09.25.06
Posted in General at 18:55 pm by Guy
Yesterday I joined Dave, Grayskull and Oanita, Russell Hatcher and friends for an assault on the Moor Park 10km race. The setting for the race was the stunning Moor Park Golf Estate and surrounds, near Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire (northwest London). The course was relatively flat apart from one beast of a hill about 1km long, and stuck mainly to traffic free roads on the estate and golf course. Despite full effort, I couldn’t track down Dave’s bosses and eventually stumbled across the line in just over 51 mins, a pretty poor effort. No excuses, it was just one of those errors in judgement as I set out to run 5:15 km’s for the first 3, then tackle the hill, and then charge the rest of hte course depending on my reserves in an effort to break 49 mins. That was the plan anyway……………… Unfortunately I set off too quick, and ran the first km in 4:23! At my level of fitness there is not much come back once my heart rate spikes and I ran 9km at a heart rate above 170…….. needless to say it was one of the longest 9km I have ever had to endure. Never-the-less, it was a great day, it was great to get out and run a stunning course, and the beer slid down very nicely afterwards!
Grayskull has cleverly uploaded the course route and profile from his Garmin GPS watch here. Click on the dashboard for the elevation profile. Too clever. I have uploaded my Photos to flikr, and so has Dave, so check them out. Look out carefully for Hatcher in the ‘crouch’ position ready to pounce!
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09.20.06
Posted in General at 22:18 pm by Guy
After weeks of threatening and a ‘few’ bevvies Fri night in Putney, we finally arranged to borrow John’s MTB bike for Rog and we strapped the bikes on the Astra for destination Bracknell Forest. Bracknell is west of London in Brkshire about a 40 minute drive from my pad, and although its not a large forest (we only did 12km in total on Sat), it offers some of the best singel track riding around. Also, not particularly trechorous riding, but good fun none-the-less, and enough ‘undulations’ to keep the team happy. We met up with Dan and hit the trails, and along the way, we gave the bmx run a go. Needless to say it was much humour, three blokes on hardtails running the track, and which resulted in a bit of dust chewing. Thankfully everyone, and every bike survived. I will upload some pix later, but in the meantime, here are some video’s of the action. They are really short, and rather uneventful, but wil provide some chuckles. The files are about 2mb each so I hope that all of you south of the equator with dial-up can handle (oh, and they’re AVI’s so you may ned Realplayer or something similar)!!
Dan
Rog
Guy
Hope you enjoyed that, I can hear you all laughin from here! And, yes, I did almost see my @r$e!!!
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09.19.06
Posted in General at 13:53 pm by Guy
Congratulations also this week to Blake ‘Pug’ Raubenheimer and his wife Nicci, on their new born son, Thomas John Raubenheimer. Thomas was born on Thursday afternoon, 14th September 2006 in Durban, and all are well. Congratulations to Nicci and Blake, and I wish all three all the best. Another reason why December’s trip to South Africa just gets better and better!
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09.18.06
Posted in General at 14:29 pm by Guy
I post this more out of coincidence of a recent discussion I had with my folks regrading the extension of their house and the relationship between engineers, architects, planners and builders. I found this article on IOL which describes how two chaps were injured when the balcony they were standing on collapsed. The two guys involved are suing the homeowner, the homeowner is blaming the contractor, the contractor is blaming the sub contractor, and the subcontractor is saying the owner and contractor vetoed their recommendation to employ a structural engineer. huh? So a homeowner employed a contractor to construct a balcony and no one thought it was a good idea to design it first!?!?!?!?
Now, I am an engineer but ‘m not a structural engineer, and this is not a punt for the industry, but I hear far too many stories of structural home improvements being made without proper consultation with chartered engineers. On the premise that structures hardly ever fall down, a lot of people appear to be blaze about building extensions and the such like and rely on the local builder to carry out the work, aided perhaps by an architect who prepares the plans for submission to the council. Be under no illusions, if you are ever in any doubt as too whether the work you propose impacts on the structural stability of the existing building or about the structural stability of the work independantly, get advice from a chartered engineer. Besides engineers are about the lowest paid profession in the world so its not even going to cost you a bundle!!
Thankfully, the two guys in this story ‘escaped with relatively minor injuries’.
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09.17.06
Posted in General at 20:03 pm by Guy
It’s been one hell of a week just gone, and I will start with the amazing news that my ‘little’ bother Murray had his proposal of marriage to long time girlfriend JC accepted last Saturday. I won’t reveal to the world all the intricate details of the occasion, but it involved the Rob Roy hotel in Botha’s Hill, and that incredible view from the terrace over the valley of a thousand hills. Congratulations to you both, I wish that Sar and I were there to celebrate, and we are looking forward to our trip back to South Africa in December even more now.
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Posted in General at 16:37 pm by Guy
I don’t think I have the nerve to be doing too many software upgrades of this site, and todays ordeal may be the last…… however, after 2 1/2 hours this site is now running on the uber smart, super dooper Wordpress 2.0.4. Yippee! What does this mean too you, the all important viewers? Sweet FA!! But, it makes my blogging life easier so hopefully you’ll start seeing visual upgrades soon.
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09.12.06
Posted in General at 19:54 pm by Guy
Bit of a random post, but it is purely based on my love for things that work and friendly, efficient service. I hate admin, I hate bad service and I hate things that don’t work. So, happy days, a few weeks ago, when in Maidenhead carrying out an inspection of the York Stream and in desperate need of some sustenance. To the rescue: Yourz. A small coffee/sandwich shop in the middle of Maidenhead that provided the best service, with a friendly smile adn served me with a monsterous tikka chicken roll (piping hot fresh) with all the trimmings, and for a putance. Turns out the owner is Zimbabwean, and they serve Boeri rolls and biltong, which I unfortuantley missed (I have to be forgiven, their sandwich menu extends across three walls of chalk boards). So, the next time, youre in Maidenhead, hit ‘Yourz’ hard, and ask for Lawrence the Zimbabwean!
Yourz to Eat
6 Bridge Street Maidenhead
Berkshire
SL6 8BJ
Tel: 01628 622302
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09.06.06
Posted in General at 20:46 pm by Guy
More on our long weekend in Prague….. I have uploaded photo’s to the web, not to my usual coppermine gallery but rather to flickr.com. Although the open source Coppermine is great, organised and personal, it is quite a bit of effort to upload photo’s and rename all of them (compulsory) as you can only upload 5 at a time. With a neat piece of flickr software (which installed a virus on my machine!!!! - thanks to Panda for sorting it out!) you can upload full sets to flickr so, for your viewing pleasure, check out our Prague photo’s here. Read the rest of this entry »
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09.01.06
Posted in General at 14:18 pm by Guy
I should really start charging for these commercial punts…….. having said that Dan has assured me that I will be receivgin payment in the form of the amber liquid fior this one…
Quick punt for Dan and the Ham Brewery Tap (known hereafter as ‘The Tap’) re hosting a (late) summer braai (barbeque) tomorrow night (Saturday 2nd September). All welcome for some fierce grub off the spit similar to the opening event. I will reignite my love affair with my 3-pint glass as well so Sunday may not be that productive. Braai from 6pm onwards and if anyone is interested in joining us (party of 5 at this stage and growing) let me know cos I have tokens for free cocktails……….
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