60 to 0 in an amazingly short time
Alicia had quite a full day yesterday.
Church in the morning, followed by lunch with my Mom, Dad and sister at the Mugg & Bean (she squeezed a 20 min snooze in here at some point). Straight home to play in the sprinkler. Soon after that Marla’s mom arrived and all the excitement that entailed. Supper time, and then she was left alone at home with me when everyone else went to the hospital to visit Marla’s Gran, who is recovering from surgery.
So the two of us were bumbling around at home and Lili found the swimmer nappy (the pull up kind) that, although worn, was still usable. It hardly got wet in the sprinkler and she had not ‘used’ it either.
She was trying to put it on. this is a fairly amusing to observe as more often than not she would get both legs into the same hole and that would frustrate her and she would shout at the nappy, until she pulled it off and tried again. And in between that she would decide it was a hat and try to get it onto her head.
Well eventually she got it on (as far has her knees) and with no small sense of accomplishment lay back on the floor to watch whatever it was I had on the TV.
This is when the amazing deceleration occurred, from shouting at the nappy one min to this the next…
And I somehow managed to get her from there into her PJ’s, nappy changed, in the sleeping bag and into bed without waking her up.
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2022 World Cup Stadiums in Qatar
Since Qatar were announced as the host country for the 2022 FIFA World Cup a lot has been said about PDA and alcohol but I have been wondering what they were thinking when they even applied to host the competition.
I live in Cape Town, South Africa, one of the host cities of the 2010 FIFA world cup. Cape Town is not a huge city, it has a population of about 3.5 million, and extends over an area of roughly 2.5 square km. Qatar is about 4.5 times as large but is home to only 1.7 million people.
Now, after the tournament, there are all these issues filling the one stadium that Cape Town built. I’m not sure what plans Qatar have for using the 10 stadiums they plan to build for the 2022 tournament. Here are some images that I pulled of the net of the planned Qatar stadiums. They look particularly amazing.
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Just to be different
I had to pop in at the girls school early the other day. Usually I am one of the last parents there so I don’t get to see all their suitcases lined up like I did on Friday. (Cute isn’t it?)
But then I noticed something was a bit off. Can you see it?
All the cases are standing on their feet with their handles up in the air. All of them except one. Now I knew As soon as I came in the gate whose it was, but can you guess?
Got it yet?
A little clue?
Ok!
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Spam Comments
If you have your own blog you will know that there are automated entities out there that try to increase their web presence by inserting links into your blog. They do this by posting comments on your content and in that way create another web page with a link back to their site. These comments that they add usually have nothing to do with the content they are supposedly commenting on. Thank goodness for Akismet!
Akismet is a plugin for a blog that catches almost 100% of spam comments and relegates them to the spam folder. Every now and then I go through the spam and delete it. Sometimes a comment is legit and it ends up in the spam folder for some or other reason, so it is good to check before deleting.
Most spam messages are obvious product placement. Every now and then someone has taken a little bit of time in crafting a message that you might think is real. Here is an example that I deleted the other day.
This is a smart weblog. I mean it. You’ve so much knowledge about this issue, and so much passion. You also know how to make people rally behind it, obviously from the responses. Youve got a design right here thats not to flashy, but makes a statement as big as what you are saying. Excellent job, indeed.
And you know, if I had a blog that was about a particular issue, where I was trying to create a following and if this comment had been left on a masterpiece of logic and persuasion, I might have been tempted to take what they were saying seriously (despite the obvious punctuation deficiencies).
But they put it on a post I made about choosing Baby Names for my (at the time) unborn daughter. Now there is a cause to rally behind.
Excellent job indeed! (no comma)
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No Smoke – No Fire
I am very glad that no one burnt any religious books this weekend. Although that did not stop others from overreacting and people getting killed.
It is very sad that these threats, counter threats and overreactions had to take place at all. As Imtiaz Suliman, of the Islamic relief organisation Gift of the Givers was quoted in the media:
“Leave him to God”
Personally, what I find insulting about someone threatening to burn Bibles (or actually burning them) is that they want to insult me. What is insulting is their intent to insult. Honestly, if you want to burn a Bible, go ahead.
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The best laid schemes
To quote the standard English translation of Robert Burns’ 1785 poem:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!
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Happy Birthday Mom
Today is my mom’s birthday. How old is she? Well it is not polite to inquire after a woman’s age so let’s just say it is a milestone. A few years ago when we celebrated my dad’s birthday (same milestone) we, the kids and kids-in-law (or is that kid-in-laws), made quite a big deal about it. So not to be out-done (by ourselves) we have something up our sleeves for this one too, and true to form we will be late this time around as well (I can’t actually remember how late we were with Dad’s present, a year or something like that).
Yesterday my sister (Wendy) called me and said “would it not be great if we all sent Mom a continuous stream of SMS’s throughout the day affirming her as a Mom?” I thought that was a great idea, but it’s just not the way I roll. (Sorry Wends and other sibs). I think it is a little out of character for me and really don’t want to come across as fake. So because I know Mom is one of the 5 people who read my blog (a little blogging humour there), I thought I would post a tribute to (and for) my Mom here.
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The Fall of the Two Towers
Due to safety concerns the Cape Town City Council demolished the cooling towers of the now defunct Athlone power station. Apparently they might have blown over in a strong winter storm, good thing we have had no serious storms this winter cause it is coming a little late in the season.
The demolition was scheduled for 12:00, but at about 11:55 I could hear someone talking over a megaphone at the VIP tent about 200m away from my vantage point. The idea occurred to me to capture the demolition on my cellphone camera (the only camera I own), so I pulled the thing out and put it into video mode and pointed it in the right direction. Holding my 18mo in one arm and the camera in the other arm I strained to hear what was being said across the canal to the VIPs. Next to me Marla was arguing with CJ about what colour shopping bag she wanted to sit down on when I thought I heard the announcer say “five…four”.
“Man,” I thought “it’s happening now!” But my phone camera had gone into standby mode, so a quick fumble later I pressed record. I spent the entire time checking the phone to see if it was in fact recording. Good thing it was recording or I would have been like a friend who was standing near who proclaimed “I missed the whole thing!”.
So great work by whoever was watching the clock, you need to turn your time back by about 3 mins (especially when there are a few thousand people depending on you).
So here is my official first posting to YouTube…
My friend Phil got an AWESOME shot of the event check it out.
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