Clients and Problems (Visually Expressed)

It's been a busy period

For those of you who instantly thought of a hard-working menstrual cycle after reading the title, shame on you.
But I high five you for your punny and filthy thoughts.

But really, these last couple months have been pretty damn busy.
I did lots of work and got a lot more responsibility in my job.
I didn't get to say a few things here.
Had an awesome birthday. Verushka spoilt me. :)
Met the guys at The Pavilion ON THE BUSIEST DAY OF THE YEAR or something. Took forever to find a parking. We had some lunch and stuff. It was good. I miss those guys on a daily basis.

I had some interesting training in Johannesburg.
All about Audio/Visual equipment and the science behind it. WENT INTO OHM'S LAW AND EVERYTHING.
WUT.

I started The Legend of Zelda - Ocarina of Time again. In my opinion, still one of the best games ever made.
I'm a fan of the Legend of Zelda franchise and I played most of the games... unfortunately I haven't gotten to play the Gamecube, Wii and 3DS games...
Anyway, Ocarina of Time. Yeah, I've been trying to 100% it (That's right. It's a verb now.) but there's so many sidequests that take patience, many attempts or just searching so hard for things that it becomes quite a mission.
My favourite boss from the game is Bongo Bongo. (Thought I'd mention that.)

I've also finally watched some of Game of Thrones after being harrassed for years (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE). I do like it. I think it's a cool concept and that the slight supernatural mix with the relatively realistic take on that time period seems pretty awesome. However, I do admit that it lost its novelty very quickly with me. I've been hooked on series before. Scrubs and Friends are two long-running series that I've watched completely from start to finish in a month (or less) each. I've even more-or-less done this with Heroes and one or two other series (so yeah, not just comedy). But I don't think I could do this with Game of Thrones for some reason.
[Winces apologetically as Cavie falls to his knees, letting out a resounding "NOOOOOO!"]
^ Wouldn't be the first time I've brought Cavie to his knees though.

I'm sorry, Bloggy. I didn't forget about you. I've just been really busy and stuff.

Blog:
It's okay, babe <3 I love you

What??

Blog:
... Nothing. BYE. [click]

... Okay... Anyway.
Well, yeah. So, I'm still alive. Verushka's been really busy recently so it's been a little difficult. But she's been awesome and she's tried to make sure I'm not neglected etc.
Right now she's in Swaziland (since last Monday. She'll be back next Friday) and I miss her. Thankfully she's had some communication privileges. So I've been able to chat and occasionally phone.
She'll be back soon and I'll be happy to see her. Naturally, she ran into some trouble, but here's hoping it gets sorted out. [Raises coffee mug and promptly drinks from it]. The coffee was ice cold. GODDAMMIT.

Anyway, hope everyone's doing well. Good luck with exams to those who are writing. Good luck with results to those who are waiting for results.

See you in issue 48! Until next time, warriors!

Hello, 2013

</2012>

<2013>

WELL, HELLO!

So, everyone's doing end of year posts and/or start of year posts. I figured I'd do one too.
I just read a long, personal and intricate post from a dear bro and understood a lot more about his year.
I'm not going to be as detailed in my recollections or as personal, but I will blab about 2012 a little.

Okay, so from this side of the looking glass, 2012 might have seemed quite a crappy year, a tiring adventure and overall, the end of my favourite era in life, but I think if I look at the positives, 2012 was great in some ways.

I'll try to be at least MOSTLY chronological so that things make sense here.

Anyway, so the year started off with me at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, finishing off my BCom ISTN degree.
As much as I was tired of studying and writing exams, campus life has been my favourite part of life.
There was enough freedom for me to enjoy everything and to feel liberated but not so much freedom that I had too much responsibility placed on my shoulders.
I admit that I'm able to do so much more now, but I think I will always miss that point of my life.
Well, I had a great time being with my friends and relaxing for most of the day, every day. I miss them so much and it's quite disappointing not to be able to see them often as I did before. I think that's why I miss this area of life so much.
Things were much more fun when I could wake up in the morning, get to campus and trot off to find Cavie and the gang.
I do so miss sitting next to them in the LAN or at a bench near the pond.
(Sigh... okay, yes, I did initially write that about Cavie and then I realised that it sounded mean to leave out the others. Guys, I loved hanging out with all of you. You all gave me company when I needed it and you all helped me have an awesome semester for 2012. Sean, Amy, Prashna, Cohen, Smee, Brad, Hen, Adrian, Byron, Sanchia, Jes and Yashaar. I'm just mentioning the people that I hung out with most often. Hope I didn't forget anyone. I know Tant wasn't physically with us, but she was always there to chat and stuff. WAIT. WE MET HER! I can totally say that now.)
Anyway, so I passed my final set of exams in June after much studying, sweating and staying up late (to play games between studying, of course).
I officially have a degree :)

Unfortunately for most of this time, my beloved Verushka had been working (since January) so I was unable to freely see her. That was the one real pain between January and July.
Although, since she was a lot more mobile than me most of the time, she popped in to visit a few times :)
-and thankfully, we were able to meet on weekends, etc.
I was so happy each and every time I saw her.
I thank her for the many times she went out of her way to see me or help me out.
<3

I realise now that I didn't enjoy my July holiday as much as I wanted to.
I wish I did. I SHOULD HAVE SLEPT MORE.

Otherwise, the next big thing was that I got a car and a job.
ERMERGERD.

Ifrit has been an incredible help. I've become quite used to driving on my own now.
I even enjoy it. Muse has become my driving music (Muse-ic?) recently and I'm quite happy about that.
I currently have all 6 of their main albums in the car.

Work has been boring and tiring, then hectic, then interesting and now boring again due to the lack of anything during the holiday season. I'm hoping to get back to more interesting work such as configurations and setting up other device software.

My parents and granny have been out for the holiday period so I've had to take care of more stuff at home.
Parents went to Egypt and my granny was in Johannesburg.

What I am really happy about is that I got to spend a lot of time with Verushka recently.
I even got to see her around Christmas and New Year.
Her and her family have been very sweet with insisting on having us over for supper, tea and anything else that they were doing at the time.

I also got to spend a lot of time with Previn and Daelin since they were down. In fact, they were awesome in inviting Verushka to their house as well.

Daelin was quite entertaining this holiday. Ironically, Johnnie Walker stopped him from walking.
He's fine now guys. Don't worry.

I watched some awesome movies (Dark Knight Rises, The Hobbit, Life of Pi)
Found an awesome website (StumbleUpon)
Finally had a good drink on New Years Eve (driving set me back there. Thankfully I didn't have to drive on NYE.)
Played, laughed, loved, lived.
All in all, 2012 wasn't so bad. A lot of new experiences. A few things came to an end. I learnt a lot and experienced a lot of new things.
I know I mentioned it at the beginning, but I chose not to mention much of the negative stuff about the past year because there's no point starting this year with troublesome thoughts.

Coming this year:
-Graduation
-Metallica
-more work stuff
-more blog posts

And... um... yeah. Think that's about it for now. Gonna have some lunch and stuff.
Cheers.

An exciting work week

SO, this week at work, I got to do some programming of sorts.

Extron TLP 710TV

It's an Extron touch panel. Yeah, it's more configuration than programming, but I'm enjoying it so let me be.
It's mostly drag and drop. No code whatsoever, but very interesting and even entertaining to design the logic and to play around with the GUI (Graphical User Interface, for the technologically-impaired).
Basically, the client has a room full of video conference stuff, TVs, HDMI inputs for laptops, speakers, processors, etc and this touch panel needs to link to all of them and tell them what to do.
It's been fun so far :)

Ah, the thrill of designing algorithms again...
How I have missed you...

This makes up for the fact that my car was sent in today for some slight repairs :(
My poor Ifrit... <3


Otherwise, I'm quite tired now and I'm going to go home to relax.
SEE YA LATER, CROCODILE.

Less than a month to live? (Now with work pics!)

So, despite the Mayan's calendar not including leap years and stuff, I still wonder whether the world will indeed end next month.
Well, I'll be pretty sad if Verushka just wasted money on Metallica's April concert because we die next month and don't get to see it.
Hmm... I think I had a good life. If we're all gonna die, at least I know I had fun, met awesome people, loved some, lost some, got an effing degree, got a job, got a car, went on a short holiday and used my own money, read amazing books, watched amazing stuff, played wonderful games, said and heard memorable things and so much more.

I have a shit-load to read and watch before I die, though. Don't think I'm gonna have time to see everything.

---

Speaking of Game of Thrones...

...I feel horrible that I sorta harassed Cavie in my previous post.

It wasn't intentional at all.

I may have been unfair.
I may have overreacted to the way he let out his feelings and stuff as I already knew he would.
I may have missed his humour and needed it at the time.
I also may have turned into a woman and PMS'd all over him.
DAFUQ.
Anyway, my last post was meant to be more general. I don't know what happened.
But, forgive me, dude. I still love you and stuff <3

http://your-face-is-a-blog.blogspot.com/2012/04/dat-guy.html

Also, I just took immense pleasure in reading his last blog post which was like a late autobiography.
http://cah-vie.blogspot.com/2012/11/cavie.html
Thanks bro. You should slap me sometimes too. Not just on the rump.

---

Otherwise, it's  been a busy couple months.
Work has been pretty tough because we've been moving across the road and stuff.
We moved across already. It was a lot of hard work, but it's awesome to know you accomplished a lot.
At least I learned how to use some basic tools, did some physical labour and became even MORE manly.

Had to help move those whiteboards

The new auditorium before it was completed. We assembled and mounted those screens.

In our old parking lot.

Not prohibited. Just awful.

Checked our stock

Checked the stock with this list.

Ladders love making jokes.

Working in a boardroom

Our new reception area.

Trying to terminate a VGA cable

Stress relief

Rather tired of this guy's face in my online learning stuff.

Yeah, so if the Mayans's stuff was right, I spent my last 2 months doing that stuff.

Anyway, lemme go spend some time with Verushka before the apocalypse.
LATER, YO.

Phuza Thursday

No, really, guys. My workplace actually has a Phuza Thursday.
Thursday is Pub Night. Free drinks after work.
WHAAAAT?!
That's right.
I might have forgotten to mention this earlier.

U JELLY?

Also, we're in the process of moving to a bigger and better building across the road, so while the construction's going on, I had to be inducted so I'm now allowed to enter the new site before it's completed.
Did that yesterday.

Will soon have to say bye to my desk that I only recently acquired. :(

My work desk, phone and laptop with awesome wallpaper

Okay, back to learning about networking on Dimension Data's online courses.

Actually working and stuff

Sup, people.
As the title implies, I have actually been doing stuff here at work.
It may not take up 100% of your time, but it tires you out quite a bit.
It's pretty cool though.
Feel a little more important. Sense of accomplishment. Smell like a man at the end of the day. Etc.
Totally lost some weight too.
SHUT UP, I DID, OKAY!

Hi, Verushka :)

She was at the beach with me this weekend, guys. We had fun.
We walked a lot and that also contributed to my weight-loss.

Not Durban's beach, but hopefully it makes Verushka happy.

Anyway lunchtime is just about up so back to work.
LATERZ.

It's been a while...

Okay, so it's been 700 years since my last post, but I have a few good reasons for this:

1) I now have a job. I am currently sitting at my desk at Dimension Data.
It's actually pretty cool. I'm an "Associate Engineer" in the Converged Communications business line.
The people are pretty friendly and stuff and the managers are helpful and all-round awesome.
Nothing's better than a manager that can make you laugh. (Well, okay, there are better things, but shut up.)
I've been sorting out stuff for this and I obviously have to spend time working now, so I'm sorry Bloggy.



The reception desk



2) I have a car. He's a red Seat Ibiza (2007 model, if you must know). His name is Ifrit and he is very helpful. Couldn't exactly get to work without him. I got him a while ago.

Ifrit

3) I've been quite lazy to blog.
... Well, it's true! I'm sorry guys. GUISE. Srsly.

Kay, so just a quick update, I guess. I'll probably actually blog again soon! Bubbye!