Delta DL024 for Dakar and Johannesburg

I couldn't post to the blog while I was in Nicaragua, because GPRS or 3G was not available to me. I did take some photos of this interesting Central American country, but if I were to post them now - they will be out of sequence. I had a very productive business meeting while in Managua. I worked very hard, but had time with business associates to travel to Granada more to the south. We had dinner in this historic town and talked a lot.

While traveling back, I missed a connecting flight in Houston. Luckily, I did manage to get on the next flight, but this left me with 35 minutes to connect with the only Delta flight to Johannesburg out of Atlanta. I made it just in time!

Windsor Resort, Nairobi

Lately, I seem to be gettting the strangest room-numbers. I always wanted to stay in Room 123 and this time, I was given this number at the Telecommunications Summit that I attended. The summit was very productive and I met many new frienbs and possible business associates.

The Rugby World Cup 2007

The whole of Cape Town got sport-mad on Saturday. Everyone that could was dressed in green - like this little chap at the local Pick and Pay. We watched how we won the Web Ellis trophy with the Heines and enjoyed the moment. It was always clear to me that we would win, as we really had a good tournament and one could sense that the players were confident.

I think that even the English recognised that the Springboks were a superior team, yet they played with commitment and can be very proud of how they ended the tournament. I salute them.

Reading many reports on the match afterwards, I particularly liked the Sportblog by Andy Bull in the UK Guardian. He ends with the following sentence: "As I said, defeat is easier when you've someone to blame. It is easier still when you can appreciate and enjoy what it means for the team that beat you, and how well they had to play to do it."

Fundamo Office

This is the front door of the Fundamo Office where we have been operational for the past four years. I spend a lot of time at work and enjoy it, but have actually posted very little on the blog about Fundamo. Next Saturday we will be moving to new offices and this will be the end of an era. We have also changed the logo and corporate branding. The green on the logo has now been replaced with platinum. This is much more classy and emphasise the status of a more mature and acknowledged company. But still, it is sad to move on.

Floris Hamman

We attended a formal dinner and dance tonight with old friends. I was in the army with Floris during 1980. We were officers in the Infantry Division at the Army Battle School in Lohatla. We reminiscenced about the good old days - how we played rugby against the miners in places like Blackrock and Hotazel.
The evening was very enjoyable with good food and wine (we started with a Nederberg Sauvignon Blanc and finished with a Durbanville Hills Merlot). Me and Annelie proved that we can still dance and did a few rounds on the dance floor too.

Helderberg Fire

A fire burned tonight in the Helderberg mountain. If you stood on the balcony, you could see the flames in the dark sky. It was scary on the one hand but also beautiful. A strong South Easter was blowing and that fanned the fire.

Business Dinner

After two days of very productive meetings with partners in London we had a good dinner at a Chinese restaurant in London. Gavin in this picture is explaining the benefits of his Blackberry.

London Hotel

In London at the moment for some important meetings. I thought that it was quite meaningfull that I was booked into room M5 in this budget hotel (only hotel that we could find a place in at short notice). As far as I can remember MI5 is the secret service of the British Intelligence service.

Celebration with Clients

We had dinner with senior management from one of our clients tonight. Dave is the Chief Operating Officer of Mobile Money and it is such fun to be in his company. We enjoyed the food and laughed a lot.
Why is it that some jokes are not really funny the day after: A white horse walks into a pub. The barman says: "do you know that a drink is named after you?". The horse is surprised: "Who would call a drink 'Eric'?" he says.

The user interface of lifts

I don't know if it is age, but it is as if more and more little things are starting to irritate me. It is not as if I cannot live with these things, it is just that I would really like these things to be different. Take lifts for instance. Why is it that most people cannot understand the buttons for a lift? When requesting a lift one is confronted with two buttons: an UP arrow and a DOWN arrow. This should be absolutely clear: When you want to go UP, you press the UP arrow, and so forth. Then why is it that the majority of people press both? This slows the whole operation down and we have to spend much more time in lifts than is necessary.

I think it is because people think that they have to "call" the lift to come to them, and because they don't know if the lift is above or below, they have to press both to either "call" the lift to come UP or to come DOWN. Maybe we should add "Lift Operation" as a mandatory subject in school.