Life and stuff / Vivo kaj aĵoj

The lap of luxury

nobody@vox.com(Scotty) — Wed, 14 May 2008 06:09:08 +0200

I think the photo says it all - need I say more?

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Don't pet the lions!

nobody@vox.com(Scotty) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 06:36:09 +0200

All is well again, with the minister of home affairs having returned home on Friday afternoon from her trip to New Zealand, which she enjoyed immensely.

Female Lion Looking to Her Side

We spent the Freedom Day long weekend relaxing at home to give her a chance to recover from the travelling, but yesterday went out on another photographic expedition, this time to the Lion Park. I think we got some really decent photos. It was very much worth the visit. Not cheap though! Entry is R90 per adult if you self-drive through the park.

The photo here is not one of mine, but a stock photo. I have discovered that anyone can steal photos if I post them here on Vox, so I'll systematically remove all of mine. However, you can see my photos on my flickr page, which has some security features preventing photo theft.

The Saturday morning weigh-in recorded a 0.4kg gain to 80.8kg. At least it was not another loss like last week! I'd be quite happy if it were to settle here now.

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South African nights

nobody@vox.com(Scotty) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:55:00 +0200

I have been subjected to three rolling blackouts (the government prefers us to use the Newspeak term "load-shedding") of four hours each at home so far this week. During Tuesday night's outage I took the opportunity to take a photo, which for me has become the symbol of South Africa at present. You can see it here.

Candlelight

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Road trip!

nobody@vox.com(Scotty) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 06:31:27 +0200

The minister of home affairs and I took advantage of the Easter weekend to spend some time with my family down in the Eastern Cape province. As money is a little tight at the moment, we decided to drive down.

Being the avid statistics collector that I am, here are some of the details.

Gentle Surf

The road distance from our house to my parents' house in Chintsa East (near East London) is 995.5km. On the return trip we left Chintsa East at 01:57 and got back home at 13:15. The average moving speed was 99km/h and we stopped for a grand total of one hour and 16 minutes. Actual travelling time was 10 hours and two minutes. That's a bit better than the trip down, which took 10 hours and 18 minutes actual travelling.

We had a great weekend. We left Johannesburg on Friday morning at 01:30 and arrived in Chintsa East at lunchtime. The weather going down was awful - a lot of heavy rain - but for the rest of the weekend we experienced lovely weather.

It was so nice to spend some time with everyone (and to take photos of the beach and my parents' lovely garden).

We left yesterday morning, at, as I say, 01:57.

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It's a cat's life

nobody@vox.com(Scotty) — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 07:16:37 +0200

This is the life

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You ruined my photo!

nobody@vox.com(Scotty) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 08:07:43 +0200

Is your lens edible?

On Saturday morning the minister of home affairs and I went on another photographic expedition, this time to the Johannesburg Zoo. The idea formed last year already when we attended the AGM of the Esperanto Association of Southern Africa there.

The last time I was at the zoo before then was in the 1970s. At that time it was an old-style zoo with all the animals kept in sparse cages - not my idea of how animals should be treated. Since then, the zoo has been transformed, and now animals are in large enclosures approximating their natural habitats. It means you don't always see all the animals, as now they can hide in long grass, in trees, caves and even holes in the ground, but it is much more humane.

We took some great pics there, some of which I have published on my flickr page (click on "My Photography" in the links sidebar).

The photo posted above is not going to be on flickr, as it is not a great photo, but I kept it for my blog because it appeals to me on some level.

I was trying to photograph a young buck when it became curious and shoved its face in my camera as I took the shot. Then it wanted a good scratch behind the ears. Naturally, I complied. It is a very cute and friendly animal. It ruined my photo, but I think it is sweet.

But my favourite photo of the day, which is on flickr, was the one of the yellow baboon. I hope you like it too - I waited for ages to capture that shot. If you have a flickr account, I'd love comments on my photos, whether positive or negative.

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Weekend wanderings

nobody@vox.com(Scotty) — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 06:55:43 +0200

monarch butterfly

On Saturday the minister of home affairs and I drove to the nearby Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens to do some photography. Rather thank take my own camera, I borrowed one from a friend at work. There are some photos on my Flickr page.

It was a beautiful morning, perfect for taking photos, although most of the flowers were not in bloom - it is heading for the winter season after all. We really should go again in October.

Saturday was also weigh-in day. I had expected to gain a little because of not being able to exercise as a result of the flu. But to my surprise I lost another 0.6kg. This means I now have just 0.5kg to go!

Weigh-in history so far:

5 January: 85.7kg
12 January: 84.5kg (1.2kg loss)
19 January: 84.7kg (0.2kg gain)
26 January: 84.1kg (0.6kg loss)
2 February: 83.9kg (0.2kg loss)
9 February 83.1kg (0.8kg loss)
16 February 82.5kg (0.6kg loss)

Total loss: 3.2kg
Still to lose: 0.5kg

On Sunday we had the longest blackout we have had since the power utility, Eskom, started its rolling blackout programme. We had no electricity for 10.5 hours!

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Bliss!

nobody@vox.com(Scotty) — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 09:17:35 +0200

Bliss!

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Summertime

nobody@vox.com(Scotty) — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 06:43:09 +0200

One of the things I like about summer:

My Garden in the Summer

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Another tough day

nobody@vox.com(Scotty) — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 07:10:36 +0200

Yesterday I published a photo of our cat looking exhausted. Here's another, taken not by me this time, but by the minister of home affairs:

Tough day

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