I’ve been away in Melbourne for the past week. What an amazing city! We had a awesome time there, fitting in two concerts; Arcade Fire and the next day Rage Against The Machine. Both outstanding gigs!

Also - I proposed to Amanda.

She said yes.

We’re both totally stoked!

It was our last day in Melbourne. We were having a drink in the shade of a big tree on the Yarra river and it was just so perfect so I popped the question! She said yes immediately and we both giggled and celebrated with another sip of our drinks!

Anyway - I’m sure I’ll have more to say about the whole trip once I settle back into a routine. Happy, happy days!!!

I’ve had this designed stored away for well over six months. I’ve finally managed to get it released to the web.

I’m currently doing a live redesign on Dontcom. What this means is that the site will constantly be changing. Things are totally not polished right now so please bear with me as I tweak things up. Also, this means I’d love to have your feedback on the layout/functionality. I’ve tested in Safari and Firefox - so if there are any IE visitors (Dave) could you let me know how it looks.

If you’re reading this from a feed reader please take a moment to jump out of RSS land and have a look at the new design.

Thank god for long weekends.

What they are for me is an extra day to tweak our house. My mother works for Interface NZ - who are the NZ office of one of the planets largest and most sustainable companies. They produce modular flooring and carpets. My mother was able to sort us out some very awesome and stylish new flooring for our house.

This weekend is going to be spent removing the shoddy, very well used carpets from two of the bedrooms and replacing it with the oh-so-awesome, zero-waste, carbon-neurtal, hot looking new carpets lovingly supplied by Interface.

I’m quite looking forward to it, even though it’s going to be a shit load of hard work. Hard work is not so much of a problem when one’s doing it ro improve one’s awesome house! Yay for home ownerage (is that even a word…?)

Once it’s all down and sorted there will be photos a-plenty. Keep an eye on the ole flickr stream.

You may not believe this, but I’m actually a whiz in the garden. (Except for mowing.)

When I was younger I once grew a corn plant. It was doing really well. It has a cob of corn and everything. Then the fuck-o monkeys that lived in the jungle behind our house picked the cob, ate half of it and threw it on the ground next to the uprooted corn plant. Gutted.

I think my chances are somewhat better now that I live in a country that has no crop-eating monkeys!

Our new house came with a built in vege patch. Score. So last Saturday I spent a good hour weeding and aerating the soil. This weekend I intend planting some stuff in there.

A lot of people have given suggestions of things to grow…My policy is as follows: If you can’t eat it or smoke it I’m not interested in growing it. To quote Monty from Withnail and I:

“I think the carrot infinitely more fascinating than the geranium. The carrot has mystery. Flowers are essentially tarts. Prostitutes for the bees. There is, you’ll agree, a certain je ne sais quoi oh so very special about a firm young carrot.”

I won’t be growing carrots. I will be growing:

• Herbs
  • Coriander
  • Basil
  • Oregano
  • Thyme
  • Rosemary
• Veges
  • Tomatoes
  • Courgettes
  • Silver-beet

A modest, yet satisfying selection. Perhaps there are gardening types out there who would be kind enough to suggest some additions to my little editable patch of goodness?

I’ll be posting photos of the process on Flickr - hopefully it’ll be as riveting as I imagine it in my head.

After about 2 years of trying I’ve finally managed to turn Manda into a Mac user. She’s still not 100% convinced, but at least she will be using a Mac full time now.

We just purchased a shiny new MacBook (2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo/2GB/120GB/SuperDrive) which is going to become my everyday machine. Manda is going to take over my first-gen MacBook (which is kick arse!) We can now video chat while sitting in the same room on the same sofa :-P Glory is the life of the geek! (Or something.)

So yeah - we also have a new living addition to the family: a little 3 year old cat named Ziggy. We adopted her from the SPCA just over a week ago. Unfortunately, the poor little thing caught cat flu from the other nasty cats at the shelter. Needless to say this week has been a week of being scratched to pieces trying to feed her medication…She is getting a lot better now, and has started to hang out with us while we watch Dexter (best fucken TV show ever!)

You may have noticed that the posts here are picking up…I’m hoping to keep a relatively steady flow of content, but we will see just how well that goes…:) Dave…say nothing!

The Media Design School gig went very bloody well!

They want me to guest lecture again for next years intake of students. They also want me to be on the ‘advisory panel’ which is a panel of ‘industry professionals’ who will help crit the students end of year projects. This is golly good - and very bloody scary…

Imagine: I’m going to be helping sculpt the minds of your future employees. Ha! At least I don’t have to teach them how to drink, I think students are pretty good at that by default.

Thanks Media Design School, for giving me the opportunity to share a little of my knowledge with your students! (And for making me blog again…)

A few years back I wanted to attend Media Design School. I know a fair few people who have attended the school. They tend to produce some pretty good talent. It’s good to know that these sorts of establishments are starting to teach some proper web technologies. The introduction of Webstandards and CSS development is an awesome step in the right direction - and I believe that they’re going to be introducing a little more emphasis on accessiblity and general best practise…

I know this because I’m going to be guest lecturing at Media Design School this week. I’ll be focusing on advanced CSS and accessibility techniques. If all goes well it could turn into a regular affair.

Needless to say, I’m very bloody excited! I love sharing what knowledge I have with as many people as I can. Teaching the future web developers of NZ will be an honour and a treat. I can only hope that some of my passion for the web will rub off on them!

Yay for the web and the future! :)

If you live in Auckland you know it takes a lot to get the locals out. Aucklanders are far too busy doing bugger all to actually get involved with anything around their fair city. So it came as a huge surprise to see the awesome turn out for this month’s Auckland Web Design Meet. Perhaps it was the promise of free beer and pizza that forced the 65 odd people out in the shitty weather.
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During Movember (the month formerly known as November) I’ll be growing a moustache. Thats right…I’ve completely shaved off my beard (sob) and have started growing a moustache.

No - this isn’t complete madness on my part, it’s actually for a good cause. All the proceeds from this event goes towards the Prostate Cancer Foundation of New Zealand.
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I’ve been living in New Zealand for over five years now. I left London very much against my will. I was unable to secure myself a working permit for England and my working holiday visa had expired so I had no choice but to bail. My folks had immigrated to New Zealand while I was doing my OE so I didn’t have a home in South Africa to go back to. That’s how I ended up in this fine country…
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