Beating about the bush

“How is it working for you?’
Dr Phil

Sorting out an entire booklet of “stick it notes”; all of them with cryptic clues for my “To do list” for the life of me I can’t figure out what they were for. Some are abbreviations for something or the other. A couple are for calling Koos, only problem, I have a dozen entries for Koos on my cell phone, Koos 1 right through; not to mention Koos Van 1 etc. As I am about to throw the whole lot in the rubbish bag, I go through it again, I come across one that I finally remember what it was for. MTN was all I wrote, why would I write MTN, dialing an MTN number irritates me.

“You’ve reached the voice mail like service….BLAH BLAH press one and MTN will send the subscriber an sms” Yello if I wanted to send an sms I would have, why cant they have an answering service, where I can leave a voice message.

So why would I write MTN. After some thinking, I remember coming back from Natal, at Mooi River Plaza toll gate, we were given an MTN booklet, thinking about junk mail for want of a better term, even getting into the cars. Riffling the pages of the full colour booklet, I wondered how much it cost for the useless campaign, and mentioned it. My better half told me I had taken the booklet, opened it so it wasn’t useless.

I explained my reason why I thought it was useless.
• How much did it cost them to print that booklet?
• How could they track the outcome of the campaign?
• For the same price could they have done a more affective campaign?

Go into any hypermarket, supermarket even mini market, you can buy a sim card for under R3-00. So instead of dishing out pamphlets dish out sim cards, at the start of the holiday periods, have programs set up to monitor when the sim cards are activated recharged etc. Done at the start of the holiday periods when people have money, no point doing it after wards no body has any money left. With technology which is available it is relatively simple to track the outcome of the campaign, when one considers the traffic going through Mooi River Plaza, the figures I have are a couple of years old and taken over an Easter Weekend. Do the maths get 5% of that traffic activating and recharging.
This is the traffic per day, I do know that this year was higher, over twenty Thousand.

After that digression, which is another reason why my “To Do Lists” don’t work, my habits and thoughts are like my “To Do Lists”, scattered and fragmented not focused on the job at hand. A while back I figured I needed a note book, to jot these things down in, I became too verbose and bored myself with information overload. Between too little information and too much detail nothing that had to get done got done.

What is needed for “To Do Lists” to work?
• Precise entries
• Not so that it reads like Tolstoy’s War And Peace, but precise enough to have clear picture what needs to be done.
• Organizing

Which, What, When, How.
Which one on the list first, what needs to be done, when will it be finished and how is going to be done?
Putting everything on a list, which is why it is called a “To Do List” and not a “To Do It Stick It Note” all this helps in the final step.
Focus!
Andrew Carnegie, an American industrialist once paid a small fortune for a piece of advice, the advice was simply this, write down everything you need to do, next rate them by importance, 1 for most important etc. Then start working from the top down. I first read that about forty years ago, but never seriously implemented it, nothing gets done by knowing, it gets done by doing; to help keep me on this track I now have a “To Do List” from Microsoft. As the person who gave Andrew Carnegie that advice said, “If it doesn’t work with this system it won’t work with any other system.

The top of my “TO DO LIST” was to write “ABOUT PARROTS AND WEBSITES”
That will have to wait for tomorrow.

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Is it real? Francois asks a very pertinent question, in as much do we know what is real, when we receieve emails. Is it a scam? Is it someone phishing. The web is full of them, our emails are full of them. There are sites on the web; millions dealing with them, exposing them. I personally know of one case where a person booked a holiday home, because it looked great online, paid the deposit to find nothing there when him and his family arrived for their holiday.

In regards to Sign From Above, it was at the Izack Steyn Stadium 10th May. What is difficult to believe here? That the event took place in Vander Byl Park, where Izack Steyn stadium is? That thirtyfive thousand people would come to hear somone talking about God, I tried to get tickets for Loftus; and I thought I was early; no chance fully booked. Angus is fully booked way ahead, if you hear he is coming your way, you better get in early.

Do I believe it to be authentic? Yes. I have the proof I need to satisfy me. I am not an easy to convince of a lot of things; of the 350 odd emails I get a good third are scams, being doing the round for years; I have only been on the net for one, but I can still see them a mile away. Phishing I pick up just as quick.

Have I tried to sell you something? No

Have I tried to share something with you? Yes

Should you be interested in sites that expose scams that I can also share with you for free.

Its a BIG BIG web be careful out there.  

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I was sent an email with this picture, it was taken whilst Angus Buchan, was sharing his testimony at a stadium, where 35,000 was in attendance. Angus Buchan is known for the film, “Faith like Potatoes”, if you get the opportunity see it.

God speaks in different ways to everybody. The question is are we listening.

To get the full picture please click on the image below.

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A couple of weeks ago headed to the coast from Pretoria, started early to get there early; thought the Walter Sisulu highway (R21) would be quicker; even at five in the morning it was a crawl, two lanes in both directions isnt enough on that road; there was a pile up at Wenen which stretched back to just outside Harrismith, wasnt going to hang around there for a welcome or farewell party, so cut a line to go round via Bergville; a funny thing happened on the way back to the N3 via Bergville and Winterton, entered the alternate route in Gauteng Mode, not long into the views of the dams, looking down onto them it was almost surreal, foot lifting off the pedal, wanting time to slow down the vista leaving me speechless, the snow capped mountains Drackensberg, the clouds not much higher, almost had a feeling of we might just see a dragon or two. I dont think Bergville and Winterton had seen so much traffic for a long time, because it seemed as if almost everybody else in the que had, had the same idea I had. Reached Leisure Bay on the South Coast about three in the afternoon.

http://www.africandream.ekwa.com

Whilst at the coast had to go to Kloof managed to get lost three times; I know if we had GPS it wouldnt have happened, with GPS we could have entered the address and it would have guided us there, the GPS would have also told us where the traffic cops were, not that we would have needed that info. I have never been to much of a believer in GPS, after that episode I am definitely exploring options and price comparing versus feature etc of different GPS systems.

 I was in Kloof to set up a website, with a particular host, I think the icy wind in the Berg was warmer than the chill in the voice when I said I wanted to go dot com instead of dot co za patriotism has got nothing to do with my reasoning, if anything it would have been cheaper to go coza, the frost settled in with the mention of a blog, the reason to go for the site is to promote my different interests, so why the icecubes when I mention adsense, hello people advertise their goods on websites, whats the difference with adsense.

for an idea what will be on the site here is preview

http://www.amplithink.co.za/dalenco

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I have found a way of traveling through this great country of ours in safety, it’s true, I don’t have to worry about travel insurance, petrol can go up sky high, I thought that seeing as I am surfing the net why not pop into some of the great places we have right here; when I read what overseas people have to say about it, these are people coming back again and again it certainly takes the blinkers off from my eyes. A couple of the places I visited are in the waterberg area.

http://www.equus.co.za/

Their guestbook contains some of the most eloquent writing I have read for a long time, even though the only thing I know about horses is, it must be the greatest creature on earth, think about a race horse can take thousands of people for a ride at the same time.

Talking about horses pop into

http://www.waitalittle.co.za/

Look up the great work they are doing, while you are there visit one of the projects they support; Daktari bush school.

http://www.africanorphanage.com/

If these three places aren’t enough to get you to see what we have in a different light, then it is time to get back to a place where you can sit; where you can just feel the wind coming in from the veld, carrying with it the echoes of your soul, the whispers of your African Spirit, that spirit in all of us in Africa; you can go where you want in the world, your whispers will still come back on the wind.

Even if you don’t know how to ride a horse, I don’t, you can still feel the thrill of a safari, just like when the first settlers came here, seeing the wild from a different perspective.

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As soon as Eskom can get their act to-gether, maybe I can stop beating about the bush and get going.

Gold prices are soaring, the mines are retrenching, due to power shedding or sharing, Eskom says they are power shedding to keep the mines going at full capacity, who is kidding who or who is beating about the bush.

While they are playing their games I cant make the money to buy Gold anyway.

I will have to look at other ways to get the power, maybe there some truth to old chineses proverb, many hands make light work, if only many hands can make computer work.

Let you know if I find a way, apart from puttting my name on a waiting list for a generator I can afford and one that gives more than enough power just to boil water for coffee.

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