. After I gave notice at the contracting house I contemplated how much time and money I would need to survive, scrape by, enjoy life or really cream it. Then I contemplated that I should’ve contemplated this before I did the Big Jump out of corporate South Africa, but like the saying goes, one cannot test the water with both feet in the boat (more about that phase later). About the basic needs index — it is a method I devised to figure out how much one really needs to keep breathing for an indefinite period on the face of this God-given earth, somewhere between being clothed in rags and eating worms, or clothed in Armani and eating frogs. The Life Surface Area model really helps in this regard because one’s existence is already mapped out for you, all you have to do is decide what’s more important and what you can live with at what quality of life scenario. Here’s how it works:- Body (incl. Food, Health, Clothing)
- Career
- Communication (incl. Cellphone, Internet)
- Computer
- Finances
- Home (incl. Water, Lights, Tax, Bond, Maid, Gardener)
- People
- Projects
- Soul (incl. Pets)
- Spirit (incl. Donations)
- Studies
- Travel (incl. Car Repayments, Insurance)
- Body: Currently, have a gym contract, medical aid, eat most meals outside of home and occasionally buy clothes as the need arises. If things were worse, I’d go on a hospital plan, cancel gym, not buy clothes, buy food at Shoprite instead of Woolies and cook mostly at home. In the worst-case scenario I won’t eat out at all, skip meals and stop my medical aid. If things were better, I’d have more clothes to choose from, a full-time maid that will cook as well, and eat at smarter restaurants.
- Communication: Currently, have a cellphone on contract and DSL at home. If things were worse, I’d go on 3G and worst-case I’d suspend all contracts and use pay-as-you go. It can’t really get better, except that I’ll have a faster DSL and a private strand of fibre in the new Seacom cable (whenever it goes live).
- Andsoforth… while you’re busy with this exercise, attach amounts to these scenarios as well. Which brings us to the next step…
| QOL | Amount | Period | Category | Item | R/m | |
| Worst | R 30 | / | day | Food | Beans and bread | R 900 |
| Worst | R 1,000 | / | month | Travel | Sell all vehicles, get scooter. | R 1,000 |
| Worst | R 0 | / | month | Clothes | No new cloths | R 0 |
| Worst | R 50 | / | month | Comms | Payphone use | R 50 |
| Worst | R 2,000 | / | month | Housing | Share flat/room | R 2,000 |
| Worse | R 1,000 | / | month | Comms | Cellphone Contract | R 1,000 |
| Worse | R 100 | / | day | Food | B/feast eat out, energy drinks | R 3,000 |
| Worse | R 3,000 | / | month | Travel | New bike | R 3,000 |
| Worse | R 200 | / | month | Clothes | Some new clothes | R 200 |
| Worse | R 4,500 | / | month | Housing | Own house and rent rooms out | R 4,500 |
| Worse | R 0 | / | month | Housing | Laundry, Cleaning | R 0 |
| Current | R 100 | / | day | Food | B/feast eat out, energy drinks | R 3,000 |
| Current | R 3,000 | / | month | Travel | New bike | R 3,000 |
| Current | R 500 | / | month | Clothes | Some new clothes | R 500 |
| Current | R 1,500 | / | month | Comms | Cellphone Contract, DSL | R 1,500 |
| Current | R 8,500 | / | month | Housing | Own house | R 8,500 |
| Current | R 1,600 | / | month | Housing | Laundry, Cleaning | R 1,600 |
| Current | R 10,000 | / | year | Holiday | Local | R 833 |
| Better | R 200 | / | day | Food | Always eat out, braais, parties | R 6,000 |
| Better | R 8,000 | / | month | Travel | New bike, new car | R 8,000 |
| Better | R 4,000 | / | month | Clothes | Some new clothes | R 4,000 |
| Better | R 1,500 | / | month | Comms | Cellphone Contract, DSL | R 1,500 |
| Better | R 12,500 | / | month | Housing | Own house, additions | R 12,500 |
| Better | R 1,600 | / | month | Housing | Laundry, Cleaning | R 1,600 |
| Better | R 40,000 | / | year | Holiday | Overseas | R 3,333 |
|
|
Clothes |
Comms |
Food |
Housing |
Travel |
Holiday |
Grand Total |
Worst |
R 0.00 |
R 50.00 |
R 900.00 |
R 2,000.00 |
R 1,000.00 |
|
R 3,950.00 |
Worse |
R 200.00 |
R 1,000.00 |
R 3,000.00 |
R 4,500.00 |
R 3,000.00 |
|
R 11,700.00 |
Current |
R 500.00 |
R 1,500.00 |
R 3,000.00 |
R 10,100.00 |
R 3,000.00 |
R 833.33 |
R 18,933.33 |
Better |
R 4,000.00 |
R 1,500.00 |
R 6,000.00 |
R 14,100.00 |
R 8,000.00 |
R 3,333.33 |
R 36,933.33 |
Subtitled: A meek little post to break a long spell of no posts…
There’s a bit of a rabbit trail if this command does nothing:
# /etc/init.d/apache2 start # echo $? 0
My problem was that the file /etc/init.d/apache2 was empty! To restore it, follow the tips here:
Just got off the phone with Unisa, I discovered they only registered one of my five first semester courses and they sent an email telling my why the others weren’t registered. To add to the joke Unisa’s registration process (which is becoming a bit of a joke to me), guess (a) where they sent it to, and (b) when I activated my mylife account given that (c) it takes at least two weeks to process web registrations and (d) I had to wait two days for my activation email to arrive.
In short, they mail me at my mylife.unisa.ac.za account to tell me I cannot register for some courses, when one can only activate that account at least two weeks after you’ve registered. On top of this, this is after spending best part of a morning going down to Unisa in Florida to get my curriculum validated by a student advisor. Lets hope some facetime at the Unisaplex can sort this out…
Unisa and Microsoft made a deal whereby all student accounts will be hosted on their Exchange Labs site. Since you are likely one of those GTD-type people who cannot stand the joy of checking yet another email account, there is an option to forward all mails to another email address. Fantastic — if it was enabled! I for one cannot find this option anywhere. Another way of getting out of this hellhole is to suck your @mylife.absa.ac.za mail from another service, such as GMail. To do this, use the following settings:
E-mail address: Enter 4234...@mylife.unisa.ac.za, use your own student number!
Enter the email password for the account
Incoming server: pop-eu.exchangelabs.com
Encryption: SSL
Port: 995
And you’re done. While I like their idea of using a single communications platform (cheap etc), I don’t like the idea of being forced into a solution that doesn’t fit my email routine. Hopefully this will help others who feels the same way.
“Hallo!” I shout, loud enough to hear myself through the helmet, in-ear earphones and the bike’s rumbling. “Is julle Kimberleystraat 3?” I shout knowing that if I can hear myself, the couple sitting on the red steps of a free-standing house will definitely do so too.
Remember, she was the locked-up daughter of Josef Fritzl. Read how she was “raped up to three times a week”, how Josef Fritzl “threatened to leave them to die” and how Fritzl now is expected to face up to 3000 rape charges: Elisabeth Fritzl tells of dungeon life | NEWS.com.au.
An oldie but a goodie! In this story, read how Supernanny’s naughty chair disciplinarian tactics couldn’t stop a thre-year old kid from putting his family out on the street. The last paragraph is the funniest… Supernanny kid burns down family home | NEWS.com.au.
This HelloPeter complaint doesn’t make sense: Bangkok Wok – U ALMOST KILLED ME! – Complaint
This time the ride was for something more meaningful – Wayne and Natasha got married on Saturday me and Jani went down to party it up in Slummies. I left Thursday at 9pm, with the idea of snoozing over in Bloemfontein. What happened in reality is that I got there at midnight, started to shoot some pool with 2 crazy-fun Egyptian brothers, and before knowing it I was chatting outside to Hitler and his buddy (yes, Hitler! Knows quite a lot about bikes as it turns out, should too as he wears a Buffalo Rally belt buckle, you know the one with the head and horns) and it was 5am already. Not feeling like laying over for an hour or two (I wanted to be in EL at noon and its still 600km away) I filled up and took the road.
Sheesh it was cold. Here’s a pic of what the temperature was other side of Reddersburg.
I arrived in Slummies just after 12 bells, hanged around Deon’s office until he finished work, got clean undies (Gugu hasn’t come in for weeks) and finally laid my head to rest for an hour or so before the bacherlor fun started. I’ll try to get pics of Wayne’s White Chicks move that Wayne pulled over at Bucs, it was hilarious to see him (dressed with huge boobs, wig and rugbyshorts, in fact like something resembling Vicky Pollard of Little Britain) drop it and get down with some breakdancing on the floor.
. Anywhoo, got home at 5, slept another 3 hours and then Jani arrived (she flew down). Had lunch in Gonubie and raced off to the wedding which ended pretty early. Off we went to Numbers for a 90s party, then to bed for a few hours of sleep, then to Nahoon for breakfast and walkies on the beach, then left at 2pm Sunday to return home. Like, yeah yeah no essay today; my brain is still recovering. And then on the way home the wind was strong from the left, which is not cool as you’re thrown across the lane with every gust coming from the side, then it started to rain, which is cool, then the rain stopped and it started to snow which is even cooler. Its not that tricky to ride in the snow but visibility — and the cold!! — is a big problem. Because the snow doesn’t blow off your visor or windshield, but instead forms a sludge that you must wipe off, your hands get miserably cold even with the heated grips turned all the way. Leaving Aliwal after some chow at Wimpy the storm was so bad I had to turn around and wait it out because I couldn’t see a thing behind wet glasses, fog, ice on the visor, snow on the screen and snow in the lights (it was 7pm I think then). Luckily it didn’t last long and I arrived in Bloem at midnight, where I filled up again, had a Red Bull and pushed through to get home. I was in bed at 2am and had to be up at 7 for a project meeting. So there, four days, 2000kms, -5C, snow and liters of Redbull with 12 hours sleep. I feel great =)
Check the piccies here.
Lessons learnt:
- Listening to The Hobbit audiobook while riding through the Eastern Cape is awesome and you forget about time while imagining little Hobbits, ferocious goblins and howling wolves all around you while riding through the mountains not too far from where Tolkien was born.
- Ipods don’t do 16 hours. Not having music (or Frodo) for 1/2 the trip was a bit sucky.
- Never eat yellow snow.
- I now know what a ‘undercut’ on a bikini top is. Thanks Deon and Wayne!
- There’s no 95 petrol in Bloem or Aliwal. Unless you spend an hour riding around in Bloem, but definitely not in Aliwal. Next time I’ll pack a jerry can under the seat.
Cheers
