Month: August 2014

I tagged along with Bryan, his dad and Gary to check out the BMW i3, its first all-electric offering (a model with a small ‘range extender’ gas engine added in, is also available).  We ended up going for a test drive and liked the smooth, snappy acceleration of the car.  It is barely necessary to brake when one wants to slow down : taking one’s foot from the accelerator flashes the brake lights (for the cars behind) and engages the battery charger, which slows down the car automatically.  It takes a little getting used to, but works well.   The little car is not cheap, though .. better be prepared to pony up $42,000 for the all-electric car and some $4,000 more for the model with the gas engine.

As the salesman pointed out, though – if one buys this car, stick with the all-electric.   Then you can drive around mean and clean, not worrying about ever putting gas or oil in.  (Just keep an eye on the limited 70-110 mile range!). This is a city car, not really meant for road trips.  The brake pads will last a very long time due to the engine-braking mechanism, and changing the tires every now and then is the only maintenance needed.   BMW guarantees the battery for 8 years or 100,000 miles.

I’m still finding proper places for items I brought back from South Africa.  One very special item is a book from my childhood that had been in my parents’ house for several decades, then traveled to Australia with my brother Chris (it was his book, gifted to him in 1967).   When I mentioned earlier this year that I wonder where the book is and that I would love to find it, he brought it to South Africa and gave it to me for my birthday.

The book is out of print; it was printed in 1963.  It is about a friendly, lonely dragon* in the Vaal Dam*.   Well : the Vaal Dam is a real dam, and we went there many times when I was little.  I would later waterski on it behind my dad’s motor boat.  In 1975 when I started high school, the dam overflowed and my hometown of Vereeniging was flooded.   My parents’ house and its parquet flooring was spared, but only by inches.  There was flood water everywhere – in the front yard as well as the back yard.

*Here is a synopsis from Google Books.  (I’m impressed that I could find the book on there).  Deep in the murky water behind Vaal Dam, lived a monster called Valie. Although Valie had scales on his back and a huge tail, Valie was a friendly monster, but there were no other monsters at the dam, and Valie was very lonely. One day, a man came to the Vaal Dam to catch some fish. To his surprise, he hooked Valie! The man went running away but came back with more men with guns. Valie pretended to be dead and when the men came close, Valie popped up to surprise them. They all ran away, except one boy, who learned that Valie was gentle and friendly and who figured out a way to make everyone happy.

I took an early morning flight into San Francisco to resume my work on my new project. Alaska Airlines now has its passengers print their own checked luggage tags and put it on their luggage.  This is done at the same machine that is used for airport check-in and printing one’s boarding pass.    Then go and drop it onto the conveyor belt at a baggage drop counter.  The ground agent still checks one’s ID and boarding pass.

Alaska Airlines now has its gates at the International Terminal ‘G’ at SFO.  (The others are Terminals 1, 2 and 3).  The pictures below are from display cases in the Airport Museum in the International Terminal.

I’m heading out to San Francisco again tomorrow, and I hope that the earthquake activity there is winding down.   A magnitude-6.0 earthquake struck around 3:20 a.m on Sunday morning in the Napa valley.  About 120 people were injured, 3 of which are critical.  At least 15 buildings were rendered uninhabitable.

Tuesday was my birthday.  I had a lot of stuff to take care of after my mom, my brother and I had gone for a quick birthday lunch.  I tried to transfer the two registered cars from my dad’s name to my mom’s name with a pack of forms laboriously filled out by hand and others from the estate executor in hand, but came away unsuccessful.   The motor vehicle department in Stellenbosch would not accept my US Passport as proof of identity! Has to be a South African ID document. Whoah, people.  I don’t have one anymore.  Be reasonable!  I’m not stealing my mom’s car and shipping it to the USA.

It was a gorgeous late winter day here in the Cape Town area today with blue skies and mild temperatures.   We did make it out to Bloemendal wine estate for our lunch.  The restaurant is not up high enough to provide the panoramic views shown on their home page, though.   The chardonnay that I had with my lunch was quite nice.  My friend Marlien is visiting as well, and we made it out to the V&A (named for Queen and her son Prince Alfred) Waterfront by late afternoon.

The family plans to have lunch at a wine estate here in the Durbanville area tomorrow. The estate is called Bloemendal, loosely translated to mean ‘valley with flowers’.  The estate produces  Malbec, Merlot, Pinotage, Shiraz, Sauvignon Blanc, and Shiraz Rose wines. The hills in the area offer beautiful vistas of the surrounding landscapes, and on a clear day Table Mountain and Lion’s Head are visible in the distance.

The Dutch are not shy to voice their opinions, and certainly not about other countries, either.  They were among South Africa’s harshest critics in the apartheid years, and while Nelson Mandela was still in prison.   Here is a magazine I spotted in the stands (didn’t buy it, now think I will when I go through there on the way back home).  It declares on the front page ‘America is a nasty bloody country*     .. *for those who are not millionaires’.  In the purple bubble, Mr Maarten opines : ‘Compared to the US, the Netherlands is a paradise’.

I suspect the death penalty in the USA informs this opinion, affordable healthcare that is still not available to all Americans, our expensive college education, the list goes on.   I’m curious to see if the article acknowledges that the USA is a force for good in the world as well, though.

Since my mom’s house was sold a few weeks ago, we need to clear everything out of it before the end of the month.  There are loose household items and decorations still remaining as well – the most important (read : sentimental) of which are my mom’s paintings on the walls. Some of the artwork date back to when my mom was in art school fifty years ago.   So we just feel we have to keep as many of them as we can, in the family.  (My mom’s new apartment home can only accommodate a few paintings).

I am going to an international mover tomorrow to have a few paintings shipped to Seattle in the States.  They have to be packed carefully, and before shipping, the wood frames and canvases have to be inspected for beetles and insects as well, I’m told.  Yikes, I had never thought of that !