Girls just wanna have fun

Dump is having a girlie moment. I don't know why she is so depressed about her dirt bike riding progress. Considering she never owned a motorcycle before and considering she was out of action for a while with her knee injury, she should hardly expect to be riding like James "Bubba" Stewart already.

Her rant about cow poo is unfounded. As I recall, I was the one who had patties flung at me when I rode behind her at Duniefontein. As for testosterone, I believe it is advantageous but not essential. Oestrogen generates far more aggression than testosterone - I have the scars to prove it. Girls have the potential to be much better on the track than guys!

As I said when I posted a pic of Dump getting air, how many mothers of four do you know who can do this?

The boys and I are proud of you Dump. You're the only mom I know who realised it was unlikely we would all take up sewing so you got involved in biking with us. You're doing well and we love the fact that you're doing it to be with us. We love you! Don't give up!

Sunset

This beautiful sunset was captured from the deck outside my brother's house in Tarlton back in 2003. For some reason spectacular sunsets with beautiful colours are a regular occurance on the highveld.

Foolish me!

Foolish me!, originally uploaded by WayneTD.

This is a pic of James waiting patiently (not) for Dump to fetch us.

I had one of life's truly humbling experiences this morning!

I pulled in at the petrol station and asked the attendant to fill it up with unleaded. Only problem is I was in Dump's Golf TDI! Eish!

Thankfully I realised what I had done just before starting her up. Dump had to come and tow us to VW. She was very gracious about it. I am so lucky to be married to her! VW are going to drain and flush the tank.

Expensive mistake! I feel like a right royal moron. I am truly humbled.

Darling Harbour

I began populating my new Flickr photo stream with some of my favorite old digital photos last night. This photo of Darling Harbour in Sydney, Australia was taken one evening whilst Wez and I were there on a business trip back in 2002.

Rainbow

"The rainbow's in the sky to show God's promises are true ..." from "Rainbow" by Hillsong, off the album "Super Strong God".

This beauty was captured from our office window using my N95.

Nice 95

The gadget freak in me is well and truly pleased! My shiny new Nokia N95 arrived a few days ago. It's taken me a few days (and nights) to familiarise myself with all of its features, but I must admit, I'm not disappointed. It's an awesome little device. It turned out to be smaller than I thought it would be which is great because I always carry my phone in my pocket so small is good. It's a bit smaller than my old Nokia 6680.

I like the fact that it does a proper job of fulfilling its primary purpose - it's a great phone with excellent voice quality and a familiar Nokia interface. I have owned various devices with styluses and qwerty keyboards but I still find the phone keypad with T9 dictionary by far the best for fast typing, especially when I only have one hand available like when running through an airport trying to reply to an SMS.

When it comes to connectivity, there is nothing lacking. It's got every connectivity option you could ask for from infra red through HSDPA. The WiFi is a big plus for me both at home and at the office and makes the phone's great web features much more useable.

There's very cool integration with Flickr. I uploaded a pic from my phone directly to my newly created Flickr photo stream and it was quick and painless.

The GPS works well and the mapping software is very nifty. I'd like to try out the navigation service at some point. It seems to be reasonably priced. I'd also like to try out the free LifeBlog software which apparently facilitates posting to your blog directly from the phone. Might be useful to be able to blog whilst sitting in a boring meeting.

The jury is out on the battery life. I know there's been a lot said about poor battery life. I need to use it a bit more to see how that goes. But when all is said and done, I think this little gadget is a very nice package indeed.

Mother’s Day

We owe so much to our mothers! They play such a crucial role in moulding and shaping us throughout our lives. They put so much of their hearts and souls into their children. They devote hundreds of hours to telling stories, listening patiently, kissing filthy stubbed toes, helping with homework and ferrying us around faithfully.

On this beautiful Mother’s Day, I want to thank God for my mother and for the mother of my children. You are precious women! You have made a huge difference in the lives of your sons. Thank you!

Bright sparks

Why is it that no matter how simple you make a product, someone’s going to find a new and creative way to break it? Often, this involves using the product outside of its design specifications.

Design a product to run on 12 volts. Some clown is going to install it in a 24 volt vehicle. It’s only a matter of time.

“Oh! I didn’t know it wouldn’t work!” … “But the installation manual states 12 volts only!” … “But why doesn’t it work?” … “Because it’s designed to run on 12 volts not 24.” … “Well that’s not very good! It should work on 24 volts.” … “It wasn’t designed to work on 24 volts!” … “So how am I going to fix it?” … “Remove it from the 24 volt vehicle.” … “But the vehicle has gone.” … “Didn’t you test it before you let the vehicle go?” … “Yes.” … “And did it work ok when you tested it?” … “No.” … “<Homer Simpson> Doh! </Homer Simpson>”

I guess I shouldn’t complain. This is job security for product developers!

Stress...

We are all exposed to stress at some point in our lives. There are several kinds of stress. Some is easy to deal with and some downright debilitating.

For an analytical person like me, the most difficult stress to deal with is the stress induced by a problem that I feel I have no control over – a problem I can’t reason my way out of. In my profession, working with computers a lot, I am subject to this kind of stress quite often.

Computer software is written by human beings. Human beings make mistakes. Therefore, computer software is highly likely to contain mistakes – bits that don’t work the way they should. These mistakes, affectionately known as bugs, are not unexpected. I don’t think there’s much software on the planet that doesn’t contain a liberal dose of them.

Bugs don’t usually bug me, but after hunting for an elusive one for any length of time and failing to find it, I start to stress. Why? Maybe it’s an ego thing (Dump always says that the male ego is the most fragile thing on Earth and she should know, she lives with 5 of us, but male ego is another whole discussion). I guess the hunter can’t bear coming back from the hunt empty handed?

Leave me struggling with a bug for a few days and I become a raging lunatic. After a week I’m ready for a sojourn in the lunatic asylum.

So why do I do it? Shouldn’t I get over my passion for computers and go and work at the post office? Not a chance! There is nothing – let me repeat, nothing more satisfying than finally nailing those little gremlins. The amount of satisfaction is directly proportional to the time taken to hunt them down. Go figure.