Meet Jeeves

Massive Power Outage Hits South-Florida

Yesterday I felt close to my family and friends in electricity-shorted Cape Town when we experienced a massive power outage that left nearly 6 million people in South-Florida without power.
According to the Florida Department of Emergency Management power was out across the entire Miami-Dade County in less than 20 minutes after the initial failure. The outages then extended into neighboring Broward County and Palm Beach County.
A failed switch and a fire at a sub-station outside of Miami is believed to have caused the problem. The substation problem caused a sequence of events that within a few minutes knocked out numerous other power plants, including the Turkey Point nuclear power plant South of Miami.
Traffic was something to miss, since every traffic light on the 14 mile-stretch from my office to home was down, and for Miamians no red means no stop.
An additional tornado warning for neighboring Fort Lauderdale made yesterday a pretty interesting day.

About Lazy Sundays with Friends

CE Workshops

As part of the cultivation process and in our attempt to "connect" to the University's alumni, I've started hosting quarterly Continuing Educational workshops for our Doctoral and Masters-level alumni.

These seminars are high in demand, especially for licensed psychologists and mental health professionals, alumni and other, who need the credits to fullfill their annual licensure requirements. Thus, there is also a fundraising element in it for us, which makes my bosses smile, and when they're happy, I'm happy.

Friday I organized a daylong workshop with four seminars - Ethics, Neurofeedback, Domestic Violence and Sexual Violence and the Criminal Mind. The presenters were top notch! Attendance was fantastic, feedback was highly favorable and it seems to be an event we will do regularly in future.
PIC: (Top) Student workers manning the registration tables.

Biking the 'Glades

Mugabe's Zimbabwe

The situation in Zimbabwe seems to be getting even worse.

The statistics are staggering: According to the BBC the country's inflation is now 3,7000%, the highest in the world by a long shot. Basic commodities such as bread and milk are not readily available in shops. More than 3 million Zimbabweans have already fled across the border into South Africa.

Speaking of, its big brother neighbor, South Africa is persistent in its unwillingness to apply pressure on Robert Mugabe. Instead, the SA government is pursuing its "quiet diplomacy"-policy. Meanwhile, Zim's economic slide is basically complete, affecting the entire region. The country's next general elections will be held in 2010, around the same time as the Soccer World Cup in South Africa.

Ol' Bob lavishly celebrated his 84th birthday this past Saturday, while unemployment last month soared to 80%. He is preparing to launch his campaign for a sixth term in power...

Click below for the complete article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6441529.stm

To the Zoo!

Sarah's mom and her siblings visited us for an extended weekend and we had ample time to play tourguides for the kids.

The young one's and I share a love for animals so what better place to visit on a lazy Sunday afternoon than the Miami Zoo.

We saw some pretty weird and also some very familiar animals. I'm referring to all the African species on display, especially the meerkat and the hyena, who seemed to be laughing at me. A "headless" camel had us all stoked, until we figured out where his head went!

Many of the wild animals on display, however, don't belong in Miami's, hot, humid, tropical climate - own interpretation. They looked downright unhappy, hot and bored to death.

They looked so hot and thirsty that I immediately drank a Bud in their memory when I got home.

Another Bullish Rugby Season!

My Kuduclub account is active, the snacks are stacked up and a valuable compromise has been reached in the Bouwer household that I can watch at least one of the five Super 14 rugby games that'll be played weekly, come Friday.
The game tomorrow between the Brumbies and the Crusaders kicks off the start of another mouthwatering season of premier Southern hemisphere rugby. The best 14 regional teams from Australia, New Zeeland, and South Africa compete again and honor, pride, and patriotism is on the line. Ag, actually just an excuse to get together and zone, while the wifes go shop!

Last year's Champs (who stole it from the Sharks), the Bulls, are certainly not the clear favorites. My prediction: Semi-finalists will be the Crusaders, Sharks, Warathas maybe, and definitely one other team.
Some say maybe this is finally the Stormers' year. Die hoop beskaam nie...

PS - If you register at http://www.telecomvirtualrugby.co.nz/ you can guess the outcome of every game and play against your friends, every week. Do join, it's loads of fun - though you won't beat me!

Table Mountain From Afar

The sun setting over Cape Town.
February 14th, 2008.

Best Baby Picture

Baie geluk aan my ou vrinne Christiaan en Teresa de Villiers met die geboorte van hul eersteling laasweek. Van al die baie baba-fotos wat ek die afgelope 14 mnde ontvang het (en almal is veel oulik!), het hierdie een vir ons UITgeSTAAN.

Super Tuesday - The Race for the White House

The Real Race is on.
After months of campaigning and early primaries, TODAY primaries will be held in more than 20 states accross the country. This will decide the Republican and Democratic candidates for the General Elections to be held in November.

Here in the States the big issues defining the remaining candidates are Iraq, immigration, abortion, same-sex marriages, taxes and social security. With both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama positioning themselves as far left on the political spectrum as you can get, that leaves John McCain, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee as the conservative choices.

McCain is currently the Republican frontrunner in the polls, but appears to have very liberal views. He is advocating open borders, which implies that he does not condemn illegal immigration. Huckabee, the Christian conservative choice, is endorsing McCain, as he is to far behind in the polls, but rumor has it that he wants the Vice-Presidency. A deal seems to be on hand.
And then there is Romney, himself a solid candidate. In the deep South, however, he is struggling for Christian conservative votes due to him being a Mormon. California will probably decide his fate.

You can follow the live updates online at www.cnn.com/POLITICS/

The following website supplies indepth info on each candidate: http://www.president08.net/

Interestingly, the very early results show that Obama is getting most of the black votes, while Hillary is getting a far superior number of the female votes. If I interpret this correctly, that means that women are voting for Hillary because she's a woman and black voters are voting for Obama because he's black! This then irrespective of their political stance on issues. ?!