South Africa, Part I

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Our newest granddaughter, and Katy, Emily and Josh’s first cousin, Felicity Daphney Goodrick, arrived on Tuesday, May 7, 2013,  a couple of days after we did. She’s a really cute baby (not that I’m prejudiced), but her parents don’t want her pictures posted everywhere; if you want to see them, email me for the link.  I’ll post some appropriate family pictures and information later.

The best I can do is this “before” picture:

Before

and the front page of the newspaper from the school where Becky teaches, the Pinetown Boys’ High School:

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We flew from Frankfurt to Johannesburg on a Lufthansa Airbus A380-800, a double-deck behemoth that’s the world’s largest commercial airliner – it even dwarfs the 747.

The Goodrick’s dogs, Duke and Doug, are part of an extensive security system to foil the burglars and robbers who frequently cause serious problems in this country.
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The dogs are wearing matching Springboks sweaters (South Africa’s internationally famous rugby team whose most famous game is central to the plot of Invictus).

South Africa is hardly a third world country; in some ways, it’s more advanced than the US.  Greg and his brother have formed a business, LeaderOptec, to wholesale fibre optic cabling equipment.  There is feverish activity throughout the country and in neighboring Zimbabwe installing high speed internet; in the US, only Google is doing anything remotely similar, and Greg and Tim help supply the connectors and cables.

Verizon will, on request, unlock your cell phone and a trip to the nearby Vodacom store and a few minutes to install a new SIM card, means my phone looks different:

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although it works as well as it did at home.  Oh, by the way, it’s also a lot cheaper than Verizon.  Perhaps the  major cell phone companies haven’t gotten together in some back room to fix prices.

The freeways and tollways are wide, fast and relatively pothole free. And yes, they drive on the left, which is something we’re gradually getting used to.

N2 Freeway, Durban, South Africa
Gas is relatively expensive, but there are no gas wars because the nationwide price is set for all stations everywhere each Tuesday.  Lately it’s been going down.
R12.10 per liter = US$4.99 per gallon

which is in Rands per LItre, which translates to US$4.99 per gallon.  Which they consider pretty cheap.

Seen along the highway – a familiar sign:
Lafarge is big down here, too.

and one just before a construction zone that’s direct and to the point:
"Give 'em a break" just isn't quite this graphic!

But it’s autumn here, and the leaves are beginning to turn.  This is the spectacular view taken from the living room window.  Golfers can be found playing as early 6:30 a.m. on the Camelot Estate Country Club course directly across Haylett Road.

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But wait – we haven’t had summer!  Not fair!

More pictures soon.  If you’ve saved the link to the baby pictures, they’ll be posted there first.

 

Vegetable Garden

I’m testing out how best to share pictures during our upcoming trip, so I thought I’d try a little experiment.
First, a picture of my not-quite-successful cross country ski trip with the Rifle recreation department to Grand Mesa. Yes, it really was that cold.
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The the photoset below is a project which I built for Georgia last week; it’s a raised vegetable garden:

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Vegetable Garden, a set on Flickr.

Then came the winter. For a few hours, it was January all over.
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Finally, Georgia getting things ready for the trip.  To heck with clothes for us!

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Cablea’s moment

For those who don’t know about it, Cabela’s advertises itself as the Worlds Largest Outfitter, and their store in Grand Junction (an anchor store at Mesa Mall, located at the site of an abandoned Mervyn’s department store)  is filled with hiking, camping, fishing and hunting equipment.  Including firearms and a huge selection of ammunition…much of which, oddly enough, comes from Russia.  When you enter the store, a large sign announces the greeter is there to check any firearms the customers may be carrying.

I went there yesterday to buy some gifts, and noticed that the man in front of me, who was about my age and looked perfectly normal, bought three boxes of.38 caliber bullets. He grumbled to the the cashier that he wished there wasn’t a limit of only 3 boxes. The total cost was over $200, although he had a Cabela’s loyalty card so I’m sure someone was tracking his purchases.  I wonder what he planned to do with his purchase.

The nice middle aged lady behind me in the line, who was there with her teenage daughter,  had stopped at Cabela’s folksy homemade fudge shop, and bought a box of fudge, and a box of shotgun shells.

Surreal.

Google & Facebook Ads

When ads first appeared on the internet, they were not really very well targeted. But Google has made its fortune by learning all about you by snooping on the websites you visit. Facebook is trying to emulate the same thing by determining who your friends are and what you like. These commercial behemoths have a pretty good idea of your age, sex, marital status, location, what kind of cars you drive, what your hobbies are, etc. Several years ago, I would get ads and emails for programs to restore my credit score (which hasn’t needed restoring, thank you very much), reduce my mortgage, and of course, ads for fake Viagra.

As the years passed, the credit scores and mortgage ads began to decrease in frequency, and the ads became more relevant and pleasant: new cars, cruises, vacations to exotic places, motorcycles and ham radio. Sweet.

However, in the past couple of months, I’ve begun to see a disturbing trend in the ads; Google realizes that I’m over 65, so the ads are now aimed at a new demographic. They’re depressing, because they are for things such as the “Help I’ve Fallen And I Can’t Get Up” security dongle, magic wands that make arthritis pain a thing of the past, or “scam Medicare to get your own mobility scooter.” Those didn’t bother me much, but now they’ve reached a new low: step in bathtubs for old people.

The time may come when we would welcome a mobility scooter or step in bathtub, but for now I wish they’d keep the ads for romantic cruises and vacation destinations.