laurence's blog

As is now tradition Top 10 of 2006,
Top 10 of 2007 and Top 10 of 2008.

2009 was a totally different travel, I actually got sick of travelling and just wanted to be home with my koala bear. No longer was I allowed to call myself someone in there mid twenties (I still did though), became a lot more grown up almost bordering on being "mature".

Top 10 of 2009:

• M moving in with me at Trinity Court and buying our fist item of furniture.
• Resigning and getting escorted out of the office
• Being accepted to study my MSc at Edinburgh University
• Training with the guys at Unit 20 -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71zSlaJKdPw
• Owning a mountain bike again -> http://www.baldy.za.net/pblog/658/P2170102-med.jpg

I am just about finished reading a little book called "The Art of Happiness". It seems to be working, well it was last night.

Today I am not particularly happiness, sat at work after a particularly early "roll and go" wake up to get the early bus. I dont think my hangover has quite reached its climax yet either. In any moment of weakness will ask myself "What would The Dude do".

Tomorrow is Ireland is playing England in the 6 nations. Not that big a deal? Well since coming to Ireland I have got rather fond of going down to the pub and watching the rugby, so I will be looking forward to it.

The match has much more significance than that though. Even more significance than just the fact the Irish are huge rivals of the English and will go nuts if they beat them.

Time for the history lesson, in 1920 during the Irish war of independence the IRA woke up and killed 14 British agents in the morning. This rather pissed off the English who retaliated sending British forces to a stadium called Croke Park in Dublin where the British forces killed 14 civilians including the captain of one of the teams, this day became known as Bloody Sunday. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1920)) This was a major turning point in the war for the IRA and they gained much support after the actions of the British.

As is now tradition (Top 10 of 2006,
Top 10 of 2007

Here is my top ten for the amazing year of 2008:

1. Passing my Bsc Degree! ( and having a party to celebrate http://www.baldy.za.net/node/643)
2. Moving to Cork in Ireland
3. Leon and Lehesta Rademan wedding
4. Completing my first marathon (http://www.baldy.za.net/node/594)
5. Spencer Tunick installation at Blarney Castle (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1301679.ece)
6. Anne Frank house, Amsterdam very emotional
7. Road Trip in Audi A6 from Munich to Brno in Czech (http://www.baldy.za.net/node/610)
8. Traveling over land from Brno to Helsinki
9. Pub crawling in Munich (http://www.baldy.za.net/node/607)
10. Selling my Monte Carlo (http://www.baldy.za.net/node/559)

Nominations include:

• SA meetup in Amsterdam

I just got reminded that I started this post, have updated it a little. It gets a little fuzzy and hard to judge what really counts visiting a place. I took a bus across Estonia got off and got straight on a ferry hence the 1 hour, in truth I had traveled across the country.

Comes out to a total of 17 different cities I have visited this year.

Ireland, Cork 8 months
UK, Fleet 1 month
Germany, Munich 8 days
Finland, Helsinki 6 days
Czech, Brno 5 days
UK, Eastbourne 4 days
UK, Manchester 3 days
Germany, Dusseldorf 3 days
Holland, Amsterdam 3 days
UK, London 4 days
UAE, Dubai 2 days
Ireland, Waterford 1 day
Poland, Warsaw 1 day
Ireland, Dublin 1 day
Vilnius, Lithuania 5 hours
Riga, Latvia 5 hours
Estonia, Tallinn 1 hour

I had to get up early (5am) this morning to get to Stanstead so I could wait all day for connecting flight to Dusseldorf. This together with a packed Ryan Air flight, there random polyphonic jingles and the two large Irish girls discussing there sex lives next to me meant I had to make lists in my head instead of going to sleep as I usually do on planes.
I was remotely interested in there conversations, after it started to get saucy I checked them out and it rather took the edge off the imagery.
Normally I would have been more proactive and checked out the people sitting next to me as soon as I sat down or even based my seating on appropriate looking people. As I said it was early and no one is sexy in a ryan air sardine can with all that yellow and blue.

So lists that where bubbling in my head Top 10 for 2008, how on earth will I fit this year into 10 things?

I am totally besotted by Dido and this is her latest single. She sounds so miserable, ow to be able to make her happy. The opening line is something that I would say, can really identify with.

Sitting at work and the Theme song comes on the radio. Time to re-evolute...
Location: Work, not very bohemian..
Action: Working, again I suck (but I was listening to the radio, so not like I am a total robot)
Attire: totally unbohemian Diesal jeans, black shirt and poser shoes..
Company: all work colleagues, totally not bohemian.

So in general I suck at being bohemian this morning.

If your totally confused -> http://www.baldy.za.net/node/613

After a my stream of brilliant flat mates, I was beginning to think that this share accommodation thing was just like every episode of friends.

With the coming of winter I have made certain plans, a key component in these plans being a decent wingman. After all its not a bachelor flat else bachelors live there. So it was with some excitement that a French guy got in contact with me to stay for 6 weeks.

After some basic facebook stalking I found his profile page with a picture of him mountain biking. Our conversations over email also went well with discussion of other such manly bachelor things as Czech beer and the local pubs. He also worked for Apple so would have a large resource of colleagues from the furthest reaches (and best looking) parts of Europe.

So I thought this was a great deal and had visions of our duo of French style and charm together with my South Africanism would devastate the local female population.

This weekend I ended up in a club called "The Baldy Man" in the seaside village of Tramore county Wexford.
As is standard in Ireland at 2 oclock all the lights came on, the place closed and we all hit the street. Just out the door we started chatting to an Irish couple. This started off rather badly as my friend a fellow South African mentioned that ...

Not 48 hours after declaring Bohemian Like You the theme song to my life. Im standing in a bar and it starts to play.
I took this as a time to evaluate if I am living up to my theme song and will continue to do so in the future to track my progress. Based on location, action, attire and company.
This time I think I scored rather well.
I was in a dodgy late night Pub called The Slaide, filled with rockers and girls dress in the Tokyo, Gwen Stefani kind of look, that I do not know the name of. So location wise it was bohemien.
I was drinking Bulmers, an Irish cider and dancing so plus points here.
Attire I did very well as I was wearing my veganfitness.net t-shirt and my Ska slip on check Vans.
My company for the evening included an Irish man, a Belgium girl (very sweet) and a fellow Saffer.

I got a tip off from a member of the Cape Town Lancia Club that my car was being discussed on the cartoday forums. Cartoday.co.za being the website of car magazine, I would think the biggest car magazine in South Africa.
Someone took pictures at the recent car show that my car was displayed at and a few people passed some comment. Including a disgruntled Delta Intergrale owner who is struggling to sell his for R60k.
Check out the link here -> http://www.cartoday.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=049491;p=1

Me: Evening officer.
Officer (shining torch into my eyes): How are you guys doing tonight?
Me: Baie Lekker and self?
Officer: Where are you coming from?
Leon: The beachfront
This was not the smoothest answer and with our general stumbling and slurrying the nice police officers did not need to get the detectives in to work out if we had been drinking.
Leon had started a brief but animated conversation with George, which is generally a good indication that the night had past its peak and we should head home. My car now has a new trick of not wanting to go home, I go out and it refuses to start (the problem started after a swimming incident), to get her to start I need to hot wire it, which is intresting to do when you have a car gaurd behind you asking you for money. So after all this and leon stripping the interior of my car looking for his keys we are on our way.

I think my subconceince maybe starting to worry about my up coming trip, or it could be sleeping in a differant bed. Last night I had a really weird dream, I was in some weird airport in europe about to board the plane. So I whip out my passport, and all I have is my little green ID. My mind races back and I realise that I only have my ID and forgot to bring my passports. Not a very long and deep dream I know but its pretty random and out of the blue.
The cell separation saga is kind of over for know, they called me this morning and I was able to chat to the nurse. Maybe my mind is twisted from too many Doctor and Nurses party, but it seems pretty weird and non sexy discussing my sex life with a nurse. Specially knowing she has a folder in front of her with a list of my sexual encounters charted out in a series of 6 month breaks.
She put my mind at rest though so I have come to peace with the situation.

Facebook really sucks, I tried to ignore it for as long as possible. Pesky emails arriving asking me to confirm friends, the catch being you have to register as a member first. This is a pain in the arse, and you cant use your MSN Passport, gmail or Drupal login.
Eventually I cracked when C made mention of comments posted in her facebook, about one of my sushi making pictures. Vanity provailed and within 5 minutes I was attempting to register. An hour later I was registered and had 1 friends, great I thought this is a little too much like real life.
So then I start adding friends and then you wait for them to confirm you are really there friend. After a little while of doing this you can sit back and bask in the glory of your ego, at the amount of friends you have. Other than that Im not sure what the point is. Other than an ex girlfriend might pop up somewhere.