Miss Teen USA 2007 - South Carolina

Miss Teen South Carolina, Caitlin Upton, was asked a Geography question as one of the five finalists in the national competition over the past weekend. She butchered the question and by Tuesday, have become an overnight sensation on Youtube, where the video clip has recorded nearly 3.5 million viewers. That's apart from the Miss Teen jokes and imitators that is now appearing!
At least South Africa features in her answer.

Kayaking the Intercoastal

Sunday saw us kayaking across the Intercoastal around the North-Miami area in the Oleta State Park.
Friends Curtis and Robin joined us as we ventured across speedboat infested waters to a clutter of small uninhabited islands. Here we saw all sorts of marine life, including a huge stingray, which was simply fantastic.

Footnote: two-seater kayaks are certain marriage and character builders!

Friday Night Live

After a particularly long and hard class session, some of my compa- neros /class- mates and me usually head off for a bite and a beer.
I had a particularly difficult presentation on Friday night (Financial Management), which turned out well for me.

In the pic is some of my MBA-classmates.

Die Hantam, Suid-Afrika, 2007

Salome Zeeman het vir my die volgende pragfotos gestuur van die Hantam-area.

These pictures were taken recently during the flower season in the Hantam-area in the Northern/Western Cape Province, South Africa.

Dis darem maar vrekmooi.

Goofing off in Homosassa!

West Coast Weekend Excursion

Thankfully there's much more to Florida than just Miami.

The past weekend we headed to Central Florida's West Coast with good friends Art and Adele. Our goal - to explore the area and to catch a glimpse of Florida's strangest creature, the elusive manatee (or sea cow) - we found this animal to be slightly ridiculous and I cannot imagine how it managed NOT to become extinct during the past 100 years (Pic below)!

But it wasn't all about the manatees -

we found it within ourselves to visit some of Florida's 600 springs, photograph ancient Indian burial mounds, eat local cuisine, and explore the Central West Coast.

We found some breathtaking scenery, drove through ancient forests with giant old oaks, slept in a town called Homosassa - which is right next to the blooming town of Weeki Wachi (population = 900), experienced the serene sunsets of the West Coast - and we saw our manatee(s)!

Unbeknown to us, along the dreamy riversides scallop season has dawned on this part of Florida and every hotel, motel, RV, camping spot and boat was booked. "A whole beanload of good that did us!", as one local lady told me.

Scallop season is preceded by tarpin season - Homosassa is after all known as the Tarpin Capital of the world. Completing the rest of the year - preceding tarpin season - is manatee season! Although you cannot hunt these gentle creatures - there is only 3000 left alive.

The gentle manatee is the slowest, dumbest animal I've seen. Sarah was convinced that God had some leftover clay and this was what He made after all the other animals were already made. They are closely related to elephants, and each female only has one cub once every three years.

Which sucks for them, because it is estimated that by 2020 there will only be 200 left, the rest being killed by boat propellers, poachers, decease and getting lost at sea!

The whole area is beautiful and rich in ancient Indian history, the remnants of their villages still visible today. (Pic above: Climbing an Indian burial mount at Crystal Spring State Park.)

We swam and snorkeled in some fantastic springs with opaque, see-through water.

We had a grand old time.

South African Gold

Onlangs het ek 'n besending bederfbaarhede vanuit Afrika ontvang. Die oomblik was so groot dat ek myself daagliks in 'n dilemma bevind of ek die items moet eet of moet fotograveer.

Sekerlik 'n kwessie van: "You know you've been out of South Africa too long when..."
In elk geval, Huis Bouwer ervaar tans 'n mini-krisis, met 'n kommerwekkende verlaging in die Pronutro-reserwes. Slegs 'n halwe Piesang-houer is oor en drastiese stappe sal binnekort geneem moet word. Ons enigste invoer-winkeltjie, 50 myl weg, het nie hierdie mnd die nodige nie.
NS - Weg is koning!

In Memoriam

Hanno, ons gaan jou baie mis, nefie.

8 Augustus, 2007

Eendrag Burning

'n Hartseer gesig - Eendrag in ligte-laaie.

This is the Eendrag (meaning Unity) fraternity - our former dormitory building at the University of Stellenbosch, in the old University town of Stellenbosch - going up in flames.

Indeed a very sad sight. There's lots of memories in that building, life-long friendships has been made there, many traditions.

Sorry Draggies, ek voel vir julle.
Aan die blink kant, miskien sal die Eagle's Pub nou uiteindelik in al sy glorie uitgebou word!
En ek wonder of 'n Eendrag-Restaurasie Fonds al in wording is.

Waiting for Sarah

Sarah will be arriving back in Miami tomorrow evening and I can hardly wait. It's been a week now and I guess I'm not used to living alone anymore!

Was feeling slightly melancholic and took these pics of the lake behind our apartment. I jog around this lake - the smaller of two - or am supposed to. Have been slack lately.

Sometimes one gets lazy and then I wish that I could get the exercise portion of my life behind me. "Alright, that was your 500th push-up. No for the incessant eating section of your life!" Hehehe...

Sunsets are so beautiful here and I always futily try to capture these images in my memory.

Bottom pic: Facing straight West, where all fresh water in Southern-Florida starts in the Everglades, about 5 miles away.

Making Faces on Facebook

All right, call me old-fashioned, call me slightly behind the times - I am 33, after all.
But I've only recently joined the hottest not-so-new-anymore Internet website - Facebook.com, an online social networking tool allowing personal picture download and importations from Blogger-sites like Xanga and Blogspot.
It's been growing like wildfire over the past three years and no sign of stopping - Facebook's next goal is to become a general portal like Yahoo.

It has over 30 million registered users worldwide, the 7th most visited site in the US, with the average user spending about 19 minutes/day on the site. It has been a shamefully addictive experience for me - I've found old school buddies and mates from the past, people I've not seen for 7-10 years. It's fantastic.
Within the first week, I've found more than 30 old friends.

Some interesting facts on Facebook:
- It started as a Harvard initiative, gradually being expanded to all Ivy League schools and then to the US University community.
- Within their first 10 months in existence, more than a million users joined.
- More than 8.5 million photos are downloaded daily, making it the number one ranked Photo-site, ahead of Flickr.
- 14 months old and founder, Mark Zuckerburg raised $12.7 million in venture capital.
- Both Yahoo and Google have made offers of more than $2 billion for the site's acquisition.
- There are legal actions pending against Facebook and data mining has been expresses as a concern. Police are monitoring the site for information regarding planned criminal acts posted by users.

Bonds Hits 755th Homer

Barry Bonds, the San Francisco slugger, yesterday hit his 755th homerun to tie Hank Aaron for the all-time record of homeruns in a career.

The 43-year old's achievement was wildly cheered by some spectators and jeered by others in the Giants' stadium in San Diego. Bonds have had several steroid allegations made by against him the last few years, but you've got to give the man credit for the magnitude of the achievement.

Here in Miami, no one dare acuse him of making use of enhancements. This is plastic surgery capital!

Home Alone

Vroulief kuier hierdie week by die skoonouers in die Noorde, wyl ek die fort hou.
Ons hou nog uit hier. Saterdag was ons met sonsondergang strand toe, net om die sand bestrooi met rommel te sien. Miami se 80% immigrasie-populasie - as jy iets verniet kry, gaan jy nie omgee om mooi daarna te kyk nie. Dis derde-werelds. Ek verstaan heeltemal as Sarah as Amerikaner soms effe bitter voel.
My kampus word ook derde-werelds bestuur en die modus operandi hou nie meer tred met die al sterker-wordende kompetisie nie. Ons gly en ek ervaar groot teenstand teen enige van my nuwe besigheids-idees of projekte. My frustrasievlakke is hoog en min word bereik. Ek wil my dokumente in orde kry om nuwe werk te soek.