An Historic Day

I promised myself when I started this blog that I would stay away from politics and work happenings, but I'm going to back track on that statement just a bit.  It's election day in the good 'ol US of A and I have a few observations on this historic day.

First, the United State is NOT a democracy.  We're a democratic republic.  As much as people would like to believe so, you also have no RIGHT to vote in the presidential election.  The wonderful electoral college determines the presidency, not the popular vote.  I remember in high school thinking that the electoral college was outdated and needed to be done away with, however, I have since changed my tune.  The Founding Fathers were brilliant in their foresight on this issue.  While your state may grant voting rights for local and state elections, the Supreme Court ruled decisively in 2000 in Bush v. Gore that no right to vote in Federal Elections (presidential) exists, simply measures to prevent discrimination in voting.

Second, public campaign funds are dead.  Obama's about-face on accepting these funds will kill this movement for the foreseeable future.  Ironically, John McCain crossed party lines to side with the Democrats on McCain-Feingold only to have his opponent give up funding.  Campaign reform has been a priority for the Democrats for some time and to see it fall to the wayside is interesting.

Despite any outcome, I urge you to exercise your PRIVILEGE to vote today.  Far too many people have given their life for you to stay home.

Gold Rush 2008

For a change of pace, Jen and I met up with Geoff and Vanessa today and travelled to Dahlonega, GA for Gold Rush.  Gold Rush is the annual arts and crafts fair that the city of Dahlonega puts on somewhat in conjunction with North Georgia College.  I'm not an arts and crafts kind of guy, but the weather was gorgeous and it afforded us a taste of life to come.  

We met up with our other friends, Pat and Mel once we got up to Gold Rush.  Essentially, the entire town shuts down and the downtown area is transformed into tent after tent of crafts and food vendors.  It looks a lot like this:

We also had Ellie (Geoff and Vanessa's daughter) and Shay (Pat and Mel's son) along with us for entertainment.  Shay almost got airborn here and seems to love it:

Ellie, on the other hand, crashed out while Geoff enjoyed some ice cream:

Pat enjoyed a corn-dog, unfortunately, with ketchup, don't know what that's about.  I eat my corn-dogs with mustard, but I'm in the minority, evidently.

Shortly after that, Shay decided to pass out as well...  I can't say I blame him, it was an absolutely perfect day to take a nap outside.

After Gold Rush, we made our way to the park in Cumming for church.  Jen and Shay were chillin' (quite literally, it cooled of pretty quickly).

And finally, an action shot.  Dan and Jake having fun after the service:

Some processed Africa Pictures

The biggest disadvantage to shooting RAW with a digital camera is the inevitable post-processing that you have to do once you get back.  However, the results are stunning, far better than just having the camera do all the work for you.  Here are the first 11 pictures that I've done.  A big advantage to RAW is when I go to blow this thing up to 30"+, it'll be super sharp.  Click on any picture to view the full size on Picasa.

From Madikwe Game Reserve, South Africa

From Madikwe Game Reserve, South Africa

From Madikwe Game Reserve, South Africa

From Madikwe Game Reserve, South Africa

From Madikwe Game Reserve, South Africa

From Madikwe Game Reserve, South Africa

From Madikwe Game Reserve, South Africa

From Madikwe Game Reserve, South Africa

Yes, they do get that close to you!

From Madikwe Game Reserve, South Africa

From Madikwe Game Reserve, South Africa

Jen actually took this one, notice the giraffe in the top middle of the picture. Enjoy!!!

A break from the norm

I promise I haven't given up on my blog, things have been extremely hectic since returning from South Africa. I also pledge to have more photos from that trip for you guys very soon (hopefully this week). For a change of scenery, I offer some pictures from todays Gardner-Webb - Georgia Tech game. My step-dad had 2 sideline passes and couldn't make the game (my mom was singing the National Anthem at the Presbyterian College game), so Jen and I headed down.

First off, it's a bittersweet gig. Since we're "working press," we can't wear team colors/shirts or cheer for the team (or boo them as is sometimes required), but the payoff is being on the field and the chance to take some great pictures. You can check the AJC for a game review, but simply put, Tech played pretty poorly. GW deserved to win this one, fortunately, Tech eked out a win. We were very lucky to actually be standing in the end-zone with Dwyer (21) broke a 79 yard TD run. That was pretty fun, he ran right at us!

In no particular order, here are some pictures:

Silicone Breasted Mattress Thrasher Pt. 2

It has been brought to my attention that I left a previous post incomplete by not explaining the silicone breasted mattress thrasher. My apologies, it started as a small aside on a game drive and turned into the running joke of the trip. Now might be the best time to describe our cast of characters that will appear in future posts, so without further ado:

Jim/Dad - my father, organizer and director of the trip
Cat - my sister, full of wit and pithy comments
Chris - my brother, the official comedian of the journey
Brittany - Chris' wife
Janice - Dad's friend
Dale - Dad's good friend from South Africa, our local host
Ingrid - Dale's wife
Sean - Our guide while in Madikwe
Callie - Our B&B host in Cape Town
Luli - Callie's wife and the other B&B host
Jen - my wife
John - self explanatory

Ok, now that I have that bit of business out of the way, on to the silicon breasted mattress thrasher... While out on safari in Madikwe, all of the Americans were asking tons of questions, "what's this?" and "what kind of bird is that?" Ingrid is a huge source of knowledge for all things aviary (or anything else for that matter). We kept asking rapid fire questions about birds and animals. Finally, we stop to look at several birds nesting in a tree. Someone asks for the name of a bird, and without hesitation, Ingrid replies "It's a silicon breasted mattress thrasher." The delivery was dead serious and it we all cracked up laughing hysterically. From that point forward, anytime someone asked for the name of a bird that we didn't know, the answer was of course silicon breasted mattress thrasher. That, of course, deteriorated into something larger than we ever thought. Whenever anyone asked what something was, the answer was SBMT. I know it's not quite as great as everyone had hoped for, but it provided some great laughs for us.

32 Hours Later

We finally made it home to Georgia this morning. The return flight is always ten times worse than the flight over and this flight was no different. Our trip started in Cape Town on Friday morning around 8:30 a.m. (SAST - 6 hours ahead of EDT). With everything loaded in our VW minibus, we departed for the airport. Our flight back to Johannesburg was on Mango, they're very similar to Airtran. Wheels up at 11:00, wheels down in J'burg about 1. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to return to the Howes residence for a quick bite to eat and a shower, so we camped out in the J'burg airpot.

Four hours later and Delta is finally checking in for flight 35 to Atlanta. Good-byes are said to the Howes and dad (he's staying for another 2 weeks and going with Dale to Zimbabwe this weekend) and we make our way to the plane. Let the fun begin. The boarding gate area is closed and there is a huge mass of humanity standing around. We're obviously not leaving on time. J'burg has their own security in the airport similar to security stateside. Delta also has their own security. We go through a total of 3 different checks before we actually get on the plane. The final is a hand inspection of your carry-on luggage as you actually get on the plane. I won't rant too much, but when are folks going to take a nod from the Isrealis and start using some proven techniques for security screening? Oh well...

All of our carry-on bags are finally approved and we actually board the aircraft. The aircraft door is closed and then we sit and wait. Finally the pilot comes on with some news.

*WARNING - AVIATION NERD SPEAK COMING*
Evidently, the prevailing winds on 21R shifted and died down. JNB only has 2 parallel runways, so there was no runway facing directly into the wind. JNB is also at 5558 feet, so the density altitude is much higher than most runways. High density altitude + full load of passengers + full fuel + full freight - prevailing winds for takeoff = not enough runway to get off the ground.
*END NERD SPEAK*

The news was that the freight had to come off the plane so we would be below max takeoff weight. We now have to wait on the ramp workers to get the freight containers unloaded. While we're waiting, I look out the window to see how things are going and notice that things are eerily dark for an active ramp. I see the amber flashing lights of ramps trucks and baggage carts, but everything else is pitch black. About that time, the pilot announces that the airport has blown a main transformer and is now without primary power. So, the ramp guys trying to take off freight so we can leave are now working in the dark. Oh, and the computers at the gate that recalculate the total freight and luggage loads are without power, so the calculations are taking "a bit longer than normal," says the pilot. Having done some flight training, that's code for doing the calculations by hand.

Finally the extra freight is off, power is restored to the terminal and we push back to takeoff. 9 hours later we land in Dakar, go through their rather intrusive security check, pickup a few thousand pounds of fuel and change out our crew and head for the ATL. Fast forward 8.5 hours and we're wheels down on 27L after almost 30 continuous hours of travel. We clear customs, recheck our baggage (long story, look for another post), take the train, re-claim our baggage, meet Kristen and head for Canton. Wow, what a day.

In closing, despite where your travels may take you, there are always a few things to look forward to when you get back home. For me, hearing people say "y'all" and a Chik-fil-a bisquit for breakfast were enough. Upon my return, I now have 35GB (yes, gigabytes) worth of pictures to process and go through, 2 suitcases of laundry to wash and a whole bunch of stories to type and share with you. One last thing I'm really looking forward to: crawling into my own bed tonight and sleeping in tomorrow morning...

Dialup what?

Well, evidently we're quite spoiled in the U.S.A, as most of South Africa does not have intenet access more speedy than dial-up. So, I apologize for a lack of posts and especially pictures. I promise to post as many as possible when I return this weekend.

We've spent the last 5 days in CapeTown and it's been wonderful. Last Saturday we took a gondola to the top of Table Mountain and then walked to its highest point, McClearn Beacon, about a mile from the top of the gondola. The views were amazing and several locals said the weather was one of the best days that they could remember. That evening, we met the Howes (mentioned earlier) for dinner down by the waterfront. The food was marvelous, as was the company.

On Sunday, we met the Howes for a 'light'lunch that turned into a 3 hour extravaganza. We ate at a place called Kalk Bay on the Indian Ocean side of CapeTown. After that, we headed down to the boulders in Simonstown to see the Jackass Penguins (yes, they're really called that, I'll provide a link later). We then headed over the mountains onto the Atlantic side of CapeTown and watched the sunset at a great little place called Le Med.

Monday, woah! We went cage diving with great whites! We had a chartered boat along with about 20 other folks. Unfortunately, our pickup time at our B&B was 5a.m., but that was a small price to pay. Not sure of the actual water temperature, but we had 7mm wetsuits on for those of you that dive. There were 7 individual sharks that approached the boat and Britney got some amazing pictures. That brings the amazing animal count for this trip higher than I can count anymore. It's even more impressive than on TV, to be that close to a great white is extremely exhilarating.

Today we ventured to the Stellenbosch region of CapeTown, world reknowned for its wines. We explored some historical homes in the downtown area and then went to the Spier winery for lunch. The food was incredible as was the wine. Spier also has a Cheetah conservation/rescue program. For a small fee, you can actually pet a cheetah, so of course we did that (well, everyone but me, someone had to take pictures). Unfortunately, we missed the last wine tasting while playing with cheetahs, but we were able to have some with lunch so we know what to look for when we go to the bottle shop (aka liquor store) here locally.

The next few days aren't fully planned, there is still so much to see and do in CapeTown. We know we won't fit everything in and we've been pushing pretty hard lately, so we're just aiming to enjoy our last few days in Africa. We have tons and tons of pictures and stories to tell (27GB of pictures at last count) and can't wait to see everyone!