In the process of doing my first kefir trade, got offered a full manicure – unexpected, but then again that’s exactly what I had in mind I’m pretty happy to have made the first trade, delivery this week, manicure in a bit. Just plain fun doing something different.

Did all my preparations for the wine tasting - got the guest list & had a second dry run on the snacks at Elmari’s cozy dinner party - the test subjects were duly impressed. Now for the main event…

I’m having a ton of fun with my new climbing partner, climbing harder than I probably ever have. I’ve been getting in good practice on my bouldering wall (up @ Elna’s place, no space here and there I at least have a training partner too) and with another reliable and trustworthy partner it’s easy to push myself harder.

I did my first trad lead this weekend and I do believe I’m hooked. Such an adventure, even if the climbing is easy.

I do think I’m going to go on many more big adventures with Johan in all sorts of places, from the crags of Gauteng to some remote walls in the countryside - looking forward to it!!!

Congrats to Nico on his internship!! It was really good to hear that, knowing you’ve been working hard towards it. Hope you have a lot of fun doing what you love.

That’s me, I have a date with the couch…

“Elie Metchnikoff, a Nobel-prize winning biologist at the Pasteur Institute, first suggested that lactobacilli might counteract the putrefactive effects of astrointestinal metabolism in 1908. He attributed the long and healthy life of the people of the Caucasus Mountains to their consumption of soured milk”

From: http://www.seedsofhealth.co.uk/fermenting/kefir.shtml

More links:
http://www.kefir.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kefir

I read somewhere else that Kefir should not be sold as it’s considered a holy gift from the gods and that selling it would violate the spirit in which is was given to humans. Since I got my gift of a small batch of Kefir grains from Elmarie, I’ve had huge success in growing it, to the extent where I’ve multiplied and given grains I’ve grown to 3 friends on top of giving away the cultured milk in fair quantities simply because I can not use that much myself.

So as another experiment in my latest series “Doing things differently” which I mentioned last time, I’m going to offer to trade a live batch of kefir (or just the fermented milk if that’s what’s in demand) for something (or a service of some sort)from anyone willing to play along. Seeing as these grains will potentially provide them with a lifetime’s worth of kefir, I’m not going to accept a beer. Having said that, I’m curious and open minded to see what’s on offer. This is all just for fun, come and play. I’ll have a spare batch ready in about 1 week.

To keep it simple for starters, I’ll trade in the Gauteng area only for now, unless there’s a really simple transport option available.

Had a terrific Halloween party and met a possible new friend. Repeated my buildering problem at some ungodly hour, picked flowers and made friends with all the cats in the neighbourhood. Watch some great movies, played pool, repeat. Swam. Slept.

Recovered.

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”~ Anaïs Nin

It has become clear to me that I’m alone in my endeavours, not because there are no one else interested, but because out of fear of being alone I’ve clung to familiar friends, trying to convince them to be interested. Although they probably are, they don’t feel the same passion for the things that I want to do.

And that’s fine, really. I live & learn.

Now comes the exciting part, where I detach my endeavours from these known people: letting go of the safety of going places & doing things with a safety net. Exploring with the specific intent of finding my passion in life, hunting it down and killing it, before it kills me.

I’ve lined up a few little pet projects, all just for fun, just about exploring, meeting new people on unfamiliar ground and seeing what happens. A path chosen, destination: unknown.

The short version:
Wine tasting & selling if anybody is interested:

On my recent roadtrip to the Cape I got to know about some “bulk wine” of which I brought some home and it was generally a big hit among my friends. I decided to ship some more up here and have some fun - I’m going to do a little wine tasting & buy-if-you-like thing. I had a dry run with Elna testing out snacks with the wine and so forth:  it was a blast!! More to follow closer to the time.

Kefir quest:

My kefir growing & cultivating skills are exceeding my personal demand, so I’m going to increase the demand. I was thinking of a simple bartering deal – details to follow.

Guerrilla gardening:

So this is going to be one of those not so neat posts, just a random bunch of things I remember happening and some stuff I’m planning to do…..and a pic of sexy girl, just because I can.

I mailed that musician, but it seems he does not remotely recall the incident and he reckons it could not have been him. Not the result I expected, but at least it was not negative.

My Kefir from Elmarie is still going strong (not yogurt as I thought before). It’s grown from a grain that’s actually hard to find, can’t really be bought and has some amazing health benefits. What a great gift!

My property transfer and bond registration is finally done. There will be drinking of fancy wine this coming Friday night!!

I’ve lined up a potential climbing partner who sounds like he has the same sort of goals as me, hope to start climbing with him soon. I may also get to take a Scottish guy on holiday climbing too, from our conversation it sounds like we’ll have great fun. I took out a Elna and her kid climbing and she’s now hooked - so much so that we’re putting up the bouldering wall. I’m really quite excited about it, pity I’ll have to wait until Sunday to finish it.

Last weekend I went down to Umdloti with Elna – her friend had a wedding and it sounded like fun just driving down for the hell of it. The weather was not great so we did not climb or fly the kite, but it was really fun nonetheless. We arrived about 1AM Saturday morning and had a few celebratory tequilas at the local pub before going to her friend’s house where we would be staying.

The wedding was a bit unusual for me, but the food was fantastic!! We ate leftovers until Monday. Thinking back of the neighbourhood we stayed with all the views of lush green bush, humid air, the sounds of the frogs in the swamp and the birds everywhere I really get why people love the place so much.

A change in lifestyle
I’m staying in my mom’s place, babysitting the cat sorta thing while she’s in the USA. Not knowing how long she was going to be and the whole move happening a bit hastily most of her stuff is still there and my stuff in storage. That’s gotta change as I found out I have at least another year to go.

In an apparent moment of weakness Elna offered to help me , or at least rope in a friend with some interior decorating skill to help me out. There’s nothing wrong with what’s there, it just does not feel like mine.

I’m planning to hold a wine tasting thing soon, so I’ll have to get cracking on the dining room for starters.

Speaking of which, the wine tasting is part of a larger experiment – I’m looking to find something different to do in terms of making a living. Bringing the wine up from Montagu will in no way make me rich, the idea is purely to experiment with doing something I would not normally have done, trying something new, getting in touch with new people and having fun while doing it.

I’ve been talking a lot for a long time about doing various things. The time do has arrived. I’ll be focussing on quite literally de-cluttering my life – catch up on all my admin and get the house neat and then to start doing, specifically the following:

• Get the wine tasting thing done
• Build a small aquaponics setup
• Learn about and practise share trading

I’m super excited and motivated to make things happen. I don’t have great expectations of anything specific happening, I’m just very keen to try it and see what happens – I do have great expectations of something happening, having fun and learning something new. Will keep you posted…

In about 2 week’s time, when the final certificates and whatever leftover red tape has been sorted, this baby (  <-  ) is going down.

It’s a little more than a bottle of old wine, it’s one of the last sentimental things I have left from the place, the time. I want to share the end of it with people that care for me.

Fuck, that was a hard one to get out.

I thank God for having just enough really good friends to make it hard to choose who to share this with – you can fill only so many glasses from a bottle. Thanks even more that some of them are in Montagu, making it a little easier to pick

Bouldering wall planning & progress:
http://www.chicks-dig-scars.com/new-project-building-a-bouldering-wall/
http://www.chicks-dig-scars.com/emiles-guide-to-building-the-ultimate-bouldering-wall/
http://www.chicks-dig-scars.com/finished-at-last/

A discussion on painting a wall & some pics of homemade walls, including a outdoor freestanding wall similar to what I originally planned: http://www.climb.co.za/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=4623&start=0

Training articles:
http://www.geckogrips.co.za/training.html
http://www.chicks-dig-scars.com/climbing-training-by-stuart-brown/ (Thank Justin for keeping me on my toes, I see all those links to the training articles on your site changed!! )

New pics:
My frame, struts & all

A much prettier effort by Jaco – note the distinct lack of over-engineering (no struts at the sides)

Last time I was still aiming for a roughly 75 degree overhang. In the end I threw out all the fancy angle calculations and fit in the wall as best I could within the space available. I got lucky and found a spot where I did not need to cut the ply wood in order to shorten the wall and in the end result is pretty much what I hoped for…. perhaps slightly steeper than previously planned (I’ll get around to measuring the angle eventually), but what the hell – get a bit stronger and it’s the same thing, right?

A note on the grips: I found a few of them still had sharp seems left from the molds, but it’s breeze filing them down. Also, I’m used to grips from public indoor gyms which are relatively smooth from all the traffic, these ones are still quite rough and hard on the skin.

Had my first session on it last night – this morning I can feel a faint ache in my forearms – lekker!!

Prospecting on the Vaal (News24):  “A controversial mining company has been given the rights to go prospecting for coal in at least 162 spots next to the Vaal River.   

The Department of Mining awarded the prospecting rights without notifying landowners next to the river – something that is required by law.

Environmental experts agreed that it could lead to coal mines next to the Vaal River and that this would mean an ecological disaster for South Africa’s most important river.”

And yes, the aforementioned mining company has ties to President Zuma.

Another mining house is moving in on Bronkhorstspruit (News24): “….a mining company which wants to start an open-pit coal mine bigger than 1 000 rugby fields in the Wilge River catchment area right outside the town.

Duvenhage said on Facebook if Muhanga Mines were allowed to mine in this ecologically sensitive area, 21 natural springs would either dry up or be polluted with acidic mine water.

According to a report by an independent environmental expert ….. ‘No area can ever be completely rehabilitated after mining’”

The Exxaro mining company has been told to cease it’s Mooifontein operations AFTER they managed to (translated from Beeld) “almost completely destroy the wetland. Environmental specialists estimate that it would cost R200m – R400m to rehabilitate the wetland to some degree”

(Aside: Exxaro subsequently denied having be told to halt operations - more on that here. Furthemore, there are widespread concern over the apparent gross over estimation of our coal reserves – read more on that here and here. )

Our electricity problems in recent years ( our governments’ other shining example of resource mismanagement) was a national joke. But I don’t think it would be so funny if there are no more water left to drink – hard to make fun of that.

I believe, and please feel free to amend and add, we need:

• A zero tolerance attitude on water pollution from the president down to the municipal managers of sewerage plants.
• Adherence and strict enforcement of current law. No prospecting along rivers: Prospecting = future mining.
• Aggressive and visible action with regards to current problems.
• New legislation where needed to address loopholes and grey areas, as soon as possible. Looking at the acid mine water disaster unfolding in Gauteng and the Exxaro Mooifontein closure, it’s clear that what’s done can never be truly undone – we need to stop doing the damage first and then try to fix it later.

 Please help if you can:

• I’ve requested campaigns to be launched at www.activist.co.za and www.avaaz.org. Please encourage them to take action and launch a campaign on our behalf by either posting a comment of support on this site or contacting them directly and also requesting a campaign to be launched. Make up your own email, or use this as a template:

Hi

Please launch a campaign on the behalf of concerned South African water users. Our government is not doing enough.

I (we) believe <and please feel free to amend and add> we need:

- A zero tolerance attitude on water pollution from the president down to the municipal managers of sewerage plants.
- Adherence and strict enforcement of current law. No prospecting along rivers: Prospecting = future mining.
- Aggressive and visible action with regards to current problems.
New legislation where needed to address loopholes and grey areas, as soon as possible.

See an article on http://www.chicks-dig-scars.com/a-run-on-our-water for some details of current problems, some links to sources, messages of support etc.

• Pass this information along to your friends & family. It might be common knowledge to you, but some people are blissfully unaware of country’s water woes.

 I for one would like to be able to swim in (at least some of) our rivers.

Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money.  ~Cree Indian Proverb

Photo by Nico van Wyk. The Wilge river running through the Ezemvelo reserve are among the rivers threatened by planned mining activities.

Swimming in the Wilge rivier

As you can see I spent many hours with state of the art CAD software to carefully plan every detail

The plywood sheets come in a standard 8×4 foot or 2.4m x 1.2m size which then has a significant impact on the dimensions, unless you’re willing to do a lot of cutting, which I did not want to do. If I recall correctly I picked the 10mm thickness. Missing in the picture is a possible second strut extending from point A to the ground. The sheets would be placed on their sides making the wall 2.4m wide.

Dimensions:
I wanted to use 4 sheets for the actual climbing surface giving a total of 4.8m flat surface, and the cut one in half for the kick board and head board – important components according to my research on the internet. Some more research led me to believe that a 70 degree angle would do nicely.

So, how tall must the struts be? Enter some basic trigonometry. I know I wanted the angle at A to be 70 degrees. The rules say that the sum of the inside angles must be 180 degrees, so knowing the angle at C is 90, the leaves 180 – 70 – 90 = 20 degrees.  I also know the length of the long side (hypotenuse), so my calculations is relatively easy.

Short strut at kick board: Kick board is 0.6m, so just little more would do.

Longest strut at head board: Kick board + Head board (1.2m total) + the BC side of my triangle in dotted green.
:: sin 70 = BC / 4.8
:: sin 70 x 4.8 = BC
:: BC = 4.5 (rounded)

Thus the longest strut (and total height of my bouldering wall) would be 5.7m. Nice.

I can follow the same procedure to calculate the length of the strut supporting the feet of the struts ( and add extensions as needed for the extra stabilisation as indicated)

:: cos 70 = AC / 4.8
:: cos 70 x 4.8 = AC
:: AC = 1.65 (rounded)

You can test the whole thing by checking if these two calculated sides add up to the hypotenuse – Pythagoras said : AB squared = BC sqr + AC sqr. You do that one yourself (mine works out, taking into account the rounding I did)

Brilliant. Except in the mean time I moved from my smallholding with the large open spaces. The next available space I had was limited by a high (but not high enough) carport. I had to cut down to 3 sheets for the flat surface, increase the angle to somewhere around 65 degrees and shorten the head board and kick board.

Life happened shortly after I had drawn up the plans for the revised bouldering wall and I’m now limited to a garage with roof trusses starting at 2.9m.

Soooo, I bade an emotional farewell to the headboard and kick board.

Using trig, knowing my height and hypotenuse lengths, I endeavoured to calculate what angle I’ll end up with – no use if it’s too steep for me. (In the meanwhile I found this lekker little trig calculator).

Oops. Insisting on using 3 full sheets will land me up with an overhang of around 54 degrees – too much for me. Cut one in half (making it a 3m flat surface) gets me 75 degrees – just about perfect!!!.

So what’s the moral of the story? Go simple and get it done, as soon as you can. Always planning for the ultimate killer design sometimes (most of the time in my case) costs you a lot of time modifying it to suite your actual needs, while in the mean time you still don’t have anything to show for your efforts. You could have had something simple right at the start and build on from that.

The ultimate bouldering wall is the one that you can climb on, right now.

I’m painting my plywood sheets now and hope to finally have this thing up in the next week or two, plain and simple.

…..makes Jack a dull boy ( that’s a bad thing, I think ). Sooooo, I finished up my little private job despite some, shall we say, “challenges” wrt to my work environment - tonight it’s me and the boys from Metallica.

My project entailed updating software I wrote some 6 years back called “Problem Solving and Decision Making” for my friend Louis of RDM fame who created the problem solving methodology. Now for anyone not familiar with software life cycles, 6 years is like 175 in software-years – I’m quite proud of this simple but effective little program.

Updating was needed as it was written in (VB) .Net 1 based on an MSDE database engine. MSDE in order to scale to SQL servers of course, no puny Access db’s for the BigBadWolf thank you very much. Seriously though, at the time and to this day most if not all potential clients run Microsoft sites, so there’s no sense in trying to do it in something like MySQL.

Installing it on newer operating systems like Vista and Windows 7 became more and more problematic to the point where I decided an upgrade was in order. Converted it to C# and upgraded it to .Net 3.5, running on SQLExpress 2008.

Ok, that wraps up the consultant-speak section of this post. Back to the important stuff: