Ola,
Another addition to our ever increasing community. Welcome miss Yashika, hope you find these email worth the kilobytes in your inbox  if at anytime you wish to be removed, please do let me know.

SAICA, has come up with this new thing that we need 120hrs of continuing professional development hours over a 2/3 yr period. It was all good and well when I was working for a large corporate cos it was all about training and development…on their account ofcourse, working in your own space is a different story altogether. I have had to resort to attending ‘random’ yet relevant 2 hr seminars which are either free or well priced (‘cheap’).

Last week I started writing an email around one such seminar I attended called finding your place in the sun, a talk given by Aki Kaliatakis, it started off pretty grim but made so much sense in the end, but I think I am going to park that one for now, cos it was very happy clappy and you are in charge of your destiny kind of stuff, I thought it best to tell you of our experience this past Saturday.

Firstly thanks to those that heeded my email and came thru, Dr Phil, Yashika, Simon and Vuyani and her posse.
Last Saturday about 20 of us met bright and early to go do our little bit for society. We drove around in circles for a while and finally we arrived at our destination in Orange Farm, a half built house and an old lady’s house that needed some paintwork. After loads of shaite being spoken we split up and started mixing dugga, fetching bricks and laying bricks etc. To be honest it was a tad disorganized cos the building foreman, the dude who knew what we needed to do wasn’t directing us well but we tried our best. I must add, I have new respect for builders, cos that sha ite aint easy!!

I think I speak for all that attended when I say it was a day well spent. We may not have finished building the house, but our assistance lessened the amount of work they will need to do to complete that particular house and thus could start on the next one.

So once our day was done I was busted, I got home late from Friday nights shenanigans woke up early on Saturday, put in some hard labour my other bro, ‘Die Hard’ was in town so it was going to be another late night. So I told Phil lets bounce. The other guys had other plans, lets go to a ‘chisa nyama’ which is like a braai sort of effort. Happy times, we’ve done a good days work lets go get some meat and a few beers. We hardly ever hang with the peeps so lets. And lets we did. Bought some meat, bought a few quarts at R8.50 what a ripper, played some music, sat on and around the cars and had a yarn. The food came and man did we feast, well I know I did cos I hadn’t eaten the whoooole day!

After the meal, we tidied up and were about 5 minutes of getting the hell out of dodge….
Around the corner came a police van with about 6 uniformed officers, they looked ready to bust up a riot. The occupants came out of the car and headed straight for…yip you guessed it, yours truly, there were about 13 or so of us there all havin some good clean fun, but noo lets head straight for the makwere kwere. I walked without protest straight to the back of the van, with the thought ofcourse that the rest would soon join me, oh nooooo!! The door closed and I was like eish! A few minutes later the door was opened and my good friend Dr Phil was sitting next to me, things were better 

They sped off like we had just massacred a mob and eaten their hearts. We arrive at the station, and the others followed us, very grateful for good mates I tell u!! Still had no idea what we have been taken in for (other than possibly drinking in public), we weren’t being silly just bought some food and drink and played some tracks, some were shaking what their mommas gave em, u know just having a good reward after a productive day. So the cops start taking our details down, their attitude was all hardcore and rof like we are in charge here, we’ll show u. We asked questions they’d say shh go wait over there. Over time their stance became a tad softer when we managed to sneak in that we were just here to help build and paint houses and we had never been there before and we were just taking in the atmosphere etc. had no idea we were breaking any laws, but we don’t mind paying a fine and going home. The dude was like nooooo, u must go to the cell for at least 4 hrs, I’m like bra!!!

Anyway after about 40 min we seemed to be getting thru the one guy, cos the other phuza-face idiot was gone. Then along came drama. One of the members of our party was a tad on the other side of sober, he’d been drinking since we got there in the morning and he had been mouthing off outside…he was trying to assist but his rather boisterous rants got him arrested . Normal people would have heeded the message and bitten their tongue, noo not our man. Do you know who I am? Do you know who my father is (happens to be a pretty top dude on the ANC National Exec) You guys are making a big mistake…blah blah blah, any ideas of being let out early for good behaviour….out the window….

We asked the man to hold his tongue but he started getting even more vocal so the cops said right we’ll teach u my friend and they marched him off to a cell. In the mean time another friend who was outside pleading our case was also arrested and the 3 of us were processed. Any pleas to pay the fine and let us go because there were ladies in our party fell on deaf ears. We were going to see the inside of a police cell. But the cop was reasonable (in words) he said to us he was going to let us out just now as in 10 minutes he just had to do something.

Luckily our other mate who was in with us was pretty connected and they didn’t search him so he had his mobile with him he made a few calls to certain people…anyway about a little over 2 hrs, our other member of our party was brought to join us. The quietest I had heard him the whole day. He soon revealed why. The cops had decided to put him in a cell with some proper inmates, he was kakking himself. He said about a minute before they brought him out the police man had shouted ok lights out….

Anyway after a few minutes he was back to his vocal self. About 15 min after he was brought into our cell, we were all let out after paying a R100 fine each. We were given a form to signed which had our charge as intoxication, before I signed it, I said for the record I don’t agree with this charge but because I want to go home I will sign it. Then they asked the vocal one to sign it he was like what for, I am not drunk, I cant sign this bulls**t the officer looks at him and says oooooh u wont sign it ne? sure! And he duly placed it back in the file. They asked the fourth to sign his paper, he too was hesitant but the vocal one decided to prompt him and said sign it bra and lets go…how things change  anyway he signed his too and we were let out.

What an experience, but it was still a very worthwhile day. It really was a load of fun (bar the last few hrs). But imagine a whole lot of us on a Saturday afternoon, taking some time out, speaking copious amounts of tripe and doing something worthwhile other than parking off on 4th Avenue in Parkhurst having a Cosmopolitan, its such a fulfilling experience, well in my humble opinion.

That’s me for another week

Bdays
8th Simon C
10th Tumi Morule, Sefa
13th Maud, Inge
14th Kyle, Will
15th Kuhle
16th Al
18th Thuli, Chetan, Violet, Tahir, Gerald


That’s me for another week, you all take care of you!

Big love

Ex con 

‘Que Sera Sera’

When the day that lies ahead of me, Seems impossible to face
When someone else instead of me, Always seems to know the way – Lovely day (Bill Withers)

New addition…welcome Sturae, hope u find this useful and possibly even remotely interesting, if you don’t holler at me…

Sometimes I think back at most of the emails I send out and some people must think I am just a big happy ball of fun or someone who is caught up in his own BS world that everything is all good and well, well lets just say sometimes I am because I strongly believe you are what you think. But let me tell you about a month I have had. I like to share my thoughts and my experiences with everyone not because I think I know it all but I hope that there is someone out there that may have a similar or opposing thought to mine and would like to impart that with me and others, because once again that’s what I believe life is about…you definitely cant do it on your own. So please do endulge me or not 

Anyway, a not so happy story…if I take a step back and think about it, as I did at the end of last week, this past month was a pretty rough month for me, mind you it did have some pretty great ups, but on a whole it was pretty rough… well relatively, because then again I think a whole lot of people would not mind having some of my problems. This new work setup is pretty good for me. I feel like we are really achieving something, definitely developing a new skill and repertoire of abilities, but its not always easy, but then again how many worthwhile things in this life come easy?

As I was saying…last month was a pretty rough one for me in that we had set a target for the company for the year and mind you we are only 5 months into the year but I am bitterly close to achieving it, which has a good many spin offs in that I can take some time out and chilax for a bit, something I haven’t really done in going on 2 yrs, but all of a sudden, no one wants to see me, I have min meetings, I am clueless as to how we are going to reach this target and it was grating my cheese, it still is but not so much anymore

Then to make matters worse, one of my clients whose revenue makes up a substantial amount of our revenue this year has not paid us and they weren’t giving us any feedback regarding what was wrong, all this because the person I was dealing with signed the order form, we started the campaign and she decided to hang up her boots and moved on.

And to top it all off I have lost the little ok minuscule game that I had boys and girls, it’s a mess. Ok well one particular little miss sunshine…I ‘found’ this lass I was really digging (and that’s as rare as finding coconuts in Antartica), but eish had to hang up my boots there too cos that door was on lock down…for me, boss and no matter how much airtime I gave her boss Rapunzel was not letting down her hair boss, and I know some of you are thinking why didn’t I just use the key, bra, the key was not for this vault ek se…

And to top it off even more I am just tired…

I could go on but I think you get the picture and I was/am pretty tired…It wasn’t all doom and gloom though I had a pretty great Tri Nations campaign which took me to CT for a few days, got hammered with some of the All Blacks and if you really know me you will know that there aren’t too many things that excite me bar an All Black haka followed by a test match. That being said tho, my soul wasn’t really at ease it was like there was just something not right.

This week is the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan for my Muslim bras, I decided for this month just like for Lent I am going to try and give something to those less fortunate that I. I generally intend to do it but never really do it cos it takes an effort and I am pretty goal driven I struggle to do things nje (just), so at least this gives me some purpose.

I started this on Monday, and I am not doing it for anything but for my own selfish reason because it really and truly pleases me, early in the morning or late at night or mid afternoon and give a loaf of bread to someone I think needs it, and honestly I am NO ANGEL, I truly started feeling like I was in a better place already. So much so that on Wednesday a mate who was in a place not too dissimilar from where I was heading and I had quite a good discourse (I really had a need to use that word) about it.

Its actually quite funny cos a week ago I was sitting in the office with some of my colleagues and they were talking about the 5 languages of love, I had never in my life had any notion of it whatsoever but for those that are as in the dark as I was they 5 languages are quality time, words of affirmation, touch, giving and acts of service. And I dig giving stuff and doing stuff for peeps…I digress but somehow thought it was relevant…

Anyhoo…I think it’s all about finding your happy place no matter how small it may seem to the world. Yesterday I managed to get a meeting with the top dog of the client who wasn’t getting back to me regarding the campaign invoice and earlier today he told me that the invoices were processed. I still don’t know how I am going to fill up my pipeline nor did lovely miss sunshine’s vault open, but alas as the saying goes you cant have it all, so I take what I get and be grateful for it, it’s the beauty of it all isn’t it?

Something I want to share with you all on Wednesday I went to a seminar and the speaker was talking about brands and building your own personal brand, his whole message was what you want people to say about you when you are dead, which I thought was pretty random because at the risk of arrogance, what do I care what people say when I am gone? I will be dead…I think its more important for how you interact with people whilst you are still on this earth and are able to make a difference. There are 6 P’s to follow and they are:
• Purpose – there has to be a goal in mind in respect of who you want to be and how you want the world to see you
• Passion – you need to be passionate about everything you do touch etc, if you are not feeling work, a relationship, living conditions etc. it will reflect in how you conduct or portray yourself to others
• Planning - most if not all successful ventures, events etc, require a carefully thought out plan and process that needs to be followed
• People – you honestly cant do it on your own
• Play - don’t take yourself too/so seriously
• Persevere – you will fail its how life is, up until varsity I had never failed anything before but I got taught there, it wasn’t nice then but ey oh I survived. Hmm maybe I should give that vault one more try ;-)…I joke

Birthdays
02 Gavin Bye
03 JC and Rob W
05 Riba
06 Talita

All the best for the wedding ahead John R, much happiness bro, Junie, nice work on the engagement, what took so long ;-)? And to my Muslim bros and sissies…Ramadan Mubarak!

An eventful weekend to you all!! I need sleep, I am way too old for this phuza Thursday stuff 

And that’s a wrap folks

Y

Que sera sera