Notes from the Cape Posts

Published August 6, 2008

A day in Baltimore

We spent the day at the Baltimore Inner Harbour. I am told that the V&A Waterfront is partly based on the Baltimore Inner Harbour, and you can really see the influence; the below picture could be the V&A. There are loads of pubs and restaurants, as well as waterfront activities, such as boat trips and tours.

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Baltimore Inner Harbour

The Inner Harbour is popular with both locals and tourists – many people use the area for jogging. Although since it was over 30 deg, they were a bit too keen for me! It was far more leisurely to spend the afternoon sitting outside enjoying a light meal and a couple of beers, which of course we did. We ate a a great outdoors pub called J Paul. They have been going for 21 years, and the food was really great.

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Enjoying a drink at J Pauls

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Like all big cities, they had a Hard Rock cafe, and a Barns and Noble – in this case housed in an old power station.

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Published August 2, 2008

Boating on Chesapeake

Today, we went boating with Carlos and Cathy on Chesapeake Bay. We didn’t make it out onto the bay, but we were on one of the rivers leading into it. Cathy is Patty’s sister, and Carlos her husband.

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Carlos’ Boat

They have a (small) 40+ foot cruiser,  which was really fantastic. After sailing down the river for about an hour, we found a quiet cove in which to anchor, and we spent the afternoon swimming and tanning on the boat. The water was really warm – about 25 deg C. It was a very civilised way to spend the day.

What I loved about the area is how unspoiled it is – hardly any development, and no litter at all. I have also been told that property price is $3m+, so I had better start saving.

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Life is tough…

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Isabelle in her lifejacket – I think that Eccles would have jumped over the side ages ago!

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Two years ago, we visited a Decoy Duck Museum on the bay, here are the real ducks!

The day was finished off having dinner in a little town called Chesapeake City, drinking red wine and eating Maryland Crab Cakes, which are just the best. The crab cakes are basically what we would call fish cakes in Cape Town, but make with garlic and cream, served with garlic mashed potatoes, which were especially effective at keeping the vampires at bay!

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The River

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Published February 24, 2008

Lake Malawi

I had the whole of Sunday free, so Andrew – the president of Lilongwe Toastmasters club – kindly took me to see Lake Malawi, since as I was told, "you haven’t been to Malawi until you have been to the lake!"

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So Sunday morning saw us bright and early off to the lake. Although the drive was only about an hour or so, you really start to feel that you are in rural Africa. We passed several road-side villages, with countless goats wondering across the road, and all manner of produce being sold on the side of the road – from live chickens to tobacco and vegetables.

When we arrived at the lake, I literally had my breath taken away. It is like standing on the shore of an ocean. The lake is staggeringly huge. What is even more remarkable is that the photos that I took are across the width of the lake, and you still cannot see the far shore! I even found a sign warning about dangerous rip-tides, which gives you an idea of the scale. If you ever have the opportunity, it is well worth the visit.

Cds 2008 02 24 08 57 19 OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP X450 D535Z C370ZI would have loved to spend a few days at the lake, it is very tranquil (and also very hot – it was too hot to walk barefoot on the sand). But alas, I had to get back to Lilongwe in time for my flight back home.

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Published February 23, 2008

Malawi markets

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The quality of the fresh fruit and vegetables in the Malawi markets was great, but the market is what I can only describe as an African scene. You could buy freshly cooked mielies, which had been “braaied” on the open coals (corn is the staple food of Malawi, you can see it growing everywhere).

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Everybody wanted my business (especially since I was then only white person in the market), but they were friendly about it, which is more that I can say for Mauritius. Everybody in the market had something to do – there was a person there whose job was simply to shell the peas!

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Shelling peas

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Published February 17, 2008

Craig performs extracts of John Cage on the Piano – watch video

I have just finished learning a piece of music by one of my favourite composers, John Cage. The piece is called “4’33 silence”. I did find it a bit difficult to learn, so I have taken the liberty of editing it to just 33 seconds.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=c6augXjk-rk

More details about John Cage can be found here.

Esoteric

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Published February 15, 2008

Reality, or Zumanity?

Zumanity

This is the poster for a show that was on when we were in Las Vegas last year. Zumanity is one of the Cirque de Soleil productions. According to the official website, it is

“a seductive twist on reality…leave all inhibitions at the door and let loose as this adult-themed production takes you on a sexy thrill ride…part burlesque and part cabaret”

Sound familiar?

It was on at the New York New York hotel. I never got to see it, but it looks really interesting!

So, do you live in Reality, or Zumanity?

 

Update: 3 Sep 2011

I have noticed this picture referenced on a “White News” website. I would like to make it very clear, that my post was not meant to be a reference to “racial submission of whites to non-whites”, or any such thing. I neither support nor endorse such websites.  I find both pro-white and pro-black websites very disturbing.

I find it sad that for so many people race is still such a large factor in their thinking. I believe that people should

not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character – Martin Luther King

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Published December 22, 2007

Free music in the 21st century?

Currently, every 10 year old kid with a computer and iPod is downloading and sharing unlicensed (i.e., illegal) music.

Because it is so easy to download and share music, the music industry is understandably concerned about lost revenue, and everybody with a single illegally obtained MP3 (i.e.,: most of us) is technically a criminal. This is clearly a loose-loose situation.

So, how can we turn it into a win-win situation. The only way that I can see involves two key points:

  1. the music industry make the revenue they require
  2. people can download as much music as they want – at no (or very little) cost

Here are two suggestions.

Free Music
How about getting the music industry to partner with some of the large social networking sites such as FaceBook or MySpace? Make the MP3’s available at no cost on these sites, but share the advertising revenue that is generated between the music and the websites.

The free MP3’s will drive huge traffic to the sites, and they will allow for highly-profiled advertising to be served to the users (aside from existing profile info they already have).

So, the users are happy- they are getting free music, the music industry is happy – they are getting (advertising) revenue due to the online music, and on top of it the websites are getting revenue due to the additional traffic.

Really Cheap Music
The second suggestion is to pay a monthly subscription for your music. So for example, you pay $29.99 per month, which gives you access to whatever music you wish to listen to. So, you are not actually paying for the music, you are paying for the right to listen to it.

This is similar to a mobile phone contract, in which you are paying for the right to make a telephone call, regardless of if you make any calls or not. You could possibly extend this analogy and say that you pay 10c for each song you listen to – equivalent to paying for each phone call that you actually make.

Whatever option happens, I am convinced that the “goto a retail store and buy a CD” model is on the way out.

Notes
The Global Advertising spend was worth $358 billion in 2004.
The global music industry spend was $12,4 billion in 2005.

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Published December 18, 2007

34 things to do when stuck in bed

I have been stuck in bed for over two weeks now, and while Lois and everybody is being really wonderful, I am board!

So, here are 34 things to keep you busy when stuck in bed!

  1. Catchup on your reading
  2. Surf the net
  3. Catchup on your newsfeeds
  4. Phone all your friends
  5. Cleanup your mailbox
  6. Download and play with virtual lego
  7. Arrange your MP3 collection and create new playlists
  8. Try to understand what the globs on your MRI scan actually mean
  9. Create lists of things to do when stuck in bed
  10. Check your e-mail about 100x per day in case anything interesting has happened since the last time you checked
  11. Change the colour scheme on your computer
  12. Figure out if downloading the 3gig installation for the trial version of Warcraft is really worth it
  13. Read more books
  14. Play online tetris
  15. Google everybody you know
  16. Play on Facebook
  17. Play on LinkedIn
  18. Create Christmas Shopping Lists
  19. Research every medical procedure known to man – just in case
  20. Write aimless blog posts
  21. Update the layout of your website
  22. E-mail all your friends
  23. Stare out of the window
  24. Google your doctor
  25. Shout at the cat for "bathing" on the bed
  26. Read even more books
  27. Wonder which book to read next because by now you have read all the good ones
  28. Cleanp your desktop (on your pc)
  29. Sleep
  30. Play every game that came free with your computer, and realise why they are free
  31. Defrag your harddrive
  32. Read even more books…
  33. Google your pets
  34. Order warcraft online because the download is too big

What have I missed, I am sure I will be adding to this list shortly…?

Watch out for the next installment of this exciting drama – alternative treatments recommended to me (by non-experts) for a slipped disc!

Esoteric

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Published December 4, 2007

No unauthorized weddings on the Tower!

I was cleaning up my study, and I found the old ticket stubs from our trip up the Eiffel Tower in Vegas. Ok, so this wasn’t the real tower in France, it was only a 1/2 scale model, but it was still 540 feet (164m) tall, and it was pretty impressive.

Walking through the Paris hotel is really like walking through the streets of Paris – complete with sidewalk cafe’s, accordion music & cobbled streets. I really felt like I was back in Paris.

However, what really amused me was the warning on the ticket  – “no unauthorized weddings”.  Where else would you find that warning? I suppose that if you are going to do a Vegas wedding, the top of the Eiffel Tower is as good a place as any  – good thing Lois and I are already married!

I still think that Vegas is a great place to get married – you can have a drive trough wedding, the reception at the MacDonalds drive through, and even see a show afterwards!

Don’t forget – no unauthorized weddings!

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Published August 11, 2007

Arizona temperatures & self-checkouts

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Sadly, our time in Vegas came to an end, and our time came to leave for Phoenix. This was after a great last evening when I finally figured out the Rolette machines, and won a total of about $40 on the $5 tables – not bad for a beginner.

So it was a 4:30am start to get to the airport by 6 in time for our 8am flight – which incedently was only 45 minutes long.

We are at our hotel in Phoenix – the JW Marriott Desert Resort and Spa, prepering for the Toastmasters Annual Convention. Arizona is exactly like in the old cowboy movies – with barren landscape and the cactus plants holding their hands in the air like on cheap tequila bottles. I beleive that the bigger cactui can hold 5 tons of water – enough for 5 years of drought. The land also reminded me of the Pielandsberg mountains – except with the cactui.

Today I bought a couple of items in the supermarket, and I did something that I have never done before – I used the self-checkout. With nobody supervising, I scanned the items, paid into a machine, collected the change and left! Just like that. Imagine that in SA.

I thought that Vegas was hot, but I had no idea! The temperature yesterday was a min of 28, and a max of about 42 deg C – so hot that the shops give you free water when you leave. Unbeleivably hot, so we will be spending much time indoors.

Off to bed now, will update you soon.

Craig

PS – Karen I hope you luggage arrives soon!

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