On the eve of 2007

We spent the last part of 2006 with my parents, visiting from Bethlehem. The kids went out to say goodbye to the old year with friends at Clifton. SO we could stay home and remissence about the good old days. This time of year is full of memories, but also promises of a new year. This time it was great to be able towork on the memory part.

Three sisters at MeerenBosch

My daughter (actually daughter in law) is on the left on this photo with her two younger sisters at the family holiday house on the Botriver lagoon.

Bloemfontein

Picture taken of oupa Izak and ouma Andre on the stoep of their house in Bloemfontein during our visit. They are so much better than the beginning of the year. The confidence of oupa to actually started walking again after the fracture in his one leg was great.

Bloemfontein

Right now I am sitting on the stoep at my parents-in-law's place in Bloemfontein. We are three generations sitting next to each other. My father-in-law (close to his eighties and suffering from emphasema), my son (in his twenties) reading the bible and me (close to fifty) writing this blog entry on my laptop, connected via Vodacom's 3G card. Life's time perspective is so clear to me right now. I can see the difference in where each one of us is at the moment. What is important and what we are busy with, yet we are connected in a special way. We understand each other (with limited insight), but with the perspective of time. We are all different (because of where we are on our journey in time), but all the same because of our connection through family.

Stef Bos in Concert

Today we attended the Stef Bos concert at the Paul Cluver Amphitheatre. The Amphitheatre is situated in a forest (called Bos in Afrikaans), so it was quite amazing. Stef Bos is a Dutch singer that have been coming to South Africa for the past fifteen years. His music has been influenced tremendously by Africa. As an African this concert was such a special experience for me. Amongst others, quite by chance one of his songs talking about Africa and the birds and the animals were accompanied by wild birds in the forest joining in in perfect harmony. He (Stef) also spoke about the things that he picked up in Afrikaans (my language). For instance, he spoke about a term that we use ('mens-word') literally translated meaning 'to become human'. In Afrikaans this means when you get to grip with who you are and make peace with the fact. I never realised how important this meaning was for me. Stef also sang a song called 'Maputo' about the capital city of Mozambique, partly in Dutch, partly Afrikaans, but also interspersed with Portuguese - 'an ancient language for a young continent'. Having been to Maputo a few times and also knowing what a special city this is, I really enjoyed this song tremendously

Liza and Nina

We had a brief visit to the Adlems today. I took this photograph of our god-grandchild with her mother.

Stomp at Artscape

We attended Stomp at Artscape with our friends the Heines. This photo was taken prior to the show in the foyer of the Artscape Theatre. Annelie and Realle is flanked by their two daughters.

Our Friends Maritha and JP

We had a fantastic Braai at JP's house on Tuesday. The food and wine was good, but what we really enjoyed was the discussion. We talk specifically about religion. I believe that all of us received a lot of blessing through the interaction.

Thabiso

Thabiso is the MD of telecoms company Hipster. We met in Midrand to discuss some exciting joint ventures.

Altyd Jonker

Me and Annelie attended a stunning theartre show in the Oude Libertas Amphiteathre today. The show called: "Altyd Jonker" is a stunning dramaterisation (with music and dance) of controversial South African poet: Ingrid Jonker.

Gretel's birthday

We attended Gretel's birthday party today. We celebrated with friends. Amongst others some stunning wines were opened too.

Sippers Wineclub yearend

We had a great year-end function at Avondale. After tasting the wonderful wines (especially the reds.. and the Chenin) we had a stunning dinner supplied by Anita. This is a picture of Fred and Martie taken just after the function.

Izak left for Witbank

We dropped off our youngest at cape Town International this morning to fly to Johannesburg. He will be working as a trainee engineer on the Kriel coal mine (near Witbank).

Strand Apartment

We visited the apartment in the Strand today to just check if everything is still Okay after we had a number of people renting the property. This picture from the living-room towards Gordon Bay shows how beautiful it could be on a clear day like today.

Garage reptile

A snake died on the floor of our new home in de Wijlanden. We think that this is a good sign :-) On this picture Liza shows the impression that the dead snake left in the wet cement.

Izak and Mariet

My youngest son and his girlfriend having lunch with us on Sunday. We drove out to our house in the winelands that we are building to show to Mariet (she is studying to be an Architect) an dthen ended up at a Indonesian restaurant close-by.

MTN Banking at the Airport

I arrived back at Cape Town International Airport on Friday after the prize-giving ceremony. One of the shuttle-buses were advertising MTN banking. This is a product running on our software. I had to take a photograph.

My beautiful wife

2006 Wineclub end-of-year Function

We had a great time with our winefriends this year, that culminated with a dinner at Hillcrest Winefarm. This is a picture of Nico and Willem in front of the restaurant.

Looking for new Office Space

This is me and Craig and Adriaan on the building site of a possible new office block for our growing company. The current office space is getting to small and we will have to re-locate next year. Today we investigated alternative space.

de Wijnlanden

The house we are building in de Wijnlanden is progressing well. The cellar has been completed and the foundations are now being lain. See the beauty of the mountains and vineyards in the background.

Staffmeeting

We have staff meeting every first Monday of the month. Afterwards we have a few beers and/or glasses of wine. This is a pic taken of a few of the brilliant engineers working at Fundamo after the staff meeting.

Craig at the Office

Craig arrived back from leave in the Eastern Cape today, but had to leave immediately for France where we will be announcing a collaboration agreement with S1 Corporation in Paris.

Saturday

Our special friends Quintes and Rielle visited on Saturday for Dinner. We had "skilpadjies" and Karoo "Kreef". The evening was good fun with talking and sharing jokes till late at night. even though Izak and Mariet is studying for their final year exams, they took some time off to also spend time with us. One of my new Nigerian friends told me that a Nigerian proverb says that my friends are my clothes. I felt it tonight.

Izak rus

Izak is my youngest son. He is currently writing his final exams as a third year Engineering student. He usually lives in a Res on campus but decided to spend a few days with us while studying. It is interesting to experience your own life again in a way by seeing how your kids tackle theirs. I also was a student once and had to prepare for exams. I had a certain view of life, of my parents of my lecturers etc. It is interesting to see how my son sees life.

Wim and Ant

Just got this new mobile and wanted to see how I can take photos and post it directly on the web. The Sony W800 came pre-loaded with Blogger - how cool! So I took a picture of two business associated and friends in our offices after we spoke about how we will conquer the world.

The purpose of this blog

I have a number of blogs, for different purposes. One is specifically aimed at what I do. I post things related to mobile commerce and try to be clever so that my business can prosper. Others I have created to focus on relationships. But I always battled to keep the things updated regularly. Maybe it is because I like starting things rather than maintaining things.

I have decided that this blog is going to be about me - what I like, what I do and what I am busy with. I don't give a damn if anybody/nobody reads it or even comments on it. My intention with this blog is to define me for myself. I want to write about the things that interest me. Why our rugby team is not winning as much as I like, new restuarants and food that I discovered, a special bottle of wine that I consumed or a new winemaker that I met, my flying that I am so passionate about, where I traveled to and ho much I enjoyed meeting new people. I want to share about my love for my wife and kids - and sometimes about my relationship with God. This is very special to me and am not sure how easily I will post this on an open blog