Right. That's it. No more from me. This is my last entry. Thanks for reading!! God Bless and Goodnight.

Well, I've not written anything in a while, but it's been kinda hectic lately.

Firstly, Melanie's funeral last week was really hard on all of us. She will be missed, but I know that she is rejoicing with Jesus. We've invited Richard around tonight to watch some bike racing and for supper. So I'm looking forward to that.

And this coming weekend, I HAVE TO put new tyres on my bike. The ones on there currently are finished! Completely bald in the middle! Heh heh.

Sunday morning, we will probably go watch my friend do his first radio control car race, and then spend the day with them at their place. It's also MotoGP this weekend too, so there will be MEGA bike racing on TV!

Speaking of TV - We've just bought DSTV and now have crystal clear picture on all channels at home, as well as about 50 other channels through the satellite. Awesome! The old "bunny ears" aerial we had was terrible and all the channels used to be snowy.

AND.. that's not all..

We've moved offices as well, and I'm now sitting hear the window which is nice!. I get sunshine on my desk from about lunchtime. Makes a person really sleepy! Heh heh

I had a great weekend. Although it ended on a sad note.

Friday night I spent with Michelle at home. Which is always good! Saturday morning we met up with our friends, Kylie and Jonathan, and while the girls headed off to the mall, Jono and myself went to Swartkops to watch a radio controlled aircraft exhibition there. It was incredible to see these scale models flying around. And the most amazing of all were the jets! These things are about 1.5 metres long and weight about 25kg! And are true jets! The few that were there were scale replicas of the American F-15, F-16, and F-20. And Soviet SU-27 and MIG-29. Also the Eurofighter. And when these things were started, they sounded exactly like a real jet... heck they WERE real jets! Amazing to watch! Apparently they have a TRUE SPEED of over 250km/h when flying!!! WOW! They also had the normal petrol engine scale models and some fantastically detailed WW1 biplanes as well.

Later that evening we went to go see the new Matrix movie, and even though the special effects were awesome yet again, I was a little disappointed in the movie. There were too many "non-relevant" scenes in the movie. And if I think back to the first Matrix, every scene added to the storyline, but in this movie there were so many irrelevant scenes that, in my mind, just wasted time and made the movie longer. I'm hoping they redeem themselves with the final part to the trilogy in November.

Sunday morning we got up late, I did some shopping, and then we went to a friend's 30th birthday bash at Boston BBQ. A fantastic "eat all you want" place. Where you can also try out some interesting dishes like Kangaroo, Impala, Kudu, Crocodile and others...

As we were leaving, I got an SMS that a friend of mine, Melanie, passed away that morning. She has been suffering a long time with kidnet failure, and all sorts of things related to diabetes. So she is now in a better place with a perfect, Godly, body. So even though I'm sad at her passing, I'm glad that she's not suffering anymore. Her husband, Richard, is staying strong and was at church last night.

Well, Gary's funeral yesterday afternoon was a real testimony to the true character of who Gary was. I really pray that I have as many people at my funeral when my time comes. There were about 200 people there, and I pray that I have such an influence on my friends and family and people that I know.

On the funeral program, there was this poem and I feel that I have to repeat it here:

WHAT IS DYING?

A ship sails and I stand watching till she fades on the horison.
And someone at my side says "She is gone!"
Gone where?
Gone from my sight, that is all;
She is just as large as when I saw her;
The diminished size and total loss of sight is in me,
not in her.

And just at the moment when someone at my side says "She is gone",
There are others who are watching her coming
And other voices take up a glad shout of rejoicing,
"There she comes!!"

And that is dying.

Rest in God's presence Gary. We will all miss you, but we know you're in a better place.


This morning when I got to work, I reversed into the parking bay, and scraped my new car against the carport post. DAMMIT!!! And I've scratched the paint off the rear wheel arch. Not too bad, but the white undercoat is showing. So Avis has to get a quote for that and let me know what I have to pay. *sigh* Lekker stupid Derek!

Well, I've just finished cutting Michelle's hair. REALLY SHORT! She wanted a bob-kindof-short-layered-Meg-Ryan-kinda-look, and I think I got it right! Maybe hairdressing is my calling!!! ;o)

We went ice skating last night with the CMA youth. It was a Christian Event at the rink and they played only contemporary Christian music.. Quite good fun! We had a great time! It was organised as a promotion for the upcoming Godly Revolution!! Which is going to be a blast! Last year was fantastic, and I think this year is going to be better!

On a sadder note, I'm leaving work at lunchtime today to attend Gary's funeral. We've been asked to go on our motorbikes and wear our colours jackets.

This past weekend was good and bad. Bad because we lost a friend in a motorbike accident on Friday night. Gary was riding back from Midrand towards Roodepoort, and there were roadworks on the main interchange. Gary lost control of his bike and crashed into the concrete barrier. The paramedics say he was killed instantly and didn't suffer. He was 22. *sigh* Michelle is taking it quite hard as they were good friends.

This weekend I also went to my first live rugby game. The Vodacom Cup Final - Bulls against the Lions at Loftus stadium in Pretoria. It's the Bull's homeground, so naturally I shouted for the Lions! (Who won in the end..!! ;o) ) But it was interesting and I had more fun that I thought I would. Spent the rest of the evening with friends, and Sunday morning as well.

Anyways, back to work today... *sigh*

I'm currently reading a series of books called The Left Behind Series. It's a fiction story about people "left behind" on earth after the rapture. It's brilliant reading, and really interesting to see God's Scripture put into perspective in a story like that. Highly recommended!!!!

I came across a cool website with some great screensavers and other assorted must haves: Useless Creations. They have a great screensaver for the new Matrix movie and also for The Lord Of The Rings. Go get them..!!!

This morning on my way to work I was disgusted at the amount of pollution in the air. It looked like fog it was so thick. With the colder weather now, all the shanty town residents are burning coal and wood fires to keep warm and it's practically blocking out the sun.

Then to top it off we have 18 wheeler trucks doing way less than the minimum speed on the highway, and beltching out thick black diesel fumes on top of it.

My heart breaks when I see what we're doing to our planet. I wonder when it's going to finally cave in and say "No More!". If I was God, I probably would have wiped us all out long ago! Thankfully He has a lot more grace and compassion than I do. (I'm working on it though. ;o) )

Well, I had another great weekend. I also upgraded my cell phone at the same time too. I've now got a Sony Ericsson T300 with the digital camera that attaches to the bottom of the camera. It's quite nifty. You can take a picture of your friends, and then store it in your address book. Then when you want to phone someone, you can look through the pictures for your friends ugly mugshot. Heh heh. Quite cool!

On Saturday, my friend Jono and myself, rode out to Phakisa Raceway to watch the practise sessions for the 125, 250 and MotoGP bikes. It was an awesome experience to hear those new V5 engines in the MotoGP class. WOW! And well worth the getting up at 4am to get there in time! ;o) Got a little sunburnt though, but it was still worth it!

The CMA National Rally at Roodeplaat Dam this past weekend was awesome! We rushed to get there after work on the Thursday evening and made it just in time for dinner. Afterwards, we had a quick leader's prayer meeting and spent the rest of the evening chatting.

The rally officially started on the Friday, so that morning the bikes and cars started to arrive. I think we had about 2000 people there this weekend!

It was also the launch of the Biker's Church CD. And Michelle has a song on the CD that she co-wrote and sings as well. It's incredible and I'm SO proud! It's the first CD of our church band, and is all original stuff. All written by the members of the band. The CD is already going to be played on Impact Radio here in South Africa, and a few copies are on their way overseas to the USA to be distributed there. God is awesome!

The rest of the weekend was spent socialising and making friends. There were also bike games and other fun activities to get involved in, and there was never a dull moment. But like all weekends, it was of course, too short!

We arrived back home yesterday at about 11am, and then I had to unpack, wash the car, and get things sorted for this week. Tons of laundry to do as well! I guess a long weekend, while still being relaxing, does generate loads of work when you finally get home afterwards.

Well, my weekend was quite interesting.

Firstly, the test ride on the Fazer (See below) was awesome! It's a fantastic machine!! Both comfortable and fast! The only thing is that after trading my bike in, I'm R20000 short! *sigh* I might be able to sell my bike privately for R9000 more than they are offering me as the trade in. So I'm hoping that I can get that right! I REALLY want a Fazer and then Michelle can comfortably come riding with me without having her back hurt.

Saturday afternoon we spent with my folks at the local. I had a Steak and Guiness pie. Mmmm.. Excellent! It reminded me of the pubs in the UK.

Sunday we washed cars, and then Michelle's folks came round. We spent the afternoon with them before heading off to church.

All in all, a very nice weekend. Just too short, but that's par for the course when it comes to weekend. ;o)

Michelle is also getting her hair cut today. Really short. SImilar to Meg Ryan's style... So I'm excited to see what that looks like. I'll only know tonight when I get home! ;o)

I'm looking forward to tomorrow. I've organised a test ride at Linex Yamaha on a second hand black Yamaha Fazer. It's almost like the bike that I have now, except more of a sport touring type instead of a race replica. It should be WAY more comfortable for Michelle on the back. And seen as it's the same engine as my R1, it should have enough performance to keep me happy as well!

Well, I am on course today, and the lecturer is a native african. It's quite difficult to understand what he's trying to say occasionally as when he tries to "data mine the contents of a field", he actually means "determine the contents of a field". Anyone who is a South African will know more about this!!! ;o)

Michelle is working at The Wedding Expo at Sandton City today and this weekend. She is helping out Margaret Tilling who employed Michelle as a wedding consultant to work with her. Margaret will do the photograhy side of things, and Michelle will take care of the rest. Awesome if you ask me!!! And it's exactly what Michelle studied for a few years ago! God is amazing!

Well, I'm very chuffed with the new car. It's awesome to drive and SO quiet! And the leather smell from the seats is fantastic! I hope that smell stays in the car for a long long time! The only thing that hacks me off is that the car was delivered with a tow bar, but they didn't put those rubberised/plastic protective covers on it. And as far as I am concerned, that should be standard when you have a tow bar fitted. No train smash as they brought me some today and I put them on. BUT... and it's a big annoyance for me... the person who drove my car to me must have smoked in the car. I checked the cigarette lighter and it had been used. 22 kilometres on the clock and someone already smoked in MY car!!!! I phoned Barloworld and chewed them out from a dizzy height. It's common courtesy not to smoke in a BRAND NEW car that you are delivering to someone who may or may not smoke. You can't smell smoke in the car, but it's the principle of the matter. Humph!

My car arrived today. It's the same as in the picture, except mine is a deep metallic blue. I'm WAYYY chuffed! ;o)

The trip to Sabie was incredible. We took our time getting there and has a nice leisurely ride through Barbeton, Nelspruit, White River and then onto Hazyview and then finally Sabie. The road between Hazyview and Sabie is reknowned to be a great biking road!!! Corner after corner of twisty mountain passes... Awesome stuff. I took it fairly easy, but Michelle on the back still got scared. I really have to remember that she's not so used to biking as I am.

We spent the weekend exploring the area and eating pancakes! What more can I guy ask for! We stayed at Jock's in the centre of town and it was really nice.

We did go find a waterfall nearby and ended up riding on a dirt road for a while... with my superbike!! Ouch! So I was not too impressed. My bike is definitely designed STRICTLY for tar. Heh heh

The trip to Sabie was great.. more about that later...

I watched Black Hawk Down on the weekend, and it was a great movie! A little gory, but I guess that made it all the more true to real life. I found this interesting article on the net too. At first I thought it was an April Fool's day joke, but I guess it wasn't!

Well, this past weekend was a blur. I bought and fitted a new chain on my motorbike. Flippen R1600 later! Grief! Anyways, it was long overdue and now the bike is ready for the trip to Sabie in Eastern Transvaal this weekend coming. It's a long weekend and we're leaving Friday morning. We'll spend the weekend just riding around, enjoying some of God's greatest sceneries, and then come back on Sunday. There are 2 bikes going so far, and it should be great!

Pick and Pay is also having a special on music and DVD's... BAD IDEA!!! We were hooked and ended up blowing almost a grand an DVDs. DOH! Oh well, such is life. The credit card can handle it for now.

Back at work again... *sigh* What a drag. It's really tough having a 2 week break at the sea, and then coming back to work and going straight onto a course and only THEN having to come to work... My brain was taking strain today! And no comments from the peanut gallery okay?

And another thing that sucks.... South Africa are out of the Cricket World Cup because we tied with Sri-Lanka in our last game... We needed ONE MORE RUN, and Boucher thought that we already had won, so he just blocked the last ball instead of hitting it anywhere and getting the single... So we're out. Game over. Check please. That's all she wrote. The fat lady has sung. I could go on, but I'm getting more bored with this than you guys are!!! ;o)

Well, I'm BACK! ;o)

The wedding was 110% perfect. Nothing went wrong which was awesome! I'll be posting up some pics when I get them developed and scanned in. Our wedding venue, Avianto, was fantastic and everyone who was there reckoned it was the best wedding they have ever been to. It looked like it cost a million bucks, but was actually not too expensive.

The honeymoon was great too. Michelle and I headed down to Bloemfontein straight after the ceremony on the Sunday afternoon. We stayed at a place called Hillhouse for the first night and then Monday morning we headed down to Knysna. We stayed at Ridgeview Guesthouse in Knysna and spent the next 5 days being tourists and going on all the ferries and seeing everything there was to see. We even found time to go for a massage and salt scrub session at a health spa in Plettenberg Bay. WOW! That was awesome! Worth every cent. ;o)

From there we went to Jeffrey's Bay and stayed at Astonwoods. It was not too bad, but the place was really noisy as the floors were wood and the other guests would stomp around at all hours of the night making noises... Not that we were sleeping or anything.. Heh heh We spent tons of cash at the Billabong, Quiksilver and Roxy factory shops and bought loads of stuff for next to nothing.

From there we decided to head to the South Coast of Durban and stayed at The Blue Marlin Hotel in Scottborough. It was a two day trip to get there and we stopped overnight in East London... Stayed on a farm type place as all the other B&B accomodation was fully booked due to the Cricket World Cup. It was not that good, but it was a place to sleep.

The rest of the honeymoon we spent on the beach and getting burnt! We did take a day to go see the Gateway... A HUGE shopping mall up near Umhlanga. Saw a movie there and just walked around as the day was overcast and drizzly.

Then we headed home a day early to sort out the house. It looks like a store room what with all the boxes and stuff from my place now there too. This past weekend was spent sorting through things and getting some sort of order to the place. We also spent our wedding gift money on a new TV and video machine. Also finally getting a TV license too... No good being pirate TV viewers now hey? ;o)

Tomorrow I'm on course so I won't be at work! YAY! More later!

Well, this will probably be the last entry for a while as I'm getting married in 2 days and won't be updating my Blog while on honeymoon! ;o)

Last night we had a "trial run" at the wedding venue just to see where everyone will stand and who comes down the "aisle" when and in what order.. So it was interesting. Our little flowergirl is in her element and is so excited about being part of the wedding. It's going to be great on Sunday morning! I just hope and pray that it's not too hot. Luckily we've made sure that the message and ceremony is quite short. I mean there's food to be had soon after! And THAT can't be left to wait! ;o)

I will post the websites to the honeymoon destinations up once we get back. I don't want Michelle to stumble across the places by looking here.

God Bless! Chat to you all again in 2 weeks when we get back! I'll upload a few pics too, so all that weren't there can feel suitably jealous. ;o)

Ps.. I loaded Windows XP on my computer over the weekend and forgot to backup all my fonts before I did it... So if you have any cool fonts, PLEASE email them to me on my hotmail account. Thanks!

My brother landed on Sunday afternoon from Australia. He's come back to S.Africa for my wedding on Sunday. We had a good time Sunday evening chatting and catching up. He's only here until next Thursday, so most of his time is rushed catching up with friends and stuff. But I should get to see him a few times before the wedding. He flies back while I'm on honeymoon. I can't wait for sunday. It's going to be great!!! 5 more days to go, and then I'm married.... I can't believe it!! WOW!

Well, my Panther Chariot arrived this morning... and it's great! My buddy at work also got one, so we've been racing these things around our desks.. *grin* Boys and their toys hey? Grief!! A desk is actually too small, so we're going to find a place where we can set up some kind of track and have races during lunch! HaHaHa...

I went to the dentist this morning. So now I've been sitting at work until now not being able to feel the right side of my face! I have to go back again sometime, but it's not serious, so it can wait until after Michelle and I can get back from honeymoon.

One funny thing though, after the dentist has finished, he says "Okay, rinse if you want." ... Yeah sure! With a numb mouth, I'm supposed to swirl water around?!! You have to be kidding... Anyways, the most dignified manner to do this is to manually hold your lips together with your fingers so as not to shower everyone in the vicinity! Not stylish, but it worked and everyone stayed dry. ;o)

Well, I've finally sold my car. The people who bought it managed to bargain me down about 10%, but I'm not phased. At least I'm now able to pay off all my debts for the wedding, townhouse, and honeymoon. I've got a loan car from Avis to get around in for the time being, until my proper company car gets delivered sometime in February. I can't wait! I'm getting an Opel Astra 1.8 CSE. It's metallic gunmetal grey (Colour is called "Berlin") with black leather seats.

This past weekend was quite a busy one... Saturday I spent the day drilling holes in the spare room wall to put up some shelves. And after much frustration and effort, I realised that I was using the wrong type of drill bit. Once I replaced it with a proper masonry drill bit, the work went SO much easier! And the shelves are up and looking good! Michelle has in fact already taken up most of the shelf space with stuff she's unpacked! Then Sunday morning we got up early and met some friends at an offroad motorcross track for a day of fun and bike riding. It was the first time I've really ridden a full offroad scrambler, but had a ball! Even though I had some hairy moments going over the tabletop jumps and things. First I rode Colin's Bike. Which was a beast of note!!! Makes so much power that I scared myself every which way! *grin* Later I rode Richard's Bike which was a lot easier to ride and I enjoyed it more than the CR500. What a rush!! I think I need to get myself a scrambler! And Michelle also took Richard's KDX200 for a spin around the track too!! It was a great weekend! And I have the sunburn on my arms to prove it! ;o)

Long time no hear.... from me anyways. Well, nothing much has been happening, but I'll tell you guys anyways!

I've been seeing a few more movies... The new Jackie Chan one... The Tuxedo. Quite funny if you like to watch a brainless movie and just take it at face value and enjoy it. I still want to go see The Two Towers, Lord of the Rings movie... That's still on the list.

This past weekend we went on a breakfast run to the dam and it was great to fellowship with friends and enjoy the ride out there and back... Admittedly, the ride back was a lot faster than the ride there... Heh heh... 240km/h is quite nice on a empty road... ;o) Then this weekend, I want to go to Kyalami for a track school and do a few sessions around the race track. Maybe take the new video camera that Gill brought for me from England, and see if I can get some interesting footage from the bike... I'll let you know if I go and what the video came out like.

Other than that... nothing new. Just counting down the days until the wedding. Thankfully, the honeymoon plans and reservations are done so I can relax now. ;o)

Traffic today was almost back to normal. I think everyone has come back to work after their Christmas holidays.

Anyways, this weekend we went to go see "The Lion King" at the IMAX Theater in Menlyn. It was FANTASTIC! I enjoyed every minute! And it was great seeing the handdrawn cartoons and the pencil lines etc. Compared with modern computer generated movies like Shrek and Monsters Inc.

Today is 33 days until I'm hitched! I can't believe it! Time is flying past so quickly. At least most of the wedding arrangements are already done. Just a few things for the honeymoon left to organise, and one or two for the reception. WOW! I can't wait! And it's going to be awesome seeing my brother again who is flying back from Australia to be my best man.

2003!! WOW! Talk about time flying. It seems just like 6 months ago that I left for the UK in 1999... And that (counting on fingers) is like 4 years ago now! Good grief!

And I'm 29 now. Had a great birthday yesterday relaxing at home with my parents and Michelle. We went to the local Keg for lunch and then watched "Ocean's Eleven" on DVD. Our new DVD player works well except that any DVD that is not a Region 2 DVD is shown in black and white. I'm going to have to see if I can't do something to fix that. DOH!

Well... I'm back at work again... Still in holiday mode, so I'd better start trying to get back into the working mode again. I think I need more coffee....