I had an awesome training ride this morning, except for a close call with a car out in Krugersdorp. I turned right into a double lane road, and the car came through the slipway turning left into the same road. She didn't bother to look at her blindspot, and just started to cross into the lane, OVER THE SOLID WHITE LINE! Luckily I saw she was going to do this, before she even started, and braked. What really ticks me off is that a traffic cop turned behind me, saw this happening, and did…NOTHING! Typical of most South African traffic cops, they only do something if it requires minimum effort, and makes maximum profit, ala speeding fines and talking on mobile phones. I haven't seen a cop pull over anyone for any other offence in a long time. When will they finally wake up, and do what we pay them to do?
Seeding
The new national seeding was just released, I dropped one place. I'm now ranked 171/14,873 in my age group.
Transformation
In his column on News 24 Gary Boshoff asks who is responsible for transformation in rugby. I think in all sports, the responsibility for transformation lies at the lowest levels, in this case club, school, and varsity. They should be the ones responsible for it, and this is also where governments should be spending the money. And I think you should even be able to force the unions to contribute to this effort. At the provincial and national level, the selectors and coaches should be able to select the best team for the upcoming contest, regardless of the color of the player. I think that if transformation is handled correctly at the lower levels, the upper levels will sort themselves out, with quality players of all colors coming through the ranks.
http://www.news24.com/News24/Columnists/Gary_Boshoff/0,,2-1630-1646_1933105,00.html
Starter
So I'll start this off with a bit of background about myself.
My name is Barend Burger, I'm 30 years old, and am currently working at a bank as the software development manager. I've been doing the software development thing for 12+ years, and am still enjoying it very much, becasue it offers a new challenge every day.
My other interests are mainly sport, partaking and watching. My main sport is cycling, I race competitively in the Vets 30-34 licensed section, I'm not quite up there with the big boys yet, but I have been improving steadily over the last year, and I'm hoping to be there by the end of the year.
Second on the list of sport is squash, which I play at least twice a week. I used to play Gauteng league, but have given that a skip for the last two years, because my club has two very strong local leagues going on the same nights, and I'd rather support my own club than another.
Third on my list of sports that I partake in is golf, but unfortunately I do not get that much time for it, because cycling takes up most of my available time. I play off a 24 handicap and am playing right on my handicap at the moment. If I had more time, I would probably be able to improve it slightly, and it would also be easier if my home club was somewhere other than Krugersdorp. For those of you who don't know Krugersdorp, it is a fairly difficult course, and protects your handicap very nicely.
Other than sport, I read a lot to keep my mind occupied, novels and non-fiction, I try to balance it, reading one novel for every non-fiction book, but I don't always have that luxury.
So that's me in a nutshell.