Mom in laws apartment.....

As promised.....
Two years ago me and the princess built our dream home. It's fantabulous, enormous, and perfect. We built on a steep plot of ground, and ended up with a ground floor deck 4 meters above the ground. Once we had moved in, I decided that it would be an idea to enclose the area beneath the deck, and create ..... Something. Entertainment area, pool side rooms, anything.
However, at about the same time, the princesses mother (lets call her queen) decided she wanted to move put of her apartment, and buy something closer to her kids, as well as closer to all the other amenities, like movies, shopping centers, better hospitals etc.
Now, whenever we go on vacation, queen lives in our home. If me and the princes go out to a function, queen comes round to babysit.
Turns out, the under deck location could also make an excellent flatlet. So after some discussion, queen said she would finance the project, and in return she would come and live there. So, I get much added value with regards the value of our home. I get a live in baby sitter, and permanent house sitter for when we go away. It's great. The picture shows the progress as at Nov '05.
Queens new residence under the deck. Deck is my ground floor. Upstairs is our bedrooms and stuff.

The flat will be about 65 squ. meters. Entrance, open plan lounge/dining/kitchen area. Big bedroom with a dressing room area, and nice bathroom.
And another deck is being built around the outside of the flat. This will lead on to the "future" pool area!!!
maybe I can get queen to sponsor that too. Hehe. Second picture shows a Dec shot. U can see the window and sliding doors are in place, and the deck floor id cast. Deck will be tiled with slate tiles, as per the upstairs decks....


Overall, I'm glad I don't have a mom in law from hell. Some of the horror stories I hear from friends and at work are truly scary. This way, it's a win win situation.

Underneath my ground floor, and behind the flat area ( the walls visible inside the openings above) are 2 massive chambers. About 100 squ. meters in all. Here we going to fit it out for a teenage lounge for the kids.
That gets the noise out of the house. Might have to install surveillance camera though, to keep an eye on them. Maybe need one for the queen as well.


Anton Rupert, a damn rich Souf Efrikan died yesterday. He was 89. Shame.
His kids will be splitting about 140Billion Rand.....about...mmm...lets see...about US$ a damn lot!!!!! RIP Anton.

Builders? Maybe not....

maybe they are actually wreckers (hey thats me!!!!)

So I'm going into a late meeting yesterday afternoon, (18 Jan '06) and I get this call from my frantic neighbor. She sez a truck has just crashed into my house!!?
Yea right. So my other neighbor calls, with the same news?!? OK.....
So I call the wife, and tell her to get home and check it out. Damn, and I cant get out of the meeting and....and.... Ah, stuff it...

Anyway, turns out they were doing a cement delivery to our house. I am in the process of building a flat for my mother in law.. Yea I know, I'll get to that later.
So the 8 ton truck reverses down my very steep driveway, and crashes into the house.
Seriously, if he had hit the place squarely, he would have gone through the wall, destroyed my staircase, and our baby grand.
As it turns out, he caught the building at an angle, and managed to break some external piping, and gouge some bricks... not too bad. Much oil, and brake fluid spilt onto my paving... But other than that it's ok.
It's also still there. The truck that is....They couldn't get it towed last night, so will be back this morning.
Funny thing is, the load body was moved 4 inches. Great cause it means my building is stronger than a runaway 8 ton truck!! They had in excess of 50 bags of cement, and a few thousand bricks on the back. All of this shifted at a rapid pace to the back of the load body, and crashed into the house. However, as indicated, damage seems minimal. Suppose I'll have a better picture when I get home later.....

Family

So, I'm between meetings, and need to pass the time.
How's this for typical Africa. We tend to go to my brothers place twice a year. Reason being he lives by the coast!! Great, cheap holidays... (Hehe, hope he don't read this)
Anyway, Dec. 16 is some or other public holiday here, and last year there was an interesting situation on the beach. Each year the beaches are invaded by hordes (bus loads) of visitors from inland. I mean 10's of thousands of beach goers!! It's crazy stuff. The rest of us don't dare go near there. We opt for a visit to a local game park.
Anyway, the lifesavers at this particular beach are great. So, someone gets washed out to sea. A local (read black) lifesaver goes out, and saves him. At the same time he notices that the backwash / flow, is very strong, so decides to get the bathers (most of which can't swim) to move out the water, and across to another beach, (50 meters away) on the other side of a pier. Well, the whole crowd went African. They stared stoning the lifesavers, and when the local police came out, proceeded to stone them as well. Seems the police had to use teargas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd.
Damn, and I missed it!!!!


More about my coastal brother then. Very successful bloke he is. Also managed to scoop a degree about 20 years after he left college, so a bright boy at that. He's married to a nutter, (we love her to death) and they have a daughter who swims like a fish.

Last time we went down ( just before Xmas 2005) he took me deepsea fishing on his account. Great experience. He managed to land a Dorado, 16.5kg. Beautiful fish. See pic :-
Not in any specific order, fish, skipper, brother......

Only problem is he don't eat fish...hehehe.

Anyway, nuff of that. Later.................

SO, I've got a friend who's currently taking part in the Cape to Bahia 2006 (previously the Cape to Rio) race. This is a pic of his tub shortly after the start of the race. Personally I think he's crazy, but what do I know. And it looks like his missus at the helm. Damn brave of him!!!

Anyway, it's him, his missus, and another couple who went on board as deck hands.

You can check out more details on the following websites:- http://www.rcyc.co.za/s-

don't know for sure where they are at right now, but they're out there. (Damn fools!)

Anyway...... Seems like he's up for a prize of sorts anyway, as his is the only "C class" yacht entered. Great. Wonder what he gets? A free psycho analysis to determine his state of mind?

And he's got to sail the damn thing back again. Geeezzzz!!!

Nuff sed.... later!

PS:- Thanx to Ross Douglas for his tip to use Flickr for uploading pics. Seems to work. See him at http://cnut.blogspot.com/. Real nutter. Much like his cousin back in Souf Efrika!

Pictures....Huh?

So, to put a pic on my blog page I gotta download Hello. Well, HELLOOOOOO it don't' work......
so for now, no pics. Will get my buddy Steve to come and sort it 4 me...... , u can find him at http://dmdad.blogspot.com/. Been blogging for some time he has... Although he's lazy.. (don't tell him I sed so)..

Traffic was great today. Only 4 accidents seen on the way to work. Slow day for the Vultures (tow truck drivers!).
And a new Audi A6 decided to mano-a-mano with a traffic light.. No prizes for guessing who won.

Company I work for has lost the plot completely. See, I'm in sales, and work for a basic plus commission. Well, yr after yr they keep moving the goalposts so as to make it almost impossible to achieve any form of descent earnings. Methinks its an omen... I gotta get that damn CV updated. But... As my Page sez... I'm middle aged, white, living in Africa... That makes me obsolete, unemployable... Probably too efficient and honest to fit into the "NEW" culture and environment. (this comment may be strange to outsiders, but those in the know, know!!)

Time will explain all.....
Also, the builders are back on site at home. Hope they can get done in 2 - 3 weeks.

Later all.....

Damn fools

Spent the weekend with the family at a local Casino resort, situated on a local river, the Vaal. It's a very important water source out here.....

Dead fish floating everywhere!!!!!!!!!! Turns out a sewerage works upstream overflowed, and tons of raw sewerage ran into the river!!! And, true to form, no one is responsible. That's the way of the new dispensation.

In the days of the so called "Previous Regime" this crap didn't happen! And if something similar did, there was a contingency plan in place to resolve it. And someone got slapped for it!!!

As things stand right now, we have international water skiing teams due here at the end of this week for a competition, and no one seems to be interested in getting the river cleaned up, including removing a couple of tons of dead fish.

Shame! But, that's how it is....

Also read how proud the KZN province Traffic Chief was of the fact that they dished out a couple of thousand traffic violation (read - speeding) summonses over the past festive season. Much parading of their "successes"! However, on the very same page was an article of a passenger bus of which the driver lost control, and it rolled, killing a whole lot of passengers, and injuring countless others. Interesting thing was, it was overloaded, carrying 99 passengers as opposed to the 68 it is registered to carry, tyres were bald, and brakes non existent!! Where were the authorities when this death trap was rolling down the highway??

Well, on the bright side, I took R1000 (read - US$164) off the black jack table at the casino. Paid for the weekends accommodation!!!

Nuff Sed.......Later