Craig at 43

 

I have only seen Craig once this year, and now he is 43 years old. To celebrate the momentous occasion we had a braai at his house. It was good to see him again after all this time, even though I meet with this group of board gaming friends once in a while, it was a good meetup today.

Timeless Saturday

Matthew has never been to a Timeless Board Games' Saturday and to get our minds off the stress of the University finances, I decided to take him to Matthew to his first Timeless. Matthew loves board games and was so excited to go that he was ready early. Since we did not hearing any news from 1 of the banks that we were expecting, so off we went early.

The rest of my "Geeks wif boards & card" group that I am loosely associated with only arrive after lunch, by that time Matthew and I had some fun.

Same Old #@#

Every month, my friends hold a boardgame afternoon, and since I missed the last Timeless Board Games Day of the year when I went down to Durban recently, I wasn’t about to give this one hosted by Gary and Anika even if Craig decided to wear the same old kak t-shirt.

Gary made some, stinging chilli, Mexican style as he called it plus some beer bread made on a solar oven. Thankfully Anika in her wisdom made a milder version for the likes of Matthew and I. Then it was down to some serious board games and of course killer dessert.

Does she like it gentle or rough?

Warning explicit content in today’s post!

Craig and Necia hosted a Geeks Board Games Day that their home this afternoon which kicked off with some tasty Thai chicken curry. Thank goodness they cared a little about me and didn’t spike the food with hot chillies as not to take my breath away, literary.

It was a great turnout of friends and family, from left to right is Lynda with granddaughter; Rebekah; Sheena and Jonathan with little Aiden; Craig and Necia; Jessica and Layne; siblings Brendon and Nicole; and finally Robynne with her back to the camera. Not in the photo is Gary who is somewhere, maybe he is on the Iron Throne.

During a break, while sitting in the sun, the conversation strayed into the lands of Westeros as most of us are fans, well most of us except Craig and Necia that is. And then it happened as it tends to do in groups of friends like this. It was during Layne’s man-bun episode that he turned into Euron Greyjoy as he stuck an action figure’s head up the arse of a poor stuffed giraffe. Why Euron the scallywag of Westeros, well it was Euron’s quote "Does she like it gentle, or rough?" in the GoT episode a few weeks back that caused those fateful words to come storming back to memory, “A finger in the bum?”

Anyways we all had a good time at Craig and Necia's, thank you to the hosts and even the cat called Siri enjoyed been pampered by Nicole. Those eyes just say it all!

Timeless Board Games

Yay, it is that time of month again for the Board Game Party hosted by Timeless Board Games. Yesterday I felt a cold coming along but I overdosed with medication and vitamins and took the day off. Shoje, thank goodness I didn’t need a doctor’s note for yesterday’s duvet day.

Today, armed with a slight headache, that only boards games can cure, it was off to Bedfordview for the day of board games with my geeky friends, Jonathan, Robynne, Gary, Anika, Brandon, Craig, Necia, and Layne. I must say that at the end of the day I was exhausted but I thoroughly enjoyed the day except that part when the only food truck catering for us geeks ran out of food.

40 Sucks

Happy 40th birthday Craig, holy guacamole Craig, the big four zero. Well that means fiesta time for this crazy gringo as it took 40 years to get this awesome.

Stay clear of the chillies, Matthew, although the suckers cry out, “40 Sucks”, but as a wizard, 40 isn’t that old and we all know that life begins at 40 and if you don’t believe that, I will turn you into a dog.

Walking on Water

Thirty Nine, 39, yes tomorrow Craig will be ever creeping closer to the big FOUR ZERO. Since he will be heading back to Kenya tomorrow, Necia decided to have a pancake afternoon around the pool.

So friends and family squeezed their vehicles into Craig and Necia’s driveway and had a whale of a time around the pool. Of course I managed to get some converts to the savoury mince and condense milk wrapped in pancakes. Yummy!

Craig even tried his hand at walking on water and of course the judges thought very little of his feeble attempt.

The judges score is final...
Anika – Disqualified;
Nicole – Disqualified;
Brendon – Disqualified;
Gary – 0;
and for the Invisible man (dressed wearing only shoes and nothing else), well he gave a full 10 points.

Big Fat Geek Wedding

Yes this is how the big fat geeks get married, a beach style wedding with a beach so near that you could smell the ocean. Necia and Craig tied the knot at St Henry’s Marist Brother’ College overlooking the harbour of Durban.

A group of friends and family witnessed Craig and Necia walk down the path and stand before the marriage officer where they said their vows to each other. Craig said an extra vow to Emma, promising to be a good father to her and husband to her mommy, nice touch. Then it was party time with Mr and Mrs Nicholson. The food was good and then it was dance the night away with good friends. Friends like Gary shown below.

And I will end this series of memories with a photo taken by Anika, shown below in the red dress, of me and Lynda well behind my hat.

Craig’s End is Near

One of my good friends, Craig is getting married tomorrow to Necia and quite a lot of us did the track down to Durban for the wedding. We took a few days leave from work to make a bit of a long weekend out of it. So today we did the slow drive down to Durban.

And then there was the stag night that nearly wasn’t.

Exit the Vulcan. News of the passing of Leonard Nimoy spread like wild fire. Live long and Prosper, that you did Mr Spock, that you did. At 83 Mr Spock was beamed up one last time but will forever live long and prosper in our minds.

But that is not the end for our beloved Mr Spock but it is the end for Craig. The end of life as he knows it. Tomorrow he puts a ring on it. Craig’s last night of freedom was set to happen at 7:30 for 8pm in Umhlanga so I arrived early and killed off a few Ingress portals as one does when one arrives at a location filled with green slime.

Craig’s in game Ingress name is CraigN hence the hash tag of his end is #atcraigsend and the name of this post Craig’s End. In keeping with this theme Craig decided to arrive late for his own end. Rather late than never but I mean after 9pm, well that was pushing the norms. Anyway, we started at The George, a busy pub in Umhlanga with not much space which had many patrons spilling over onto the street sidewalk. Nice atmosphere but crowded and as you can see Jonathan had arraigned to the best traditions of a Batchelor’s Party or Stag Night to dress Craig up appropriately.

Later we meandered over to Hooters, now this is the other disappointment of the evening. The first of Leonard Nimoy and the other was well Hooters. I have never been to a Hooters before and when we first read on the itinerary that we were going to end up at Hooters I had to convince Lynda that Hooters was not a den of iniquity as it is portrayed to be. And how close to the truth it turned out to be which was the big let down. Hooters turned out to be just a clean pub, no food as kitchen was closed, and where I pray was all the eye candy of the make believe waitresses in skimpy tops and tight shorts? At least Lynda, Anika, and Necia would be pleased.

The Crazy Ones

Ah the first day of the Year 2015 and what better time to spend it chilling with friends and family. The day started with rain and more rain, so much so that I was wondering how we all going to fit into Anika and Gary’s lounge. It wasn’t just the 10 adults shown above as there were another 3 teenagers and a child. But thankfully the sun got brave and dried up all the rain as suns are supposed to do.

As South Africans, the meat was on the braai, with the young ones all occupied playing either in the pool or on the game consoles, the adults aka the Crazy Ones could chill in peace under the lapa next to the pool. Okay from left to right are the Crazy Ones, Sandy and Derrick, Lynda and Jerome, Megan and Bruce, Necia and Craig, Anika and Gary.

As always everything that exciting happened in the year came up in topic, Dr Who; ostrich meat; X-Box games; Ingress; programming; work; bandwidth; beer bread; merits of school and school fees; The Resistance; being splashed by the young ones in the pool and Craig that needed to be thrown in; some muscle car that Bruce owned in the states that he left his iPod in; Dropping DVDs of the film The Interview over North Korea via helium balloons, Apple vs Android; so called home made Turkish delight; various re-modelling projects from bathrooms to this very lapa; some movie about a women who has a sex change, goes back in time, marries herself and has a child, very confusing even to me; and not to forget the chat about cats and more cats. If I did leave anything out, other than the cats, I am so sorry but I can't remember everything. Oh yes talking about remembering we also chatted about how we get round remembering a face but not a name.It looks like this might be a usual problem with us Crazy Ones.

This blog also did an appearance in the discussion. Gary still likes the longer posts whereas Craig wants shorter more factual posts. Oh and I mustn’t forget we found out that Bruce is a fan of my blog and could be a serial blog stalker.

One of the suggestions, Gary’s I think, was maybe add more photos which will get the blog to feel longer. So let me give it a bash, here is the cat Robbie all bored and had enough of this small talk. He had this thing where he sucked his paw and when he had finished with his paw while sitting on his mommy’s lap, he put his head down on the table, relaxed.

Star Trek Craig T Kirk

First bit of business this weekend was to fetch Scarlet. Yes she is back up and running after spending over R4,000 to get her fuel pump replaced. Anasatia is still in the shop after water was discovered inside the transmission box. Where the water comes from nobody knows as it is an air cooled motor and it last went wading across rivers was over a year and a half ago with two services in between.

Anyway back to the weekend. Today is Craig’s birthday so we joined a number of friends over at his home to celebrate with lovely lasagne and wine. And to finish the day off in true Trekkie style out came the Star Trek communicator badge cupcakes. Ahh yes and Craig T Kirk is now trying to extinguish the candles without spraying.

Craig in Pink

Ja man what can I say other than seeing pink on a man is like trying to stare at the sun. They say that pink is the new power statement but so is a full beard and I think that the two would go well together.

I haven’t seen Craig for quite a long time and it was great meeting up with him after all this time even with his sugar and spice and all things nice side of Craig. All he needs now is that beard, yeah a full beard to go with that bright shirt.

Data and the Geek

First, a little good news: Skye was discharged late this afternoon and is now back at home recovering.

Earlier today, I popped around to Craig's place to pick up the Lord of the Rings DVDs. Now Matthew has never seen the three movies but is well into reading the books so I thought that these summer holidays may be the perfect father son opportunity to do a Lord of the Rings' marathon. It was a good catch up with Craig over coffee, seen here wearing his 933|< t-shirt while his cat, Data, looks on in amusement.

Craig at Tanz

Happy birthday Craig, yes nearly the big four oh, but not quite there yet. It has been a very busy day for Lynda and I, as the day started with lending an helping hand at a dog rescuer, then some Ingress L8 farming at Lifestyle and finally shopping.

The day ended with us joining Craig for his birthday celebrations at Tanz Live in Blackheath. Just being with friends with feet up at the end of a long day was just what the doctor ordered but after a while the hectic day started catching up on me and I had to call it a night.

Now You See Me

It has been a long time since I've seen a decent movie that kept me thinking who done it till the very end. This evening I went to watch the movie "Now You See Me" with my friends at Montecasino and I must say I really enjoyed it. Here is my good friend Craig after the movie with a stuffed dog, let's hope his cat Data doesn't see him now.

Any way back to the movie. Now I don't want to spoil the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, so I will just say one thing, Kansas City Shuffle. No that was three things, aaah, my producer just informed me that was from another movie that I liked. Okay a slight of hand and the four horsemen rob a bank. Go see the movie. So we all know that there are five horsemen of the Apocalypse so who was the fifth had me guessing though out the entire movie and I still didn't get it right, just like Lucky Number Slevin.

Braai at Craigs

Today was a mixed up day, Father's Day and Youth Day all mixed into one. Now who gets breakfast in bed? At least I started the day with chocolate in bed. Thanks Matt.

Late afternoon into the evening it was a braai at Craig's place, and with Craig and Anel as hosts, we had a wonderful time. Good wine, good food and good friends, perfect.

Cards Against Humanity

This afternoon after a morning of playing Ingress, friends met at Craig's place for an afternoon of board games and a braai. We ended up around the table playing the game Cards Against Humanity. We had a whole lot of hilarious fun. My friends in the photo above are Lynda, Anika, Anel, Craig, Thabitha, Richard, Pierre and Gary.

Ingress Sitrep: This morning thanks to Thr4sh3r a L8 Resistance member I managed to reach L4.

Royal Thai

Tonight is movie night as Nu Metro offers a free preview of an upcoming movie. Tonight's showing was "21 and Over" but before sitting down with popcorn and drinks it was dinner with Craig and Anel at the Royal Thai Restaurant. Although Craig was not that hungry as he had a late business lunch, Anel and I shared a tasty meal that the Thai chefs prepared for us.

Friends at Scoobs

Movie night, yay! Nu Metro had a free pre viewing of a movie and Lynda, Anel, Craig and I went and enjoyed a night at the movies watching a black comedy called Movie 43. Afterwards we ended up at Scoobs for coffee and a catch up as we haven’t seen Craig and Anel since last year October; wow has it been that long.

Because of that silly movie, all I have now is a picture of Craig's cat Data in my mind running a claw across its throat and I now belong to the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children inside Machines.

Canon EOS Adventure Roadshow

Once again it is time for the adventurous Canon Roadshow and this morning cold rain would not hold wild horses at bay as the queue to get in went around the corner. In this photograph you can see some of the crazy Joburg Photowalkers like Mark, Pascal, Geraldine and if you look carefully Craig right at the back of the queue. Please note that Robin was still in bed.

It was good to see Roger as I walked past the registration tables and a good man hug was in order. Many other Joburg Photowalkers, that is the Canon part, were seen streaming into the building such as Alan, Candy, Clare, Desiree, Jacqueline, Johnny, Niamh and Paul. Sadly Robin was still in bed.

Roger the Man,Canon’s DSLR Product Manager, opened the Roadshow to a packed house and introduced the range of Canon EOS cameras and the new models such as the Canon 650D, Canon 60Da (for astrophotography), Canon 5D MkIII, Canon 1D C and the Canon C500. Sadly my camera the Canon 550D has been replaced by the 650D. :-( See the unhappy face here. At least Roger punted the Joburg Photowalkers towards the end of his talk, which made me smile all over again. He mentioned our names including Robin who was still in bed.

After Roger was Abri who introduced the DSC (Digital Small Camera) and printer range. He briefly mentioned my camera that I had my eye set on since it was mentioned at the last road show by Abri. I wanted a small camera to carry around instead of lugging a DSLR around and sometimes security frown upon cameras. The S100 was the perfect camera, small with most of the features of my now defunct camera.

Then it snack time and time to catch up with the other Joburg Photowalkers whom I only catch a glimpse of earlier. After the break the first of the guest photographers Richard presented some of his aerial photographs of the beautiful and not so beautiful landscape around us. Watching the slideshow of his images I thought of a perfect title for Richard’s next book, Fingerprints of Man. Next was Manus from DSLR Training who educated us on talking photos in low light, now this was very interesting and I have leant some new tricks which I have to go try out.

As usual at the end of the Canon Roadshow comes the best part. Well they do leave the best for last. Names of the attendees of the Canon Roadshow get randomly drawn and super duper prizes get given away. And smiles were broad as this time my name gets called out and I was handed a Canon 50mm f1.4 lens. Big Smiles. Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday Mr President.

After the Canon Roadshow Craig, Geraldine, Pascal and myself met at The Digital Experience at Fourways Crossing. Now if you need any camera gear no matter what brand, Digital Experience is just the place with the best prices anywhere in Johannesburg. Pascal left with a battery pack for his new Canon 5 D MkIII and me the Canon S100. More about this stunning camera tomorrow as we off to an awesome late lunch at Fournos Bakery.