How to break 9 years

Right there. On that boat. On that day, I tore, broke, said goodbye to my 9-year-old faithful and fitting Sea Rescue (NSRI) crew shirt.

Yes, those are shipwrecks behind me

I did weep a little - that smile is all a lie - underneath those awesome Ray-Ban Wayfarers and took a snap to remember the day my crew shirt with so many memories finally said bon voyage.

Sparkling new blue shirt is in my boot waiting to be ironed, fitted with badges and christened on training or a callout creating new memories

Me in an infographic

Nothing new but still kind of nifty that I get to pretend I've just created an infographic representing yours truly.

Spotted this on my twitter stream this morning from Rich Mulhollond's blog post: Make your own personal infographic. Basically questions are already set up by IONz and by providing the answers, it tallies them up and gives you that wonderful infographic.

It's been a long time coming

Yesterday we achieved something great. After a full season of consistently superb and clinical hockey we won our last game and became the new Ladies Grand Challenge champions.

After an 11 year stronghold on the league title by Maties (Stellenbosch University) it came down to one game which was played on the 25 August against the 'feared' team. At 10pm we walked off the field as winners in a game that pretty much decided who was going to take the league title. Every single player gave everything they had in that game and it showed that we had been the better team on the night and pretty much the season.

A professional unit built on trust, friendship, skill, experience and short, simple ball (and cake) won us this league and it's about time

In honour of Keep Calm

Considering I'm quite the Bones fan and I love a good ol' 'Keep Calm and Carry On' creativity, the two images below I just couldn't resist.

The delectable Seeley Booth in that fitting FBI t-shirt

Hello

And Brennan smacking the kak out of the Gravedigger

Boom!

You can find these awesome images on thecrazyotic on Tumblr

Keep Calm and Beat It

If there is one show you must see this year, it's Michael Jackson's tribute show, Thriller Live.

I wanted to see it on the West End but failed miserably with trying to cram in everything else before I left London. The legendary gossip columnist, Jenna Shevel was raving about it straight after seeing it and I'm sure she even invited me to join but Robyn is clearly an ignorant fool when it comes to things like these.

Dun dun dun dun dun, dun dun dun dun

So when my friend smsed me suggesting we go see Thriller at Montecasino in Johannesburg - I was there for tech4africa anyway - I jumped at the opportunity and aside from it being way cheaper and getting better seats, it was frakkin' (Battlestar Galactica reference) fantastic.

It's going to be in Cape Town from the 9 - 12 September so grab your loved ones, paid ones or imagined ones and book a ticket on Computicket.

This message is sponsored by your local neighbourhood store.

Picture: http://fuckyeahpopicons.tumblr.com/

And then it was gone

Just like that and 3 minutes early too... the Athlone Cooling towers went BOOM and then poof in a quick cloud of smoke and well... it's cheers to those landmarks.

Before

And... after

After

What's next?

The Geosocial Universe [infographic]

This is a cool infographic that I spotted on the Digital Buzz blog this morning. It was created by JESS3, a creative agency specialising in social media, branding and data visualisation.

Check out the infographic below which illustrates the biggest players in the geosocial scene

Credit: JESS3 blog

The Bones recap video

For those that need a refresher of what's been happening on Bones. Here's quick but awesome season 5 recap



CANNOT wait.

The top Location Based Services [Infographic]

Spotted this on TechCrunch this morning: A great explanation of the key players of Location Based Services wrapped up in an infographic including the newest competitor, Facebook Places. Although Facebook Places isn't available in our country yet, when it goes live it will hopefully bring more attention to the potential of location based services and what it can offer to the users, which is like Foursquare have driven it; engaging with your customers and creating an incentive to drive them to your business.

Credit: Mark Fidelman

Hi-res versions are available for download here

Check your Facebook application on your phone (if you use it) for the latest addition from the social networking king. Took some screencaps when I updated my version on my iPhone yesterday

Does anyone really use apps like Foursquare, Gowalla or BrightKite? Would you use Facebook Places to share more information with your friends or is it becoming too much?

A little slice of heaven

I was voyering my news feed on Facebook and noticed brand spanking new pictures from my very good friend who had been travelling around magnificent European countries over the past month or two. A few weeks ago she had mentioned in her status update - which she rarely updates - she "is convinced Cinque Terre is the most amazing place in the world... I had to tear myself away."

I had to google the place and she wasn't kidding. Cinque Terre is a small area on the Italian Riveria in the Vernazza village (one of five in the area) and it's homes are built on the cliff faces overlooking the beautiful bay. No more words are really needed as the picture speaks for itself

Credit: The Exotic Travel Destination in the World

The best bet would be to go onto Flickr and search for 'Cinque Terre' and have a look at the gorgeous images travelers have taken over the years. 

Love it.

The Athlone cooling towers to go boom

In a few days time - Sunday 22nd August 2010 to be exact - this famous landmark along the N2 will be sent off  to construction heaven with a loud bang and lots of spectators watching all over Cape Town from Rhodes Memorial to UCT to Table Mountain. 

For those who need to get to the airport, I suggest taking different routes to Cape Town International. Speaking of the airport, it's going to be interesting when explaining to visitors how to get to the city especially when I tend to say "head towards those big towers along the highway and big mountain and keep driving straight" My kind of directions? Well now it's going to be: "Use your Google Maps"

Goodbye another part of my childhood upbringing

It's about the passion

A few weeks ago I had a friend complain about her long working hours - post call delusion as she likes to put it - at the hospital she is interning as a doctor. Instead of ignoring the email, I decided to reply back and said something along the lines of: " ... to put things into perspective; you’re getting married & get to save people’s lives: be it big or small, you’re helping someone. Not many people get to say they do that shit so I think it’s an awesome job and you get paid moola for it. I wish I got paid for Sea Rescue (NSRI). Just saying"

How it began?
Looking back on nearly 10 spectacular years as a volunteer, it was probably the dumbest and best decision of my life. I so innocently agreed to do my community service project for school at the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) Table Bay station based at the V&A Waterfront in 2000 as I didn't feel like playing with babies (my mom owns a nursery school) or spending time elsewhere. My aunt's then boyfriend mentioned something about boats and the sea and I thought; cool.

First impressions always count right? Yeah, they definitely do in this case and after spending part of my first afternoon at the station scrubbing down a boat in miserable, stormy, horrendous Cape Town weather, I joined the rest of the crew upstairs where they were happily having lunch until a callout came through from Cape Town Port Control. A yacht had capsized off the breakwater with 3 people on board and was sinking. Within a few seconds the crew had thrown their lunch down on the table and rushed downstairs to the old Rescue 3 - Spirit of Safmarine II (12 metre rescue vessel) and the old Rescue 3A (5.5. metre RIB). I stayed behind with the shore controller watching them literally launch within in a few minutes and dash out into horrendous sea conditions - I kid you not. For the next 2 odd hours it was a waiting game for a very inquisitive 16-year-old girl who had no idea (honestly) what they could be doing. They finally returned soaking wet but smiling and chatting about war stories that happened in those few hours. I left shortly after and returned the following week to continue with my last few hours of the project.

Spirit of Vodacom

This time I got to go out training with the crew that was on duty that weekend in a blistering south-easter. I'm not even sure what training they were doing but I remember we had a callout that day. A resident at Clifton spotted a parachutist fall into the ocean off Clifton beach. An extensive search was conducted and nothing was found. What I learned later is that when the south-easter blows like that, 'white horses' as we like to call them, form on the ocean surface. You can mistake a 'white horse' for many different things such as a capsized boat to paraglider in trouble to an upturned kayak.

NSRI wedding advert done by Ogilvy

It's not all a blur
Now I don't know when I officially decided to go sign that indemnity and become a trainee crew at Station 3 - Table Bay but I will always remember the date that ultimately changed the course of my life. 24 February 2001 is when I rang the station doorbell after being dropped off by my mom. I was greeted by a crew member and taken upstairs to 'start' with my NSRI volunteer crewwoman career. I was 16 at the time and obviously still at school and extremely busy with hockey playing nearly 4 times a week for club, WP schools and the year before I had made S.A U16 so I was fully committed to the sport on all levels. What I always laugh at is it never really occurred to me that I may not last or never be accepted due to my general oblivious / ignorant nature that I do at times have. Nearly a year later the station decided to have an action cricket day and invited me to join. That was the day, I officially become one of 'them'. The day I bowled one of the coxswains middle stump, twice and had a great partnership with another crew member. That's not to say I was never accepted before. From what I've learned over the past few years is the crew is one big family and forming life-long friendships with new people every month only to be let down when they leave gets tiring, so the crew take their time in getting to know the trainees.

Some of the amazing people

Over the next couple of years I had been taken under 2 crew member's wings in the form of Giles and Jaco who I now see as my older brothers and nearly a week after my 18th birthday I was officially given my crew badge, my pager and allowed to buy my red Musto foul weather gear. An extremely proud moment and one that involved a lot of hard work. The experiences we've gone through together as one big family; engagements, marriages, births, tragedies, deaths and the daily journey of life, continues to this day. And that includes all the different types of callouts from tow jobs, capsized vessels, groundings, drownings, plane crashes to looking for a needle in a haystack, we have literally done it all and every callout is different, bringing out the best in our training and adapting it to the situation that is presented to the crew. It's a never-ending learning experience and we get to save lives on South African waters in the process.

Doug, Jaco, Giles & Pieter (L-R)

I could probably go on forever in this post but what I do know is this: it is something that continually inspires me and adds to my reason to get up in the morning. Being surrounded by a fantastic bunch of people, the people who I call my family (even cooler is some have met their husbands or wives here) is something I will not give up on in a heartbeat and will continue to passionately volunteer for no pay, if it means that I get more value out of the 'job' then I would have being paid.

Do you volunteer your time to charities? Would love to know your experience.




NSRI JP Andrews advert created by Ogilvy. 

The MiX Women's Day

About a month ago during one of our weekly Marketing team meetings, our Manager, Sabine bought up that National Women's Day is around the corner. I thought, cool, public holiday = sleep late, chill, sleep and chill again. "Where are we going to have it?" were the next words out of her mouth. Some planning, a new venue and some great prizes later and it all turned into this mornings event.

Credit: Katy Roberts

National Women's Day may have been on Monday 9 August but we invited all the women working at the Stellenbosch office to a morning breakfast at Stellenbosch Lodge. As our glorious ladies started arriving, they were given a warm drink to start on a very chilly Cape Town morning. With everyone in their seats, our Marketing Director, Cath Lewis took the spot by the fireplace and introduced everyone to the 2nd MiX Telematics Women's Day event.

Winner winner
With breakfast finished, we got onto the important part: the lucky draw. We were able to receive 3 goodie bags from Discovery, 3 vouchers from Stellenbosch Lodge which included a Spa treatment, breakfast for two and a 2 night stay. The last gift was a glamourous pair of gloss black oversized Pradas courtesy from the awesome Sunglass Hut's @Wedaad, whose phone call on Friday really happily surprised me. Guess there is a reason why I (and a lot of people I know) show support into brands that put an effort into their customers.

Cath wrote a post a while back called 'Thoughts on MiX' to which I mentioned that I was thinking about writing something similar, especially from the new kid on the block. Ideas like innovation, never a dull moment, passion - a very important aspect to work, in my opinion and lastly the way they value the company culture, which has rolled over to the very talented staff. There is this value on the people that work here which makes it great like a big family (full of Apple fanboys & girls), always wanting the best for you when they're not too busy creating new innovative products and solutions for their customers.

The winners of the prizes were:

• Lauren Young - Goodie bag from Discovery
• Bronia Paulse – breakfast for 2 at Stellenbosch Lodge
• Radheeka Reyatt – 2 nights stay at Stellenbosch Lodge
• Miriam Phuthumani – Goodie bag from Discovery
• Dandeline Philander - Goodie bag from Discovery
• Nicci Jenkins – Spa treatment from Stellenbosch Lodge
• Concetta Isolano – Prada glasses from Sunglass Hut

Winners of the prizes incl. Concetta with her Prada sunglasses

Thanks once again to:

• Sunglass Hut
• Stellenbosch Lodge
• Discovery 

How to train your dragon

I would love to know how training a dragon works out for those poor souls. And yes, I know it's a movie but there are many weird search queries out there especially if you carry on with the word 'put' (do it). It just gets awkward and slightly gross.

Surprisingly, 'how to destroy angels' comes in at number 4. Disappointed it didn't come in at number 1 but you know... a man's got to look good.

On the other hand, 'how to find a Jewish guy' brings up next to nothing in results. Thanks Google.