to go and hit a few white balls around a golf course (although Mark Twain would argue that it's a way ruining a good walk). In my 4-ball was somebody who knows a thing or two about Koeberg Nuclear Power Station and the finer points of electricity supply. Apparently Koeberg tripped when Kendal power station up north had a problem causing a drop in its power supply. I don't really understand why they cant set Koeberg up so that it continues to run when there are disruptions in the overland supply of electricity. Any electrical engineers out there that can help explain why this isn't possible?
I also didn't realise that the overland lines don't have the capacity to supply Cape Town. Open suggestion to Eskom - perhaps this is something you could work on, to increase the capacity of those lines?

I've been blogging for about a month now, and it's been entertaining. I've watched webtech's "Stream of Gold" going and Katz going and coming, and have seen somebody else setting up a webtech haters club. It hasn't all been plain sailing, there's been some resistance to a couple of my blogs (most of it unfortuanately anonymous) and I'm pleased about that as I don't intend this to be a blog with only soft entries (a ship in a harbour is safe but ships are built to be out at sea).
My wife is in Joburg visiting her folks and going to a wedding this weekend, so I'm at home in our flat in the Cape all alone - was a good opportunity to catch up with friends - had a supper at Maestros on Woodbridge Island last night (great venue with awesome views, cuisine is average-plus).
This morning I collected my Toyota Yaris Spirit. She's a real beauty, but there's a problem with the speedometer - it remains on 0kmh (it's electronic) all the time and unless today has been a total illusion I have been driving faster than that!
I'm also pleased to announce that www.melkbos.com is finally up and running - yay!!! I'd be interested to know what any professional web developers think of it, and if there are any suggestions (I'm an amateur at this, so have much to learn).

this might explain what was going on at Koeberg Nuclear Power Station (perhaps it was a donut, not a loose bolt caught in the reactor).

I've got it up and running finally! A site all about Melkbosstrand , better known as Melkbos. Melkbos is a village forming the north-western fringe fo Cape Town; home to the NSRI's Station 18, which covers the sea from Big Bay to Yzerfontein.

I've been inspired to make this list by a visit to some friends today - it's a first draft of the natural progression of questions through life....I'd like to make it more complete, so please comment to add other stock questions.....

You're single: When you're going to get a girlfriend?
You've got a girlfriend: When you guys getting married?
You're married: When you going to have children?
You're pregnant: Are you pregnant?
You've got a child: When you going to have another?
You've got two children: Are you going to have more?

My first picture on this blog! (hope it works). From our visit to Yzerfontein a couple of weeks ago.

Breaking news...the US treasury is considering naming China a "currency manipulator". How insightful of them to realise that this may be occuring! What might they consider naming them next? A communist country? Perhaps pick up that Tibetans are suffering ? That freedom of expression is suppressed?

A relationship with Momma is unique, it takes us back to the days when we watched how she spoke and mimiced her in wonder, when we lay and oggled her mannerisms in awe and copied and tried to be like her, back to the time when we suckled on her breasts and snuggled up close to her warmth, and when she wasn't around to suckle on we cried our lungs out, it takes us back to the time when we entered the world forcing our way out of her vaginal canal; taking us back to before our birth, when we lay in amniotic fluid, and listened to the vibrations of her voice, and further back to our first formations and before, to the explosive joining of the egg and sperm cells, replicating and joining to forge our DNA and the miracle of life in a massive burst of energy as we made our way into the world from the before to the now.

Vegeterians of the world unite! Why should we allow the wicked to continue murdering and devouring peaceful animals? Other groupings are taking to the streets, burning down embassies, threatening to harm people, while we sit still allowing this heinous crime to be commited. How dare others show no respect for our way of life - devouring meat products right in our faces. Morally bankrupt nations setting up "houses of death" in the guise of "fast food shops". We demand an immediate apology from the leaders of infidel countries or you shall face the wrath of us not eating your cheeses anymore.

The nature of my job entails a fair bit of travelling from the mother city to Joeys and Durban. This is almost always cattle class, but occasionally I get bumped up to business class - like last night - apparently there was a lot of free space up front as the Proteas cricket team was travelling back on this flight! My colleague questioned whether they should be allowed to sit up front after their performance.

It was the first time I had seen most of them in person. Boucher looks shorter than I expected and Smith taller. They were well tanned, but looked weary. At Cape Town International there were about 10 people (waiting for them?) and one photographer waiting....the lot of a losing team.

Some of you may have read my blog where I told of writing off my old Astra and that I'm looking for advice on purchasing a Toyota Yaris Spirit. According to one of the readers of the blog, this makes me a f#$%#$ wanker....

"You f#$*&^%# wanker, why don't you look in the autotrader".

How impressively tolerant!

It got me wondering where all this anger I've been seeing lately comes from.
The kidnapping of foreigners & burning down of embassies in response to offensive cartoons. Calling somebody a f(^&%^ wanker in response to a request for advice.

Where have our tolerance levels gone to? Or did we never have a high level of tolerance in the first place? Were the offensive cartoons and the request for advice, merely catalysts, unleashing the violence buried in their psyches?

And somebody needs to explain to the man that f%^&^%& and wanking are different activities.

Where do you think people live longer - Palestine's West Bank or South Africa's rainbow nation? One would have thought that in a war-torn land like the West Bank life would be short, especially compared to a peaceful nation like South Africa.
I was looking at the CIA's country by country factsheets. Assuming it is not far out in its estimates, the average South African can expect to live a meagre 43 years, while in the West Bank you can expect to live 73 years.
Whatever you do, don't move to Swaziland, where the life expectancy is a mere 33 years (which is not much, but is longer than the 28 years the average citizen of the Roman Empire could expect to live).
Or perhaps I should pack the bags for Andora, where you can expect on average to live to 83.5 ......
I was surprised, I'll just have to hope that it's higher in Cape Town, and the rest of the country is bringing us down to 43.

This blog is to see whether anybody can help advise me on getting a new car (and to demonstrate that I can write about something other than Yzerfontein !). I wrote off my car in a motor vehicle accident weeks ago. I was driving along the N1 (at about 120km/h, I don't speed unless it's an emergency - normally drive at the speed limit), and I went round the corner just after the Panaram turnoff to discover the traffic had come to what was almost a dead halt. I slammed on anchors, brakes locked and I went into a skid as I tried to miss the car in front of me, I lost control of the car, it slammed into the hillside on the left of the N1, and found myself in a ditch.....after much drama and x-rays I found that the extent of my injuries was a sore neck and back....the higher powers were good to me.
Now I have to get a new car. I'm looking for something fuel efficient and safe. The Toyota Yaris Spirit seems to the best fit for what I'm looking for - it uses 6.9 litres per 100km and has a European NCAP rating of 5. But where do I get it cheapest? I'd prefer not to buy it new, are there any demo or used models out yet? What price? Any advice appreciated. I stay in Cape Town but am often in Joburg, so could potentially drive it down from there.

I was lucky enough to visit Luderitz last year (2005), while voyaging on the RMS St Helena (the RMS). The RMS stops at Luderitz and Walvis on its way to St Helena, from Cape Town. It's a craggy desert town without much water - the initial inhabitants had water shipped from Cape town or desalinated - these days they've discovered underwater aquifers of water (although it's unknown how long this will last for). The town even has its equivalent of Cape Town's waterfront. Like Yzerfontein, the main industry revolves around fishing.
Anyways, what sparked off this article was reading the weekend argus today. In the travel section they have an article "No real reason to go to Luderitz". There's a massive picture of a Church next to the article - captioned "The Catholic Church....". Now, if this is a Catholic Church it's the only one I've seen with a picture of Martin Luther King on its stained glass. While I agree with some of what is written in the article, this kind of mistake makes me feel that it isn't well researched.
The view from the top next to the Church is really stunning. There are loads more pictures on www.thefamilia.info, under the heading "St Helena".

Wikipedia is an awesome endeavour - an encyclopedia created collabaritively by a community for free, where anybody can edit! I tried my hand at it and put in this entry for Yzerfontein.

Yzerfontein is a fishing villlage situated on South Africa's west coast. The area is known for its scenic beauty, sixteen mile-long beach and spring flowers.

Throughout the year fynbos can be found in the area, but in spring the dunes and veldin and around Yzerfontein. are covered with brightly coloured indigenous wild flowers.

Archaeological digs near the town have found remains of food and tools left by ancient people who inhabited the area of what is now Yzerfontein. Evidence shows that they also consumed shellfish, penguins, cormorants, tortoises, dune mole rats, snakes and ostrich eggs. However, no remains of fish have been found, leading to speculation that they did not make use of this particular resource.

About 10 kilometres due west of Yzerfontein is Dassen Island, known for its birdlife and penguin colony. From the top of Pearl Bay Heights on the southern end of Yzerfontein one can view (on a clear day) Table Mountain and Dassen Island.