Blog
At PyConZA 2013, one of the speakers couldn't come due to a visa issue, so I volunteered to do a talk at the last minute. I was already on a panel discussion earlier, and wanted to listen to Matt's talk on caching, so I ended with only three-quarters of an hour preparing the talk! But it ended up being a great opportunity as I decided to talk on a fun project I've been pottering away at in my spare time over the last few years: an experiment in music maths and colours that I've called HarmoniHue.
In the most self-referential of blog posts, I've redesigned and relaunched this website using Mezzanine, a Django-(and therefore Python)-based CMS.
I've posted photos of my time in Nagoya. It was such a treat to visit friends, and the work arrangements there went well.
A brief update ... I've had a fantastically successful week of work in Japan. We've been working with our partners here developing and configuring a system for a refinery, and today we had a meeting with them and got very positive feedback, which was very rewarding. I'm totally loving being in Japan again! So much seems so familiar even after a long absence. I've posted photos of the trip so far online.
Some brief news updates after a long hiatus:
I've posted some photos from James's International Day at school that they had recently - he decided to dress up as someone from Afghanistan with a real Afghan hat that my uncle sent him - the rest was pure improvisation! We're off next week to Kwazulu/Natal for a holiday with Danielle's parents and sister to celebrate her mom's 70th birthday! Really looking forward to it. There's lots of chickenpox going round at the moment so trying to work out what to do about that... and then it's into the Christmas holidays!
In a slight break from our normal family news...
Since our holiday it's been the flu season in Cape Town - swine flu, other flu, and serious pneumonia going around. We've all been sick in turns and James has spent quite a while off school - two weeks a few weeks ago, and then the first three days this week. He could have gone back earlier the first time but we didn't want to risk him getting a more serious infection. He's back to school today. Tomorrow is their dress-up-as-a-Letterland-character day which he's really excited about (yes, he's going to be Jumping Jim).
We got back on Saturday from a wonderful holiday in the Eastern Cape. We really benefited from having a concentrated chunk of time together as a family... and we got to see lots of animals, which we loved!
We're just sitting at the airport about to go to PE for an amazing treat - a holiday in the Eastern Cape, going to the Mountain Zebra National Park and Addo Elephant National Park for 9 days!