Category: General

Cool… one last blog before I get married… Being the “uber-geek” that I am, and having everyone at work asking “how many hours left?” (ok, ok… I admit… it was just one person that asked) I thought I’d get my PC to work out how many hours were left.

So I set up an excel spreadsheet to do it for me… but then I thought… hrm, maybe I’d want to check this when I am not at my PC… so I thought I’d setup a web page… but what good is a web page if you’re not at a PC?  So I ended up making a mobile web page… so I can check the countdown from my cellphone(A Sony Ericsson T300).

So, if you go to http://www.digitaltinder.com/WC.aspx, you’ll see my Wedding Countdown… When it gets to 0, the service should have started, when its at -1, I should be officially married.  At around -4.5 to 5 hours, I should be making my speech, so if you want to pray for me, that’s when I’ll need it. 🙂

Bye. I’ll write again after the honeymoon. (I’m back at work on the 22nd of March, so that’s possibly when I’ll write my next blog)

Last night was the wedding rehearsal, and dinner.  The bed I’d ordered was meant to arrive some time today (after 3pm), but I got a call at about 3pm yesterday to find out if they could deliver it yesterday.   Eventually they dropped it off at 5pm – I had to leave work early to meet them.  (After agreeing to drop off the bed at 5pm, they rocked up at 4:30pm wondering where I was… so I told them to come back at 5, which they did)  As I arrived at my complex, I got a call from my mom asking directions to the church, and from christie to ask if I could give her a lift to the church.

I hate it when you have 2 phone calls, and a bunch of people waiting for you… especially when you have pretty crappy reception and the calls are important.  Anyway, my mom got her directions, Christie got a lift, and the bed people not only delivered the bed, but they also helped me move my current bed to its new room in the house. (in the loft)

The practice went well… oddly enough, the people who had to drive the furthest (my dad and colleen) were the first to arrive.

Malcolm (the guy doing the service) is great. We’ve not been the best at communicating what we want to him, but he seems very relaxed about it.  He asked a whole bunch of questions that we hadn’t thought of regarding how the service would run, and I learned a lot about what we’re doing when, and how.

The supper was great… the Coffee Shop ladies cooked an excellent stir fry, and we all enjoyed chatting and eating. 🙂

Afterwards, Mark (my brother) decided to stay the night with me which was great coz we sat and chatted for an age, and we both worked on our speeches for the reception.  Mine’s kinda finished except for a list of people to thank, a few last touches, and I want to get it checked for “appropriateness of humour”. (some people might not get some of the jokes)

Ok… so I’m hopefully excused for not blogging since last week Friday (6 days ago!) because I now have 2 more sleeps till I’m married. 🙂

On Friday evening, Christie and I went to see PayCheck (so did Charlie) and even though we were at the same cinema complex, Christie and I did our own thing… (possibly kinda rude, but we needed some time for the two of us, so I hope you weren’t offended Charlie)

Anyway, PayCheck(IMDB) (with Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman, directed by John Woo, and based on a Philip K. Dick short story) was really good… I liked having to “guess” with the actor as to what was going on and watch how he slowly realised what had happened, and how to use the items he’d sent himself.  If you liked Minority Report, you’ll (probably) like this movie.

Saturday was taken up with home cell leaders training in the morning, some shopping in the afternoon and then me resting at home till about 7pm when Christie and I went to get a video, which we watched at my place.

Sunday was cool, the Choir were excellent – easy to lead, keen to sing, etc.  Sean came by for lunch, and then Sean, Christie and I went to her folks place to start preparing the “favours” for the wedding.  “Fortunately” we found out that we had run out of ribbon, so we didn’t do much.

Monday was the usual work day. (except that I arrived about 1hr earlier than I usually do, which is what I’ve been trying to do for an age) In the evening I had supper with the Seymours, and while Christie was getting a pedicure(sp?) I was cutting ribbon for the > 100 favours we had to make.  After Christie’s pedicure, Elaine started cutting the material and we all sat makng them.  We finished at around 11:30pm, at which point I had to go home and prepare what I was going to be talking on at home cell. (fortunately I’d written it out, but it was over 8 A5 pages worth of notes that needed to be reduced and made more easily digestable)  I eventually got to bed just before 2am.

Tuesday was ok… I started getting the guy that owes me money listed on the ITC, so that they can start chasing him for the cash instead of me.  (I deposited the money into their account, it only reflected on their website today, so some time today I’ll list him with their collections people)  Home cell was good (but I was VERY tired).

I’ve been drinking lots of coffee to keep me awake this week, so I’ll have to start weaning myself off it next week. 🙁

Yesterday (Wednesday) was interesting.  At work we started talking about changes to the middle tier and to the Object Query Language that I’d written to get data from our database.  Basically, I’ll end up writing a parser which links into our metadata to determine what expressions can be used.  So if at a later stage some 3rd party developer wants to add his own function that can be used in the Query Language, he can.  So the parser effectively is getting a “plugin” framework added to it so that we can deal with any new things we might have in the future, as well as a total change as to how it builds its object tree, the ability to declare and use variables in the queries, and a whole lot more.  Its like we’re “upgrading” the language from a simple data query language to include some of the functionality of a normal programming language (and then some).  This will be quite cool to work on. 

The “plug-in” concept for our language, is pretty much the same as if like Microsoft was to allow any developer to modify the C# compiler to include a new bit of syntax in the language definition, while maintaining usability/readability of the code – and I’ve never seen that done in any other languages. (lets hope I can make it work :))

In the evening, Christie and I took some more of her stuff to our place and unpacked it… which leads us to today.  Tonight (Thursday) is the wedding rehearsal, tomorrow night(Friday) I’m having my bachelor’s party, and Saturday is the wedding.

[I couldn’t find a word for “the future” that began with a C.]

Choir
Yesterday was my first time leading the choir at church.  There are 2 choirs, and choir 1 is so much better at arriving for practices than choir 2.  Fortunately I was leading choir 1, so we had 15 people there.  As a choir, they have some really good Tenors and Altos which is great because it took some pressure off me having to tell them precisely what to sing.

I was VERY impressed with them, even though I wasn’t the most confident leader, they followed me well (even through the songs that we’d never heard before).  It was a bonus that Jo-Jo was singing backing vocals coz she came over to help out with the Alto parts a two or three times. (I think at least 2 of the 3 times, she found that they were singing the right parts)

Computing and the Future
At home, I sat upstairs having supper, unpacking my books, and watching TV.  They had an interesting show about the future… and one line that stood out for me, which went something like this:
People always complain about how busy and hectic life is now, and how in the future with technology life will be less full of demands.  But they’ve got it the wrong way round.  Technology is what causes us to have so many decisions and options open to us that we’re always having to make decisions.  Technology is there to give us opportunities, not more time.

Quite an interesting look at it. I’ll post more on this later… I must get back to work – we’re closing the offices at 3pm coz they’re being fumigated – and I’d like to be done before they start. 🙂

Last week I’d had enough of not being paid by Sean (for those who know my friends, I’m not talking about Sean Baumann, but rather another Sean from a company that begins with S)

If you want some background, here it is: Sean who I’d done work for last year, still has not paid an invoice I sent him in November. (4 months ago!) He keeps coming up with the lamest of excuses.  I’ve probably called him a few hundred times over this period, and he’s probably called me about 10 times.

He seems to be unable to ever call back.  Even when he promises for the 5th time that he’ll call, somehow it never happens. Anway, at the start of January I got hold of him and he said he’d pay me at the end of the 1st week, then suddenly I could not longer get hold of him. 

Eventually I found out that he’d been having difficulty paying his salary bills on time too.  So when I finally got hold of him he claimed that his PC had died and he’d lost my invoice.  So he didn’t know how to pay me, or what to pay me.  So I sent him an e-mail again (and faxed it to him so he couldn’t claim he didn’t get the e-mail, and confirmed with his receptionist that the fax had gone through)

After many more calls he eventually claimed to have paid me at the start of February.  But the money never arrived in my account.  He stopped responding to my calls (for about the 4th time he just disappeared for a week or so)  Finally I could contact him and he said he’d e-mail me proof of payment.

I checked that I’d given him the correct details, and he claimed he’d put it in the account I gave him.  but his “proof of payment” just never arrived, there were “continual” e-mail problems, or he was out of the office and couldn’t e-mail them to me, or he’d just ingnore my calls.  Finally last Thursday I semi-lost it with him on the phone (actually I was very civil, but I was very abrupt and direct which is not my usual style), and he said he’d immediately e-mail me the proof again.

About an hour after he said he’d e-mail me, I still hadn’t recieved his mail, so I mailed him to check that he had the right e-mail address.  He mailed back to say he hadn’t mailed it yet, but he’d do so immediately. So 2 hours later when I’d not recieved it, I wrote him a fairly blunt e-mail saying that since he’s not producing any proof of payment, and has come up with no valid reasons for him not to pay me I would be seeking legal recourse (based on advice I’d recieved), so it was up to him to respond with proof of payment by the friday or I’d begin following the advice. For some odd reason my e-mail to him from my personal address bounced saying that it couldn’t find the mail server.  This had happened before, and if I read the headers of the e-mail I could see that actually the mail had got to his general mail server, and was being passed on to one of their internal servers when it suddenly “couldn’t find the mail server”. (very odd)  So I sent him the mail from my work address, and it went through immediately. This happened once before when Sean was expecting me to be e-mailing him documents demanding payment.  So I’m guessing he just chose to “reject” mail from my private address (not realising that I actually have more than one address from which to send him mail) After that I found out that the credit bureau/ITC would blacklist his company and take over the collection of the funds for only R20 and about 10% of the invoice amount.  Which would be a great relief.

Anyway, on Friday he promised to call back but didn’t.  (as usual)

On monday I called him and told him I’d be at his office to collect the print out, so eventually I met him there.  Suddenly he’d realised that he’d actually paid someone also called Paul (another freelance developer they’d used before, who I’d dealt with last year) and now Paul was going to put the cash back in his account and he’d have the check for me on Tuesday.  Tuesday passed, wednesday passed, and thursday passed.  Each day, I called him.  Sometimes he ignored my calls, sometimes he ignored the messages I’d left on his cellphone and with his receptionist, and once or twice he answered my calls, promised to call back and didn’t.  Its now Friday. I’ve spoken to him today and aparently the cheque should be ready today (aparently the other Paul hadn’t put the money into Sean’s account yet).  He was going to check that it had been deposited and call me back. That was over 2 hours ago!

I think I’m going to call him just now, and tell him about the nice people at our credit bureau.

[Update: Someone commented today that I should not have mentioned the other Paul’s full name in the entry because it could be misinterpreted as if he was in the wrong and didn’t pay Sean back.  So I decided to remove his name and add the following:  After further dealings with Sean and a very frustrated e-mail by the other Paul, I can only assume that Sean was lying to me when he claimed that he had mistakenly paid “my” money into the other Paul’s account.  Where I said “aparently the other Paul hadn’t put the money into Sean’s account yet”, I simply meant that from what Sean had told me this was the case… I did not mean to imply that the other Paul had not in fact done so.  All dealings I’d had with Paul had been most positive, and to be honest I found it rather strange that Sean claimed he had not paid the money back into his account.  I guess my frustration at Sean may spilled over into Paul’s life, and I certainly hope he was not caused any hassles.]

[Update 2: After being threatened with legal action by the other Paul for mentioning his full name in the blog entry, I’ve removed the comment by his “friend” (not sure about that fact, but I’m guessing that the “friend“ found the blog and passed it on to him) anyway, I decided that I should probably remove the name of the other Sean and the name of the other Sean’s company. I’m still of 1/2 a mind to actually visit the other Sean at his offices and confront him about the lack of payment… But since he claims never to have approved the costs, and I have no e-mails or faxes to support my claims.  Well, I do have e-mails regarding the sites while I was working on them, and copies of the sites and their databases on my PC, and a friend who works (worked?) there who can vouch for me that I was doing the work for Sean … but none of that is the same as a piece of paper with his signature on it, so I aparently don’t stand much chance in court of proving that I did the work.]

Hrm… looks like I got a bit busy this week.

Monday
Had supper with Christie at home, sorted out some odds and ends in the house, and after dropping her at her home I setup my PC, Hifi, etc (connected the tv, and playstation to the hi-fi)

Tuesday
Like most days it was busy. I’d organised dinner with an old school friend, Matthew, who I’ve known since Std 1 (Grade 3 for those who are either not from South Africa, or were at school after the grade system was introduced in South Africa) Anyway, I just managed to fetch Christie, get food and get home about 5 minutes before Matthew arrived.

We used a “Grilldue” (like a fondue but you grill stuff) thing that my mom and hendrik gave us.  Its aparently VERY popular there, but I’ve never seen one before.  Its name is not a “Grilldue”, but I can’t think of its actual name.  Anyway, it was quite cool… We learned that thin pieces of meat are much nicer to grill on it… perhaps I’ll cut up some minute steaks next time instead of big chunky pieces which take forever to grill.

It was good to chat to Matthew, and I’m glad that we now have every 2nd Tuesday free for this purpose.  As soon as you start to become “vaguely” involved in the church, your week gets filled REALLY quickly. (especially if you’re musically oriented).  My week usually looks like this:

• Monday – Home cell music practice
• Tuesday – Home cell
• Wednesday – Prayer (and bible college)
• Thursday – Church worship practice 2-3 times a month
• Friday – Free, but usually spent connecting socially with people from home cell
• Saturday – Morning more often than not taken up with something church oriented, and evening either with other home cell people or spending time with Christie
• Sunday – Worship practice, Church, Lunch, Household admin, Worship practice, Church, Supper

Anyway, this makes it difficult to see people who aren’t involved in the church.  So I’m really glad that the elders have chosen to set aside a day where we have NO activities on so that we can socialise with people we know outside of the church.

Wednesday
Yet another busy day, after tuesday evening’s supper I sorted out tuning in my VCR, did some washing(?) or some unpacking, but got to bed late.  So it was a very tiring day at work… but productive.  I missed 1/2 the prayer meeting coz I was busy at work.  Christie and I skipped bible school so we could both get early nights.  We also sorted out the order of service for the ceremony with Malcolm Black (who will be doing the marriage ceremony for us)  We then went out to supper coz the coffee shop at church had closed.

After I’d gotten home I got a call from Simon Murphy to say that he and Tarryn would be Christie and my “leaders in touch” for our home cell.  (Basically they’re the people we go to if we have any problems, questions or difficult situations in the home cell that we’re not sure how to handle, and they’re also there to check up that we’re not teaching odd doctrines, leading irresponsibly, etc)  I think its gonna be awesome getting to know them and getting input from such a dynamic couple.

Hey, just after I bought my Dancing Stage Euromix and dance pad (See my “Dancing Barefoot” entry), I see this blog on the X-Box version, titled “Its a revolution…”. 

I want an X-Box! I want an X-Box! I want an X-Box!

Moving
Sean Baumann deserves some “respect”.  Without him Matthew (and his cousin Roland), and I would not have moved 1/2 the stuff we did on Saturday.  Matt and I started with a small load of Roland’s to their Matt, Bryan and Roland’s place in Sunninghill, while Sean packed most of my stuff from his place into his car… Then we went off to my storage spot and collected a whole bunch of big items, boxes, and miscellaneous stuff and unpacked at my place. 

William joined us and he, Matt and I went to get a bed from Bryan, a desk from my cousin, and my bed.  Then was the big task, we fetched most of the furniture from Matt and Roland’s place.  (If Sean hadn’t supervised the packing we’d literally have taken about 1/4 of what we ended up taking)

My new home

I’d not seen what is now Christie and my new home (well, mine for the next 2 weeks, she moves in after we’re married on the 13th of March) so when I saw it, I was pleasantly suprised.  Its a SummerCon complex called “Chobe Sands”.  I’ve lived in one of their “African Lodge” style complexes 6 months ago, which was built about a year before Chobe, so I pretty much knew what to expect.  But I didn’t know where the unit was located, how the rest of the development was run, or any improvements that they may have made to Chobe that were not present in Savannah Sands.

Its a single bed unit with loft, and the lady who owns the unit extended the loft to cover 95% of the “upstairs space”, normally they only cover about 50%, and the rest is left open so you have a double volume area downstairs.  The unit looks over a nice garden just over the complex wall, and on the other side it looks over one of the 3(?) entertainment areas in the complex.  Its one of the “small entertainment areas”, but its pool is almost the same size as the “big pool” at Savannah sands, it has a large grass/garden area, much better braai facilities and a pool table. 🙂

The unit has a much better bathroom, and the thatch roof is done so that you have much more space upstairs and on the upstairs balcony than you have at Savannah Sands.  On Saturday evening we went to the club house, and WOW!  The place is awesome, it has 4 pool tables, a huge pool, a dart board, on of those soccer game things, an awesome looking bar, NICE couches to sit and chill in, a DVD library where you can rent DVD’s, a HUGE menu, and I have yet to see the sunset from the huge entertainment area upstairs. (and a bonus is that they’ll deliver to your unit in the complex)

I also noticed that they have an ethernet plug point in the unit, so I’m guessing they’ve got the complex connected to the net – I must find out what that costs per month, it could be awesome. 🙂

Besides being the title of a book by Will Wheaton, its what I’ve been doing every now and again this week.  All this was possible because of the ultra-cool playstation game by Konami called “Dancing Stage Euromix“, its the PSX version of the arcade game that you often see kids “dancing” on at gaming arcades.

Its actually a whole lot of fun, and teaches you from the basic steps to relatively “advanced” steps.  If you have a sense of humour, and especially if you have friends with senses of humour, you can have lots of fun with this.  I think the best that I’ve done is a medium to slow paced dance with a “4 foot” difficulty rating.

The only negatives about the PSX version are the graphics, and the amount of songs… On the PS2 version you get double the songs, and naturally (coz its a newer console)  you get better graphics.  So if anyone feels the urge to buy me a PS2, feel free.  Or if you’re feeling especially generous and want to go all the way, and X-Box would be greatly appreciated. 🙂

I recently saw an X-Box version of the dancing game which looks really cool, and of course I just love the X-Box – once you’ve seen the graphics on that baby, you won’t want to play a PSX game ever again.

Ok, so its 16 days to go before I get married… and boy is there a lot happening.

Generally I only have weekends to do stuff on, and I have a lot to do.  Like moving house (this weekend), booking a tux/suite to rent for the wedding, buying a bed (as wonderful as mine is, it will be a little crowded after the 13th of March :)), sorting out our marriage contract, as well as all the little things I’ll need to do to stock up and prepare the townhouse.

Unfortunately, every weekend from here till the 13th is full.  This weekend is the move, next Saturday morning we’ll be at Cell Leaders training (until after shops are closed), and then its the wedding.  Next week is kinda ok, I’m only busy on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night.  The following week I’m busy from Monday evening through to Friday evening.

So I guess I’m gonna have to take time off work to get some of the things done. Fortunately the nice lawyer person we’re using for the marriage contract is prepared to see us after hours(for a small fee).

Moving is going to be interesting, there are 4 people in my homecell who are moving on that weekend.  Linda’s basically already moved everything there, Mitch has arranged someone to transport his stuff, and Matt and I are going to help eachother (with the help of some friends, we hope)…  So if you’re doing nothing on Saturday and you feel like lending a hand with carrying stuff, just let me know.  We’re planning to have a braai/supper afterwards with all the helpers.

On Sunday we’re having our final pre-marriage counselling session… its a really bad date for it coz I will probably still be moving stuff from my old home to my new one.  But I can’t wait to move!  Not that staying with Sean and Francois has been bad, but it will be great to be living near where all our social stuff happens, and closer to Christie. 

I think the two weeks of living by myself will be good for me. (Not that I’ll have much time by myself, mind you, I’ll be at work during the days, and busy almost every evening.  But its the thought that counts. 🙂