Tag Archives: people

Robby Kojetin: 17th South African to summit Mount Everest

• • 1 Comment

Robby Kojetin, talking about his Climb of Hope

What's the most challenging thing you've ever attempted? I'm half ashamed to say that the most daunting thing I've ever done (voluntarily, anyway) is probably going on a kloofing expedition down Suicide Gorge. I've never run a marathon, or done the Argus, or been on a hike that lasted for longer than a day, or climbed anything higher than Table Mountain.

So you can imagine that I felt mildly inadequate having a conversation with Robby Kojetin (pictured above). Because, like, HE'S CLIMBED EVEREST. Right to the top. Just three years after breaking both ankles and spending eight months in a wheelchair. And apparently he plans to do it again. (Everest, that is, not the wheelchair thing.)

I met Robby at a World Lymphoma Awareness Day event at the Mount Nelson last month, where he told us about his experiences and about what motivated him to do the climb. Robby lost a friend and mentor to lymphoma several years ago, and a number of other people close to him have been diagnosed with cancer through the years; so he undertook the Climb of Hope in order to raise funds for CHOC (Childhood Cancer Foundation), and to raise awareness around cancer, and lymphoma in particular.

Lymphoma is frequently misdiagnosed, because its symptoms are similar to those of illnesses like influenza and tuberculosis. The sad thing, of course, is that it's very treatable if diagnosed early. Take two minutes to read about the symptoms and treatment of Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma.

When Robby was telling us what it was like up on Everest, he said something that really stuck with me: "You're there. You can't hit 'Escape'. It's a lot easier to face something if you know there's a way to back out when the going gets tougher than you thought it would, but it's quite different when you have no chance of escape, and no option of stopping for a rest either. And that's exactly how it is for those living with cancer, isn't it?

Birthday party!

• • 1 Comment

Party girls

When I blogged about Altydgedacht Wine Estate after our recent wine tasting expedition, I had no idea that we'd soon be back for another birthday party. A friend of ours invited us, along with about 25 of her other friends, to celebrate her 30th birthday at the estate... and boy, were we impressed. The venue was beautifully prepared, the food was exquisite, the wine just great and the service impeccable.

We had an awesome time partying the night away between two rows of absolutely huge wine barrels, and the great thing about the venue was that because we were far away from any neighbours, we could play the music as loudly as we liked without having to be considerate.

Thanks for an awesome evening!

Filling stations in South Africa

• • 16 Comments

Filling up with petrol

I understand that in many places around the world motorists fill up their own vehicles with fuel. Lazy South Africa still enjoys the privilege of having a friendly attendant to fill up your car, wash your window, pump your tires, and top up your oil. Well, I say friendly, but I have to admit that they're not always friendly. Considering that the job isn't a stimulating or enjoyable one, I guess that's understandable.

If you visit South Africa from another country then you should bear three things in mind when filling up your hired vehicle:

  1. You'll have three types of fuel to choose from: Unleaded, Lead Replacement (LR), and Diesel. Normally hire cars use unleaded, but if you're not sure it's normally indicated somewhere near the filler cap. Mixing diesel and petrol is a bad idea. Seriously. :)
  2. In July this year a law was passed allowing motorists to purchase petrol using an ordinary credit card (previously we could only use garage cards, debit cards or cash). However, not all petrol stations have implemented this system yet, so you may very well still need cash to pay for your petrol. Often filling stations have ATM machines where you can draw cash with your debit or credit card.
  3. We usually tip the attendants. You don't have to, but if they are pleasant - and especially if they wash your windscreen - it's a nice thing to do.

I'm interested to know whether you tip filling station attendants, and if so, how much.  Please leave a comment, anonymous or not, and let us know.

Lung cancer, sharks and SCUBA divers

• • 3 Comments

Diving in a Shark Tank

The words cancer and shark evoke a common reaction in many people. Both induce a sense of fear. Lung cancer is one of the most difficult forms of the illness to treat, but, however dire the situation, it would seem as though it is treatable.

The two ladies in the photo, Leni White and Teresa Renier, are in fact lung cancer survivors! What makes them special is that even though most doctors would strongly caution against SCUBA diving after beating lung cancer - these two ladies still dive, with no apparent ill effects.

The two ladies, having beaten cancer, took on the other fearsome challenge in support of Lung Cancer Awareness Month, when they dropped themselves into a tank of sharks at Cape Town's Two Oceans Aquarium. Although they were understandably a little nervous, all went well and they left the tank heroes in their own right. Read more about their story here, in BizCommunity's medical news section.

Disclaimer: Kerry-Anne and I are not in the medical field and don't suggest that you should do anything without consulting your physician first. If you've survived lung cancer and would like to dive, please consult your physician and, as Leni and Teresa do, understand the risks.

The ghd Pretty in Pink girls

• • 2 Comments

Pretty in pink

In my previous post I explained how I ended up at the ghd Revelations Fashion Event. Now, let me take a moment to fill you in, just a little, on the experience.

After arriving at the venue, I stood waiting to be let inside, in a queue of about 100 people, most of whom were (understandably) women. I'm used to going out with Kerry-Anne, so being partnerless already made the evening a little strange. But once I got inside, things got progressively stranger as I wandered from room to room, each of which housed an individually styled photo set.

Some of the rooms had women dressed in Moulin Rouge-like costume, and others were like scenes from the 1950s. On each set the models and performers seemed to be acting out some kind of private play - permanently on repeat.

The two girls in the photo above were the cutest ever. They appeared to be part of some kind of Alice in Wonderland scene. They sat on a small bench in a little nook giggling and whispering into each other's ears. The set directly after theirs featured a birthday girl who got hopelessly drunk after nobody arrived at her birthday party. (She must have been a really mean person, because the spread on the table looked awesome!).

Unfortunately the scarcity of light made getting good photos a little challenging, but click here and take a moment to browse the few photos I did manage to take.

ghd Revelations Fashion Event

• • 3 Comments

ghd Revelations Fashion Event

First I posted 200 belly-dancing photos, and now I'm publishing a photo of a beautiful woman hanging upside-down in a brass ring. You'd swear I enjoyed this kind of photography. :P Seriously though, apart from the normal photos that you see on Cape Town Daily Photo, I find that I really enjoy taking photos of most live performances, whether they're musical performances or belly-dancing women.

The question you may ask in this instance is what ghd (as in the "good hair day" hair-styler) has to do with the woman hanging upside down in the photo, and why it's me and not Kerry-Anne typing this article. It's simple, we were both invited to the ghd Revelations Fashion Event, but at the last minute Kerry-Anne was unable to attend, so I traipsed through to Cape Town to attend the function on my own.

I'll post more photos, but for now, if you're interested in going along to similar functions, take a look at the ghd Style Diary website and sign up for diary updates.

School with a view

• • 6 Comments

Stellenberg High School

A couple of months ago I mentioned that I used to have a great view of the R300 fly-overs from my high-school classroom window. Well, here's another rather pretty view from my old school, Stellenberg High.

I can't say that I spent much time on the field in the picture, except for when some sort of non-sporting special event was being held there - I was not particularly strong in the hand-eye co-ordination department, so sport was not my thing. I do remember spending many a spring afternoon playing "social tennis" on the tennis courts from which this photo was taken, though. (I played "social netball" for a while as well, and even "social squash" - basically, that's what they called it when you weren't good enough to be on an actual team.)

To be honest, I think my friends and I got more exercise from laughing at one another's incompetence with the racquet than from actually hitting the ball. Good times. :)

Kristo Pienaar Environmental Education Centre

• • 1 Comment

Kristo Pienaar Environmental Education Centre

The building in the foreground is the Kristo Pienaar Environmental Education Centre, and at the bottom of the pathway you can see the main gate of the Tygerberg Nature Reserve.

Kristo Pienaar was a well-known (and popular) South African botanist, probably most famous for encouraging South African gardeners to make use of indigenous plants in their gardens. He was a multi-talented man, though - some of the best South African reference books on gardening were written by him, he was a university professor, he presented Veld Fokus on SABC's 50/50 (a TV programme that covered all sorts of ecology-related topics) for a few years, and he was even the mayor of Bellville at one stage!

He died in 1996, at the age of 73.

A perfect lookout point

• • 8 Comments

Table Mountain from Tygerberg Hill

Sunday, oh beautiful Sunday. At about 11h30 Kerry-Anne and I paid R10 each to take a walk up Tygerberg Hill. Although the top of Tygerberg Hill wasn't crowded by any means, I never realised just how many people walk up for Sunday afternoon picnics.

The spring weather was absolutely perfect. No wind, not too hot, clear skies. If you haven't taken a walk up this little bump rising above the Cape Flats, you really should. Pick a warm day with little wind, take some food along and spend an hour or two admiring the 360-degree views.

Take a look at this map; I've placed the cursor in the centre of the screen exactly where this lookout point is on Tygerberg Hill.

Belly-dancing teacher extraordinaire

• • 13 Comments

Tenille from Feminine Divine

There's a cynical statement that says that people become teachers because they're not able to actually do whatever it is that they teach in practice. Tenille (in this photo) is the founder of and teacher at the Feminine Divine Oriental Dance Studio where Kerry-Anne attends classes, and I'm confident in saying that she both teaches and practises what she teaches like a pro.

Kerry-Anne's progress from her own unique... erm... style, to the performance delivered on Saturday (in only a couple of months) simply has to be proof of this! In fact, all round, the performances delivered by the (approximately) 200 dancing divas was worthy of a standing ovation.

I mentioned in my previous two posts that I've been working on photos from Saturday's show. Finally, I'm done. If you'd like to see the 200 best shots of the day, visit the photo album here... and please, don't forget to comment on photos that you think are simply awesome. :)

Feminine Divine Annual Studio Show

• • 3 Comments

Cane Dance

The day of the long-awaited Feminine Divine Studio show eventually arrived. Kerry-Anne, and the rest of the dance studio, had spent months practising an assortment of belly-dance styles, and making costumes to match.

This is only the first sample of the photos to come (I'm busy working through the 500 photos I shot!); this genteel yet slightly cheeky cane dance was performed by the studio's teachers towards the end of the show. All in all, the show was spectacular, and I guess can be summed up in the words of Anais Nin (taken from the Feminine Divine website): "There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.".

It wasn’t always called Table Mountain

• • 2 Comments

Bushman's Chilli sauce

Before anyone else settled in the Cape, the Khoi and the San (perhaps known more widely as the Bushmen) inhabited the area. Eventually, in 1652, the Dutch East India Company sent Jan van Riebeeck to establish a supply station at the Cape - and I guess this is where the battle for land and rule officially began (at least between Europeans and Africans).

Here's an interesting piece of information that I'm surprised I'd never considered before: before Table Mountain was named as such by the Portuguese admiral António de Saldanha it was known by the native inhabitants as Hoeri ‘kwaggo - or Sea Mountain. Given its location, I guess this makes absolute sense; though I guess at the time António must have misinterpreted his hosts' hand-signs and gesturing.

"Oooohhh... I thought you said taaaayyyyble". :D

GeekDinner at The Pasta Factory

• • 1 Comment

GeekDinner at The Pasta Factory

This month's GeekDinner was held at The Pasta Factory, a restaurant in Park Road, Cape Town. We really enjoyed the venue - it was open, people could hear and see the speaker easily and it was easy to mingle with other geeks and wannabe geeks. :)

The talks ranged from Joe's talk on spectrum (as in wi-fi spectrum) and how we need to conserve and optimally use it, to the viciously entertaining slideshow karaoke by Elodie on how to charge batteries using other batteries. (In slideshow karaoke, the "victim" has to give a talk based on someone else's set of slides, which they've never seen before. The results are always rather amusing, as you can imagine.)

All in all we had a great evening - helped along by plenty of good wine (kindly sponsored by Delheim), as well as a few Jägermeister shots. ;)

Enjoying the sun

• • 9 Comments

Enjoy the sun

This is one of my favourite photos from Paul's Photowalk set. I love the facial expressions, the composition, the way these people were taking advantage of Saturday's summery weather to warm themselves up, the inclusion of the "Happy Birthday Madiba" poster to the left of the group, and the selection of photos on the wall just behind their heads.

If you're wondering about those photos on the wall (and I certainly was), Paul shot this scene just outside the offices of the Cape Argus, and presumably those are some of their recent or most popular press shots. I guess that makes this another example of meta-photography. :)

Meta-meta-photography at St George’s Mall

• • 6 Comments

Recursive photography
I must have some kind of fetish for taking photos of photographers. Not 'that' kind of fetish, understand? I caught a photo of Mr X (never got his name) taking a photo of two other photographers, Leon (walk leader) and Mr Y (never got his name either) in our Worldwide Photo Walk group. I guess one could call this meta-meta-photography!

What you see in the background is St George's Mall - an open-air shopping mall with several restaurants, and most importantly a Vida E Caffé, a well-known and well-loved coffee shop franchise.

Worldwide Photo Walk, Cape Town

• • 11 Comments

Nelson Mandela

As many of you will probably know, today is Nelson Mandela's ninety-first birthday. Co-incidentally, it's also the day on which groups of photographers took to the streets of their towns and cities armed with cameras, to take part in the second global Worldwide Photo Walk.

After our late night at Wakame, I momentarily regretted signing up for the walk, as it meant getting up in time to meet the rest of the group near the planetarium in Cape Town at 8am. But somehow I dragged myself out of bed, drove through to town, and met up with a group of about 20 photographers. We spent the next two to three hours walking the streets of Cape Town, spending quite some time in the well-known open-air St George's Mall. In retrospect I was glad that I didn't bail on the outing - the weather was fantastic, the other photographers were friendly and fun, and there were almost too many great opportunities for photos.

We'll be posting more of the photos from the walk over the next few days; but for now, let me close by wishing you, Madiba, a happy birthday and brilliant next year!

Two pennies for your thoughts

• • 2 Comments

Watching ships

I took this photo yesterday while sitting at Blouberg beach, which is on the east side of Table Bay. Table Mountain is to the left and the famous Robben Island to the right of this picture - both just out of frame.

The two subjects of this photo sat on the fence for a long while, seeming not to talk, just looking out to sea. It was interesting watching the couple because due to the fact that they weren't sitting right next to each other I found myself wondering if they were uncomfortable with each other (being on some kind of "first date") or perhaps they'd been arguing and now sat silent, or maybe they were simply friends enjoying the warm sun (even though the sea breeze was a little cool). I felt that in some way the ships anchored in the bay were a silent reflection of the couple.

On a different topic, tomorrow, 7 July, is Kerry-Anne's birthday! If you will, take a guess at how old she will be. She won't be offended if you guess wrong, promise. ;) If you want to help and have a moment, have a look at the "Drummer-girl Project" that I devised in order to get her the drum kit she's been hounding me for.

Cape Town’s winter weather

• • 2 Comments

Ice-cream at the beach

I just can't believe the weather that we're having this year. I'm sure it's usually cold with a fair share of rain in July!

We took a drive out to Blouberg beach today to take a few photos and have some ice-cream at the seaside. Clearly similar thoughts about ice-cream at the seaside went through many people's minds. It seemed as though wherever I looked there were people eating ice-cream!

The only sad thing about the weather we're having is that most tourists only visit the city in the summer months and so miss out on these clear and sunny winter days. What I hope for is that next year we have similarly good weather for the 2010 Football World Cup - it'll make our visitors' stay in Cape Town extraordinarily awesome!

Birthday at Kink Bar Boutique

• • 2 Comments

Kink Bar in Palm Street

We, together with a number of other friends, joined Catherine and Joe to celebrate their respective birthdays at Kink Bar Boutique - a popular hang-out that we'd never actually visited until the party.

Kink is a small bar, with a dark and red Moulin Rouge feel about it... and in fact, at one point I noticed scenes from the movie playing on the projector screen in the photo. We had a couple of drinks inside and then wondered out the front to chat with friends for an hour or two.

The people enjoying the vibe at Kink seemed unpretentious, friendly and easy to talk to. The girls were pretty, and I'm led to believe that the guys were generally not too bad looking either. :) Even the waitresses mingling through the crowd were friendly and seemed to appear at the right time, just as another drink was required.

Kink's a nice place to enjoy a couple of drinks with mates before heading off to one of the local dancing spots. I'm pretty sure we'll be visiting again sometime soon.

A tale of contrasts

• • 5 Comments

Girl in the water

Some of our suburbs have beautiful dams such as this one dotted around. To be fair, the beauty of this dam is a little out of the ordinary as it's located on the Bellville Golf Course! Generally the dams kept in shape by the municipality receive only the bare essential maintenance, and to be honest, they've been deteriorating over the past few years - presumably due to a lack of funds as well as the water shortages our province experienced a few years ago.

If you look carefully at the people in the photo you'll see that the little girl, dressed in red, fell down into the dam! She'd been playing at the water's edge, trying to get close to the ducks, when I guess she lost her balance and plopped over. Don't worry, she was fine - her dad picked her up and the family sat quietly in a little huddle comforting her for a few minutes.

The only crying that I could hear was that of some other annoying (very annoying) kid breaking the silence, screaming something at his grandparents that sounded like "No, I don't want to...!" I guessed that they wanted to leave and he wanted to stay at the dam.

The scene was one of such contrast - a peaceful dam and a quiet family versus a rowdy and rude kid. :-/

Friends and babies

• • Leave a reply

Hospital cot

In the early hours of Sunday morning, friends of ours welcomed their first baby - a girl, named Mieke - into the world. Mieke arrived in the middle of the night, a day or so before she was expected, making their gynaecologist rush from a peaceful sleep to the delivery room in only a couple of hours.

After doing a bit of research I found that there seems to be a trend in South Africa - a few more male babies than female are born here each year. It's interesting, because I thought that there were more girls than boys! The latest stats that I could find were for 2007, and what I found fascinating in the report was that our province, the Western Cape, is responsible for just over 10% of the births each year! Go Cape Town! :)

The Jacksons at fashiontv nightclub

• • 2 Comments

fashiontv
As I mentioned, Kerry-Anne and I were invited to a friend's birthday party at fashiontv on Saturday evening. The theme was to dress like something or someone related to the famous Jackson family. Soon after arriving, I looked around at the stylish patrons in the club and realised that perhaps I'd taken the theme an inch or so too far... but, I'll leave that up to your imagination (and those with access to my Facebook photo gallery). :D

Needless to say, Kerry-Anne complemented the other exceptionally beautiful and sophisticated people. The music was loud, but not loud enough to make my ears uncomfortable; and what was pretty awesome was that while the DJ played, a guy walked around the bar area playing a saxophone in harmony with the DJ's tracks. It really was pretty darn impressive and created an interesting blend of hip-hop and pop music crossed with a live sax performance.

All in all it was a pretty good experience - the club wasn't too crowded and the dance-floor opened fairly late, giving people a chance to socialise. The drinks weren't cheap (about R20 for a 330ml beer), but not unreasonably expensive either, and there were plenty of places to grab a seat if you got tired of standing.

I think we'll have to visit again some time (so let us know when you're looking for a party ;) )!

Eric Cloete, Cape Town’s very own accordion player

• • 2 Comments

Eric and his Accordion

We snuck away from the belly dancing for an hour or so to grab some lunch at one of our favourite spots, Pastis. When I heard the gentle strains of an accordion starting up as we were ordering our food, I almost jumped out of my seat in glee.

If you've read our About Us page, then you'll know that I was inspired to start Cape Town Daily Photo as a result of my many visits to Eric Tenin's Paris Daily Photo. And I started visiting Paris Daily Photo because we'd visited Paris itself in 2006, and had utterly fallen in love with the city.

Eric Cloete has been playing the accordion since the age of 10. He performs at all kinds of events around the Cape, but incredibly, it was the first time we'd seen or heard him. He stopped at our table for a few minutes, and, when we mentioned how much we loved Amelie, he played us a couple of pieces from the movie. It couldn't have been better - perfect weather, lovely food, me all dressed up in my pretty belly dancing clothes, and a surprise reminder of our second-favourite city in the world. Just one more Cape Town experience to file under "Special Moments". ;-)

Visit Eric's website to read more about him, and follow his blog to find out where he'll be playing next. Also keep an eye out for his CD, Accordion Music of the World.

A record performance at World Belly Dance Day

• • 7 Comments

Belly Dancer

In July last year Kerry-Anne's sister-in-law bought her a series of belly dancing lessons as a birthday gift. After putting it off for months she eventually attended her first lesson in January and now appears to be hooked - which isn't a bad thing, as I'm sure you'll understand.

9 May is World Belly Dance Day and to celebrate, Tenille from Feminine Divine (who happens to be Kerry-Anne's belly dance teacher) gathered local belly dancing studios for a little show - which turned out not to be so little after all! I was quite surprised to see just how many people are into belly dancing! Each school had a performance slot, girls from the St George's Home for Girls in Wynberg were given their first belly dancing lesson, we watched a fashion show (where the ladies showed off belly dancing accessories) and then, at the end of the day, all the belly dancers took part in setting the South African record for the most belly dancers performing the same dance at the same time in one place.

It certainly seemed as though everyone had fun setting the record, and yes, it was fun watching them from the stage too. What had me completely befuddled was how quickly they all learned the dance choreography! Damn, women are good at learning these kinds of things!

I took plenty of photos and published a dozen or three in our gallery section. They'll give you a pretty good idea of how many dancers attended the event - it was truly astounding.

David Newton and a well-meaning proctologist

• • 4 Comments

Comedian, David Newton

Kerry-Anne posted about David's show at On Broadway a few weeks back (while I was away on a business trip). I got a chance to see him performing last night and, as you might have guessed if you saw yesterday's post, I took my mom and dad along to the show as well. As it turns out, Kerry-Anne was right: David's comedy show was insanely funny (click the link to see more photos of the show).

We sat at a large table with a few strangers, and enjoyed a pretty good and reasonably priced meal. After dinner we kicked back to watch, amongst other things, David relate in great detail his experience when visiting a proctologist (which is what what you see happening in the photo above). Only a comedian can turn a topic so... erm... uncomfortable (in all senses of the word) into an evening of hilarity.

"This year I have taken on 'Colorectal Cancer' as my Corporate & Social Responsibility/ Investment Project because, let's be honest, it's a pain in the ass and no one seems to want to talk about it...so I'm gonna." - David Newton.

Good job David, best of luck with your upcoming trip to the USA, and thanks to Matrix Ads for inviting me!

Seems someone doesn’t like Hake…

• • 5 Comments

Kill Hake graffiti

A week or two back we posted a photo of a rather creative piece of street art in Green Point, bearing the name "Hake". One of our readers, Michelle, commented that she'd seen a number of his tags around the southern suburbs too, so presumably he's fairly prolific.

It seems he has an enemy, though (look at me, being all sexist and assuming that Hake is a boy... tsk tsk), if the writing in this photo is anything to go by. I spotted this as we were driving around Vredehoek, and made Paul screech to a halt so that he could get out and grab a photo. By a happy co-incidence the man in the background entered the frame just as Paul was busy composing his shot - I think he adds an extra bit of interest to the photo, don't you?

Tea at the Vineyard Hotel

• • 1 Comment

Musicians at a wedding

I promised to share with you another instalment in our fun-filled Saturday, when we celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary. For now I'm going to skip the breakfast and lunch parts of our day, and jump right to late afternoon tea.

11 years ago we were married at a huge manor house right next door to the estate of Klein Constantia, about 10 minutes' drive from the Vineyard Hotel in Newlands. On that day, when our afternoon wedding was over, Kerry-Anne and I headed off to the Vineyard Hotel to start our two-week honeymoon. So, I guess that it was a natural choice for me to include afternoon tea at the hotel to bring to a close our anniversary celebration.

As it happened, we arrived at the hotel just in time to witness another wedding taking place, 11 years after our own. So we sat and enjoyed our cake and tea while watching the bride and groom mingle on the lawn with their friends and family. This small group of classical musicians wandered among the guests, keeping the atmosphere calm and serene. It really was a beautiful wedding. :)

GeekCricket

• • 6 Comments

GeekCricket action

Regular readers will know that I've been to quite a lot of cricket lately. This particular game was a little different, though. This wasn't a test match, or an ODI, or even a Pro20 game.

No, this was GeekCricket - a glorious opportunity for those of us not playing to spend a whole morning laughing at our friends. Actually, these guys did surprisingly well for a bunch of amateurs, and I got the feeling that this might just become a more regular event. I hope so, anyway.

I got bullied gently coaxed into keeping score for part of the match, with a real scoring book and all. *excitement* Given that this is GEEKCricket, though, I sincerely hope someone will write a little piece of software to make scoring simpler next time around. ;-)

You can read a few updates on the game here, and see a whole lot of photos here.

Stretch!

• • Leave a reply

Stretching

Don't you find that you spend far too much time behind your computer screen? Ah, perhaps not you, but I certainly do. Many years ago (as mentioned yesterday) I was painting the town red on my skateboard, with the result that I had pretty okay leg muscles. I've found that over the subsequent years, with plenty of time spent sitting at my computer, these have atrophied and shortened to a point where I now regularly suffer knee and lower-back pain.

I stand in awe of guys like AB De Villers (the cricketer in the photo) - how does a man possibly flex like that? Well, I guess that the answer to my problem is to get off my butt and exercise those muscles. So, although I know that it's not enough, I've begun stretching and strengthening my leg muscles in the mornings as part of my start-of-day routine, and I've also decided to walk up the five flights of stairs to my office instead of taking the elevator.

The challenge now is to keep on doing this. :-/

This coming weekend is jam-packed with things to do. On Saturday we celebrate our wedding anniversary, and Cape Town hosts the Two Oceans Marathon. Sunday we'll be covering what will hopefully be an entertainingly inept group of "cricketers" at our first GeekCricket event, and then on Monday we'll be joining thousands of people at the Coke Zero Fest, which is essentially 10 hours of live music.

Kite surfer on Blouberg beach

• • 7 Comments

Kite surfer

Kite surfing is one of those sports that looks so awesome and appears to be so much fun, but can in fact be deceptively dangerous - especially for the foolishly brave noobies who think that it's okay to go out on their own. It really isn't okay for the inexperienced to kite-surf on their own, even if the wind is calm.

The Cape Town wind has a nasty way of arriving suddenly and changing unpredictably. A friend of mine was once lifted several metres into the air, and then thumped down on the sand, severely injuring his back. It took months for the feeling in his lower back to return... and he was lucky. More than once have I heard of kite surfers being dragged around on the beach, slammed into barricades and even dragged across roads. A little while ago I heard a report of a kite surfer flying across the beach, then flying across the road, and finally being slammed against a building.

If you do plan on taking up kite surfing, make sure that you take proper lessons and get in a good few hours of surfing before going out alone. Also, take a look at the safety tips on this kite-surfing school's site. And, just before you're ready to go out and buy your first kite, do take a look at this video. (Warning: The video contains no blood, or visible damage to any person, but could be classed as horrific in nature.)