I’m heading off now (6:15am!) on a road trip to Jo’burg for a few days. Will be offline most of the time, but back on email briefly next weekend then fully probably on Tuesday or Wednesday from Bangkok.
Adios amigos… 
Tag Archive for 'cape town'
Back at Mzoli’s today. I went out early and ordered a bucket load of meat (literally). There were 20 or 30 of us in total. We did order more meat later though. This was just the first round!
I was on my way home last night. I stopped my motorbike to read a text message. It was just next to the central train / taxi station. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot a guy crossing the road towards me. Not in front or behind me, right towards me. I stuffed my phone in my jacket pocket. The bike was in 3rd gear. I dropped to 2nd and twisted the gas. It starts slowly in 2nd. He was running by now. He got to me just as the bike was moving off. His hand went straight for my pocket. He was on my right hand side. My right hand was on the accelerator. My left hand just managed to keep him out of my pocket. As my speed picked up he dropped off.
Close call.
Gotta love South Africa baby! 
I’m going to Mzoli’s again today. Last time my trip to Mzoli’s prompted me to give up alcohol. The following morning I started counting my drinks from the night before. I drank somewhere between 15 and 18 beeers. I felt fine in the morning. Well, perhaps not fine, but normal.
This prompted me to question my alcohol consumption! I decided to give up alcohol for the rest of the month. I made an exception after my attempted mugging, but otherwise I haven’t had a drink since.
Today should be fun. Sober fun no less!
Oh, and no kilt this time. I don’t want to over-excite Gugletu!
I was at the Cape Town Facebook Developers Garage last night. I have the badge to prove it!
It was an interesting evening. Pizza was generously provided by Butler’s Pizza. If I’m not mistaken their delivery staff arrive wearing a tuxedo shirt (whatever it’s called) and a bow tie! Fantastic. Drinks were supplied by Joyent (I think I got the link right).
There were a few interesting presentations. Jacques Marneweck spoke about memcache. He looked pretty nervous, but had some interesting things to say. He talked about starling, a memcache based queue server developed by Twitter and some other highly techy stuff. His slides were missing due to a format issue. I think the slides would really have helped the presentation, maybe he’ll post them online.
I’m meeting a few of the same people at most of the tech events in Cape Town. There seems to be a few interesting businesses going on down here. It feels like a small tech community, with a few “big fish”. Reminds me of Edinburgh.
I went to the February Cape Town OpenCoffeeClub meet yesterday. I had lunch with Nur (Nomade One) beforehand. We had a really interesting conversation around religion, values, ethics and business. I look forward to meeting Nur again.
Internet at the event was generously provided by Henk from Skyrove. Skyrove have an interesting business model. They manage internet hotspots and revenue share with the venues who host the hotspots. Bandwidth is outrageously expensive in South Africa, so Skyrove are also a little pricey.
However, Skyrove have undoubtedly gone up in my estimation since I met Henk. When accessing the internet through Skyrove hotspots he pays as an ordinary user, so that the venue get their revenue share. It’s nice to meet ethical business people.
From the meeting we spawned a Cape Town WordPress meetup. I’ve started a mailing list and a blog. I chose Google Groups to host the mailing list, much to my distress. I simply cannot find a good alternative. If you know of one, please put me out of my Google misery!
The first little snapshot of where I live here in Cape Town. Here’s my current CouchSurfer chilling by the pool in the garden.
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