Slack Lining

While spending a day in the park, walking in the fresh air and then relaxing under the shade of a tall pine tree, I saw what I initially thought, were some crazy hippie types. I was intrigued as the one hippie type started tying a length of rope to a tree. My initial thought was that she was going to tie herself to the tree in protest of something (as it is her democratic right to protest) but she didn't.  She tied her rope to another tree about 10 metres away. 

Suddenly it made sense, she wasn't a hippie, she was a slackliner - now, I felt bad for having judged and assuming that they were hippie types.  

The line, which is not a rope at all. It's made of flat nylon, the type used to strap motor cycles to the back of trailers, wide enough for the foot to rest on, strong enough to hold a persons weight. 

She got onto the line. One foot on the ground, one on the line. She used one leg to lift her body up. I was intrigued, not at the fact that had bigger legs than I do, but at the fact that she was able to balance from such a precarious start.  

I was fixated as she walked on the slackline. I needed to try it.  I approached her and her friends and she agreed that I could have a go.  It was awesome. I really thought that I would not be able to walk on it, but it wasn't bad at all. It's so amazing how the body starts to adjust to the motion of the line.

I managed to get up to about four steps before falling off. If i had known before Christmas how easy slacklining is to do, I could have saved myself some cash instead of using it on PS 3 peripherals. 

Would I do it again? Yes, most def! 

One more thing ticked off the list. 

All Yoga'd Out

On my journey for inner peace, calm of mind, relaxation of the body and girls in yoga-pants, I decided to try a yoga class with my friend who had previously attended.

I knew exactly three things about yoga before yesterdays class, its meditative in some way, it requires flexibility and balance comes in handy. I've tried to meditate several times before, but I usually end up waking up two hours later - more power nap than meditation. When it comes to flexibility, I'm a little flexibly retarded. The last time I was able to touch my toes without bending my knees was when I was five years old. Balance however, I'm able to do.

My arrival at the class seemed a little too quiet for me, "Ah, people are in the meditative states" I figured. The instructor asked if I had been before, I told her no, so she showed me the breathing technique. She handed me a tissue to disgard the gum I had being chewing, "How did she know I had gum," I wondered to myself. She loaned me a yoga mat, which I was afraid would smell like someone else's sweat - surprisingly, it didn't. She also told me not to drink water until she said it was OK to do so... "This is a Cult", I immediately concluded.

I couldn't wait to start, to sit like Buddha and get my mind relaxed and have an out of body experience.

That's exactly unlike how it happened. The studio was as hot a kitchen on a hot day with 100% humidity. I started to get heart palpitations. I wanted to get out. My eyeballs were drying out. I felt anxious. How long was this going to go on for... I hadn't asked and now I was stuck in front of the class, not knowing what to expect.

During the first 10 minutes, my body was in shock. Just the introductory breathing exercises had me breathing heavily. 80 minutes later, the class ended. I was completely soaked with my own sweat. I had not felt any more spiritually enlightened, enlightenment had utterly eluded me, perhaps I perspired it out.

I had just had a slow-motion workout in a completely humid environment. I'm not sure how good that is for the body. I survived. Bikram Yoga. One more thing of the list.  

The Religious Beggar

I'm not sure what the politically correct phrase for this is - I wanted to refer to the guy as a hobo initially, but I'm afraid the homeless with access to the internet would not have been too happy. I've decided to stick with 'beggar' just to be safe.

So earlier today, while driving through Durban city a beggar came up to my hire car window. He started a small conversation because my window was down. He started off by telling me how wonderful my 'colour' was - I think he was referring to my aura. He then told me how blessed I am and that the Lord is good. I told him not to bother going on, because I'm an atheist. He then told me that Atheism is a new concept, that people throughout the ages had had a necessity to have a god. The best part of this was what he said next:

"Why don't you park off so that we can buy each other a cup of coffee and talk further about god?"

This is a man who had just asked the guy in front of me for some loose change, offered to buy me coffee - not coz he was a good Christian, but because he was sneaky. I know that he was trying to use me. I know he actually meant, "Why don't you come buy me some coffee."

Sneaky beggar did make me smile though.

Be nice to somebody today

Whoo Saaah

Last week while on leave, I was driving around the streets of Johannesburg's northern suburbs, from mall to mall, with no real purpose - anything to relax. The intention of my leave was to wind down, take some time off to watch some movies, play some Wii and not much else.

Now, most people who've travelled to Jo'burg know how uptight and highly strung Gautengers can be (This is the part where the readers who know what I'm referring to would go "LOL"). Anyways, while stopped at an intersection there was an accident right in front of me. I wasn't involved, though I couldn't move forward. I had to change lanes and kinda circumnavigate. The traffic lights continued to change a few times and I missed what would be my normal opportunity to cross the intersection. This was very difficult. I had no space to reverse and had to edge my way into the next lane. Eventually I managed to get in and slip behind a guy already crossing through - but, at the same time, the guy from the other side also tried to make his way through and my enthusiasm blocked him from going all the way.

This is the guy this blog post is dedicated to. The gentleman in the Hyundai H1 who swore me, told me to stop being a f**king c**t, gave me the finger and then sped away.

Whoo Saaah my good man. Take some leave and chill out. Maybe go to a nice beach in Cape Town. Enjoy some Long Island Iced Teas on Long Street. Nothing happened to your car. I didn't see you giving way to the car in front of me. If I had seen that, I assure you, I would have allowed you to pass. I would have tried my utmost best not to make you be late by an extra thirty seconds - Whoo Saah

Liking Gadgets

I've always been a 'liker of gadgets' - and in fact, I consider myself somewhat of a 'thingie gay'. Recently at work, the temptation to buy gadgets and electronic devices has increased tenfold (amongst everyone in the office) in a 'keeping up with the Jones' ' type buying frenzy.

A few months ago it started something like this:

Guy one bought himself an ASUS EEEPC. He liked it  so much, that he bought another one with exactly the same specs. He then bought another ASUS but this time a larger one with more memory and larger screen.

Guy two likes the idea of a netbook and decides that he too will participate in the 'gadgetry acquisition' competition for that month. He gets himself an IBM S10, small, fast and slim and sexy.

Guy three then wins a Dell Mini 10 NetBook - which is not fair coz everyone else had to buy theirs. His one, is small, fast, slim, sexy and shiny.

Guy two then buy an iPad while in the USA and also wins an Amazon Kindle (not fair either). iPad, by virtue of it being an Apple product, trumps all previously purchased netbooks by all other guys in the office.

At this stage guy two is the winner and I'm not even a player at this stage of the 'competition'.  

I (Guy four) then change the game somewhat by getting myself a set of Bose Noise Canceling headphones? No one takes my entry into the game seriously, so I'm obviously the looser. To add insult to injury and to worsen my pain, I ordered a Kindle from Amazon and... to my surprise... they have no stock.

To date my gadgets comprise the following:

• 32" Sony Bravia (already obsolote - HD Ready...not even full HD)
• Philips Home Theatre System (HTS 8100)
• iPod (A necessary thingie gay gadget, in fact, I have two)
• Bose Noise Canceling Headphones (so far the best gadget I have)
• Krups ESpresseria XP 7240(Coffee/Espresso machine Combo)
• Nintendo Wii

I know my collection of  gadgets is not that great from someone who admits to being a lover of gadetry. My limit at the moment is due to money and not the fact that I have no creativity in choosing some thingie gay stuff.

I will soon update my 'still to get list'

Staying Cheap

Several months ago I was writing about what I thought were some interesting techniques to save some cash. It was supposed to be a series on saving money - but that didn't happen as well as I expected it to.

I have the unpublished posts in drafts - if anyone would like to review them before I publish, let me know.

For today however - I want to talk about second hand stores such as "Cash Converters" and "Cash Crusaders".

I walked into Cash Converters last week and was surprised to see the amount of interesting items they had which were in such good condition (which I would buy). They had all the geeky stuff I like - Celestron Telescopes, Onkyo amplifiers, sports watches, laptops, etc..

Where I could see a definite money saver was at the vast selection of DVD's which they stock. I have quite a significant amount of money "invested" in DVD's, but I think that I could have saved quite a bit of money buying most of my DVD's at Cash Converters. I think the most expensive second hand DVD which was on sale was 50 bucks for "Hitch" (www.kalahari.net stock it for about R100). It's not a huge saving and you most probably wont find the DVD which you want, but in the long run, it will save you some cash if you are collecting DVD's and do enjoy watching an original and not a bootleg copy.

:)

Fragrant Red Wine

I dont know much about wine. I know the basic fact that it's made of grapes, and apparently the older the wine is, the fancier! I don't often drink wine and when I do, it's seldom alone. I'm ignorant on the subject of wine. I don't know what a good blend is, I don't know what a sauvignon blanc is and how it differs to a cabernet.

Frankly, to me, a full bodied red wine tastes like the inside of the wooden cask it was kept in (thats probably the only taste I'm able to identify, after "grape juice". I have a suspicion that this however is a characteristic of the wine). If I am drinking wine, I prefer the cheap, sweet variety - I don't have any particular prefernce. By now, I'm sure it's evident that I'm not a regular wine drinker.

What I do like neverthless about the whole drinking experience, the single event which I enjoy the most, the simple thing which entices me - is the smell of the wine. I love to whirl the glass beneath my nose, while I inhale deeply and smell the rich, velvet sweetness of the grapes. I imagine the barrel that the wine had been kept in and the trees that grew closeby. I can taste the nuts and smell the oak.

A memory about a taste

Remembering the taste of strawberries

I'm sure that before this memory, I had tasted a strawberry, but no previous memory comes to mind when trying to remember the first experience of a strawberry.

At the age of five, my grandparents and I went to visit my grandfather's sister, brother in-law and her family in a small town called Vreiheid. They lived on a small holding, in a house made of red bricks. Kobus was their youngest son, closet to me in age, older was his sister Lizette, who wore thick coke bottle spectacles, and her older brother Freddy, he was cool with a blue BMX which had no brakes.

I liked Freddy the most. No one in the family noticed that my granny and I were brown or that we didn't speak the same language. It was ok, Freddy was able to translate it into that fla flum fla.

One day, behind the house, we were playing in the garden. Freddy and Kobus said that we could pick strawberries. I had never seen them in their original form and so, was very excited. We crawled in the rich red soil looking under the strawberry patch, looking for the red fruit. I found one and tasted it, and experienced a strawberry for the very first time.

Back in Action?

I'm not sure if I'm back in action or not. I've been suffering a sever case of bloggers block. I had some posts pre-created, yet I didn't ever post them, due to a slight anxiety.

My point for now however is this, I'm brave enough to expose myself once again and I hope that I continue to post every now and then.