I love awarding this title to someone who kills themselves and sorts out the problem in one move.
On the weekend, a 24-year-old idiot paramedic called Jonathan Erasmus, climbed over a safety rail to take a photograph, after which he fell several hundred metres to his death.
Dumbass Tomcruise.
Honda SA has announced today a safety recall of the previous generation Jazz to inspect and modify driver door power-window switches that may, in some cases, short circuit as a result of water intrusion into the housing.
(Source: Honda website.)
I’m not going to defend it or blast it. Enough words have already been written about it. What I am going to say is that I like it and I want one. I’ll even get word processor and spreadsheet apps. I don’t see the need for multi-tasking, because it’s not a tablet PC. And I don’t see the need for more than 16GB of space, because as an eBook reader, it’ll be enough. I estimate most books come in at far less than 1MB, which gives me space for 16 000 at least. Wow.
The other day I drove behind a woman driving a Mercedes Benz, and who had two small Dachshunds on her lap, sticking their heads out of the driver’s window. How is this safe?
—
I read that Terry Pratchett is a Humanist. I didn’t quite know what this meant, but it appears at first look to cover my belief system as well, so if I were forced to pick a label, I suppose I’d pick this one. I’m not religious about it, if you’ll pardon the pun.
They have a “statement of faith” which reads as follows (my own emphasis added):
Humanism is a democratic and ethical life stance, which affirms that human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives. It stands for the building of a more humane society through an ethic based on human and other natural values in the spirit of reason and free inquiry through human capabilities. It is not theistic, and it does not accept supernatural views of reality.
—
On Monday I’m starting on a new project at work, which has a zero margin for error. I’m even getting my own Business Analyst to help me out. We have to extract data from old storage and re-inject it into new storage, so that the old storage can be freed up. Unfortunately, if we miss some data, there’s no back-out / rollback plan. There’s just too much data and not enough time.
—
I butted heads yesterday with one of South Africa’s Spammer Hall of Shame, namely Jaco Derksen. I managed to find out that he uses email addresses supplied by fxstyle.net. They claim to have over 300 million email addresses via opt-in services all over the world. I’m trying to follow up with them, but I’m keeping the Internet Service Providers Association of South Africa up to date.
—
Yesterday morning I drove to Pretoria in a follow-up trip to last week. First off, I dropped off documents at the Canadian High Commission (hopefully for the last time before we take our passports through), and then I went to the South African Police Services records division to get our Police Clearance Certificates renewed.
Traffic is getting worse. People do not understand what the speed limits are for, and I would have been able to issue several hundred fines in the hour and a half I was on the road, had I been a traffic policeman.
I’d like to tip my hat to Sibusiso Mtshali, an officer in the Douglasdale Police Station, for taking me through the fingerprinting and form completion for my police clearance certificate. He was fast, very professional, and even took me to the financial officer to pay my R59.
Parking was good, the station was clean (if a little dingy) and everyone was friendly. Even the drunk criminal suspect who was shuffled past me during the hand-cleaning process smiled and waved, but that was possibly coincidental.
Thanks for making an unpleasant task pleasant.
I am impressed. I have the 60GB iPod Photo. I got it in 2005 with a Firewire connection, and it’s still going strong. Impressive.
Yesterday I took a day of annual leave to sort out some issues pertaining to our upcoming emigration.
Stage 4: The medical examination
After spending half of our morning in Johannesburg, and the other half in Pretoria, with me driving through a construction site known as the N1 / M1 freeway, dodging idiot drivers, it was time for M to drive to Rosebank for our medical exam.
We got to the doctor’s office for our appointment, at 2:30pm. There were more forms to fill in, including a consent form to test for HIV. This is standard practice, and I’ve signed many of these before. See, in SA, we have a reasonably high infection rate, of about one in four people. It’s fine to have it, but Canada (nor the USA, nor UK) will not let you live there if you’ve got it.
But because of the stigma around it, you need to give permission to the doctor to inform insurance or immigration departments that you’ve got it, and if you don’t sign, you won’t be allowed in.
Neither of us has HIV, but the point is that if you want a better life in another country, your chances are severely limited.
Forms were completed, the doctor called us in, and we had a long chat. This guy is on a very short list of two doctors in Johannesburg that sign off medical exams for potential emigrants. That sort of job would drive me mad, but anyway. He was very chatty, and I think enjoyed the fact that one of his patients was a doctor too.
There was the obligatory poking and prodding (and one particular moment that shamed me), and it was over, bar the drawing of blood. I didn’t slap the nurse this time, because a) she poked my slapping arm, and b) was actually quite gentle.
Then it was over. Time to drive home and have a few minutes before rushing off to my brother’s house for a family do at 6:30pm.
We only had road one incident, and this was on the way back home. The road we were travelling on has several roads that cross it, but each of those roads have stop streets. You know, stop streets, those intersections where you stop, wait for traffic to pass, and then go?
Not if you’re a taxi driver. If you drive a minibus taxi in South Africa, the rules do not apply. You can kill schoolgirls, you can drive in the emergency lane, you can skip red lights, you can drive the wrong way down a street to avoid having to sit in traffic, and so on. Unfortunately, these bad habits have spread to other drivers. It’s chaos.
As we were driving down the road, moving fairly slowly because it was rush hour, a taxi, who was crossing over the road without waiting, tried to drive across the road in front of us. So we cut him off, and he had the nerve to shout, “Jou ma se poes.” I’m not going to translate it, because it’s dirty. The comment, not … actually, never mind …
Stage 5: None of your business
There is no Part 5 for the blog, because family time is private. We only got home at 11pm though, so it wasn’t too shabby.
Yesterday I took a day of annual leave to sort out some issues pertaining to our upcoming emigration.
Stage 3: Where the f**k are our medical forms?
The Canadian High Commission is in Pretoria, along with most of the other high commissions and embassies. This is because Pretoria is the state capital of South Africa.
Pretoria also happens to be on the other end of the largest construction site in South Africa: the M1 / N1 freeway. The only thing “free” about it is that the tollgates haven’t been installed. Yet. The posted speed limit due to construction is 80km/h. We’ll come back to that later.
Someone at the SA National Road Agency Limited decided to upgrade the road infrastructure. This is due for completion in the future. No one knows when. It won’t be before the 2010 Fifa World Cup in June.
At the same time, there is massive construction going on for the rapid rail Gautrain, which is linking Johannesburg to Pretoria, as well as Sandton and the international airport. I think they call it O R Tambo International Airport at the moment, but it has been called Jan Smuts International Airport and Johannesburg International Airport as well.
So a bit of background: M went to Pretoria to apply for our visas, on 3 December 2009. It takes around four working days for them to open a file and send us the medical forms, so that we can be poked and prodded by a doctor.
Some time in early January, we emailed the High Commission, asking where our forms were, and what our file number was, because we’d heard nothing. Eventually we received an email last week, giving us a file number, and asking whether we’d like to collect the forms, or have them mailed by insured post, through the South African post office. For whatever reason (blind hope?), we elected to have them mailed. After all, that should take four to five days, and we had seven working days before our appointment. Which was yesterday at 3pm.
On Friday, M went to the post office to ask if our forms had arrived. They refused to look in their book because he didn’t have the tracking number (that useful piece of information was not furnished by the High Commission). He went again on Monday, and again they refused to check because he didn’t have a tracking number.
So we decided to go to Pretoria and ask the High Commission to either issue us with new forms, or collect them if they had not been posted.
It was an adventure on that freeway. Cement mixer trucks overtaking me while I’m in the left lane, travelling at 80km/h, because according to lore (that’s not law, mind you), speed limits are for sissies. One cannot describe the terror and anger one experiences when a rearview mirror is full of cement mixer bearing down on one.
We made it to the High Commission at 10:50, alive, and stood in the queue outside. You see, they only allow collections between 11am and 12pm. Applications are done between 8am and 10am. I imagine that 10am to 11am is their morning tea break.
Getting inside is fun. We know the drill now, so we left our phones in the car. You need to have your green barcoded ID book, which the security guards check. If you have ANY electronic equipment, it must be switched off. This includes telephones, iPods, etc. Said electronic equipment must then be deposited in a tiny security locker, for which you are given the key. Of course I forgot that I still had my iPod with me, so instead of going through the rigmarole of taking it out, I suggested putting my bag in the locker. This was not a simple process: those lockers are tiny. I suggested to the security guard that I might have some sweets in the bag, which she could help herself to afterwards, if she helped me.
Once inside, we were attended to, only to find that the file number we had been emailed, was in fact incorrect. So, Mr Mohammed, we saw your file. Sorry. Anyway, it turned out that our medical forms had been posted last week. We got the tracking number from the woman (who declined printing us new forms because this would require permission from on high, which makes sense).
We took the tracking number back to the car (the security guard got her sweet), went onto the SA Post Office’s website via iPhone and 3G, to discover that the forms had ARRIVED at our post office on Friday last week.
Tempers were frayed.
So we drove back to Johannesburg. Directly to the post office. We discussed various methods of torture we would employ upon the staff, and decided on sarcasm.
Once inside the post office, we gave them the tracking number, dripping with sarcasm. The lady disappeared into the back with (I think) a senior member of staff, and emerged with our letter. The delivery date, written on the envelope, said 15 January. Last Friday. So please explain to me why they couldn’t write a collection slip for the envelope, and drop it in the post box for us, last Friday?
The medical forms were inside, thankfully, and it was now 1pm. Two hours before we had to be at our appointment. Time for a light snack and time to argue relax.
At 2:20pm, we left for Rosebank. [Read the rest in Part 4.]
Yesterday I took a day of annual leave to sort out some issues pertaining to our upcoming emigration.
Stage 2: Renewal of Police Clearance Certificate
When we first decided to emigrate, it was clear that it would take a long time, and we would have to renew several things that had already been issued.
Of primary importance among these was the Police Clearance Certificate, which says that, according to police records and our fingerprints, we do not have a criminal record.
The certificates expire in February 2010, so we realised we should renew them before the end of January. This consists of a visit to the local police station, payment of R59, the taking of fingerprints, and the completion of a form.
I figured that, having yesterday off, I could pop into the police station after my driver’s licence renewal. In August, it had taken fifteen minutes at most, so off I drove.
I arrived at around 9am, and walked in, feeling happy with myself for keeping to my schedule. I asked the three policemen who were standing around at the front desk where the office was for getting the police clearance certificate. The reason I asked is because these things can change daily.
I was directed to the same place as last time, so I walked down the corridor towards the office. There were two people outside, waiting for something to happen (I know this, because they had their green barcoded ID books with them).
The guy in the front of the queue said, “PDP, come back at 2” at me. I did not know what he meant, so I said, “I’m here for a police clearance certificate.” He said, “Yes, come back after 2pm.” So not trusting him, I tried to stick my head in through the doorway, only to have it slammed in my face.
I walked back to my car, dejected. After all, only a couple of days ago, M went to the police station at 1pm to do the same thing, only to be told to “come back in the morning”.
Huh?
Now it was time to wait for M to get home from work, for our Great Trek to Pretoria, to the Canadian High Commission. [Read the rest in Part 3.]