the santa barbara roadtrip...

the only thing i ever knew about santa barbara was that it was some boring soap that used to come on in the afternoon when i was a kiddy and bore me to tears - not that i ever watched - boy has my perception of those two words changed...

a little background...if you are interested?

sitting pretty on the pacific coast south of san francisco and north of los angeles, santa barbara is many things at once: a celebrity hideaway, a soap opera location, a beach party zone, a centre of higher learning and an elegant spanish-style resort town.

its TV celebrity is easy to understand: this is one telegenic place. affluent and picturesque, with lots of red-tile roofs and white stucco, the city has the easygoing seaside attitude and looks of a mediterranean town. but make that a californian mediterranean town, dude.

five colleges in the area, including the university of california at santa barbara (UCSB), give the town a youthful zest and provide a little contrast to the town's white-ducks yachting crowd and wealthy retirees. the city is surrounded by good beaches and the nearby santa ynez mountains and los padres national park offer great opportunities for hiking and camping.

being memorial weekend, 11 of my newest friends and i decided to embark on a trip 5 hours south of san fran...EY kindly gave us friday off, making it a four-day long weekend...we took the 101 south out of san fran and stopped at one or two little towns on the way down...nothing too interesting...

pulled into santa barbara and took a drive down state street, which is a tree lined, bar-overflowing, music pumping, hip kinda street with some awesome shopping...just over the train tracks we spotted our hostel...somewhat comfy due to the numbers that we had...

my aunt and uncle after being in a conference in san deigo decided to come up to santa barbara to see what the fuss was all about. they kindly took me out to an awesome supper and was great to catch up tell them of the hi-jinks of all in cape town...shortly there after met up with the rest of the crowd and decided to hit the town and were told to head up to this place called "sharkeys" for 2 for 1...that night turned into a big one...

UNTIL...at 4am when we were all tucked up in our bedbug-ridden bunks sound asleep from the copious amounts of alcohol when the AMTRAK freight train pulled into town with the loudest horn and longest train i have ever heard and seen...sounded like it drove over the top of the little hostel...then at 7.55 sharp the passenger train pulled in with the same amount of noise...there is a reason the hostel is situated where it is, and they can charge the ultra low price of $23 a night!

the next days seemed to flash by...some of the other highlights included, rollerblading along the beach path, tennis games, fiercely contest volleyball matches, a night out to remember at this spot called wildcats, some awesome meals, great shopping, a couple of early morning swims and much, much more!

on route home we decided to take the much longer, but scenic route home, up along highway 1, very picturesque almost like 150km chapmans peak with redwood forests and sheer cliffs on either side...along the way we stopped at big sur, and pfeiffer state park where we took a hour hike to check out all the massive redwoods, some awesome scenery and the much talked about pfeiffer falls...

pulled back into san fran around 8pm after battling some outrageous californian traffic!


looking south across santa barbara


me and my aunt and uncle


east beach


viresh, christina, neil, me, sonia, geoff, jasen, dave, veronica, lara, trey and joe


neil, trey, dave and me


big sur, looking south back along highway one


the giant redwoods

what a weekend...

had such an awesome weekend, it went as follows...

friday evening, pulled round to neils place and had a few drinks before we hit this spot called "the red devil" for a 80's cover band called "popscene"...and what an evening we had! after numerous drinks called 'star-fackers' (think its the american equivalent to a TVR - tequila, vodka, redbull) thanks to dave we were set to have a big one! the band was so awesome, and a number of 'singers' from Deloitte and EY decided it was necessary for them to join in - some longer than others! other events that happened during the evening - but not limited to - included, neil not being let in after the bouncer caught him getting rid of some of the TVR outside, some real tall tall stories to naive americans and renditions of 'i believe i can fly' on the walk home up those steep hills!

saturday morning started painfully, but after a 1km swim in the bay without a wetsuit we were good to go, spent an hour or two lying in the sun on the promenade, followed by some lunch on union street and a quick browse thru some of the cool little shops...

from there i was off to the baseball, for a derby match between the oakland athletics and the san francisco giants (oakland is across the bay), had a awesome afternoon and learnt a lot about the game...from there we went off to a free wallflowers concert and amazing fireworks festival right under the evening shadows of the bay bridge...

sunday morning we decided to take a run from san fran to saulsalito, about 12km across the golden-gate bridge...was a perfect morning and we had 3 runners and four bikers...was an awesome run, followed by a quick swim and an awesome brunch! from there we caught the ferry back to san fran, donned our golf kit and head of for a quick 9 holes.

ended off the weekend with some sushi at a japanese place down on the marina, and then hit my pillow, hard!



the home of the san francisco giants, SBC park...with a view over the bay!


kayakers outside SBC park, last year when Barry Bonds hit his record breaking home run, the ball was caught by a kayaker and sold for over $3mil on eBay!


the wallflowers, lead singer jacob dylan, bob's kid!


team active, the runners, dave (team manager) joe, me and neil


good run...neil and me!

wanna see exactly where i am?

google satellite maps - unreal technology...

so...google has just released a new service called google local, which has the ability to find anything, anywhere - so long as you are in the states!



so if you wanna see a satellite map of where im a staying - you can zoom right on to the roof of my building - then do the following:

1. open up google, www.google.com
2. click on local above the textbox
3. then type "240 lombard" in the 'what' box and "san francisco" in the where box
4 click on the google search button
5. then "Parc Telegraph Homeowners" or "B"
6. then on the bottom right of the map click satellite
7. and zoom right down to the roof of my building

amazing technology - we might be off to santa barbara next weekend for some beach and surfing, so some of the guys who are accompanying us have been checking out the conditions via satellite - crazy!

napa and sonoma...

decided to head up to napa and sonoma valley - a famous wine producing region in northern california - which is just over a hours drive out of san francisco and takes you inland, off the northern end of the bay...

seven of us left from san francisco and our first port of call was at artesa...located in sonoma...we sampled 5 wines sitting on the outside terrace looking back over the bay and at san francisco city skyline in the distance...

from there we went for a tuscan braai "BBQ" at another farm called Viansa on the outskirts of sanoma, after enjoying another bottle of wine and hearty chicken sandwich's, burgers and hotdogs we decided to hit one more farm before heading home...

on our way we drove through the little town of sonoma, the last farm was unique in that they tried to bring art and wine together, by getting artists to compete for the label of a particular varietal...there was an awesome art gallery of all the previous labels and some more tastings.

from there we drove back into a very foggy san fran over the golden gate bridge...


me, neil, nicki, tracy, geoff, dave and joe


the view from the braai at viansa...

check out the view...

moved up to stay in the city as will be at the same client for the whole time that im here - thus missing the horrible 1 hour commute up from san jose in the mornings and evenings...the 15 minute street car ride in the morning is now far more pleasant.

the flat is situated on the embarcadero, which overlooks the bay and is in between the bay bridge and the golden-gate


my view overlooking the bay bridge

my weekend in los angeles...

decided to fly down to los angeles for the weekend in order to meet a friend of mine from new york. flew down on friday evening after work on southwest - a real cheap return flight - into LAX...

LA is crazy, so many cars, so many people and everyone is very "west coast"...cruised down to our apartment on venice beach and crashed as i was pretty tired from the boat cruise the night before...

on saturday we headed out for breakfast and i had one of the best eggs-benedict's ever..from there we drove up to santa monica, and went shopping in the 3rd street mall off santa monica boulevard, from there we drove up to malibu along the pacific highway and stopped at some the "awesome" beaches - don't compare to clifton! did a little hike along the cliffs and then headed back to venice beach. went for a run along the promenade, just like the movies with rollerbladers in bikini's and surfer dudes on big ol cruiser bikes.

that evening we went to my NYC friends sisters birthday which was really cool, met some really interesting people, and got the low down on the whole LA movie scene - which, if you not in, people really are not interested!

the following day we headed for an all american suburban mothers day brunch - sisters friends next-door neighbour - had a class day, partaking in events such as cherry spitting, i came in second and the biggest water-balloon fight history, in which some unlucky fat little american kids came a cropper to my south african strength and precision...but we pigged out on cake afterwards together!

flew back up to san fran on sunday night and managed to lock myself out of my car and out of my old apartment in the rain - was a long hour waiting for the avis dude to come and break into my malibu max!

have moved up to the city, staying on the embarcadero, on the eighth floor with views overlooking the bay bridge - very sweet. catch the street and cable cars into work which is much nicer than the hour drive in traffic up from san jose!

reeling from a $2 corona night at "the blue light" last night, but was an awesome evening!

check out these pics...



the spot on venice beach...ON venice beach!


looking south towards malibu


cherry pip spitting comp, in which the debut performance from a novice south african pipped the americans for second


the water-balloon fight of all water-balloon fights!



anybody seen the the hof?

cruising the bay on EY...

ernst & young had their annual "all hands meeting" followed by a cruise around the san francisco bay...caught some awesome views of the city, the massive golden-gate bridge from below, alcatraz, treasure island and the bay bridge...

there was a full bar, buffet supper and a dance floor downstairs...

half way through the evening they announced that they were making a stop back at the pier to drop off anyone who was not keen to take full advantage, all the partners, bar 2, and senior managers jumped ship and the tone of the evening definitely changed quite noticeably...what a great evening!


the view looking back at the city, with ye ol yankee flag


welcome to the rock...


looking up at the golden-gate bridge

the client's that im on....cisco and ABM

ABM industries



The company is one of the nation's largest facility services contractors, providing cleaning, engineering, and maintenance services to owners and operators of office parks and buildings, hospitals, manufacturing plants, schools, and transportation centers throughout the US. Its Ampco System Parking unit operates about 1,700 parking lots and garages primarily at airports in some 30 states, while its security services division offers electronic safety monitoring, investigative services, and security consulting services.

ABM's offices are located in central San Francisco and is where im spending the majority of my time at the moment. The work is SOX 404 compliance work, so we are creating and reworking all their process naratives and designing controls around the naratives to test in the future.

cisco systems



The ruler of routers, the sultan of switches, Cisco Systems continues to dominate the market for equipment used to link networks and power the Internet. The company's bread and butter products are routers and switches; Cisco's switch line includes equipment based on Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, Token Ring, and ATM technologies. Other products include remote access servers, IP telephony equipment used to transmit data and voice communications over the same network, optical networking components, and network service and security systems. It sells its products primarily to large enterprises and telecommunications service providers, but it also has products designed for small businesses and consumers.

Cisco's "little village" is massive, they have 36 buildings like the one in the picture and sprawl about 5km accross the northern end of silicon valley. The work there is also SOX 404 compliance work and is testing for segregation of duties, making sure that unique critical functions are not performed by the same person.

hacking it in san fran...

had a really cool weekend, made a number of new friends, most expats from south africa and one dude from ireland...

spent the whole of saturaday shopping in central San Fran, then met up with my irish mate (Stuart). From there we met some other EY - Neil, Viresh and Dave - guys out of the San Fran office, who originated from JHB and ireland. Watched some knarly surf vid - they planning a trip to Hawaii - then went out to this spot called BudhaLounge, at the dodgy edge of town.

During the night we managed to lose the irish dude, who subsequently passed out on the pavement and woke up to some dodgy hispanics trying to clean him out...

the club kept on clearing out, the reason being, that during the night, some dude was knocked over by a bus (we thought it was the irish dude, as we only got hold of him monday morning) and another poor chap got stabbed by a pair of scissors. the whole road was taped off, with fire engines, cops and a sheriff with the tightest pair of pants that i've ever seen!

we caught a cab down to a pizza spot, kinda like "engen pies" in San Fran, and then went back to Neils place where he kindly let me stay the night on his lilo!

in the a.m we pulled down to the public san fran golf course with spectacular views over the bay and of the golden gate bridge...had a really good hack...and had a damn good hot dawg and coke after 9 holes!

check out the pics...

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the view from the 4th hole, overlooking the golden gate bridge, looking due north!


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the mighty hackers, viresh, neil and david...

my pad in silicon valley

living in san jose, about 40 minutes south of San Francisco, its like the wallstreet for IT, with every imaginable tech company in about a 20km raduis...quite groovy if you are a geek!

this is my flat complex that im staying in...nice huh?

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a view of the entire place from the outside, directly behind it, are the headquarters of Cisco Systems and 1 kilometer down is the head office of e-bay!

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