India
If a trip to India isn’t worthy of a blog entry on hokemon.com, then nothing is.
I’ve just come back from a business trip of 10 days or so in India. It’s been a while since I was last overseas, so it felt pretty good to be stretching my wings again. I also quickly remembered how great it is to get back home though!
After fending off snide remarks about knocking us out of the T20 World Cup, India winning the tournament on our first day there proved to be an excellent icebreaker. I just wonder where Yuvraj (Six-Six) Singh is going to be driving his prize Porsche!
Things went pretty well there (besides being loaded on the wrong plane at Calcutta), and after knocking off early on our last day we were taken around Cuttack, allegedly one of the oldest cities in India (>1000 years). The Mahindra was pretty full though, so one of the guys took me there on the back of his motorbike. That’s the way to get around, I tell you! When EVERYBODY and EVERYTHING has right of way, and potholes are more common than tar, you NEED something maneuverable! It certainly gave me the opportunity to experience India from the locals’ perspective.
Once we got to Cuttack, Sanjeev dropped his bike off at his home and we all squeezed into the Bolero. It felt like something straight out of an India Jones movie, being chauffeured around in a huge car with bicyles and pedestrians, cows and dogs all vying for passage through the tiny streets.
They then took us on a shopping spree, including the local Reebok store so Ashley could pick up a premium Kashmir Willow bat for his brother. Shopping was fun, but Ash and I were getting a bit apprehensive about the ever diminishing time before our plane was due to take off, but after eventually having to be bit forceful we got taken to the airport and made it with a few minutes to spare.
India was full of new experiences, including sharing a Tata Indica with five other adult males, and I now have newfound respect for our roads. The food was pretty good, and not too spicy, which was my biggest fear when heading over there in the first place. Nice place, but like I said at the beginning, good to be back.
General update
Hello to all my adoring fans! You know who you are!
Well, I’ve been a bit slack updating my blog lately, but for that, I blame Facebook.
We just recently spent a wonderful 10 days chilling on the farm (too hot to do anything except snooze all day), and as an indication of how relaxing it was, I managed to stop biting my nails (again), and this time I intend to kick the habit for good (only took 28 years!) - Oh yes, Lina and I both celebrated our birthdays there, strategically far away from congratulatory wishes and surprise parties.
And today I came up with a cracker of a pathetic joke, but being a family show, I can’t post that one here. Perhaps I’ll share it one day over a Long Island Iced Tea.
Collections of Books and DVDs online
Quinn has already let the cat out the bag regarding my online collection of books. I wasn’t going to say anything until I had the whole lot in there, but since that will only be in several weeks when I have the energy and equipment to do so, you may as well take a gander now. I’ll do another blog entry once my our (95% of the books in the house are Lina’s) library is up to speed. (Quinn’s library is here.)
In a similar vein, I took the RSS feed of my ‘DVD’ category of ‘My Movies’ over at IMDb and stuck them into my blog using this fabulous WordPress plugin, inlineRSS. So take a peek and let me know if you want to borrow any, taste permitting. I’m hoping LibraryThing will do something similar soon, so I can integrate all my collections into one website.
Old faces, new faces
This weekend my old varsity mate Peter stayed with us for a night en route to Durban, visiting from Taiwan. With him came his wife, Ava, who I’d only had the privilege of meeting once before at their SA Wedding, and Christina, their 10-month young daughter. What a cutie-pie she is! Barring a hiccup at midnight involving cell-phone alarms and time zone differences, it was great having them here to catch up and reminisce about the old days.
Sketching it up with Sketchup
I’ve always enjoyed 3d modelling, but kind of lost my touch over the last several years. Then I heard Google had bought out (if you can’t beat ‘em, buy ‘em) this cool program called Sketchup. It’s hardly a full-blown modelling package, but once you figure out it’s numerous quirks, it’s remarkably easy to throw together a fairly involved 3d model of just about anything, but regular shaped things like houses are its specialty.
At the risk of furthering the onset of Big Brother, I’ve published the model of my house to the 3D Warehouse, with geolocation all set up. I’m hoping it will eventually make it to the ‘best of 3D warehouse’, at least for Jo’burg, anyway, and then it will show up automatically in Google Earth. Until then, however, click on the picture, or here to check it out, then select ‘View in Google Earth 4′ (if you have it). Then give me good ratings so I can get noticed!!
I’m astonished at GE’s terrain accuracy. My property only changes in height by about a metre or two from end to end, but Google Earth has the right gradient, and I only had to adjust the ‘altitude’ of my house by about half a metre to get the patio above ground. Amazing.
Thawtefulness
In the interests of fueling the Digital Revolution, I have become a Thawte Notary. This means I can verify that people actually are who they say they are, and get them points towards being able to be issued digital certificates with their full names on them.
It will probably be a real schlep, but once enough people can e-sign their documents, the less paperwork for everyone, and I can say I saved a tree or two.
The way it works is that anyone can sign up to get a Thawte Freemail certificate, but this is pretty much anonymous, besides being able to validate that something came from a particular email address. To get a full certificate you need to present yourself to at least three different notaries, who will stake their life (or at least a very substantial fine) on the fact that you are who you say you are.
Once you’ve got that, you can do all sorts of nifty geeky things like encrypt your email, digitally sign Word docs and even PDFs (if they’re set up right)
Microsoft Group Shot
This Christmas was great, because it featured most of the ‘orginal’ gang from the ‘old days’ who had disappeared to far corners of the country and globe, subsequently returning with their offspring, swelling the numbers somewhat.
Such a large reunion obviously called for a group photo, but you know how it goes…you never quite get the perfect shot - someone’s looking away, wearing a cap…Lee-Roy!…etc etc
Enter Microsoft Reseach Lab’s Group Shot, a ridiculously easy to use program where you drag and drop all your ‘identical’ pictures, draw little boxes around the offending parties and then select their best side, so to speak.
When you’re done, click export and voila! The perfect group shot. I can’t believe how well this little gem works. If you want to play spot the difference, head on over to the Christmas Gallery.