Now, I’ve been to South Africa twice before, once in 1996 and again in 1998. When asked what I think of South Africa, my opinion hasn’t changed since my first visit: it is very possibly the best country on Earth to visit. This seems to surprise people, but I suspect that’s because the world at large’s opinion is based on the scare-mongering that you get from expatriate South Africans who have fled in fear. Just remember, for a country of some 47-million-plus people, the few South Africans you meet here and there in America aren’t necessarily a fair sample.

This trip has been fairly hectic and fast-paced, necessarily so we can try to do as much as we can with the time we have here this trip. I’m going to try and summarize as best I can, but if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask me. Here’s an overview of the “where and when” of our trip:

As you can see, the dates are color-coded to make it easier to tell where we are and when at a glance. We’re covering a lot of ground and it’s hard to keep track, otherwise.

Leaving New Jersey (Nov. 19)

We left New Jersey on November 19, departing from John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in New York and arriving at OR Tambo International Airport (JNB) in Johannesburg, South Africa, on November 20. The flight is approximately 18 hours long including a brief one hour ground stop in Dakar, Senegal. Apparently, South African Airways will introduce a non-stop flight from JFK to JNB in May 2009, which from what I can figure, will shorten the flight to around 15 hours. Whatever the case, it’s a long time to go without a cigarette! Non-smoking international flights are a bit cruel, to say the least.

Arriving in Johannesburg, South Africa (Nov. 20)

As we travel around the country, we are using my in-laws, Cynthia and Graham’s, place in Victory Park, Johannesburg, as our hub. It’s a convenient distance from the airport, less than an hour drive. This is where we “come home” to throughout our trip.

Off to Pilanesburg (Nov. 21-27)

Cynthia and Graham generously arranged for all of us to spend a week at Kwa Maritane in Pilanesburg. Although there was a terrible fire that destroyed a significant portion of the lodge back in August, we still had a fantastic stay.

The week was filled with lots of fun game drives through the park where we saw a wide range of animals: warthogs, zebras, giraffes, buffalo, wildebeast, springbok, kudu, impala, hyena, white rhino, elephant and lion. Unlike a zoo, where these animals are conveniently displayed in exhibits, a game drive is just like it sounds, where you’re driving in your car throughout the park, keeping a keen eye out for whatever wildlife you might be able to spot. What you actually see or whether you see anything at all depends on whether you can spot them in the bush. I think the kids had a great time and they’re both excellent spotters, already.

Both of the girls love the water and Kwa Maritane has quite a nice pool with quite a long slide into it. The kids spent a good amount of time at the pool, enjoying the wonderful weather we had.

One night, Sam and I went out for dinner to Sun City, the casino that Sol Kerzner is famous for. We decided to give the sushi at Fishmongers a try, only to discover that South African “sushi” when it comes to the actual raw fish means “salmon or tuna.” That’s it. No, I’m not kidding. It’s the culinary equivalent of putting “pasta” on the menu and actually serving Spaghetti-O’s. Now, I’m sure it’s a matter of demand, but really? Still, we had a nice time and the food was fine.

After dinner, we waddled over to the actual casino area, which I almost find hard to call a casino–it’s just banks of video slot machine games. Again, having American expectations of what a “casino” should be, this isn’t it. Gambling should be somewhat social, where people play together at the same table. Simply mashing buttons on a computer, iterating the pseudo-random number generator, trying to produce a desired outcome … that’s not gambling, that’s work! Still, I managed to earn us a ten-fold return on our investment playing Fairy’s Fortune–a really fun game, I have to admit. All told, it paid for our dinner, a bunch of beers and will continue to pay for my cigarettes throughout this trip.

Back to Jo’burg (Nov. 28-Dec. 6)

We returned to Johannesburg–or, “Jo’burg”–for a week. This gave us the opportunity to take the kids to a few places nearby.

One day, we all went to the Cradle of Humankind and took the tour through Maropeng. It’s a really nicely done tour and exhibit set, but the uber-liberal eco-faggy bent to it was a little disappointing. The excessive propaganda cheapens any actual historical or factual evidence being presented, which is a shame. The girls also went in to check out the Sterkfontein Caves, which I opted to skip–if you’ve seen one hole in the dirt, you’ve seen ‘em all.

Another day, we took the kids to see the South African Lipizzaners in Kyalami. Since both of the girls love horseback riding–they’ve had weekly riding lessons since they were 4 years old–seeing the Lipizzaners was great! The riders are all so friendly and chatted to us before and after the show, telling us about the various horses they have as well as answering our questions. The show explains the history of these horses and how they happened to come to South Africa from Austria, as well as the rigor of training for both the horse and the rider. The kids also had great fun feeding the horses carrots after the show, running between stables feeding their favorites.

We also found time one day to visit the theme park at Gold Reef City. We saw a demonstration of traditional South African dance, both tribal and mine-worker style. Samantha wanted to take the kids on the gold mine tour, but apparently there’s some strange law–or so we were told–about not allowing children under 6 (Suzie’s only 5) under ground, so we skipped it. I would have liked to check out the Apartheid Museum, since my first experience of South Africa in 1996 was already after Mandela’s election in 1994, to see how things had been, but we opted to skip it. Maybe we can come back to check it out before we return to America.

To the beach at Pringle Bay (Dec. 7-13)

Sam’s godfather and his wife, Neil and Penny, had generously offered to let us stay with them for a week at their home in Pringle Bay, which is situated right on the beach an hour outside of Cape Town along the coast.

Pringle Bay is just gorgeous. It reminds me of northern California, but much, much windier. I mean, the winds are so strong that when we took the kids to the beach, the sandblasting was so painful they said, “We don’t like the beach!” I really didn’t like it much, either–I mean, every time the wind blew, you either had to turn away from it, or end up with a faceful of sand.

So, the next day, Neil and Penny took us to Lake Pippple-Popple, where the water was a deep red like Coca-Cola. The water runs down from the mountain where some plants’ roots contribute this red color to the water. It’s fresh and crystal clear, but tinted dark red. The kids enjoyed splashing around in it because it was far less windy there.

One day, we travelled into Cape Town to visit Kips and Fiona and their boys. Samantha and Penny took the girls and the two older boys to the aquarium while I stayed behind to work with Kips. When they returned from the aquarium, the girls had great fun swinging on ropes hung from a very old tree in the yard. Suzie spent most of her time carrying around little Johnny–it was so very cute to see them together.

Throughout the week, even dinner was fun. We collected wood from around the house for the fires that we would braai with. One night, we were treated to a chicken potjie, cooked right in the fireplace at the house. We also had a taste of fresh rock lobster caught by some kids on the beach! On the night before we left Cape Town, we had dinner at a restaurant named @365 in Pringle that was absolutely fantastic, too. Given that I “vacation with my stomach” because I love to eat, this was the first week that I truly felt like I was on holiday.

Jo’burg again (Dec. 14-16)

Coming back to Jo’burg from the Cape, we decided to just stay around the house and take it easy. Shortly before we left for the Cape, the girls were introduced to a young boy named Joshua who lives in the same complex as Cynthia and Graham. So, when we came back, the kids all played together while we were back.

Samantha and I hadn’t gotten to introducing ourselves to his mother, Janice, until now. It’s actually fortunate that we finally have, because it’s officially turned this into a business consulting trip for me. Janice owns a company named Wellness Project Management that produces and publishes health and safety information materials. She has various IT projects that she needs done and I’ll be able to help her with them remotely, once I’m back in the US. But, while I’m here, I can see what she currently has and how she does things and make some short-term recommendations and explain some long-term plans for meeting her goals.

I still need to find out how I can officially form a business here in South Africa, but for now I’ve at least secured the panoptic.co.za domain name. I’ll try to open a bank account for the business and file the appropriate paperwork to register it before we leave. It would be really nice to be able to make this trip to South Africa more often and it be a business trip with respect to tax treatment.

On the Premier Classe train to Durban (Dec. 16-17)

We’re spending Christmas with Samantha’s uncle Derrick and his family in Paddock which is about two hours outside of Durban. As our Christmas gift, Cynthia paid for us to take the Premier Classe train from Johannesburg to Durban overnight, where Derrick would pick us up and drive us the rest of the way to Paddock the following morning.

As far as trains go, this one was deluxe. The passenger compartments were roomy and the seating was very comfortable. We shared two compartments between the four of us, which worked out really nicely. There’s a train car set up as a bar for smokers to go to while the rest of the train was non-smoking. There were two dining cars on the train where dinner and breakfast were served. It’s a really comfortable way to travel compared to driving or flying.

Our only real complaint about the train trip is that it’s clearly geared towards what I’ll refer to as “fancy old people,” because the dinner meal consisted of five courses and only started at 7:00 PM! When you have two young kids with you who are usually in bed and asleep by 7:00 PM, you can see why this was an issue. Clearly, the long meal is designed to kill time on the train as there really isn’t much else to do other than eat or sleep, but it would be wise for the train operators to offer a meal option to accomodate children passengers. Our girls were falling asleep at the table by 9:00 PM and we hadn’t even been served the main entree course, yet. Still, this was only a minor detail as the trip overall was truly relaxing and enjoyable.

More to come …

So, that sums up what has happened so far, which, if it sounds like a lot, just realize that I’ve also been putting in full 8+ hour work days while here. Oh, did I not mention that? Yes, I’m taking advantage of the time zone difference, currently a 7 hour difference between US/Eastern (UTC-5) and SAST (UTC+2), which means working from 3pm to midnight here corresponding to 8am-5pm back in NJ. I’m sure most people think this is crazy, but I subscribe to the “work hard, play hard, no excuses” philosophy. You have to make time–find ways to make time–to do the things that matter to you. It might not be easy, but it’s certainly worth it.

I’ll try to post more updates as the trip continues. If you read this far, thanks–I hope you’ve enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Tags: family, travel, South Africa

Now, we’re at my mother- and father-in-law’s house in Victory Park, Gauteng and for now I’m using their ADSL connection. Here’s the speedtest.net results:

Tomorrow, we head into Cresta Shopping Center so I can pick up a HSPDA/3G card for my MacBook Pro and a few SIM cards for our BlackBerry phones so we can make local calls.

I’m being called downstairs for dinner, but I’ll try to fill in some more details when I get a chance.

Tags: family, travel, South Africa

I haven’t blogged about this yet, but tonight, we leave for South Africa for six weeks. We’re taking the kids with us, and they’re going to miss a few weeks of school in exchange for what will hopefully be an invaluable learning experience.

We will be visiting my spouse’s fairly large family all over the place. There will be places to go and people to see. We’ll be there through the holidays, returning in the new year.

I will be online as much as I can be through various connectivity methods–it’ll be interesting to see where and how I can get connected around the country.

If there are any South Africans reading this blog, feel free to share any tips or suggestions you might have. Thanks.

Tags: family, travel, South Africa

So, we’re all ready for the visit of the Great Pumpkin this year, if it comes!

Tags: pumpkins

Tags: family, photo

seankreynolds

Often I think people mistake abusive violence and discipline. Given that we’re all just meat puppets and operant conditioning is well understood, punishment as a form of discipline is necessary; neutering a parent’s ability to physically punish is a grave mistake of our society. However, as you describe, anecdotes of unprovoked violence is abuse. Violence with the intent to cause pain rather than serve as punishment is abuse.

There’s no room in this world for abuse. However, a society that does not apply physical punishment when appropriate is equally doomed.

The fact that we no longer condone appropriate physical punishment, I feel, comes from us collectively “erring on the side of caution” as it is too easy for people to cross the line from punishment to abuse. Unfortunately, it’s the risk aversion to letting parents make such a mistake that has ultimately created worse problems.

I know this is a subject that many feel strongly about, and people’s opinions cover the whole spectrum. Is there something about my comment you disagree with? Am I missing something? Tell me what you think in the comments below.

Tags: parenting, corporal punishment, abuse

(shiobara.com, before)

(shiobara.com, after)

I realize I have no graphic design ability–hell, I can’t even coordinate colors when I dress myself. Someday, I’ll find someone who’s ridiculously talented and wants to do the graphic design for me to save me the embarassment of doing it myself. Until then, I’ll just keep hacking away at it myself.

Now that the site is all in Wordpress, the next step is to clean up the photo album. I took it down back in 2005 and wanted to redo it, but never got around to it. So, recently, I’ve started working on a Media Gallery plugin for Wordpress that uses jQuery, jCarousel Lite and ThickBox. It’s pretty slick, and once we’ve launched the photo album, I’ll release the plugin as open source. If you’d like a sneak peak to beta test it, just ask.

Tags: family, photos, Wordpress, plugins, web design, jQuery

My wife did all the work of finding the cats and adopting them and without all her hard work and effort, nothing would get done around here. She also snapped off a few awesome pictures of the cats after they adjusted to the house a bit.

Here’s two pictures that she took of them that I got around to uploading:

Tags: cats

Somehow, Santa managed to score us a Nintendo Wii for Giftmas this year. Hopefully, this will eventually replace our PlayStation 2, once we build up a reasonable collection of games.

I have to admit, the last Nintendo-based gaming product I’ve owned was the Super NES. I passed on the GameBoy family of products, the GameCube, and the DS. But, the Wii … something about it just smelled of old-fashioned Nintendo charm … gameplay that was really fun again, not like these annoying reflex-based twitch games that are so popular today.

The games we’ve tried so far: Super Paper Mario and Wii Play. I was hoping that Super Paper Mario was more like the original Super Mario Bros. game from the NES days, but it’s pace is heavily punctuated by the cute storyline. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get into it.

On the other hand, Wii Play was a hit the moment we started. Both of my girls, ages 7 and 4, study horseback riding, so the “Charge!” game was the natural first choice to try. They quickly figured out the mechanics of how to hold and manipulate their Wii remotes and had a blast! The rest of the Wii Play games were fun, but some were a bit difficult to play given our setup. Let me explain with a picture:

That’s our living room. That’s a 87″x65″ projection screen that they’re playing on. The little sensor bar is sitting on that Little Tykes table, below the screen. The sensor bar is, what, maybe 24″ wide? Perhaps there’s a setting I can adjust more than “above or below the screen” (which I’ve already set to “below”), but pointing at a location on the screen doesn’t work right. Still, playing on the big screen makes for an awesome Wii experience, I have to admit.

I have to say, Nintendo has really done well with the Wii. It’s definitely the kind of gaming console that reminds me of my childhood, growing up with the original NES. I’m glad I can share that experience with my chidlren.

Tags: Nintendo Wii, Giftmas 2007

I’m busy working this weekend, but my wife and children are down in Delaware in support of my brother-in-law, Russell. Tomorrow, he will be stepping down from his position as Wing Commander of the Delware Wing of the Civil Air Patrol (CAP).

Over the years, he has volunteered an enormous amount of time and effort to the organization. He has received a number of awards–most recently the Daily Point of Light No. 3547 from the Points of Light Foundation, which goes into greater detail about Russell’s accomplishments.

It takes a very special person to give so much of himself as Russell has. The CAP is a valuable organization and has benefitted greatly from his contributions. Through his generosity, all our lives have been affected for the better.

Even though I can’t be there tomorrow for your Wing Change of Command ceremony, congratulations and thanks for everything you’ve done and continue to do.

Tags: Delaware, Civil Air Patrol, Russell Opland