The Pits rocking "V8 Thunder" with Sailor Jerry!

Last night the band I'm the drummer for, The Pits, performed at the Obz Cafe Theater in Observatory, Cape Town. The show was another top class Sailor Jerry sponsored rock & roll event called V8 Thunder, so named as the theme featuring some rather bizarre vehicles parked outside. From custom made weird looking bikes to very old rust-bucket cars done up with some modern features and noisy engines! I'm not quite sure what the point was as they were just parked out in the street all evening, though I believe it had something to do with the Garage magazine launch. Fascinating to passers and punters by anyway, some of whom were close to passing out by gassing as one of the big Harleys was being revved up with it's exhaust aimed into the front door of the venue. That was not pleasant!

Note: photo's taken with Liezel's little happy snappy. Quality is not too good, looks like ISO is set way too high, judging by the picture noise. I'll check it out for next time! I did also set up the camcorder to film the gig as usual, but I forgot to press 'record' when we started, so that didn't happen. Hopefully some of the pro-pics from the photographers with their big guns turns up soon.

The performances for the night were:

• The Black Orchid Burlesque,  a sexy and very entertaining ensemble of "burlesque teese" dancers strutting some great moves to music from I reckon the 1920's, and showing off some smoking hot nearly naked assets! Great show much enjoyed by the ladies and gents alike!
• The Pits. That's my band. We had a full 45 minute set planned which much to my dismay was cut short by two songs because we were running late, partly because it took Sven so long to go to the loo before the show! Besides that we played a fantastic gig to a large packed crowd who from what I could see past the bright stage lights were enjoying themselves and having a good dance. I had a blast on the drums, played one of my tightest sets ever working up a constant rain of sweat around my kit; as a band we were super tight and put on a great fun high energy up-tempo gig! Milli looked hot as always, the glamour of the band, rose amongst the thorns, and Sven was cooking up a storm, nearly bouncing the amps and other stuff off the rickety stage. I had to pull my kit back together after some of the songs, the way he was prancing around! Personally I rocked my socks off with all the juice I could conjure up, only dropped a stick once which I recovered so fast I doubt anybody noticed, and I got fresh blisters on 4 fingers to show for my effort. They don't bother me, it's like proud battle scars, and we'll probably take the usual 2 weeks off from rehearsal to recover! Bring on the next gig! I love it!
• Peachy Keen. These guys were just brilliant! They're a 5 piece rockabilly outfit, must be top of their game on the local scene because the entertainment they provided was second to none! Besides only half the band managing to fit on the incredibly tiny stage we had to work with (The Pits as a 3 piece only just managed to cling on, my drum kit hogged most of the floor space), they grabbed the audience by the balls and rocked them into a frenzy! The two girls in the band, the vocalists, provided excellent entertainment with their comments and banter between songs, while the drummer was excellent, sounding especially good as he was drumming on my kit! The Peachies were also launching their new music video on the night. My opinion: excellent, MTV quality professional production! Not that I'm a pro but the video does justice to the band! Very cool!
• Last up were The Great Apes. We have gigged with these guys once before at Mercury Live a few weeks ago. As usual they pulled off one of their high octane hardcore dramatic performances! These guys are the ideal headliners for a show like last nights because their high energy performance is loud and heavy but the music is distinctively full of character and great melodies. The vocals are brilliant, all the howling and aerobic breathing he does to warm up before the shows pays off in dividends. Jaeken is an animal on the drums, not surprising he trashes loads of sticks and his cymbals look like something has bitten chunks out of them, but he's tight and very entertaining to watch. He even replaced the sticks he borrowed and annihilated at the last gig, which I very much appreciated! Unfortunately Liezel and I didn't stay for the full Apes gig, we loaded up the drums and hit the road, home by 1am which is quite early for a gig night.

Milli on Bass

By the way, the smoke machine was KAK! Horrible bloody thing pumping that pollution directly onto the stage, which was already very hot and stuffy! What's the point of that stuff billowing into a small tightly packed venue anyway, it can't be healthy, and my lungs feel cooked today!

Normally by the end of a gig night I'm quite toasted on booze too, especially the after-set shooters (and free backstage Sailor Jerry) that gets shoved down my throat. Last night was different, I'm proud to say I only had 3 beers the entire night, 2 of which were low alcohol Castle Lights. I drank from a big bottle of sparkling water the rest of the night, and had coke with dinner. For dinner the wife and I went to the Obz Cafe restaurant next door after the rugby, which predictably the Springboks lost to the Wallabies, despite sporting the "most experienced" Springbok side in history! Pathetic really, embarrassing! Hopefully the guys will pull their cocks out their ears by the world cup!

Sven on gat & vox

Anyway, we had pizza in the restaurant, some the nicest pizza I've ever had! I had a lamb and butternut pizza, which I loaded with the chili and garlic they provided on the side, and finished the whole thing savouring every mouthful as is on a culinary adventure. Liez had a chili shrimp pizza, also delicious! We sat there for a while after dinner to kill time, that long laborious 4 hour stretch of time between sound check and the gig.

All in all the event was a great success, thanks to Sonja and Sailor Jerry Spiced rum for sponsoring and organising the event, and it was a great night out for the wife and I, while Tammy was at home having a party with her Granny Bev. She's really a great help coming to stay over and babysit whenever we need a babysitter!

I must mention that not one of my "friends" pitched up for the gig, despite numerous adverts and invites. It's actually fine, I see where I stand with people, and I'm ok with that. The only blind side is the other band members always manage to get a decent crowd of their friends and family to gigs, some of whom a regulars, and it gets a bit awkward when they ask how many people I have coming! Except my wife of course, my champion groupie and biggest fan, who's always at the gigs. And of course we can't forget lil Wayne, who's been to a couple!

There's talk the next gig will be a daytime gig in a few weeks time. Details to follow...

Band Practice

Band practice tonight was awesome! Awesome! Awesome! 6pm to 9pm on a Friday night, while the rest of the "world" my age is out partying and pissing it up I was rocking my c**k off on my sexy little fusion drums!!

That said I hurt my back lugging the hardware bag (around 100kg of metal) up the stairs and it caught on the wheelie bin as I yanked and a muscle pulled, which was ok at the time, but now it hurts like a m****rfu**er!

Normally on a Friday night I'm home doing the do with my cheap whiskey; not tonight! I had great fun on my kit tonight, did some shit I didn't know I could do! Tomorrow night's gig is going to be a killer! Watch this space for the vids, I will have my trusty old camcorder set up to record the gig! Sunday, rocking Sunday!

For all my effort I even broke a drumstick... the fabled (and my favourite) Vic Firth 7A's, the invincible's, I broke one tonight. But that's ok, I have 7 left for the gig, and that maniac Jaeken from The Great Apes will NOT bum more sticks from me! The last time we did a gig together (The Pits and The Great Apes, Mercury Live, a few months ago) this mad prick "borrowed" 2 of my drumsticks and systematically destroyed them on an already broken kit (his own), and shrugged it off. No mate, no chance!

Anyway I'm doing tomorrow's gig on my own kit, on at 10pm for around 45 minutes, a hard work set of awesome hard drumming worth about 2 hours workout on the squash court. Talking of which, I got a court booked on Sunday morning. Ouch!

I'm seriously excited for this gig! I've got fresh blisters on my fingers from practice tonight, but I'll rock tomorrow like a king, even if my fingers bleed (like they did at the last gig!)! Below is a few pics taken by claire Gunn at the last gig at Club Voom Voom.

Cold wet & gloomy in Cape Town...

...just the way I like it! The unseasonal summer we've had for most of this winter is really bothering me, I like winter to be WINTER! We expect it and prepare for it, I'd like to enjoy it before the sweltering humidity of summer bears down on us again! Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a comfortably warm summer too, even more enjoy the longer days and summery evenings, but it all has it's place!

That's enough about the weather. Being the 12th of August is now 12 days that I've been dry, nearly half a month. Not that anybody gives a shit about me and my problems, but I'm quite proud of this fact, and that it's not really bothered me too much yet. The dreaded withdrawal cravings from previous quitting hasn't afflicted my psyche yet for the most part, though admittedly there have been moments when the thought of sneaking off to my local boozer for a bottle of 3 Scotsmen has been a bit of a nag on my resilience, but I resisted. Honestly, I'm feeling better for it, my mood in general has improved and I can feel my brain starting to wake up again and re-load some of those dormant old memories that seemed to have faded into pickleness!

Last night my cousin Lauren popped in for a visit over some fish & chips. Lovely to see her again and catch up on news from the family up north. Especially my little old granny whom I've guiltily not spoken to in a while. I'll call her this weekend for a good long chin-wag. According to Lauren she's struggling with her health and also her memory sometimes. Shame, I so wish I could just pop in to see her regularly, she really is a special person, one of the few legendary icons we encounter in our time, and one of greatest inspirations of my life!

Anyway...

So I've now lost 2 days in a row of studying, much to my frustration. Last night we had a visitor, and the night before I behaved like a kid again. I've got this silly arcade style computer game that my dear mother introduced me to called Angry Birds. I sat down to have a quick 10 minute game when I got home and eventually got up after 10.30pm, way past my bed time, having wasted the entire evening on the highly addictive waste of time game, even practically ignoring my family. Yes I felt bad about that, but more so that I lost a valuable day of learning my photography. I've finished working through Module 1 of the course, now I need to tackle assignment 1, which is going to require some serious thinking.

And apparently assignment 1 is easy, compared to the rest. There is a closed group on Facebook for students and tutors on this course worldwide with hundreds of fellow students at various levels of the course, and the comments from the guys on the further modules and assignments seem to be sweating, though the photo's they are producing as they progress as stunning, which means the course is working and producing results! This excites me immensely, I can't wait to be taking stunning photo's in the near future because I have the technical skill to do so!

So long story short (OK too late for that), this weekend, by the time the Sunday night movie starts I'll hopefully have assignment 1 submitted. This in between a 3 hour band practice tonight and a big gig tomorrow night. My band (The Pits) is playing a show called V8 Thunder, we are one of great local 3 great bands playing, I think it's going to be an awesome gig. It's at Obz Cafe in Observatory, Cape Town. I'll blog about the gig afterwards.

Back on the monotonous drone about my photography, I have decided on my next purchases which will be fairly soon, in the next month or 2:

• Nikon has just released a new Prime lens, it's a 50mm, f1.8 prime and apparently it produces stunning results, and being a prime lens (fixed focal length) it's reasonably cheap. 
• A set of Kenko Extension Tubes. These basically turn a "standard" lens into a macro lens of the same quality as the standard by extending the focal length between the lens and the sensor. These combined with the 50mm prime will make for stunning close-up photography at a fraction of the price of buying a decent quality macro lens.
• Remote control shutter release.
• Lens pen for cleaning my lenses safely.

I also want to invest in a 2X teleconverter, basically an attachment that doubles the focal length of any compatible zoom, eg my 200mm will effectively become a 400mm. This is a heck of a lot cheaper than buying a telephoto lens, but at around R4000 it's a bit too expensive so will have to wait a while! Meantime I'll have to resort to hijacking mom of her great big 400mm job. Bet for certain the next big purchase as far as lenses go has to be a decent ultra-wide angle "fish-eye" (as I've mentioned before a few times). And don't forget the portrable studio kit!

Anyway, I need to head off home, load up the drums, and back to town for rehearsal!. I'll waffle on some more over the weekend!

Womens Day - just another public holiday!

Well it's actually a stunning day in Cape Town for a public holiday, one more of a seemingly endless supply of lazy days off work supplied by our esteemed government - leaders of the lazy and useless masses of this beautiful land! But hey, I'm not complaining! I don't enjoy my job anymore anyway, it's just a formality, so I'm quite happy to be where I am right now - in the comfort of my home on a Tuesday morning! Besides, there's light at the end of the tunnel, gradually getting closer as if the aperture is steadily opening one f-stop after another! Ha ha!

So it's a lovely day outside, crystal clear, the sun is shining, not a breath of wind, the air is crisp and fresh and it's clearly going to warm up later!

I was up early and on the squash court in the gym by 7.30 for one of those great solo games where I get into my game at a comfortably sweaty rhythm and get lost in my thoughts, plotting and planning and skeeming about the stuff I need to do in the near future! After a good workout upstairs in the circuit and a good old think with a few more great ideas in storage I headed home for breakfast.

Talking of food (as always) last nights dinner was some of my best ever toasted sandwiches, comprising of the steak left over from Sunday's braai, hammered flat and tender, stacked on a layer of gouda cheese, and topped with the last of the sweet potato and dad-style cabbage, with a dash of Bushman's Revenge chilli sauce on mine! Gross as it may sound it was frikking devine, and filling! I only had one sandwich, and just enjoyed the other one for breakfast, cruelly in front of Liezel and her mom as they didn't have their own leftovers!

Liezel's mom stayed here the last two nights, she was on Tammy duty yesterday because the schools were closed but us suckers had to work!

In case you're wondering what the hell I'm doing in the house behind my computer on such a lovely day, it's not going to be the whole day. Once Liezel and Tammy are clean and dressed (which could still take hours!) I'm going to pack them off to the Koeberg Nature Reserve for a picnic and a bit of sunshine. The snakes such as cobra's and boomslang apparently common in the reserve should still be hibernating so it should be safe for Tammy to jol around. Also a good chance to get some practice on the camera with the latest functions I've been studying.

I was up late again last night studying, I covered the rest of the manual ("professional") shooting modes (P, A, S & M) in detail, collaborating with functions such as ISO (light sensitivity), white balance, exposure compensation, etc. Now that I understand these functions in theory they make sense and I'm looking forward to experimenting, but I can see that getting the combinations correct to shoot the desired pictures in variable situations is going to take plenty of practice! What is for certain is that my days of pointing and shooting on automatic are for the most part gone. Sure auto has it's place, and I got thousands of good pictures with little effort in the past, but from now on every photo will involve some skill and the thought to plan and expose the image professionally for the best possible shot! I want every picture to contain it's own character and attraction, even a story!

I'm in love with photography and I am going to make this work for me! The prospect of someday quitting my boring menial job and the petty shit I have to deal with daily to work for myself as a succesful photographer is an exciting dream which I will work hard on until it becomes a reality!

Talking of my business, last night I was also researching specialised printing machinery to print on coffee mugs, clocks, mousepads, t-shirts, cushions, etc. I found a few potential sources to import equipment that does not cost the fortune I expected it would. Even just a coffee mug printer is a single value added attraction that could potentially be a decent earner! Eg, the mug printing machine costs around R7000. A single plain white mug is around R10, with printing inks, electricity, etc it should cost R20 at most to make a mug. 3 years ago we got coffee mugs from a school photographer as an added option at R60 per mug! We bought about 8. Do the math, at around R40 per mug profit (my estimate), do a couple of school shoots and the machine has paid for itself and then some! Add a few extra's like coasters, glass cutting boards, teddy bears with printed t-shirts, etc, just as the value added extras over and above the actual photo packages... I reckon I'm onto a good thing here! Providing of course I can put together a decent enough business plan to convince a bank to give me a loan big enough to get this all up and running with the necessary equipment! But that will come, I'm optimistic!

Anyway, in all my excitement I've given away enough of my trade secrets! There's not been much I have been good at in my adult life, but this is something I can be good at and will make a success of!

I've even got a couple of good ideas for a business name and branding style, but that will stay in my head. Sorry, I won't just give my business away before it starts!

Monday Blues...

I'm a bit grumpy at the moment because there are contractors in our tiny staff kitchen, all over the kitchen, they've been there all morning, apparently to install the plumbing for a new Dishwasher, and I can't get in there to make coffee. Why the hell they have to deconstruct and re-arrange the entire kitchen just to put in a pipe is beyond me. But I won't be arguing, this is the latest gadget commissioned by our monotone dictator, our resident Bulgarian architect, who I'm sure is a direct relation of Frankenstein, with amplification. She can be quite opinionated and hardcore, not one to do battle with because you will never be right, no matter how wrong she/it is!

Bark bark...

So yesterday evening after a whole day of studying I took a break and made a delicious braai with a steak and a pork Texan that was in the freezer. Massive pieces of meat, so we'll be having toasted steak sandwiches for dinner tonight, the thought of which has me licking my chops already! With the braai I did a large sweet potato wrapped in foil cooked on the coals, and a half a cabbage done the way my dad does it - in foil, sliced into inch-thick chunks with cheese, butter, salt & pepper and a sprinkling of brown onion soup powder between each slice, cooked on the coals. Damn it was so delicious, even Tammy had some! Also did a few braai-broodtjies. The whole meal cooked on the fire, simple and delicious! If my wife and my finances allowed I would only cook on an open fire, no matter the weather. Even back in London my mate and I used to braai, middle of winter, in the snow, standing around the fire in shorts and big bomber jackets with a cold beer in hand. The neighbours thought we were insane, peering at us nosily through their misted up windows overlooking our back yard. We were just normal South Africans!

I have to admit I broke the drought with a couple of beers last night. Sorry but I don't yet have the balls to do a braai without a beer. But it wasn't a piss-up, it was just a few well deserved beers after a determined weekend of studying. I've made good progress with the photography studies. I'm still only about a quarter of the way through the camera user manual, though I'm working through it in conjunction with a book I downloaded off Torrents last week, the "Nikon D7000 - From Snapshots to Great Shots", by John Batdorf. It's an awesome book. I didn't get much done on the Photoshop stuff yet, but I did make a bit more progress on the course material. My target is to complete module one and submit the first assignment by the end of the week.

Though at the moment I'm going through the "professional" shooting modes on the camera (Program, Aperture priority, Shutter priority and Manual), which is very interesting. I reckon pretty soon I will never use the automatic modes again, I'm going full manual! It's amazing what you can do with a camera like this when you know how to use it!

Anyway, tomorrow is a public holiday here in SA, I think I'll head out somewhere picturesque and have a good play with the camera. I need to give it a name, like boys often do with their toys, and other appendages. How about "Mike"? Named after the boxer. "Meet Mike, now smile dammit!"

Busy busy busy...

Like yesterday, I was up early and fresh this morning, with no after-effects from drinking the night before! Had some breakfast with a very cheerful Tammy, the little chatterbox had TWO bowls of wheetbix!

So last night I was up late studying the user manual for my new Nikon D7000. Damn it's a complicated peice of equipment, with dials and buttons and hundreds of functions that I've neither heard of nor knew that a camera was capable of doing! It's very fascinating and I'm excited to learn what all those thingy-majigs can do, I'm loving the gadget more and more as I get to know it!

Also last night I studied the user manual for the 18-200mm lens I got with the camera and got that waxed. And yes, I needed a manual to operate the lense, it's a bit more than a normal click-on and fire away job. It features the focus ring, zoom ring, zoom lock, distance measure, vibration reduction controls (x 2), removable petal-hood, and some complicated internal organry that is useful to know. I'm so glad I upgraded to this from the standard supplied kit lens!

The next lens I'd like to get is a full 180 degree ultra-wide angle fish-eye. But at around R9000 it will have to wait a while! Might just have to squeeze out a cheaper Macro before that.

Anyway, today I have a busy day planned. This morning, when my dear wife is eventually showered and ready, we're going down to Game at Bayside (Fukken hate that place, but it's the closest!) to get a proper office chair for this workstation. I can't imagine spending all the time I'm going to be spending at my PC sitting on this old garden chair, I'll have a walking stick and a hunch like that old fella from Notre Dame in no time.

Then it's nose into the studies. I'd like to try get Module One finished and a possible start on Assignment 1 before the 8pm movie, and get some more mileage into the user manual for the camera. It's a bible of 326 pages. With all my effort I've made it to page 40 so far, and that's the easy stuff! The next chapter covers scene modes, which are like pre-set settings for various shooting situations. My old Nikon D40x, and the newer very common D3100 has around 6 scene modes, my new D7000 has 19 creative scene modes, including portrait, landscape, children, sports, close-up, night portrait, party/indoor, beach/snow, sunset, dusk/dawn, pet portrait, candelight, blossom, autumn colours, food, silhouette, high-key, and low-key.

The third thing I'm now working on is a brilliant book I downloaded by the worlds leading expert on Adobe Photoshop, this one specifically geared to the latest version of Photoshop, CS5, specifically for photography. It's an excellent resourse with online references which I am using as a text book. I will be working through this and other Photoshop resources in parallel to my diploma course so that by the time the course is complete I'll be fully competent with Photoshop and related software so that post-production will be a breeze!

I have to say though, cracking the latest version of PS was not easy, took over an hour to get it fully activated! But it's working, and it's a brilliant program, and when I'm working professionally I will purchase a full renewable license.

So unfortunately my family is going to be getting used to not getting as much attention as before because I've got a lot of work over the coming months...

For now, I'm going to whip up some bacon & eggs and some hot coffee. Maybe by the time it's done my wife will be downstairs and ready.

Tick... tock... tick... tock...

Beef Ghoulashanoff and other stuff, with pictures

Not quite sure what to call this stuff, but it worked out blimmin well for a quick Friday night slap-together dinner. It started out as goulash, based on the recipe in my favourite old cookbook "Best Ever One Pot", a wire bound cheapo I found in the budget book section in Sainsbury's in London years ago. Believe it or not, I do often use recipes, though more often than not I stray quite far off the original recipe on a culinary adventure of my own imaginative creation, depending on what's in the pantry cupboard and fridge! Surprisingly most of my concoctions turn out rather delicious, by my own unusual standards anyway!

My dinner. Taken with the new Nikon D7000, no flash.

By the way, it's Saturday afternoon and I'm happy to say for a change I don't have a hangover! (Hooray for J.) It's now a week since I last touched alcohol (except the wine in last nights food, but that doesn't count!). Last night was the first real challenge on my quest to go dry because it's been for a long time now that I systematically drink myself stupid on a Friday night, unless I'm hungover from Thursday. Yes I missed my drink last night, but it wasn't unbearable. I got some stuff done on the PC and got an early night, and better yet was up early this morning, bright and fresh and not with a throbbing dehydration headache and the persistent need to sleep all day like most Saturdays. I got up with a refreshing bounce and was out early to get some banking done before the relentless Bayside Mall crowds arrived. Had a delicious breakfast with the wife at Dolce, picked up some hot, fresh cinnamon donuts, and was back home by 11 where Tammy was having a great time with her Granny Bev.

An even bigger challenge is going to be getting through tonight without drinking either. I won't drink, no question of that, but I am already craving a drink. The idea of a cold beer or a stiff whiskey & coke is very attractive as I write this. But I won't do it! If I can get through the weekend without too much withdrawal pains then the road ahead should be a lot easier. Well it works in theory, in my mind...

Ja anyway, as I was saying, this pot started out as beef goulash from the recipe, because I had goulash beef in the freezer. But as some of the ingredients were missing I flipped a few pages 10 minutes into preparation to the stroganoff page, and I didn't have all the ingredients for that either, so I combined the two, with the addition of wine and curry spices and some extra ingredients, and the result was yet another deliciously hearty meal that solicited more slurping and lip-smacking compliments than negative criticisms from the worlds harshest food critic - my wife!

( I really need to invest in a proper office style chair soon, this old plastic garden chair at my desk at home is seriously uncomfortable, exponentially so as the hours march on with my face stuck to the PC screen!)

Everyday I'm waffling... la la la...

So basically, this goulashanoff curry thing comprised of the following:

• One large onion, coarsely chopped and caramelised in a big-ass cauldron (I use my trusty pressure cooker) with some brown sugar and olive oil.
• While the onion fries, chop one green pepper (didn't have the red one the goulash recipe demanded) and a slice a pack of fungus.
• Meantime add the beef (cubed steak basically) to the onions and fry on a high heat.
• Add some spice. I added some dry chili powder, ground turmeric, paprika, and about a tablespoon of Woolworths Cape Malay curry spice. Some salt & pepper and a dollop of garlic paste. Mix well to coat the meat & onions and fry some more.
• Meantime peel some carrots, chop into wheels.
• Peel a few potatoes and cut into medium chunks, eg quarter a small potato. That sort of size.
• (The last 2 ingredients are my own addition not featured in either recipe, nutritious pot-fillers to make the food go further)
• Now add the peppers, mushrooms, carrots & potatoes to the pot. Give it a stir.
• Prise open a can of chopped, peeled tomatoes and lob it into the bubbling cauldron.
• Add a few sprigs of fresh thyme.
• Pour in about half a litre beef stock (in my case about half a litre of water from the kettle and an Oxo cube! LOL.
• Quickly chuck in around half a leftover bottle of the wife's wine while she's not looking and discreetly discard the bottle (which was a week old in the back of the fridge and probably forgotten).
• Close the cauldron lid and leave to cook on a low heat for an hour and a half.

"Chooka-train" along the edge of the pool.

At this point we headed off to take Tammy to her swimming lesson. She has really come on a long way with her swimming, and last night in particular she was more confident than ever, co-operating with the instructor happily, and she genuinely seemed to be enjoying herself in the water revelling in her new found confidence. She's not swimming on her own yet, but I reckon it won't be long now. She went a lot longer and further under the water than previously, and she seemed totally comfortable whereas before there was always a bit of drama and spluttering. We are very proud of the little froggy and very happy with the fantastic job that teacher Lindsay of Funki Flippers in Tableview has done with Tammy!

Enjoy the photo's (taken with my old Nikon D40x and the 200mm lens), the rest of the cooking to follow further down...

Chilling for a moment on the floating foam mat. Life's a beach in Tammy's world!

Splashy kicking practice.

The floating starfish - totally confident, happy as Larry, and providing constant entertainment with her stories.

After swimming and of course a marshmallow for the water-monkey we returned home for a chilled out Friday evening of good food & TV and some chocolate pudding for the girls (I don't like that shit!)

• Put a pot of water on to cook a pack of twisty pasta.
• Added a cup of thickening Maizena cornflour and water to the cauldron still simmering away cheerfully, smelling absolutely delectable!
• Plopped in another tablespoon full of garlic paste, pulled out the naked thyme twigs, and sealed the hatch to simmer a bit longer. Stirring every 5 minutes.
• At the end pour in a pot of fresh cream, turn down the heat, and cook for another minute stirring slowly until the sauce is nice and thick.
• Have a spoonful of the sauce to taste, muttering in satisfied delight.
• Dish up generously and enjoy watching the hungry family chomping away like Hungry Hungry Hippo's!

On another note, as you may know I've got a new camera. I haven't yet had a chance to go through the million-page user manual so I have only used it on automatic. Below is a pic I took of Tammy this morning eating breakfast in the sunlight shining through the window, and the first photo taken with the camera, a picture of my hi-fi in the office. Naturally the picture quality will improve as I get to know how to fly this camera and develop my photography techniques through my course and a lot of trial & error practice. Watch this space - more to come...

Dazy 5

Today is the fifth day since I've had an alcoholic drink. Probably the longest I have gone without booze since the last time I tried to quit drinking about a year ago. That time lasted about 6 weeks before the demon bottle got a grip on my balls again.

You may wonder, why am I making public such a personal thing that maybe you'd be embarrassed to admit in public. Well, yes I'm ashamed of my alcoholic addiction, but it's no secret, and I believe that being open about it and talking about it on this blog is better "therapy", or "rehab", whatever you wanna call it, than the AA or other "institutions". Probably because I am a bad bullshitter, and if people know about my perseverance to quit, then if I break down and go on a bender again I'm not just lying to myself but also making a fool of myself and bullshitting the rest of you, which is worse. Besides, it worked before - the blogging thing. Except on it's own it eventually got boring, as did life without the bottle and not much else to keep busy except punishment in the gym.

To be honest, so far it's not been a problem, I'm not really missing my tipple. Yes there are twinges of cravings creeping through at times, but it's nothing I can't handle. I think the main reason this is working for me so far is all the excitement in my life about the very real and possible prospect of a career in photography. Not just because I believe it's possible, but because it is happening - I've got the gear and the training has started in earnest with my course through the PI. Apart from that I have a stack of bible-like manuals to study to learn how to use my new equipment technically. I also have some good e-books to work through, not least one of the books I requested on yesterday'sy's blog, kindly donated by my mother, and a couple of books on learning Photoshop CS5 in detail, as far as photographic techniques are concerned. In particular I'm keen to learn and try HDR photography soon. Also, I have an exciting business to start planning for and developing!

It's all a lot to ponder and work on, work that is going to take up a lot of time, effort & brainpower over the coming months, so I think finding the willpower to abstain from the drink should be easier than I'm dreading it to be!

Fuck knows, maybe I'll quit smoking soon too, but as I mentioned before - one thing at a time! Although when I'm not drinking I smoke a quarter of what I do when I am drinking regularly, I still need my fag every now and then when the need arises! It's good for my circulation, in that it's an excuse to get up from my desk and take a walk.

I better get back to work, before the all-knowing madam comes in and kaks me out from down there again!

Crazy + Stupid = Ambition

Right now I'm feeling happy as a pig in a puddle of shit, excited beyond overwhelming at the prospect of the new career I'm embarking on; and at the same time nervous as all hell at the sheer amount of money I have just spent at around 13h30 today and whether/when I will be able to pay it off!

I have just purchased the basic tools that will shape my future career as a photographer, a professional photographer. A career I have been pondering and dreaming of for years with little hope of achieving due to the expense of the training and equipment needed. I now have the training in motion and the basic equipment I need to get this dream to transform into an exciting reality, thanks to my first ever (now blown) credit card!

I went to Orms Photo Warehouse in Cape Town, an amazing place with everything a photographer could dream of! After 20 minutes I walked out with the following:

• Nikon D7000 camera body
• Nikon AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm VR II Lens
• Nikon SB-700 Speedlight Flash
• Sony Cybershot W520 Compact point & shoot camera (For the wife, her birthday present this year)
• Spare battery for the D7000
• 2 x 8GB memory cards for the D7000
• Large Nikon camera bag

Yes it's effectively just one camera and lens with a speedflash and some accessories, but it's a bloody good start. As time goes by I'll include a few extra lenses for different situations, but the next important thing I need to invest in is a portable studio-to-go kit. This will allow gigs such as family and portrait photography and schools photography, both genres which I will be marketing my business to extensively next year when it's up and running!

I would LOVE to also invest in a serious telephoto zoom at least 500mm, which I'll double with a teleconverter unit for bird and wildlife photography, an ultra wide angle "fish-eye" lens for wide angle and landscape shots, and a macro lens for close up pictures. But these and other gadgets will come as and when my income allows and the need arises. For now the lens I got today, an big upgrade from the very good kit lens on offer with the camera, will suffice as it's a multi use lens capable of decent levels of all shooting conditions. Oh yes, and I'll probably make good use of a sturdy tripod too!

I am very much in love with my new toys and chomping at the bit with anticipation of getting to know how it works and taking photo's that make the world a brighter place!

In the meantime, if you've bothered reading this far and are feeling particularly generous, I would love to get my hands on some reading material, either of the following:

• D7000. From snapshots to great shots. By John Batdorf
• David Busch's Nikon D7000 Guide to Digital SLR Photography

Much appreciated, thanks for reading! Now to get this lot insured by the end of the day!

And so it begins...

This evening I began the serious adventure of becoming a photographer! Not just the annoying idiot with a camera stuck to his face, the resident tourist at every event, outing and social gathering, snapping away randomly and relentlessly at everything that moves; as people who know me will begrudgingly recall. I don't think there's a person I know or a place I've been to that doesn't have a folder with a series of photo's on my PC's hard drives.

No, I'm no longer the "happy-snapper" with my fancy old Nikon D40x DSLR, now  I'm moving up in the world and going PRO!!!

This evening I enrolled in the Professional Photography diploma course through the Photography Institute, an online home-study based course spanning 6 months of intensive technical training.

The course is expensive, even with the 25% discount I managed to bargain out of them, but I've been researching various courses for weeks now and after extensive pouring through websites and forums gathering opinions from many people I chose to bite the bullet and go for this one.

I've already downloaded module 1, which is apparently easy, and already it's filled with all kinds of fascinating information that I didn't know, and don't yet quite understand. The assignment at the end looks to be a rigid test of my understanding of the equipment described in the 88 page tutorial, I'm sure if that's the easy part the rest of the course will be a challenge, which I will relish, absorb and pass well above the required 60% to achieve my diploma!

This course is my first serious step towards becoming a professional photographer! Big words that, I know. "Professional" means somebody who is a specialist in their field of work, and earn money from that field of expertise because they are good at what they do. I intend to be that person, and I am planning to start my own business as a "Professional Photographer" by mid 2012.

Right now that is still a vague intention, however serious, there are many aspects that I need to figure out and work hard towards before that ambition is realised, many of which I'm probably still not even aware of. But this course, combined with the Small Business Management course I did through Unisa a few months back will be a good grounding for basic business practices and professional expertise. Slot in the great ideas I'm already conjuring up in my wild imagination and I am warning the world now - a revolution is in the making!

BUT, like my dear wife keeps harassing me not to discuss my plans with the world through my blog - I will heed her advice and keep the details of my business plan secret until it is ready to be launched; where the beast will be unleashed unto the world ready to capture it's beauty and savagery in all it's magnificent glory and transforming moments in time into lasting memories of her multitude of inhabitants.

And in between all that I should probably make the effort to get to gym too. I can't conquer the world with a camera as an unattractive fat fuck, unfit and lazy to the core! No, I'm going to look the part too.

BTW, I conquered Tuesday without a drink, day 3, and quite honestly don't even miss it (yet) despite the stack of bottles of beer, brandy & wine on the kitchen counter left over from Saturday.

Anyway, enough philosophical waffling, I'm going to bed!

Dry August

The hot winds of change are blowing... and by that I don't mean the 28 degree berg wind roasting us in the middle of winter!

I have once again reached a point in my existence where I've realised I need to make some serious changes, one of which is to try, for the third time, to seriously tackle my drinking problem. So I've decided to go dry for the whole of August, to remain alcohol free for the whole month. This will serve not only to save money and to be a lot healthier, and more alive; but mainly as a challenge to myself to gage how well I can cope without the booze. I can't afford rehab (nor have any desire for such drastic measures), and I'm not interested in the AA (been there, done that, it didn't work for me!) so I'm just going to slog it out alone, hopefully with a bit of encouragement from my family. If this lasts the month, I'll take it from there. In my wildest dreams I might make it to Christmas, and quit smoking by then too... but like they say... baby steps, one at a time!

My last drink, in copious amounts, was on Saturday night 30 July until about 3am on Sunday the 31st. It's now Tuesday, so far so good! If anybody wants to back me up on my endeavour please do so on the comments below or email me at justindeklerk@aol.com, NOT on my Facebook wall please! I do still have some pride and dignity!

BTW, this has nothing to do with the Muslim fasting of Ramadan, it's just a timely co-incidence!

The reason I've come to this decision to attempt this feat of willpower against a long term addiction which I admittedly enjoy is that I've had enough time wasted through painful hangovers, and I feel I'm missing out on my daughter's growing up by being in the daze of drunk all the time. I get drunk every couple of days, at home, alone, usually on whiskey, which is clearly not healthy nor is it helpful to our already highly strained finances. My wife probably doesn't believe me and I don't blame her, but I'll have to deal with that in stride.

The other thing is I am on an eager and highly motivated drive to invest in starting some kind of serious career in photography, which is going to include undertaking some studies again which will no-doubt take up a lot of time. I've spent a lot of time in recent weeks in thought and researching on the internet about photography, and I'm excited as all hell to get into this like I've not been excited in years! It's something I really enjoy and one of the few things I'm actually fairly good at, and I firmly believe in myself that with some good training and some decent semi-pro gear I will be quite good, good enough to break into the world of professional photography that actually generates a reasonable income. Part-time at first, of course, but someday I'd love, absolutely LOVE to be working full time as a photographer taking the kind of pictures that make people go WOW!

So at lunch time today I'm heading off to Orms in Cape Town to check out some gear. I've got my heart set on the Nikon D7000.

The course I'm almost decided on is the Photography Institute diploma course in professional photography. It's an online home-study course that seems to cover everything photographical.

I'm well excited, and so far it's proving to be a successful distraction from the thought of alcohol.

My life has become frustratingly boring, uninteresting and for much of it unpleasant to the point of near depression (boo hoo for me) due to my deadpan routine, the people that I have to deal with daily and the depressing soul-destroying shit I have to put up with, and still having to mull over the fact that I have achieved nothing worth bragging about in life (besides my awesome child) and the prospect being trapped in this hell hole until I die unless I start fucking climbing!

The time has come for change, for the better...

Wish me luck!