Between work, life, overtime, and other stuff, I barely get any time to myself let alone my blog. So my posts from here on will probably be at best rather intermittent yet hopefully more frequent.

I currently rely on HSDPA to connect to the Internet. I don’t care what any of the networks say… it’s slow. I think the only time I might have a possibility of getting 1.8mbit is if I were sitting directly beneath a cell tower in the middle of nowhere where’s there’s only about 2 or 3 other people on the tower — except then I wouldn’t have HSDPA coverage. There’s two nice things about my current setup: it gets paid for by my company, and it’s portable. If it weren’t for those two points I would never consider getting HSDPA.

I’ve put down a deposit on a new place to stay, so I’ll get DSL installed there as soon as Telkom deigns to allow me onto their sacred network. Who knows how long that could take; fortunately though there’s already an installed (and activated) phone line. Hopefully I won’t have too many headaches transfering the billing of that line though. Let’s just pray that it’s actually in DSL coverage… it’s in the middle of Randburg so I’d be a bit worried if it wasn’t. Alternatively there’s always the chance that there and any free ports on the DSLAMs. Waiting games.

In other news, I’m currently writing this post from my old room in Cape Town. I got here on Saturday, and I’m here till Sunday morning. My company flew me down to work on a project on Sunday and decided I could stay at the office for the week. That’s all fine and well, though what it means is that I don’t really have much free time. Hazards of the new job I guess.

The job, though so far away from what I used to do as development, is actually a lot more enjoyable and rewarding. Putting the long work hours aside, I’m really glad I made the choice to move to another city, change career entirely, and essentially alter my lifestyle in its entirety. There’s a lot of work to be done and too few hours as well as people to do it. But the nice part is that I’m enjoying what I do; I can’t say the same thing about programming and development.

So I head back home on Sunday and then I’ll spend the next week and a half furiously hunting for furniture and appliances. Not exactly a cheap and enjoyable endevour, but it has to be done I guess. Hopefully I’ll be able to pick up 1 or 2 things I actually want, rather than just the things I need.

One of these days I should elaborate on what I actually do. I’ve been judged by quite a few people for changing from development, mostly programmers themselves, though… each to their own I would hope. Too many people work for money, and the chances are I probably won’t be able to earn as much as a developer in my current position. I accepted that long ago and don’t have a problem with it. Also moving from Cape Town to Joburg has been rewarded with quite a few comments. I’m actually quite liking JHB :)

That’s all for now, I’ll elaborate on my choice one of these days.

Well now that I’ve lived in JHB for a bit longer I think I can comment a bit more on daily JHB driving. Since this is a topic I get asked all the time I shall endevour to make my thoughts clear.

First off, traffic density. I’ve never really had to travel in high density peak hour traffic. However what I remember from going to college and UCT, the traffic in CPT is not any different, in some cases I can confidently say it’s worse. The main difference is that the distances are shorter in CPT so you spend less time in traffic overall. I’ve never travelled on highways in peak hour though I quite often travelled the M5/N1 during office hours, and the off/onramps are much worse in CPT than they are in JHB. Lastly, I do William Nicol everyday, fortunately only a very short section of it. Overall it takes me about 2 minutes max to get through that section. From what I’ve observed, there’s not much difference between William Nicol and Wynberg Main Road (which I travelled every day for 2 years), with the exception being that WNicol is 6 lanes and Wynberg is 2.

Directions. JHB isn’t too difficult to navigate, though everything does look the same (and no, I don’t miss the mountain). Many road are very poorly marked, with those faded b&w roadnames adorning the pavement corners… not very easy to read. The big roads in the main city centers tend to be marked at the top of those roadside “billboards”. I must say that this is quite nice since I can actually read the damn things before I get to the road in question.

Road markings. There are road markings? I tend to rely quite heavily on road markings such as determining which lane I need to be in. However driving around in JHB I’ve noticed that many roads are either unmarked or the markings are so faded that they may as well not be there. This turns general traffic into a free-for-all as people just drive all over the road completely ignoring the “markings”. I’ve also hit a few speed bumps pretty hard because there weren’t any lines on them… yay. Another trend I’ve noticed is that old lines have merged and overlapped with faded new lines, making driving really confusing as it’s sometimes hard to tell if you’re in your lane or straddling 2 lanes as the lines suddenly shift sideways. I’ve almost overshot robots because I was looking at the far robot and didn’t see any lines… great.

Now to drivers. Crap drivers are crap drivers, it doesn’t matter what city you put them in, they’re still crap drivers. That being said the general trend in JHB seems to be far more aggressive drivers. I quite often get tailgated in rush hour traffic; everyone is moving at 40 or 50kph but no, the guy behind me has to speed around me into the cruising gap I left and then suddenly brake hard because he’s going a good 30kph faster than everyone else. All that’s happening is you’re wasting petrol for the time you didn’t save since you’re going to get stuck at the offramp robot anyways. Unfortunately most drivers tend to indicate as, or after they change lanes, or not at all, and with the amount of lane changing going on I can see why so many bikers get knocked down; mirrors? blindspots? apparently not.

Though, bikers… well I’m struggling to have any sympathy for them. The way some of those guys ride in traffic makes you wonder how much their life insurance policy is worth. Usually bikers split between the fast and the middle lane, with the general rule of thumb being 20kph faster than the surrounding traffic. Apparently many N1 bikers didn’t get that memo. I’ve seen plenty of them weaving in and out of traffic at crazy speeds, not to mention the bikers that treat the emergency lanes as their personal highways and cruise down those at highway speeds.

There’s much more to say on the topic, but this is all I have for now. I almost got taken out by a taxi this morning, he must’ve missed the part where they teach you to yield to the right.

After more than 2 months of waiting my bike is finally licensed and registered… in Cape Town. As it turns out the national part of the acronym in eNaTIS is a bit of a misnomer. In reality it’s not very “national” at all.

I got my bike early April, right before the eNaTIS systems were being “installed”. I’m not quite sure what they were doing there because the system is still horribly broken. Anyways, after trying to register my bike in Cape Town and being told the systems were down or I had the incorrect paperwork or I needed this document as well it was finally time for me to leave to move to JHB. So I did. I brought all the documentation with me.

Seeing as I was going to be permanently residing in JHB I figured I may as well register the bike here. How wrong I was. Apparently the police clearence isn’t valid because it was obtained in Cape Town. Nevermind the fact that I had the original document and all these systems are supposed to be national. So I sent the paperwork back down to CPT to have my bike registered there (courtesy of the ‘rentals).

Nope… apparently I still need more paperwork (there’s now about 7 different documents). So all the documentation was finally organised, and the bike about to be registered. Nope, no can do… the police clearence isn’t on the eNaTIS systems (the police clearence was obtained in March); did I mention I had the original document. Apparently they can’t enter it into their systems. So more waiting ensued, after finally getting the police clearence on their systems (and more eNaTIS related downtime — you’d think that after more than 2 months they would have ironed out the “kinks”) my bike was licensed and registered. At least I got a nice 5 digit CA plate.

Other than that I did go riding a few weeks ago — with my sister’s plates (who conveniently has the same bike) and I can see why people get so many fines in JHB. There’s nothing but straight lines and 90 degree angles here. I’ve yet to see anything that looks remotely like a twisty, or even a curve or a bend. Nothing but monkeys twisting the throttle and measuring the size of their cock by flaunting the money they put into their bike… it’s pretty damn boring.

Aside from my previous entry it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted anything. My life has been pretty chaotic leading up to, and then settling down after the move. With my first day of work at the new job coming up on Tuesday I expect things to settle down a bit as routines have to be established and life progresses.

The most immediate and inconvenient change since moving to JHB has been the lack of Internet connectivity. Being unable to check my email whenever I wish is a bit of an annoyance, particularly considering the need to communicate with my new employer. Putting aside the inconvenience the lack of connectivity is a good thing :). Also it’s given me a chance to start this giant stack of books I have.

It’s cold? Maybe it’s been hot this past week, or I just haven’t noticed it since I only get up at 8. Everyone has been reenforcing the idea that I’m going to freeze in JHB, but I can say in all honesty it was a lot colder in Cape Town. Wind chill? Humidity?

Another obvious change has been the air, it’s thinner and drier. That problem has mostly righted itself now. Ironically my asthma has actually improved, though I haven’t yet exerted myself too much so I guess I’ll find out when I get back in the gym.

Things are closer and yet further. My office is a lot further from where I currently am staying than it was in CPT. Yet, shopping centres and shops are generally closer. There’s even 3 bike shops just around the corner from me, all of which are no more than 5 minutes away. The gym is maybe 2 or 3 minutes away.

I won’t comment on the traffic yet, as I have yet to experience rush hour traffic. One thing I can say though is that the taxi drivers are a lot worse.

Cooking for myself: not too much of a concern, I was mostly doing this at home anyways. Washing my own clothes? I’ve come to the realisation that most people don’t actually do this, this duty often being left to the char. Even checking property rental ads many of them say “char included” or “char X amount extra” (including washing, ironing, etc.).

Shopping for food for myself isn’t too much of a hassle either. I have a pretty strict and limited diet so stocking up from whoever is cheapest is the option I generally go with. There’s also a bulk store no more than 3 minutes away that sells much of what I eat, so that’s a good way to save some money.

Learning all the road names hasn’t been too much trouble, and with everything being so close the need to venture out and get lost hasn’t been very strong. I still can’t fathom how people use the mountain to navigate in CPT… I can’t remember a single occurance where I looked at the mountain and went “oh, I need to go that way” and head off in some direction relative to the mountain.

Otherwise, there’s not too much more that comes to mind right now, so I’ll leave it at that.

As I had planned (plans which almost got ruined by my previous employer), I moved to JHB last weekend without any problems. Driving through the night I arrived here early Sunday morning only to spend the whole day unpacking and repacking and unpacking again, surviving on the 20 minutes sleep I managed to get in the car.

I only started packing on Friday afternoon, which meant I spent most of Saturday packing, yet we still only ended up leaving an hour later than planned so that wasn’t too much trouble.

All in all the trip was fairly uneventful, only getting a scare when I ended up driving over something (???). I had my car lifted off the ground and everything checked out during the week so there doesn’t appear to have been any permanent damage fortunately; I even scored free wheel balancing.

Otherwise, this whole endevour has been a fairly costly one for me: having a towbar fitted, having smash and grab fitted, a full service done, as well as wheel alignment and balancing. That just covers my car, I also rented a trailer, flew my brother-in-law down and had my bike “couriered” up, not to mention the costs associated with the actual trip itself. My bike was collected on Tuesday evening and arrived on Wednesday morning… that’s some pretty speedy service.

One thing that did surprise me about the whole trip is that I barely even felt the trailer I was pulling, occasionally having to check the mirror just to make sure it was still there.

I guess the next entry will be about how life has changed for me, and the differences between living in JHB and CPT. So far I can say: not very much, but I’ve only been here for a week so we’ll see how that opinion changes over time. I’m also going for a ride tomorrow, so maybe I’ll finally get some photo’s of me on the bike.

This all began back in February when I decided that it was time to leave my job. 3 months later and the date on which I’ll finish is rapidly approaching. So much needs to be sorted out in the weeks ahead as I pack my life into a bunch of boxes and haul everything across the country.

As everyone knows there has been quite a lot of motivation for such a change for me. Following this job I’ll be taking a brief hiatus and then going straight into my next job — based in Bryanston (JHB). I had originally intended to leave the country for a few years but I decided that I’d rather be financially stable before I do that; so I took this job, not only to gain more experience but also for the dramatic change.

But since all the cool kids are doing it:

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The impression I got from yesterday’s fiasco is that the Digg community must be filled with a bunch of 13 year old mouthbreathers with way too much time and serious lack of understanding on how a civilised society functions — presumably — in the modern world. Oh well, I have no vested interest in the machinations of such a community, however I do find it delightfully amusing how quick attitudes changed and principles were thrown out the window in the aftermath. The mob is a fickle thing, and it’s easy to hide in a faceless mass.

This post was sponsored by the Spine Donors Association.

Following this post that I made a few months ago I’ve had a lot of decisions to make. As a result of one of these decisions I have formally resigned from my current position. I did so this afternoon (on 1337 minute :/) and will effectively stop working at my current place effective from the end of May (pending leave agreement).

Other than that, I do have another job lined up which I’ve already accepted. I’m waiting for all the terms and agreements before I say any more.

I recently mentioned that I only do 4 days workout whereas I used to do 5. Previously I trained tue-sat but then I also cycled on sat & sun. Invariably I ended up training after I had cycled hard on a Saturday. This left me feeling weak and tired, and so the Saturday workout was just becoming a waste of time… so I removed it. To do this I had to cram all those exercises into the other 4 days, some I did, many I just removed entirely. So here’s my current training routine:

Tuesday — Legs

• 4×8 parallel squat
• 2×8 45° leg press (sometimes)
• 3×8 Romanian deadlift
• 2×8 walking lunge
• 2×12 single-leg lying leg curl
• 3×12 seated calf raise
• 3×12 standing calf raise

This workout is pretty tough for me. I don’t always unfortunately get to the leg press as my quads are often finished after 4 sets of squats. The lunges though mainly for hams can also hit my quads pretty hard if done properly, which is why I’ll often leave the leg press out.

Wednesday — Back / Triceps

• 8×2 bodyweight pullups — iso-hold at the top of last rep with slow negative
• 2×2 bodyweight chinup — iso-hold at the top of last rep with slow negative
• 3×8 bentover BB row — iso-hold at the top of last rep
• 2×8 reverse pushup
• 2×8 hypers
• 3×8 triceps cable pushdown
• 3×8 close-grip benchpress
• 3×8 skull-crusher

No, that’s not a typo, I currently do 8 sets of 2 reps for bodyweight pullups. I do full ROM (range of movement), which is basically all the way up so chin is above the bar and all the way down so arms are fully stretched. Most people cheat this movement and only go halfway down… this is an ego thing really as you can get a lot more reps doing that. Currently I can only manage 4 reps in a single set on fresh muscles. I’ll be upping that eventually to 8 sets of 4 reps and eventually switch it around to 4 sets of 8; my pullup is something I really need to work on.

Thursday — Shoulders / Forearms

• 3×8 standing military press
• 2×8 lateral raise
• 2×8 db front raise
• 3×8 bentover rear raise
• 3×8 shrug (inside benchpress machine)
• 3×8 seated EZ curl
• 3×8 reverse wrist EZ curl
• 1×12 db wrist twist

Not much has changed here, the main change being the standing military press. They’re significantly more difficult than seated press and I’m finding them to be a great compound exercise.

Friday — Chest / Biceps

• 3×8 flat bb benchpress
• 3×8 incline db benchpress
• 3×8 chest dip
• 3×8 hammer curl
• 3×10 EZ curl
• 3×10 flat cable curl

This absolutely kills my biceps and I love it. I do the EZ bb curl with my back against a wall and use very strict form, once I can’t do any more reps I move away and loosen up my form a bit. This absolutely obliterates my biceps.

This is the classic back/triceps, chest/biceps split. At one stage I did the back/biceps, chest/triceps split but that absolutely sucked for me. As my arms would generally be finished before I even get to them due to the heavy requirement of biceps/triceps in back/chest exercises. So I combined the push/pull muscle groups and made this routine; it seems to be going pretty well for me. Also shoulders really deserve their own day, and I don’t really have time to add it to my chest or back day as many people do. I don’t like to be in the gym for longer than an hour; very rarely do I even go longer than 50 minutes.

One thing to note is that I don’t work my abs. I’ll eventually put them back in as I continue to change out exercises, but I’ve never been doing this to attain washboard abs. To do that I’d need to drop to around 10% bodyfat anyways, I’m still quite a ways off that target (though I am getting there). Besides my abs get plenty of work in the heavy compound exercises (squats, pullups, military press, rows, etc.). Also I’m definitely going to include conventional deadlifts, and Bulgarian split squats and maybe even hack squats at some point. I would have put conventional deadlifts on my back day now, but that’s just too much work after doing heavy squats on Tuesdays.

Before I forget I think I need to add that I rest approximately 60 seconds between sets. Usually 45 between warmup sets and only up to 90 on heavy sets such as benchpress. Even squats I try keep to 60, this helps me overload and get a good cardio workout too.

So what foods should you eat? This topic is pretty broad so all I’ll do is provide a few staples that people stick to when to eating healthy. Much of it is left open for interpretation as there are so many differing opinions in the nutrition industry. Also, all I’m going to say about supplements is this: do some research. Most of it is marketing hype, these supplement companies are in the business to earn money and make profit, not to sell you the best product available.

Before I get to the foods there’s a few things that need to be mentioned. First off the calorie intake numbers calculated (whatever formulas you use) should be used merely as a baseline and not an absolute. It’s almost impossible with current household technology (the food scale and box labels) to determine what you’re eating anyways. Food labels can be off by anywhere between 10 and 20% so don’t take them as gospel, but yet another guideline. Also there are sites such as FitDay and CalorieKing that can be used to track the details and help determine how much is in what foods.

Next, the bathroom weight scale is not an accurate measurement. Bear in mind that muscle uses a significant amount more energy than fat. So it’s quite possible that the scale may show the same number but your calorie requirements have actually increased/decreased.

Finally eating healthy is pretty much a lifestyle change, if it’s only something you can do for a few weeks, there’s really no point. Everything will just revert to how it was prior to the adjustment. The human body has an amazing capacity for adaption.

Now for a list of foods:

• eggs & egg whites
• skinless boneless chicken breasts
• vegetables (especially broccoli)
• peanuts & peanut butter (natural) + some other types of nuts (almonds, etc.)
• fruits
• cottage cheese (fat free or low fat)
• fish oil (including caps), olive oil & flax seed oil
• tuna in water
• brown rice
• rolled oats
• sweet potatoes
• turkey
• salmon
• lean beef (I believe the sirloin cut has the least fat)

There’s a few other important things that bear mentioning. Stay away from mayonaise, it’s the devil (assuming you want to lose fat that is) as it’s loaded with saturated fats, rather stick to fat-free or low fat mayo substitutes (miracle whip, etc.). Avoid sugar (all sweets & chocolates basically) as it’s highly processed, spikes your GI and gets converted right into fat as it’s pretty much unusable. This also goes for white sugar, a far better alternative would be to use sugar free sweeteners or brown sugar. Whole-grains are your friend (bread, etc.) high in fiber, low GI and decent source of carbs. Brown rice is far superior to white rice in pretty much every nutritional aspect. Fat free sources are also good. Spices are good, but it’s best to find ones low in sodium/salt especially if you have heart problems or a family history of heart problems (tons of heart problems in my family… joy). Be careful of dried fruit, it’s essentially dense carbs which is practically sugar.

Ultimately it all comes down to portion size and meal timing. A general rule is to never eat until you’re full, merely satiated. Even better if you calculate your exact portion sizes. Regarding meal timing it’s a good idea to eat every 2 and a half to 3 hours for about 5-6 meals a day. I currently do 7 “meals” a day with 2-4 hour intervals. This obviously has to fit into your schedule, but most people can find a way to make it work.