I will miss my friend

This morning we heard that the Prophet Gordon B Hinckley passed away on Sunday night. I felt like I knew him well, I am going to miss him. I used to love listening to his addresses at conference and I felt his love for me.

I am glad for him too though, I am sure that he is walking arm in arm with Marjorie and that they are laughing about fond memories that were experienced here upon this earth. I also know that he was greeted lovingly by Our Saviour, I am sure there were many embraces and happy tears.

I want a greeting like that when I pass through to their presence. I will strive to live in such a way that that will be possible.

Thank you for all you did for us, we will never know the burden your calling placed on your shoulders, but we can never comprehend the joys that came with it too.

Till we meet again...

Time turned around

Sunday mornings used to be a frantic rush to get to church. Now they're a frantic rush to stay in bed and laze around. I like it this way!

I have grave concerns about the well being of my family in South Africa. I think that economic meltdown and consequent social unrest could happen far faster than we think possible.

I may be thought of as a doomsayer or afro pessimist. It's your prerogative to label me with whatever pejorative you please. However it's also your responsibility to look to your own salvation and I offer the following thoughts on the subject:

1. Is SA sufficiently different from other countries that have experienced social upheaval as a result of infrastructure failure and consequent economic difficulties that their experiences cannot be extrapolated with some degree of confidence? Examples that come to mind include Burma, Argentina (a couple of years ago), Germany in the 1930's and a slew of African countries from the '60s to the present.

2. Which is more likely :

a.) Millions of poor black South Africans endure another 14 years of declining living standards while waiting for the promise of "better life for all", looking across the valley to where the lights are on (although powered by generators).

b.) Enough poor black South Africans vote for someone who promises to redistribute the wealth now rather than waiting for the economy to grow and make everyone rich.

3. Is there sufficient difference between the providers of other infrastructure (roads, rail, airports, water, sewage treatment, waste disposal, telecommunications etc) and Eskom to make it likely that they will be able to maintain current service levels? Or is it more likely that they have also amnesiated (my word) their institutional memory and eviscerated their operations and maintenance capacity through affirmative action and poor planning?

I'm off to church now - maybe more later.

Walk around the island

Did we mention that we were going to walk around the whole of Ireland. It will take us many years I am sure, but we are making a go of it.

On Saturday we went for another leg of the journey. We walked from Donaghadee to Millisle. We do about 4 or 5 miles each time, and by the time we have walked the whole island we will have actually done it twice. This is because we have to walk to a point and then walk back to the car.

If you are interested you can check out the progress on Google Earth, so far we have walked from Millisle round to Craigavad. +/- 16 miles in total, but remember that's doubled. We took some pics on our walk, we passed the standing stone and stopped at the Donaghadee fort.

The standing stone is some kind of war memorial, the words on it were so faded that it was too difficult to read.

Enjoy.

Hair Salon Software Program

Sarah (my sister) inspired me to develop some marketing and appointment software for salons.

She's a hairdresser (I guess a stylist actually) and we were talking about some of the difficulties salon and spa owners face in managing and running their businesses.

One of the challenges salon owners face is that their clients are often more loyal to the employees - the stylists and the technicians - than to the salon or spa. (It's understandable because the employees have far more interaction with the clients than the "business" of the spa or salon). When the stylist leaves to work for another salon they take the clients with them.

Another challenge is marketing a salon or spa. Repeat business is essential whether you're running a nail studio, day spa or hair salon but the owner or manager is often so busy doing the managing that there is little time for marketing the business.

I built a salon scheduling program that automatically markets the salon or spa. Marketing to the existing clients of the salon happens automatically in the background leaving the owner free to do the important things.

It can also be used as spa membership software because it incorporates client relationship management features like emailing, address book, bulk message sending etc.

If you're interested take a look by clicking on one of the links above. It's been great fun.

Cheers

Pete

Snooze in the sun

Dear Gran

Today I caught Pete having a snooze. Doesn't it look so lovely! He doesn't know that this picture is on the blog, so I am interested to see what he says when he finds out.

This morning we woke up to a white garden, but not snow, frost again. It is so beautiful, each season has some beauty to enjoy.

Hope you are also having a few cat naps in the sun, you deserve it!

White Christmas (a week and three days late!)

Last night we were sitting in the lounge and the phone rang. It was Eva, and she said: "Look out side it's snowing." Well needless to say, we spent the next hour and a bit out in the snow. Snow men, snow ball fights, jumping with snow on the trampoline, rolling up huge balls of snow. What a great time we all had. When I suggested a snow angel the response was: No, too cold for that.

But it was short lived, most of the snow on the ground was melted by the time Pete and I went to bed. However when we woke it was all white again. So the snow fest began again. Oh, what fun. Sorry to all the SA family who missed it, our order for snow on Christmas must have gotten lost somewhere on the way.

And sorry for the poor quality photos, mobile phones are just not as good as cameras. But never fear, I am on my way now to buy a really nice camera. Hooray!!

Here we all are

Part Two of our reunion, we were all hiking (or really just a slippery walk) in the Mourne mountains. We drove there in four cars, and in a lot of clothing. It was great though, the fresh mountain air and the lovely scenery.

We walked all the way up to the Mourne wall and took some pictures of us there. Not all of us made it that far though, only Dad Bowen, Ed, Phillip, Rachel, Pete and Gill. It was built during the first world war to create employment. (oh the days when men still had honour and needed to work for money, not just have it handed out.)

Afterwards we had a pick nick by the cars and drove home. Donovan was rather frustrated by this as he had to drive as slow as the slowest follower - we all followed him as he knew the way. It was a lovely trip, I am glad that we did it.

Thank you to all the Bowen's who had to go to great lengths to be here, we understand that it took a lot of time off work and money to achieve. I know it was well worth it though. And thank you to Hotel Eva and Hotel Gillian for all your work, but Eva the most for the delicious Christmas day dinner. (yum, yum)