tag

Yup, it's true, I own a share ... ONE Share in Telkom SA .

Thanks to Richard and Alastair for sponsoring the investment.

This very cool act of generosity following after a group of us donated cash to the Telecoms Action Group (TAG) for the 1 pager in the Mail & Guardian on 19th Jan 2007.

The SA Telecoms Action Group met at Nino's Rosebank on Monday night to fill in the paperwork and have it confirmed by a notary (Mark Harris) and then VOILA - we were endowed with super mass action powers to:

Gain access to AGM's now where we get to participate.

We can then talk about pressing issues like:

1. What yarn to knit the tea cosies out of, in the Umtata District.
2. A play by play, gripping technological thriller involving: [a] what really happens when our vocal patterns are digitised into speech artifacts ... [b] what people will say 1000yrs from now when they replay those artifacts ... [3] how to really "pimp my VOIP up" to sound mega-cool 80's robotlike just to confuse future researchers. (I know I know, too much Futurama)
3. Whether Bakers Shortbread really is the perfect accompaniment with Rooibos Tea or Oumas Buttermilk Rusks rather, to offset the tanginess the tea leaves on the palate.
4. How if you say VOIP at least 50 times out loud in rapid succession, you'll approximate one of those battery operated attack choppers they sell at Toys-R-Us.

Regardless of the plethora of topics at our fingertips, we should be able to keep 'em busy for a while.

I guess this is the form of protest we get to take part in, as "The New Digital Hippies" (we also joined a newly formed Shareholers Education Association, which allows us access to some very smart info on our rights and how to exercise them, to maximise the pain .. er .. to carry our message across with poise and congruence ... and no MaX, I'm never joining Toastmasters :P )

[1] Dave Gale who birthed this round of blogtag, quoted the game as bloggers: "sharing five things about themselves that relatively few people know, and then tagging five other bloggers to be 'it'. He tagged [2] Mike who then tagged: 3] Dave Duarte [4] Me [5] Scott Gray [6] Peas on Toast  and [7] Max Kaizen

So I'm up for a fun way to: Stretch the Johari a little (I know, I know) and Influence Rankings, and it doesn't seem to carry any risk (unlike playing Tag with 2 older brothers which rapidly descends into a game of stingers (with a soaked tennis ball) and you're 6 years old AND the laatlammetjie so they have way better co-ords and you end up howling like a banshee and mom gives you cake to ease the pain and you end up using cake a lot ... oh wait .. these ARE secrets ...)

These are 5 lesser known things, fleshed out a bit to give context as well as make a decent first post on this new site:

[short version]

(1) I love ice cream for breakfast, (2) I've experienced terrorism firsthand (3) My Xhosa name is Mlungisi, (4) I was on the 8pm news (5) I drove around an entire country in 1 day

[looong version]

1.  I embrace the principle "It's never too late to have a happy childhood"  - this can be evidenced by: my collection of action figures; Silver Surfer and Green Lantern comics; inflatable spidey; lego robotics and expansion sets; love for the word monkey or anything to do with monkeys; focus on the dessert menu at restaurants and love of anything but breakfast cereal for breakfast. How cool is ice cream for breakfast? How cool is it many, many weeks in a row? .. of course that gave rise to me signing up for personal training/coaching with Rodney King
 
2.  I spent plenty of time growing up on a farm, Adamantia Ranch, in Zim, just outside Somabula. Dad farmed with maize, cattle, sheep and bred and trained horses (he was a hotshot Gymkhana rider). One night stands out pretty vividly (well besides the night my 2 boets and I got into a mulberry battle in the orchards and came home looking like the Purple Musketeers ... we where stained for days) ... anyways .. back to the story ... Terrorist raids where quite prevalent pre 1980 and one evening we got a warning via cb radio that a group of terrorists had been spotted on a farm adjacent to ours. Anyone familiar with that period of history in Zim will know that the "freedom fighters" were notorious for cutting off appendages of family members and forcing their peers to cook and eat them, besides the usual rape and beatings. Our family followed drills we where familiar with: drag all mattresses into the main passageway and wait there until they had either passed through the area or until help arrived. As a kid I was pretty stoked, it was exciting for me, my dad had trained in the Rhodesian Infantry and being my hero I figured he could take on any threat. It was only when I heard my gran sobbing that I realised this was not a game nor very exciting. Thinking back I recall this as the first time I ever feared for my life and that of my families. Writing this little glimpse is pretty cathartic for me, and gets me thinking about what it must have been like for my dad, being the only adult male in the home and tasked with protecting his mom, wife and three young sons. *makes note to chat with dad about that night and record it* ... okay .. enough heart on sleeve stuff, suffice it to say we saw some pretty nasty stuff early on in life and fortunately my boet's and I where young and resilient.

  3.  I served as a missionary for 2 years in the LDS, SACTM. I got to teach maths/science in township schools, work in hospitals, rural peace garden initiatives and work with families, teaching doctrines that encouraged learning, growth and development. While in Queenstown, I was given a name by one of the village elders, "Mlungisi" - meaning, 'one who restores' or 'makes things right'.  To go with my cool Xhosa name I was also made an honorary member of the madiba isiduko(clan), so yeah, me and Mkhulu are like this *clasps hands together firmly* ;)

4.  I made a 'guest appearance' on the national 8pm evening news, without even knowing it. I was in one of the last groups of  SA lads to be conscripted to compulsory military service, trained as an operational medic and deployed in the Kruger National Park. One evening, just past midnight, my radio went bezerk calling for medical assistance along the kaftan (the electrified barrier with razorwire, that separates South Africa and Mozambique). Frelimo and Renamo where at it again and the battle had spilled over into the town of Rosano Garcia. Locals in the villages fled to the SA border and those who had blankets hurled them on the fence and climbed over, many didn't have that luxury and hurled themselves on the fence while others climbed over them, with mothers throwing their children over (SADF had turned off the current so the only menace left was the razorwire, which left no refugee's hands and legs unscathed). I grabbed my assistant and most of the supplies in my sick bay and hurtled toward the scene in our Mfezi (land-mine 'resistant' military ambulance). Being first on the scene, we sorted the group of about 80 refugees in order of severity of injuries and began treating them.  The press from nearby Komatiepoort arrived and captured me on film, at work injecting and bandaging and suturing frantically. 2 medics, 80 casualties. 4 hours later we were done and the local SAP trucks arrived to take the refugees back to Mozambique  for processing by their own government.

It was only a week later that I was hauled into the commandants office, to view the tape that was broadcast on national TV. There in full view, for the SA nation and my military superiors, can be seen my 9mm pistol shoved into the back of my pants all ghetto like. He was furious, how could I be so sloppy, anyone could have just snatched the gun while I worked. I was reposted to Rob Ferreira Hospital in Nelspruit for a month as "punishment" which was pretty much what I needed after some hectic rural events.  Then after showing sufficient humility,  I was assigned to Crocodile Bridge Base in the Kruger Park for the rest of my service period, where I got to deliver 2 babies, treat malaria, snake bites, tuberculosis and nasty venereal diseases 32 battalion picked up in villages (32 Batallion are the fierce soldiers made up of local South Africans, as well as Angolan lads who convert to the SA Defence Force, some of the toughest and scariest men I've ever had the opportunity to meet ... you don't want to be on the wrong side of these folk).

5.  While employed by Obsidian and building up the training division, i got to to train in some pretty exotic locations, Mauritius was one of the places I got to train in and run RHCE exams quite frequently. There was a weekend overlap where my colleague and i where both in Mauritius, so we rented a little Peugeot and drove around the entire country in just 1 day, yup, one day to travel round the entire country :P 'Course this really isn't hard to do considering that the island is about 60km wide at it's widest point (North/South). Still, I'm pretty chuffed to have that achievement down ;)

Eep, the tone of this post turned pretty serious ... where did all that come from ... *ponders* ... well I'm gonna leave it like that, some sort of reference point for my frame of mind,  lighter go-go gadget stuff ahead :)

I'm tagging these guys (mostly because they haven't posted in a while or not at all, lazy bums *hides behind new blog excuse* :P

Thomas - good buddy and colleague, building great things up in Ghana.
Roger - fellow mac geek and Drupal acolyte
Andre - housemate, designer and seriously skilled at skinning Drupal
Guy - the renaissance monkey and business dev consultant at Cycan
Anton - the deepest geek I know, who also taught me plenty of Linux and shares my passion for the human mind (no blog set up yet, that's what this week is for) ;)

Get to it pilgrims :)