Birthdays

In a couple of days I will be having passing suffering surviving come face to face with my birthday. And whilst I am generally quite happy and content with my life at the moment , I can not help feeling a little depressed when I think about it.

You see , in a couple of days I turn 33. And compared to other 33 year old people I know , I have very little to show for my 33 years on earth. And 'yes' I know , I shouldn't compare my life to that of others, and normally I couldn't give a rats arse. But just sometimes, I do.

And so knowing what I do , I have to answer two questions for myself :

Would I have still married Alet ?  Yes.
Would I have made the same financial decisions ?  No. 'Cause maybe , if I made better financial decisions both me and Alet (and by implication - my son) would have been in a better place to continue our lives after the divorce.

All I can do for now , is try to make better decisions and hope that some day things will work out ok.

And maybe,  until that 'someday' , I can ignore birthdays and just let them go by quietly.

My son's birthday

Yesterday my son turned 8. And every year bar one I baked the cake for his birthday. So I drove all the way to Cape Town for the weekend to go and visit him and my (ex) wife* and to go and bake him a cake. In this case , a doggie cake.

I had a great weekend. We played with his new toys and built lots of Lego cars. It was nice to see him again after 4 months and it was good to be able to sit down and chat with Alet.

Thanks guys for a nice weekend.

* : I do not like the term ex wife. It has way too many negative connections. The thing is that we are still good friends. And I still care for her. And so she is not the typical Ex. I know that we will always have a soft spot and care for each other.
I do not want people to associate the negative connections with her. So what do I call her?

32

Seeing as I turn 32 today I thought I would write a post of the 32 highlights of my life. one highlight for every year. The scary part was that I realized that there were quite a number of years that I would not be able to list highlights for.

Make no mistake - there were some .

• Like the day I met my wife.
• The day we got married.
• The day she was accepted as a probationary Methodist minister.
• The day I got my first digital SLR camera.

But surely not enough to make up 32. Especially not if I had to limit them to one per year.

So I decided that I would rather make another list. and even this one may take some thinking. So here we go :

32 things you may not have known about me :

1. Although ,by all accounts, I look mean , I have a very small heart.
2. I do not see myself as a particularly good photographer
3. I am always surprised to see myself in a photo ( I never think of myself as so much bigger than most other people)
4. I was the nerd at school (not the smart geek type, just the guy that everyone bullied)
5. I studied computer-systems-engineering for a year and then quit.
6. In Matric I wanted to be an air force fighter pilot
7. I was Youth Pastor in the Dutch Reformed Church for a year
8. I met my wife when she was dating my best friend
9. I struggle to see God as a loving Father
10. I do not have a very good relationship with my own father.
11. I would love to own a motorbike. I have a softspot for the Honda Transalp 700
    
12. I would love to have a go at being a rally driver
13. I love Christian music.
14. I love Abba and classical music.
15. Sometimes I will listen to heavy metal (though still Christian Metal)
16. I google my name sometimes
17. I like to cook
18. At one stage after school I was super fit and won 32km cycle race against pros. I was on a borrowed mountain bike.
19. I would like to start cycling again.
20. I hate running (it hurts my back)
21. I am very practically minded
22. My first computer was a Commodore Vic 20. I was 8.
23. I have designed at least 12 websites.
24. If I could do any job in the world , I would like to be a Helicopter Pilot.
25. I like to read Terry Pratchett's Discworld books
26. I like to sing
27. I like new challenges but get bored once I have mastered them.
28. I have very few close friends
29. I am not very good with money (and at the moment I am paying the price for my stupidity)
30. I love gadgets.
31. I have a thing for torches and flashlights. I have to really restrain myself from buying new ones when I see them in a store.
32. I would like to learn to drive big interlink trucks.