Flag Tags

So I’m feeling quite chuffed seeing little #flagtags appearing around the place. After fitting my (nearly mandatory) mirror-socks, buying the (optional) flag-pole to fly my 1.5×1.0m SA flag off my house and proudly setting my desktop image, I realised that considering the amount of time spent online, I’d seen very little of the “real-world hype” via a browser. Indeed, a tiny flicker of inspiration illuminated a dark corner of my cranium…

Hours later, we’d started the Flag Tag project, aimed simply at freely patriotising (don’t bother looking it up – it’s my own…) one’s web-presence, and voila, a few more hours after that – www.flagtag.co.za was launched. Behold the right hand margin of this site!

South Africans get to choose out of 7 variations of our flag, along with an option to randomize the flag, and being the hospitable bunch we are, we’ve got all other 31 flags available too.

Spread the Feva! Get your Flag Tag now!

Blog-by-numbers

Cliff notes for the last 4 weeks:

I’m a year older. A small get-together on the 14th was in order, and reminded me how fortunate I am to have the circle of friends I do.

I passed the 2300km mark on my bikes odometer, and realised how many fantastic kilometers of scenery I’ve been priviledged to pass.

My Rocking-On Gran is now 90 (and still kicking ass). Similar small gathering, similar appreciation for family.

We (Team Robin Hood: Myself, Garth, Pete F, Pete R, Brian, Diego and Laura) concluded many months of training by “racing” the Coronation Double Century, covering the 205km in 9h41. Our ride time was about 8h30, and considering the heat and wind, and the fact that we all finished, I don’t think any of us care to remember anything but the sheer elation and comradery of having accomplished what was certainly a very far-fetched, pie-in-the-sky goal 4 months ago.

Then, just to round off my riding for the year, I pushed hard doing Die Burger a week or two ago, and surprised myself with a personal best of 3h08 – nearly an hour faster than last year.

Since this was sitting in drafts for the last 2 weeks, I might as well add that we’ve subsequently had work conferences, work functions, work paintball etc etc. and the year finally feels like it’s at an end. I have some career developments going on at White Wall Web/RAMP group, so next year should be interesting. I’ve also been doing a little trail running up Lion’s Head which has been awesome.

Just in case this get’s drafted again, I’m going to post it now!

Busy/Awesome

What a difference some good weather makes! Apart from my frequent Sunday rides – gradually creeping towards the 150km mark and affording the opportunity to fly past our amazing coastline, forests and mountain scenery – Jan and I have popped along to Cecilia Forest, Fish Hoek, Greenways and more.

Last week brought a trip to JHB for some meetings and the Google Maps SA launch (my thoughts here) – a nice change from routine. I’m fairly sure lots of other stuff happened too because it felt crazy, but I’m also sure I can’t remember it. For the last few days we’ve enjoyed hanging out with Trent and Caryn – visiting from UK. Sunday saw our bi-annual SushiFest take place with all the usual gluttony and subsequent sloth, and having recovered sufficiently, I took Tuesday off work to drag Trent around a 50km sightseeing ride. This was appropriately followed by a good lunch and a long swim at Fish Hoek. So summer is definitely working for us.

Work is a never ending adventure – always just finding my feet before being swept into some new problem-worth-fixing. It’s busy, and the commute really depresses me, but I have lot to be thankful for. I’m slowly-slowly finding my brain becoming capable of big thoughts again, and there is a pervading feeling that maybe things are (gradually) getting easier. Let it be so!

Oh. And it’s going to be a long month. A VERY long month. Will be sporting an increasingly alarming Mo’stache in support of Movember. Managed to rope some of the guys at work into it too, so should be a good laugh. I’ve decided to go for the Trucker Mo – a pair of handlebars which I’m sure will contribute to reduced appeal

Ring of fire!

Well. The pics aren’t mine. In fact I have no idea where they came from (prior to the mail I received them in). I celebrate whoever took them, and gratefully accept the plagiaristic manner in which they are now here.

Edit: After 6000 kindly provided their names, I will happily acknowledge Bruce Sutherland (top 2) and Donald Jackson (bottom) for allowing their pics to arrive in my email uncredited!

Any which way, political, sensical, ethical debates aside, that’s a sweet looking skyline (the stadium is also quite nice). I might even be tempted to buy some insensitively insanely well-priced tickets…

More pictures here.

On the road a-gain

Being Sunday, and being in the midst of a rather torrid training period for The Double Century Project, a few of us went cycling again this morning. It’s become a little bit of a routine, and has gradually clocked an impressive distance. Not only distance mind you – we’ve been into Cape Point a few times, seen more of Simonstown and Kommetjie than I’m used to, and today road a cracker of a route from Constantia, through Sea Point, around Camps Bay, over the newly opened Chappies, around Slangkop, down Smitswinkle and back to Constantia. Certainly finding it easy to understand why the tourists continue to flock here en masse.

So, despite the strong and variable wind, my trip computer showed 123km and I’m happy to report a really great ride and reassuring recovery today. It was interesting to note how easily I was able to contemplate this sort of distance after the psychological win of having done 150km last weekend – strange how the mind works (or my mind at any rate…)

Skip back a day, and we were all on the far side of the False Bay. A friend’s 30th inspired us to spend the day in Betty’s Bay, and we-4 enjoyed a visit to the Stony Point penguins, a Potjie fest and chill-out (ta Adrian) and later a wander on the beach – really taking advantage of the great weather we’ve been having. X-Trail is averaging around 5.7l/100 for these sorts of jaunts – a welcome contribution!

To finish the weekend off, we hosted a braai, I went to watch the very exciting F1 and then stayed up unnecessarily late to write this entry. Sleep beckons (but still the photos upload…)

October Sun

Hip hip hooray for summer! Temperamental or not, it’s been freakin’ awesome being able to leave the gate open, let the kids wander outside and reduce the cabin fever which was definitely a staple of winter ’09. Notably, I was fortunate to take a day off which miraculously coincided with fantastic weather, and we jumped on a train and headed off South to Simonstown. Wonderful fun for relatively little effort. Erin is so tenacious that we were in hysterics watching her battle her way over very loose and uneven beach sand. More construction and castles accompanied Jamie, and we’re finding his attention to detail very endearing.

To relax after these occasional jaunts to the beach, Jan and I have been indulging in our Battlestar Galactica addiction, guiltily consuming episode after episode. Since LOST (on pause) this has been a very welcome distraction to the children-inflicted-mess which so often fills our house, and has rekindled many childhood memories of space and Wing Commander games etc. Fun!

I’ve also been warming the saddle to quite an extent – very grateful to Jan for her corresponding child-minding. In a moment of weakness/folly I agreed to cycle as part of a team doing the Coronation Double Century (a 204km “race” in late November). Naturally training is mandatory. I’m planning on doing another race (Die Burger) the following weekend to seed for Argus 2010 – so the fitness is definitely welcome. We knocked off a 150km ride on Sunday, and I’m pleased to report that my ride and subsequent recovery were quite satisfactory. I usually GPS the rides, but considering this one took several hours including coffee stops, my battery died.

Um. Anything I’m forgetting… well, have a look here to enjoy some SA parody music. The very short guy works with me. Trent and Caryn are heading back to SA in November for a jol – looking forward to touring Chappies; my aunt from NZ is heading in to celebrate my Gran’s 90th; we’ve got a mammoth Sushibonanza planned – lots to look forward to! Kids are fantastic, wife is fantastic, life is pretty darn good.

PS: Except for my poor helicopter. Dust is thick. Will DEFINITELY be taking it to our New Year’s adventure at Peet’s se Plek, if not sooner.

Twas a short September

This is one of those posts where the text is really just to balance the appearance of having a pile of photos below. September came and went, bringing all sorts of fun, games and trips to the GP for various antibiotics, probiotics, vitamins, fizzy-tablets etc. Not without reason of course: as a family we’ve somehow been fortunate to sample just about every germ OTHER than swineflu this year, and of course that priviledge has taken quite some time and investment. So, while repaying that time on said meds, we’ve all been fairly industrious, building all manner of tables, towers and toys. Jan’s been doing art classes for a few months, and has been regularly bring back really great oil paintings – one included below.

In other significant, less tongue-in-cheek news, my mom’s been through the wringer, having been diagnosed with breast cancer late August. All very sudden, and now a mastectomy later, she’s undergoing a 6-month course of chemo, with some radiation planned for dessert. My folks are both coping very admirably with the stresses and pressures it’s added – not least a lot of travelling to and from hospitals, and so far so (mostly) good. Hope to report some more positive news in a few months time, but for now things aren’t going badly.

Happy First Birthday, dear Erin!

Unreal. I vividly recall posting her birth pics, so it feels a bit uncomfortable reflecting on a whole year having passed! But as we know, time waits for no man/baby/other, and today marks Erin’s first birthday! It’s been absolutely awesome getting to share her life (we’d have been fine without the colic and tantrums but hey?!), and we’ve got so many great memories to look back on already. Thanks always to our Lord for her health!

Naturally we now look forward to her outgrowing her obsession with eating stuff out of dustbins, climbing around inside the dishwasher,  Will probably post some party pics later, but for now a couple of anniversary-weekend photos.

Also of interest, White Wall Web released a home-grown twitter integration app today – twitsume.com (find me at twitsume.com/noelrg) – picking up a steady stream of visitors! Well done guys.

The 7-year twitch

TADA! This coming Sunday – Women’s Day – seals our 7th year of marriage. Which I think warrants saying at least. Off to the West Coast, to our plek-by-die-see, where we’re going to revisit the 7-year memories of our honeymoon. Suuure doesn’t feel like it was that long ago! And I speak of a twitch – not an itch – but something that having shared our house with two hooligans (mainly Janet’s DNA), is never too far below the surface. I have many-a-secret smile when I think of the wide circle of friends who’re still planning their families, and I count my blessings that we’re gradually moving back towards sanity. VERY gradually!

Anyway. Since everyone knows about Twitter. And swine-flu. And police and politics etc, I’m just going to mention how much I enjoy my hooligan children, my rock-solid wife, and the greater family which keeps me grounded in the bigger, more important aspects of life – real, tangible relationship and community.

Work at White Wall Web continues to be a great challenge – frentic and ultra-fluid, but with my objective having been growth,  I can’t say I got short-changed! Bears mentioning that I’m working with an awesome bunch of people – and for all that there have been some comings and goings, I count myself very fortunate to be working with friends all.

In the news: Adin is currently/already relocating to Switzerland, and since we don’t ever seem to connect anymore, “hola”. Congrats too to Al and Tess Gardener, who’re one of those friends who’re about to experience madness with their 4 day old daughter!

Thoughts being thought

So the bandwidth is at work again, streaming the live (in 43 mins) commencement of the lunar landing. I’m having a ball at work with the guys – a very partisan crowd either for or against the moon landings. A thought occured to me during preparation for the WWW conference (which came and went this weekend) that perhaps as a generation we’re just no longer familiar with good ol’ science and technology. Personally, whether right or wrong, I’d like to believe that the landing is in fact being commemorated now, rather than being re-fictionalised. Seems like at least 30% of South Africans disagree with me, but I just can’t believe it.

Discovered that an F2 race driver, none other than John Surtees’ son died of accident injuries after the race at Brands Hatch yesterday. Discussions will of course start about the safety of motor racing, but having been watching F1 for 10 years, this isn’t an everyday occurence. It’s tragic, and it was quite disturbing watching him climb from the car via youtube, knowing that hours later he was dead, but accidents are accidents – wheel-tethers or not. Yeah. Depressing.

Work continues to keep me busy. Our weekend conference in Hermanus was a great affair – good content, good fun and good fun. Eventually found ourselves doof-doofing in a club in Hermanus and felt VERY young again: The lengths one goes to, to fratenise with one’s staff! Today saw some great discussions around our upcoming RAMP Fun Event – The Apprentice, and I think we’ll get down to recording all our media tomorrow. It’s next Friday afternoon, and I’m planning on redeeming my role with flair!

Last but not least, it’s Jan’s birthday this Thursday. I’m taking a bit of leave, planning a bit of spoil, and I hope she has a great day. Happy Birthday to you!

Spacetime Continuum

Launch attempt 6. Record held by two other missions which left on attempt 7. Pretty sure they’re not going for records at this point. Definitely feels a little like dejavu since Monday. I’m trying to complete several presentations for Friday’s White Wall Web (Back to the Future themed) conference, but uh… well,  Rome wasn’t built in a day… (which is about all I’ve got left…)

For those interested, @astro_127 is tweeting from this mission, and will continue to tweet from orbit. Also confirming my space-week having started watching Battlestar Galactica last night (wrestled it off for presentations…). I couldn’t help noticing distinct similarities to the Wing Commander games – the sweet smell of childhood a fitting accompaniment to my homemade icecream.

Updated: Funny thing. Several work guys all appeared on MSN and we sat watching the launch. Guess that firms up the “geek” classification…

Head over to NASA for more STS-127 information.

We choose the moon

I feel like I’m having a space-week. A few days from now, the world will celebrate the Apollo 11 Moon Landing – the famous “Giant Leap <space-induced-static-fluff> for Mankind“. Whether you’re a conspiracy theorist or not (and this surely goes down to what you choose to believe!), this re-enactment site should be of interest: http://www.wechoosethemoon.org.

Not only is it well executed, but this surely takes the web to a new level of interest – almost time-machine qualities…

Plan is to re-release all the radio, video and related media at the right time to completely replicate the history. Follow the radio on twitter, get the desktop widget and enjoy history in the re-making.

Late night stuff

It’s nearly way past midnight, and I’m sitting wasting bandwidth watching NASA TV because something in me (probably the geek DNA) convinces me that watching a shuttle launch is worth it. I guess I do have an affinity to this stuff, having kept up an interest since being a junior. Little-known fact is that I tried to enroll to an astronaut training program while at university, along with various other pilot scholarships etc. NASA declined on account of my citizenry, which felt a little like a snub – it being the International Space Station and all.

Bygones. Having been following @Astro_127 (Astronaut Mark Polansky) for a few weeks, I’m now completely emotionally invested. I’ve been up and down the roller-coaster of preparations and cancelled launches… so I do hope it launches tonight. Attempt #5 I think.

Other news – it’s a heavy week as we prepare for the White Wall Web Mid-Year Conference this Friday. We’re out in Hermanus, and it should be a fun day. I’m also trying to readjust my life to accomodate cycling training, having madly accepted a challenge to do the Double Century (2 x 100… yes. 200+ kms) ride in November. Time to get a road bike…?

Updated: What lark. Launch aborted with 10 mins to go. I’ll try not to dwell on the vast proportion of my bandwidth cap which has just been abandoned. On the upside, I did have plenty of time to research my odds of contracting the H1N1 now-pandemic. Not too worried at this juncture. Just tired.

Bad parking

My co-conspirator @timmyprice recently pondered how many great business ideas got shelved because The Ultimate Domain was parked. This was sadly not a random and hypothetical thought, but one established by our joint sub-consciousness over the last few days as he and I have struggled to find anything particularly compelling which wasn’t already defaced by some inarticulate, search-aggregating page-o-nonsense.

“Parked”… they read. Translated: “Hoarded”, and probably ultimately wasted.

OK. So we can’t get the domains we want. Bad luck I guess. However I’ve been entertained nevertheless inventing new words (the logical way around parked domains). Some of the sites I’ve been playing with are here – simply because they’re interesting. To me.

• Write Express (Free online naming tool… useful for rhymes and word-joins etc.)
• Morewords (Lists of words starting, ending, containing etc.)
• Dot-o-mator (Higher-grade word joining with domain lookups)

But don’t get your hopes up. ALL the cool word concoctions in the world appear to be parked. Fun seems to be the best currency in this game.

In the extremely unlikely case that you didn’t find any of that interesting, you might be needing some perspective. I can suggest a very interesting perspectivator (see… look what’s happened to me!) – peruse yourself over to the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs – especially some of the Greatest Hits posts. Genius wit. Uncensored. Now disclaimed.

Update: Found this about an hour after I wrote this happy little rant: http://www.stopdomainparking.org/

Emerging from an upgrade

The procrastination has been defeated! Here is a new version of WordPress, a new theme, a new integration to flickr, some other integration to twitter, a new blogger and a new day. Geewhizwow. Let’s hope some folk actually come and read this blog!

If everything works as advertised, there should be a handful of pictures up there – a few glimpses of June. Notably, my fatherhood was celebrated again, and I enjoyed some Noel-Time. Much appreciated. Since it is obscenely late/early, I will be retiring now.