And finally, for today anyway,

Our neighbour (in front of our house) has started cutting down some of the trees seperating us. In doing so I will see more of his house which to date has been 98% obscured, but I will also have an improved view of "the view"!

This pic from our deck....

Salagatle!

Talking about flowers in the garden

My brother sent me this pic. He's very proud of the flower, and asked me to show the pic to Mom!

When I did, she took me outside and told me to photograph her flower, and send the pic to my brother.He came back with "copy cat!" to which I replied "Not so. We perfected it, and then mass produced it!" There were about 8 flowers on her plant!

Mom had a good laugh at all this.

Here's some more from our garden:-

Coral Aloe in full bloom

Cactus plant with a beautiful "flower"

A clivia

Salagatle!

More on the coasters

So, as per my previous post, I decided to make my own frames. Contrary to what Fishman advised, I am not making frames as we commonly know them.

Anyway, went to Builders Warehouse, got 5 masonite backing boards, and 5 pieces of glass (3mm) cut to size. (550mm x 450mm). Cost about ZAR100 for all 5!!!

Back home GMan cleaned the glass for me whilst I sorted and Presticked the coasters in place.

Here is the result. However, I will need to make another 15 of these just to accommodate the coasters I have! I don't have the glass on the front yet. This will go on when I "hang" the displays. More detail to follow.

I don't think I will collect anymore. Maybe start concentrating on only beer ones, and slowly phase the others out....

Salagatle!

The coaster count

I have 14 A3 size frames full of coasters already. Average of 9 coaster per unit.
I need another 46 frames just to frame the coasters I have left to frame! At 9 per, thats about 414 coasters to frame, and a total of 540! And I have a load of double's I will be trying to swop out / sell / use / dump!
This excludes the 20 or so A4 frames which are already full as well. I put the collection of smaller, thinner coasters in these, and about 12 per!

That's a load of money for frames. At, say ZAR30 per frame (and I think this price is too low) it would mean spending ZAR 1380 on frames!

So, LuckyL and I looked at the alternatives. I'm going to measure the space we plan to hand these things in, and make up out own frames, as per the one's I already have. Only, we will make some bigger (A1 size) and other will be made to fit the place it's going in to.
Should save me a ton of money, and what's more, it'll be another thing in my bar WE made!
Sounds good to me.

Salagatle!

Some guys have all the luck

Because of my previous post on this subject, a friend sent me this. It was his winning hand:-

What makes this special is the following:-

This is the top screen / the best winning spin the machine has. Those of who occationaly dabble with these "Cherry Master" machines didn't believe this screen could ever come up, as it pays out the maximum win. In this case, the player has 24 credits in (@10cents per credit that's ZAR2.40) and was paid a total of ZAR1600!

Had he been playing the machine maximum credits (99 credits - ZAR9.90) he would have won ZAR3000 on the jackpot, and another ZAR3700 on the bottom win for a full screen!!t's his game!



Nice spin bro!

Salagatle!

PS - Now the spell checked is all fucked! Are they ever going to leave this damn blog thing code alone and stop messing with what's workin?

LuckyL is on vacation

A few weeks ago LuckyL asked of he could go to the coast for the mid term break. We agreed, and found him tickets to fly down. however, he's missing the last two days of school this term, and the first day next term. But it's no problem.

So yesterday morning I took him to the airport. We decided to got through early, so that if the more than common scenario of a major accident occurred on the highway to the airport, we would have more than enough time to a) Wait out the traffic jam or b) find an alternative route and still get there on time.

As it was, the traffic was not that bad, and we got there with plenty time to spare, only, on entering the airport grounds, ALL the signs said "Parking full!" Well now, what the hell? If there's no parking it a bit of a fuck up. How do you sign in a minor, and ensure he's through the process without parking?

Solution?

I drove all the way to the top of the parking block. Top floor. The sign said "Full". looking to my right I spotted this piece of "pavement" which was just big enough for the car. Not perturbed by the height of the pavement, I pulled forward, and revered up, one wheel at a time, and cleared all sides! LuckyL was sure we would scrape the bottom of the car, but Dad knows best!

So I parked. The attendant walked over and asked,

"What are u doing?"

"Parking"

" You can't park there, you must drive through the boom first and take a ticket"

"Oh, yea, and then how do I get out again to park here?"

"You cannot!"

"Doos"

"How long are you going to be?"

"I'm going to the coast for a week!"

He looked at me incredulously, and we unloaded the bags and walked off.

My parking spot relevant to the toll. Now there is always the threat of having the cars wheel clamped by some overenthusiastic security guard / car park attendant / suicidal doos, but that didn't bother me. I would take it on if it happened.

So we went into the terminal, I found a vary helpful young lady who booked in the luggage, processed the boarding pass, and we went to the Keg. Had a couple of cokes, surfed the web a bit, and then LuckyL decided he wanted to eat. it was lunchtime, and we wandered off down to the food mall, found Anat's (LIU), and had scrumptious lamb schwarmas!

Back to the Keg after browsing through the Camera / electronics shop, had two more cokes, and then took him down to where our paths would part. It was still about 45 minutes to his boarding time, but I needed to get back to the office, and he wanted to get a seat at the boarding gate. he had his book to read, and was quite happy to move on.

He put his bag and cellphone through the scanner, walked through, found the pointer to his specific boarding location, and then was gone. he's in the pic above.

Back at the car all was well. I drove into the parking lot, through the toll, took a card, drove straight to the exit, and 35 seconds later, not having paid a cent (Starts at ZAR10 for 0-1 hour) I was out and on my way. Not bad for a mornings effort.

LuckyL said his take off was delayed by 15 minutes, but they still landed at the right time. he's convinced the pilot must have given it full taps to make up the time! Anyhow, he's there now, and happy to be there, and we, well, home is always quieter without him, and that's not necessarily a good thing.

Have a good time my boy!

My trip home later that evening was marred by the power outage in a whole suburb I have to drive through which affected about 8 traffic lights I pass. At one point I moved 2km in 1.5 hours. I eventually parked on the side of the road, went to the bottle store to buy a carton of cigarettes, went up some stairs leading to a restaurant of sorts to take the following pic, and then to a nearby cafe to get a coke, walked back to the car, pulled back into the traffic and had only lost 4 places!!!

Another 500 meters down I took this pic. Looks like a car decided to have a head on with a precast wall. The front bumper is lying on the ground.

I eventually got home in time to watch the second half of the SA v India twenty20 game. May as well not have bothered. Needless to say, we lost, and are now out of the tournament. One of our players dropped one or two sitters, and batted like the goon he is.

Why was Jaques Kallis not on the team?

PS - Seaman - think you can print this and show it to LuckyL? Thanx

Salagatle!

SBSA

So today I got a call from the bank, following on my posting to Hellopeter.com yesterday. It's the usual crap, sincere apologies blah, blah, blah. And how they have been struggling with this FICA compliance thing. Anyway, I told her I wasn't impressed, especially with the consultant who can't do maths. Anyway, I will be trying again, and will then close the accounts and move them to A.N. Other bank.
Salagatle!

Another complaint about poor service

My complaint loaded on Hellopeter.co.za.

I have redone my sons FICA (LIU) requirements 4 times. Now, their accounts are locked, because the bank wants me to do it again? They have a million excuses for the "lost" documents.... It's just pathetic.

This morning I went to see a consultant at the CRESTA main branch, and sat down to do the paperwork, and was told my June W&L accounts was not within the required 3 months old! HUH? Invoice date is 20070711, that means 3 months from there it 20071011! Obviously you don't need maths to be a SBSA consultant.

All I want to do is redo the FICA, so I can call off the 32 day call accounts, and close the accounts. I will move the kids accounts to Nedbank, who might want their business, and who pay a better interest rate anyway. We are talking about approx. R50k!!!

A few years ago, their money was in a 12 month investment, and we forgot to renew it (moving house, etc. at the time). For 12 months after it came up, the money lay in a dormant holding account where it earned no interest. You would think they could send a letter or something.

Standard Bank of South Africa - Inspired, Motivated, Involved? I don't think so. You talk the talk, but you don't walk the walk.

Maybe I'll move my accounts as well, just because I can!

Salagatle!

Can anyone identify

what this is? And DON'T say it's a motorbike. At this price, it's obviously not a Harley, but what is it?

Salagatle!

Say no more

The new England Rugby Jersey

Salagatle!

Another public apology

I read a specific blog regularly, and due to the serious nature of the specific incident in the latest post, and it's happy resolution, I, in my usual way, had a light hearted dig at the "victims"! At no stage was any harm intended. Now it seems that the blogger took the comment in his stride, but his wife is gonna get me. And damned if I'm not more scared of her than of him!
So, herewith my official public apology to this fine lady. And may I add that the photo of you is damn fine.
Do I get your forgiveness!

The offending comment!

Salagatle!

Another interesting (new) blog

This blog has an interesting theme. Those of you who get pissed off with those BMW / Mercedes / Ferrari drivers who think that the Wheelchair parking spots are actually for them, might want to contribute to this site.
Could be fun!

http://invisible-wheelchair.blogspot.com/

Salagatle!

What the hell....

This is what's coming up when I posted -

Normally all in English. Are the damn Germans trying to take over the world again?

"Your blog post published successfully!
Blog anzeigen (in einem neuen Fenster)
Need to change it? Edit post Create a new post"

Salagatle!

What a weekend....

Hectic - what else is there to say....

This weekend we finished the deck sealing, myself and LuckyL hung the gate leading to Queenies apartment ( or was that last weekend?). We sanded down the offending parts of the bar top and stained the filler, and re varnished the top. Will give it a day or to before we assess the result, but somehow I don't think it's going to make the grade.

We also visited builders Warehouse, and bought more Mahogany Finish chipboard. That's the stuff we used to make all the shelving for the bar. I plan to make the under side of the bar with it. Had it cut to size, and edged.

Then I had some strips cut 75 mm wide, and we cut a groove into the 16mm face using the table saw. This is to be fixed to the wall, one on top and one underneath (400mm below) and the frames holding the coasters will be placed between them. It's going to look pretty damn neat!

Last night was spent sorting the coasters, both loose ones and those already framed. There is a shit house full of the things. And we sorted the doubles and put them aside. We also excluded coasters which are not really pub related. Will use these on a day to day basis in the pub.

The sorting was done on the pool table, which already housed the glasses I found in a box in the storeroom this weekend. We were starting to believe we either didn't ever have the glasses!!! or the box had been stolen / misplaced. Anyhow, the Princess is happy we have them.

And sorting of framed coasters was done on the table soccer table! The box leaning to one side contains some of the doubles which I can use to swop out / sell / use.

More on the weekend to follow.

Salagatle!