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| Phone line! |
| 10 March 2010 at 12:38, by Matt Salmon |
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| Jeez, we finally have a phone again. What a disaster. After a huge storm took out our line on the 10th of last month, Eskom and Telkom decided to lay new cables outside our house. So, on the 12th of last month, without notice, Fee arrived home to find she couldn't get into our house because they'd dug a 50 centimetre wide and deep hole straight through our brick driveway.
We finally got our phone line yesterday. It turns out, the assholes who laid the pipes, didn't install a phone cable. What superb work. What really grates me is the method of service delivery. Contractors just rock up at your house (sometimes at 8 in the morning on a weekend) with no notice and expect you to be there. They then ask the same questions the previous palooka did, root around a bit, and disappear. You can't find out the progress of the job, because the people at the call centre don't know, and you basically just have to wait for them. We've been in this house 6 months, and we've had 2 full months without a line - compare that to the UK where I had about 6 hours outage in over 5 years. Oh for some decent competition.
In the meantime, we've been up the arch of the new Durban staidum, to the beach pretty much every weekend, and work is stupidly busy. 2010 hasn't had a good start, but it's starting to improve!
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| Julius Malema, the Socialist |
| 19 February 2010 at 19:32, by Matt Salmon |
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| Good grief. Today there is a big humdrum because they finally realised Julius Malema has a ridiculous number of assets. The thing is, he has other business interests, so I'm not sure all the song and dance is justified.
What IS pertinent, however, is that this is the same guy who shouts communist slogans and wants to nationalise the South African mines. Basically, it's the most obvious contridiction ever: criticise captilism and it's trappings when talking to your followers, but embrace all of those same trappings in your OWN lifestyle. Do as I say, not what I do. I really wonder if he can actually see this himself, or if he's just to stupid? I really battle to fathom how someone can be this much of a hypocrite.
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| Is it a man? Is it a snake? |
| 28 January 2010 at 20:12, by Matt Salmon |
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Is it just me, or does this picture of Andy Murray also scare the SHIT out of you?
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| How do you know your child is back at school? |
| 19 January 2010 at 03:03, by Matt Salmon |
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 I had a pretty awesome weekend. Saturday, the waves were really really really fun in Umhlanga, and my last wave was 2 turns and a nice little tube. I spent the rest of the day with my girls and wife, cruising at home, capped by some pizza and wine. Good times.
The waves were good again on Sunday, but that wasn't the highlight of the session - the highlight was the 100 or so dolphins that played around us for 10 minutes, surfing and jumping out of the water. One big guy jumped about 3 or 4 meters from me, fully out of the water. I didn't catch a wave in ages, I was just trying to swim down to check them out - a very special experience.
Of course, however, it can't all go well - after a 4 or so month break from disease, Amy got hit with a ridiculous temperature yesterday evening. 3 days back at school and BANG. Poor little girl. Hopefully it clears up in the next day or so, at the moment she's feeling terrible, although I have to hand it to her, she doesn't complain at all.
I added some new albums to picasa too:
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| Christmas 2009 |
| 08 January 2010 at 02:31, by Matt Salmon |
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BWA HA HA HA this photo cracks me the hell up. My two (AWESOME) little girls have just gbeen given some toy jewelry by Fee's cousin Nicky, and the pair of them went totally apeshit. They were literally bouncing around the room whooping with joy. Oh to be under 4. That was Christmas Eve, and I'm back at work now feeling like I didn't even get a break. Holidays over the Christmas period are just too hectic - trying to see people and get shit done, it's just not relaxing. Having said that though, I did have a good time. The waves were actually pretty good and I got in a few really fun surfs, and I finally cleaned our filthy driveway with a pressure hose - it took me 3 days but it's done and all sparkly.
The girls were a delight, Amy is frigging hard work because she's go-go-go but she's the coolest kid in the world so I forgive her. Bel is coming on in leaps and bounds, she's very advanced for her age and is desparately trying to talk to everyone. She's actually got quite a big vocab now: Dada (me!), Mama, Mommy, Hello, Bye-bye, Dow (Down), Da (Duck), Up, Amy, Un (On), Baw (Ball), Baby, and a pile of others I forget right now. Very amusing though, and she still walks like a penguin, haw haw haw.
This year is gonna be even more hectic then the last one I think. We've had a million appliance issues (phone, fridge, stove, computer, and counting), and the bills are racking up - it's going to be rough! Home ownership is expensive, it's like you're throwing wads of cash into a bottomless pit. Still, the place is finally starting to take place and we're loving it. Both of us miss Westville and I miss being closer to the sea, but we both still feel it was a good move. We STILL haven't taken transfer of the damn place, but it should go through in the next week or two, fingers crossed.
My brother, his wife and Ciaran also return home from the UK this month, in fact Peet is already back and we'll be seeing her and the little man this weekend - WOOO HOO. Chris gets back in 3 weeks, so amped. It'll be good to have another mate home, it's kinda lonely being the only guy with kids coz I hardly ever see my friends, all I hear is them doing cool stuff. Such is life, wouldn't trade it for anything. With Bel growing up, hopefully we'll start getting out more - it's Rich and Anna's wedding in May and all the London boys will be home, we're hopefully going to St Francis with Todo and Andrea, and we've got a few other plans so we'll see how it goes. Let the good times begin!
Pics of my girls: http://picasaweb.google.com/mrsalmon/Christmas2009. |
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| Bad things happen in 3s |
| 19 November 2009 at 11:58, by Matt Salmon |
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| Jeez, did we ever have three shit weekends in a row. The weekend after Amy's show, she fell sick with some bastard of a bug, and went slowly downhill. By the Sunday (it's always a Sunday) she was really in a bad way, and we had no choice but to find a doc and get her checked out. Antibiotics followed. Three days later, Bel and Fee got it. More antibiotics. Amy didn't recover properly after the first round, so back to the doc again, and more antibiotics.
The following weekend arrived, and we were meant to be having a housewarming braai with all of my mates. Quite a few had pulled out though due to various reasons, and Fee and the girls were so exhausted from a week of no sleep that I had cancelled the braai, and it's a good thing I did. We had noticed the night before that our bath hadn't been draining properly, so I had tried to plunge it, to no avail. It turns out, our entire underground sewerage system leading towards the waterborn pipes was blocked up, so effectively I was plunging a big pile of poo and toilet paper out of one the outlet pipes onto our garden. Awesome. So this little pile of fecal fun was waiting for us in the morning, and we had to call a plumber out to shove all the shit (excuse the pun) through and clear out the system. More expense - weekend rates of course!
Weekend 3 arrives, Senor Salmon is well and truly grumpy after a huge outflow of cash, crap weather and sick people. Sunday looms with glorious weather so we hit the beach at 8.15. Life is good. Amy needs a wee and goes to the toilet with Fee, Claire and her cousin. Wanting to wash her hands, her and Bethany climb onto a bench so they can get to the sink - as luck would have it the bench is unstable and falls over onto poor little Amy's foot, crunch. Anyway, Fee comes flying out with this poor little shocked girl with a foot that's literally bent in two. We rushed straight to the hospital to get it checked out, although by the look of it I had no hope it wasn't broken. It turned out though, that she had some cracks but the foot was fine - kids bones are so soft they just bent and the broken look was just a massive haematoma (spell?) that had formed from the trauma. I must say, little Amy was so brave - she was really trying her hardest not to cry and be a big girl with what must have been bloody sore. We had a couple bad nights sleep again with her in quie a bit of pain, but childrens' recuperation is amazing and one week later she was back on her feet and charging around the house.
I still haven't received the hospital bills, although I'm shitting myself for those. What an expensive, tiring, painful couple of weeks. Anyway, this last weekend came and went with no mishap, so I'm going to assume that our spell of bad luck is over, for now. Gah!
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| Pride and Bipedalism |
| 23 October 2009 at 02:46, by Matt Salmon |
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 Pride is a weird thing. I mean, I've felt before: pride for the people that my parents are, pride in Fiona and that she's mine, and of course pride in myself when I've achieved something beyond my expectations. But I'd never REALLY experienced pride before, until last Friday night. Amy's school put on a wonderful show where all the kids were up on stage, and each kid did a little dance (usually with 3 or 4 other kids) to a song, and then it was onto the next set of kids. Amy was given the part of Roo (from Winnie the Pooh), and I was a little worried for her as they did it on the stage at my old high school in front of a packed hall. So, I'm guessing 1,000 people or so - that's pretty daunting for a 3 year old.
My fears were completely ungrounded though. The little shit bounded up on stage like she does it every day, and when it was her turn, performed the Macarena like an absolute legend. It was just great. When I was holding her after the show I had 4 or 5 people come out of the blue and say what a wonderful little girl she is, and damn, they were right. It was a pretty special night - although I was SO bummed to find out the next morning that between Fee and I we had somehow neglected to hit "record" on the damn camcorder. What idiots. There is a professional video that's being made that will capture the show, but we had zoomed in on her, and I'm sad that I don't have those special little expressions on her face on record; it was a scene of absolute rapture.
My other little darling learned to walk last week, too. Her progression has been SO different to Amy's, and she's a really clumsy little toddler where Amy was a charger. It's absolutely CLASSIC watching her walk around the house, as she insists on walking everywhere now and has almost completely given up crawling in 1 week. Very cute to watch, she walks like a penguin. So all in all, good times!
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| More pics |
| 08 October 2009 at 05:08, by Matt Salmon |
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| Finally added more pics of our! new! house! and Bel's 1st Birthday Party.
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| Julius Malema : Hero with a half-brain |
| 02 October 2009 at 13:45, by Matt Salmon |
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| Oh my. Malema has done it again. Just when I think the moron has hit rock bottom, he manages to say something even stupider than before. This is a guy who has adopted all the western vices of money and clothing (having recently just bought property in Sandton - with the usual pomp, fanfare, and assaults) but perpetually spouts how the West must not impose their concepts on Africans.
This, to me, is quote of the century:
"Hermaphrodite, what is that? Somebody tell me, what is hermaphrodite in Pedi? There's no such thing, hermaphrodite, in Pedi. So don't impose your hermaphrodite concepts on us."
I do, however have one thing positive to say about Malema. I am pretty impressed with how far he's managed to get with a single-digit IQ. |
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| Bel's 1st Birthday |
| 01 October 2009 at 02:53, by Matt Salmon |
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| Good god, my gorgeous daughter is 1. Amy is a very loud, daring, bubbly, enthusiastic child who I absolutely adore - Bel is a completely different child but I certainly don't love her any less. She's a real sensitive little soul - she's been scared of water where Amy never was, she gets a fright easily where Amy never did, but she's also a very affectionate kid who has been an absolute delight. Amy was never a huggy type - she was always raring to go and too busy to bother herself with hugging her dad, whereas Bel will actually seek me out for a little cuddle and a kiss. I've got such a soft spot for this kid, and knowing that she's my last it's actyally a bit sad that she's already one. I know just how fast it's all going to be over, and although having 2 kids is incredibly hard for a number of reasons, I also dread it being over. That's life though.
The ADSL connection by the PC still isn't installed, but I finally hauled out the old 30 meter network cable and added a few pics of Bel on her special day, as well as a few photos to a few of the older albules:
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