The fastest record for losing £13

(posted by Elizma)

Leon and I were in London today and the weather was something to behold. The whole of the UK is currently experiencing severe gales up to 70 miles per hour.

Before venturing outside the station today upon our arrival, we bought a £13 umbrella.

I opened it inside, and 3 seconds after stepping outside, the wind blew it to smithereens.

I contemplated taking it back, but thought they wouldn't believe me or possibly say it's not meant to be used in these conditions.

Leon's old and bent umbrella passed the test however, but he ran the risk of being swept away. We've never experienced anything like it before.

SA's minister of Minerals and Energy's 10 point plan to save electricity

(posted by Elizma)

I couldn't help smiling when I read this - Sleep more to save energy

The 2 highlights:
1. Go to sleep earlier so that you can grow and be cleverer.
2. South Africa's power crisis was due to the country being part of the "global village". There was a "high demand" of energy globally.

Only in Africa...

Hi again!

(posted by Leon)

Hello there. Wow, it's been a hectic few months and I've been very busy doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing at this time: growing!

But not just growing. I've also been discovering all sorts of fun things to do, like kick my legs, wave my arms, play with the funny, weird rope-thingy growing out of my tummy, etc. And sleeping... lots of sleeping. Oh, and I've been having a lot of giggles whilst playing with my very first ball -- otherwise known as Mum's bladder, which is loads of fun to kick!

I regularly hear Mum talking to me (she sounds like a very nice mummy, and I can't wait to meet her) and on occasion I've also heard my Daddy's voice. Not too long to go before we can see each other for the very first time. I'm really excited about that.

I've had some more pics taken (apparently grown-ups really like photographs!), so thought I'd show you all what I look like, and to give you a wave (in the 2nd photo below).

Anyway, I'm off to play ball again. Talk soon.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

(posted by Elizma)

This was the first Christmas in 7 years that this part of the Cowle family was together for Christmas. It was quite a joyous occasion.

Click here for more of Christmas Day photos when we were joined by our very good friends Johan and Celia as well as Tania's daschund, Murphy.

Buying our Christmas Tree

(posted by Elizma)

This year we went to a proper Christmas Tree farm. They're only open 20 days a year and exist only to sell Christmas trees. I absolutely love this part of Christmas. I have to confess that I sometimes enjoy the build up to Christmas much more than the actual event.

Click here to see the process in action...

Dubai

(posted by Elizma)

Ok, I know, it's time to update our blog again. So here goes.

I'll start with our lovely and relaxing week in Dubai. We spent 7 days at the gorgeous Jebel Ali Palm Tree Golf Resort and Spa. It is about 30 minutes outside of Dubai and had everything we wanted for our holiday. We just wanted to relax and we didn't even have to leave the resort. It had 3 swimming pools, a beautiful beach and 7 restaurants to choose from.

As this was not meant to be a sightseeing holiday, we can't tell you much about Dubai. We went shopping one afternoon, but that was it.




Click here to see some of our other photos.

Happy New Year - except if you own a Mac Mini.

(posted by Leon)

Happy '08 everyone.

Except if you buy a (Apple) Mac Mini.

As it's been a while since my last geek/tech blog, I thought I'd kick the year off with a review of sorts. More of a moan than a review though.

Mac Minis are terrible. Don't buy one. Ever. Even if forced to at gunpoint (i.e. rather choose death). And if you're given one as a gift, break all contact with that "friend", as they obviously hate you.

I bought one 2 weeks ago. I took it back a week ago.

My gripes:
1. It came pre-installed with Tiger (i.e. Apple's OLDER operating system). With a DVD containing Leopard (the new O/S). They expect you to upgrade it yourself. Not a good start. (Please keep in your mind's eye the Mac ads where they hammer into everyone that it just works out the box).
2. It's touted as a BringYourOwnKeyboardDisplayMouse device. Well, guess what, neither Tiger nor Leopard have a keymapping for a standard UK keyboard. Only Mac keyboards. The one I had (a PC keyboard) worked, but some keys were wrong. Internet workarounds fixed most, but not all, of the problems with it. (What if I was a granny?? Internet workarounds? Keymappings? Huh? No, sonny-boy, give me back my PC!).
3. After the upgrade to Leopard, DIFFERENT keys were mapped incorrectly. They're not even consistent in their errors.
4. After the upgrade to Leopard, iMovie and FrontRow kept crashing. Great. (A system update later, and they worked again -- I'm a techie, but what about Granny??).
5. It couldn't play my AVI files. (Tech reason: divx codecs, etc, which I loaded. But... Granny???)
6. Last, but certainly not least, the built-in wireless was... well.... terrible. Down 50% of the time (even right next to my accesspoint!). Internet Forums confirmed many people had issues with it. Seems prone to interference. My other wireless devices work fine in my house.

So, you may have other experiences with it. You may not. Internet Forums suggest some people love it, other hate it. I'll let you guess in which camp I am.

Happy Mini-less '08.