David hockey

Went to watch the (not so) little rat play hockey the other day...
Took the camera along too.



David's the one in white in all of these...

It wasn't a great day, but there were a few decent shots to be had.

Psst... when's the tuckshop open!?

Moving so fast he's but a blur



Alas, they lost 2-1 but next week's another chance...

Spelling shmelling

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/5538890/Definitely-is-most-commonly-misspelt-word.html
The BBC recently published this article:

'Definitely' is the most commonly misspelt word in the English language, a study has found.

The 10-letter word came top in a study of everyday words Britons struggle to spell correctly, with most of us regularly mixing up the second 'I' with an 'A' on a regular basis.

Second place was 'sacrilegious', which leaves people confused over whether it has an 'E' or 'I' in the middle.

'Indict', which is often misspelt as 'indite', was third.

The fourth most difficult word was 'manoeuvre' which causes problems due to the proximity of the 'O' and 'E' to each other.

'Bureaucracy', which is awkward because the inclusion of so many vowels, was fifth.

A spokesperson for market research company www.OnePoll.com, which carried out the study of 5,000 people, said: "So many of us can't seem to spell.

"Whether it is down to the structure of the word, or the frequency of use, there is no excuse not to learn how they are formed.

"And considering people judge others, yet don't like their intelligence to be judged by how well they spell, they should up their game and pick up a dictionary."

The vegetable 'broccoli' – came sixth, followed by 'phlegm' at seven and 'prejudice' at eight.

'Consensus' and 'unnecessary' completed the top ten.

Other difficult words to feature in the poll include 'supersede' at 11, 'connoisseur' at 15 and 'particularly' at 17.

Confusion over the number of Ns in 'questionnaire' meant it came twelfth, with 'entrepreneur' fourteenth and 'parallel' at 19.

The survey revealed some very odd ways the nation spells words which just failed to make the top 20.

Nearly one in 10 (nine per cent) thought 'mortgage' was spelt 'morgauge' and seven per cent often spell 'speech' as 'speach'.

Ninety per cent admit to giving up trying to spell 'diarrhoea' and a third get it so wrong their PC spellchecker can't even recognise the word they're attempting to conquer.

The research also found 57 per cent judge other people on their spelling, with 42 per cent admitting they believe people who can't spell are 'thick'.

Oddly enough, most Brits rate their spelling as 'good'.

Half of Brits admit the spell-check and auto-correcting on computers is to blame for their laziness in not checking spelling.

One in three reckon predictive text messaging and 'text speak' are to blame for terrible spelling in the real world.

Over three-quarters of the adults polled (78 per cent) said women are generally better at spelling than men.

Six out of ten said they were embarrassed by their poor spelling skills and one in ten corrected others when they spell something incorrectly and yet a third are irritated by being correct themselves.

Worryingly, a third believe the art of spelling is something 'you just learn in school'.

A spokesperson for www.OnePoll.com added: "It's clear the role technology is having on our lives is contributing to the downfall of our ability to spell.

"It often comes down to picking up bad habits earlier on in life which are difficult to shrug off.

"Computers and mobile phones which spell words for us has left us with a lazy attitude towards spelling."

TOP 20 MISSPELT WORDS

1. Definitely

2. Sacrilegious

3. Indict

4. Manoeuvre

5. Bureaucracy

6. Broccoli

7. Phlegm

8. Prejudice

9. Consensus

10. Unnecessary

11. Supersede

12. Questionnaire

13. Lieutenant

14. Entrepreneur

15. Connoisseur

16. Inoculate

17. Particularly

18. Liquify

19. Parallel

20. Conscience

Personally, I can't believe 'your' and 'you're' is not on this list - the amount of people that don't know the difference is frightening.

Anyhoo, I include this story because those that know me and my 'getting into Maties journalism' story know that this word (top of the list) is the one I struggle with the most - but I think I have it licked now. Definately in fact.

Cath at the beach...c'mon everybody...

Went down to the beach for some 'look at how big my tummy is' photos.

That's the nice thing about not working... you get to do all the things you wish you had time to do. Hey, we workrd hard enough overseas to allow ourselves a little holiday huh?

Damn I'm a good photographer.
Oh and she look nice too.

Will you just look at that cute little bump!

Okay, maybe not such a 'little' bump.

Wind was howling. Just getting a shot where she wasn't eating her hair was impressive.

Then we decided to get a few silhouette photies with a hurley.

Forwarding emails - an email forward

Hands up if you hate getting crappy forwarded emails - this is good information.

This is advice from a Network Administrator responsible for all the computers at a large corporation. It is an excellent message that ABSOLUTELY APPLIES TO all OF US WHO SEND e-MAILS.

Please read the short letter below, even if you're sure you already follow proper procedures. Do you really know how to forward emails? 50% of us do; 50% DO NOT.

Do you wonder why you get viruses or junk mail? Do you hate it? Every time you forward an Email there is information left over from the people who received the message before you did, namely their Email addresses and names. As the messages get forwarded along, the list of addresses builds, and all it takes is for one person to get a virus and his computer can send that virus to every Email address that has come across his computer.

Or, someone can take all of those addresses and sell them or send junk mail to them in the hopes that you will go to the site and he will make five cents for each hit. That's right, all of that inconvenience over a nickel. How do you stop it? Well, there are several easy steps.

Try the following if you haven't done it before:

1) When you forward and Emailo, DELETE all of the other addresses that appear in the body of the message (at the top). Highlight them and delete them, backspace them, cut them, whatever it is you know how to do. It only takes a second. You MUST click the "FORWARD" button first and then you will have the full editing capabilities against the body and headers of the message. If you don't click on "Forward" first, you will not be able to edit the message at all.

2) Whenever you send an Email to more than one person, do NOT use the To: or Cc: fields for adding Email addresses.Always use the BCC (blind carbon copy) field for listing ALL the Email addresses. This is the way people you send to will only see their own Email address. If you don't see your BCC: option click on where it says to: your address list will appear. Highlight the address and choose BCC: and that's it, so easy. When you send to BCC: your message will automatically say Undisclosed Recipients in the 'TO:' field of the people who receive it.

3) Remove any 'Fw:' in the subject line. You can re-name the subject if you wish or even fix spelling.

4) ALWAYS hit your FORWARD button from the actual Email you are reading. (You may have had to open numerous other pages before you got to to the real forwarded message!) By forwarding from the actual page you wish someone to view, you stop them from having to open many Emails just to see what you sent.

5) Have you ever received an Email that is a petition? It states a position and asks you to add your name and address and to forward it to 10 or 15 people or your entire Address Book. The Email can be forward on and on and collect thousands of names and Email addresses! A FACT!!

The completed petition is actually worth a couple of bucks to a professional spammer because of the wealth of valid names and Email addresses contained therein. DO NOT EVER PUT YOUR Email address on any petition! If you want to support the petition, send it as your own personal letter to the intended recipient. Your position may carry more weight as a personal letter than a laundry list of names and Email addresses on a petition. (Don't believe the ones that say the Email is being traced; it just is not so!! DO NOT EVER put your Email address on any petition.

If you want to support a petition, send it as your own personal letter to the intended recipient. ACTUAL FACT: Most Email petitions that are forwarded with just a list of names are worthless, because they do not fully identify the signer by street address, etc. Nor does it prove that the signer actually signed it. DO NOT FORWARD THEM.

Some of the other Emails to delete and not forward are:

a. The one that says something like, "Send this Email to 10 people and you'll see something great happen." IT WON't happen!!!
b. And don't let the bad luck ones scare you either, they should get trashed!
c. Before you forward an 'Amber Alert or a Virus Alert' or some ot the other Emails floating around nowadays, check them out before you forward them. Most of them are junk mail that's been circling the net for YEARS!

Just about everything you receive in an Email that is in question can be checked out at WWW.SNOPES.COM or WWW.truthorfiction.COM or WWW.factcheck.COM

It's really easy to find out if it's real or not. If it's not true, please don't pass it on. So please in the future, let's stop the junk mail and the viruses. Also get rid of the advertisements at the bottom of your Emails! You pay for your internet, why advertise free for them?

If they want adverisement, let them pay you to use your space! Finally, here's an idea!! Send this to all your Email friends (but strip my address off first, please.) This is something that SHOULD be forwarded to everyone you send or swap Emails with.

A picnic and some ribs

For mothers day we decided to take Cath's mom out to the Kirstenbosch gardens for a picnic lunch. She's quite a special lil lady so we had to do something special and it was a stunning day with the five of us having plenty of laughs while we were there.



One of our laughs was at mom's expense though - as she was walking along from the top gate she dropped her wool (she's been knitting our lil one a scarf). She only realised about five minutes later and so there was a 100 metre long trail of wool along the paths of Kirstenbosch that yours truly had to go and regather. Twas quite funny - maybe you had to be there.

The second activity of the week was Rory's surprise belated birthday batchelors party.
Okay, so not a batchelors, but a night out for the guys. We headed to the tavern - Ian, Marc, Buff, Tim, Malcolm, Stevie Smith, Rory and I for a night of 1kg ribs. Mmm mmm mmm.

Rory had no clue it was coming so it was uber cool to surprise him (he thought we were gonna be discussing Youth Club stuff - heh heh) and get out for a night of talking guy filth, burping, drinking and scratching ourselves cos there were NO CHICKS ALLOWED!

Was good fun. We'll have to do it again sometime.

Heany Valkenburg challenge 08. Yes 08 - we were late okay

If you haven't heard of the Heany - Valkenburg - Gallagher challenge, where have you been?
Started a few years back as the then, Heany-Valkenburg challenge, the evnt is now in its third year, well fourth actually. We play putt-putt, pool, table tennis, race, have tetris comps, do a memory game - 10 activities in all. Points are awrded for each activity. Emma won year one, Cath year two.



At the end of the comp we go to the Spur and the organiser (the defending champ Cath) announces the positions... first place gets the decathlon Cup and has a speech made in their honour by the second placed person. The third placed person eats with their hands (only announced once the food is ordered). The last placed person weard the decathlon hat and the fourth-placed person pays the tip.

Emma drinks from the Cup while Cath eats up with her hands...

Emma with her spoils, Dave wears a hat... not the hat... there was a tie for last place... yours truly and big Dave shared the honour.



Another year, another missed chance to regain my place at the top of the pile! Bah humbug!

sdfasdfasdf

Cath's stork party

Cath had a stork party. AND GOT LOTS OF PREZZIES!
Now if there's one thing Cath loves - it's getting prezzies. And if there's another thing Cath loves - it's cute baby stuff. Well lucky her...

Napies - very important!

Something cute again. Emma in the foreground was the party MC.



The gang was having a few laughs...

lots of teas and cakes kept everyone happy.




In her element.

Cath actually had to lug around a 4-kilo bag of potatoes, dressed up as a baby, all day - as a 'get ready for this feeling' type activity. Fun. Thanks Emma!

A long, long time ago....

HAS IT REALLY BEEN THIS LONG....

since I updated my blog?

Well I'm sorry okes, but I see that I hadn't even put up the photos of our Rome trip - and that was in like, February or something... there's just too much to do in Cape Town I guess... oh, and lack of internet until now.

Now we're hooked up to ADSL (that's broadband to non-SA-ers) so hopefully I'll be updating this a bit more often than before... sorry there's a lot new now cos it has been so long... a lot of it may be boring but I like to document what we get up to so you'll just have to plod through the 'look, our boxes arrived from overseas' photos, etc.

Since last time, I've put up:

-- photos of the Varsity Cup final in Stellenbosch

-- our camping trip up the west coast with Emz, Delboy and Dave

-- unpacking at our new place

-- Cath's cousin Ingrid's wedding

-- Kerri takes us for a picnic

-- Alan runs a (half) marathon

-- the family reunion - Mart and Inge do Cape Town and we do Boulders beach

-- my work farewell do

-- Linda and Liam taking us around west Cork

-- selling off the last of our stuff in Cork

--Courtney and Michele visit Cork

-- Rome baby (x3)

--Belmullet baby


Some of this stuff won't even be on the first page of the blog anymore, so you'll have to click onto the next page if you wanna see our Rome piccies. There are some stunning ones there. Goon, you know you want to.

Anyhoo, that's all for now, sorry it's been so long since last time.
Still to come soon...

-- More Cath tummy photos - she's getting huge folks!

-- Our new place - the baby room, et al.

-- cath goes to the rugby. Wench.

-- what else, I can't remember, I've been doing this blog for like, six hours now, I'm exhausted.

Later guys, and thanks for all the baby gifts, etc. you rock.

--

The Tummy-tracker...

Where are we, what month is this...

Okay it has been way too long, so here's an update on the development of Cath's tummy...
Otherwise I just know Courtney will be asking for an update and then I'll accidentally send her a photo of something I didn't intend to.

1 November:
1 month

1 December:
2 months

1 January:
3 months

1 February:
4 months

1 March:
5 months

1 April:
6 months

1 May:
7 months

1 June:
8 months