Category: learning curve

One from the (long) weekend

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I mentioned our day out at the horse show on Monday. I was there as the photographer for the riders from “our” stables. But I was also there as a husband to, and a father of, a couple of the riders there.

I’m getting better with being around horses, although you won’t find me on the back of one.
My daughter, however…

Here she is taking it easy on this round – at least height-wise – having just last week conquered the frankly terrifying (to me, at least) 90cm mark of “things that horses jump over”. She’s surely old enough now to know better, for those devil-may-care days and juvenile lack of any fear to have passed.

Right?

But… eish…

I’m so impressed. And quite regularly quite scared.

Photo by 6000.co.za.
Thanks for taking the time to take it, edit and share it – all free of charge, too.
Much appreciated.

I must point out that all the riders and families (including my own) from the stables are always very thankful and grateful for the images.

Other people? Mmm. Not so much.

Onions

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A busy day, including (but not limited to): a gym session, an attempting to mend a car session, some lifts, some much needed food shopping and then, before a horseriding session (not me), I made some onion stuff. 

This was ostensibly a quick and easy recipe which I had seen on the internet, but with my dearth of culinary skills, nothing in the kitchen is ever particularly straightforward.

Still, I approached it with all the bravado of a Suzuki Jimny driver heading towards a medium-sized puddle, and it seemed to go ok.

It’s a sort of chutney that allegedly “goes with anything”, but before I can test that out, it needs to sit in the fridge overnight. Tomorrow’s burgers on the braai should be the ideal opportunity to give it a go.

If it’s good, I’ll stick the recipe on here.

If it’s not, let us never speak of this again.

Wednesday ephemera

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Several bits of small stuff to share, so here it all is.
Knock yourselves out*.

Things are going all right

After yesterday’s post, this:

That’s quite a movement, ironically suddenly making illegal “small boat” immigration across the English Channel a whole lot harder.

Home Affairs is a mixed bag

Two tweets, just a few pixels apart on my laptop screen:

and:

And yes, I’ve experienced both ends of this spectrum.
Delightfully astonishing at the one end, but oh so frustrating at the other.

SA Mpox outbreak causes first death

Indeed:

Nothing to panic about here, but certainly one just to keep an eye on…

Explore your adventurous side

A recent advert on the web:

Ah yes. The silver self-defence spike. A true Camping and Outdoor Essential. And… does it really say “Thank you for choosing [manufacturer]” on the lanyard? That’s amazing.

I despair

A local page I follow on Facebook got hacked and started posting all sorts of weird stuff, including (but not limited to) a lot of AI generated content resembling American cities. In fact, the only local thing it posted was this range of images depicting (allegedly, at least) Cape Town, some lions in the Kruger, and some KhoiSan rock art in an ancient cave.

The worst bit was the comments though, with people from Cape Town fawning over the picture of their city. And this, despite all those new mountains, the sun setting on the wrong side, and that frankly weird extension bit coming out of Green Point.
Compare and contrast…

Also, while we’re on the subject, that is clearly not KhoiSan rock art, and WTF has happened to those lions? Our jobs are safe from AI for a while yet. But whether our lives are safe from idiot commenters on Facebook… well… that’s another story.

Winter in the vineyards

In more genuine pictures of Cape Town…
We took a walk around Groot Constantia a few days ago, and it was lovely.

Go and see more of the yellowing vines and lush, green grass on Instagram. And drop a follow if you haven’t already. Thanks.

* simply a turn of phrase, not an instruction.

Nerdy video of the week

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Meet Mattias Bjoernstroem. Part man, part airport.

Really:

At his job at an airport in Northern Sweden, he… he does everything. From ATC to snow ploughing to ventilation repair to de-icing planes to… well… Just look at this:

00:00 Working in flight tower 04:54 Ventilation repair 07:09 Guides Boeing 738 to stand 08:41 Driving aircraft stair 09:21 Doing ground work around plane 12:44 Having a look inside cockpit of Boeing 737-800 14:28 Getting Boeing 737-800 ready for takeoff 16:00 removing aircraft stair from plane 16:15 Full Deicing for Boeing 737-800 with type 1 23:12 More work in flight tower sending the Englishmen back home 24:15 Driving vacuum car to suck up the glycol from deicing 26:04 Fault searching runway edge light problem 41:03 Towing a beech 200 to hangar 42:18 Fault searching runway edge light with electric problem 47:24 Plowing airfield with sweeper 52:05 Sweeping runway lights from snow 53:08 Using snow blower 77 to get rid of snow from airfield 53:44 Replacing a broken contact to runway edge light 1:00:36 Replacing electric well on airfield 1:05:50 Ending.

You can click on any one of the those timestamps to watch him working through another task at the airport. Amazing.

Incredibly nerdy, but also a bit fun and all rather different.
And I know a lot of 6000 miles… readers fit those adjectives quite nicely.