Crazy Mad Science

My friend Ryan sidetracked me quite a bit today when he sent me a link (with regards to some Quantum Mechanics stuff) about these physicists who (for god knows what reason) decided to shoot a particle beam through these two holes or slits with this back wall. The theory goes that if they were shooting particles through the slits the particles would then make a mark in the form of two bands on the wall. However if they were not particles they would create an interference wave pattern.

The gist is that they have some pretty funky machinery out there that measures these things and records the results in a database. All great! The weird thing though, was that every time they viewed a record of the result on the computer the particle that they fired made a mark on the wall, however every time they didn’t view it and instead deleted the record, they only saw interference…

Pretty much what it means is that only if you “observed” the particle would it exist! Kind of like the whole philosophical debate “If a tree falls in a forest but no one is around to hear it, does it actually make a sound?” Except now there was kind of proof for the case, that if you weren’t there to hear the falling tree, then it actually did not make a sound.

When I was younger, in primary school, my friend Jonathan’s dad, Prof Leitch who is a Professor in Physics used to conduct all these crazy experiments. He’d often try to explain these crazy theories to us. But barely being able to grasp the basics of Newton’s Laws. Quantum physics completely made our brains explode! Strangely not much has changed since then.

In my limited understanding of Quantum Physic I gave the link to Ernst, (who really digs the stuff)… in return he sent me a reference about Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle which kept me happily occupied, and further distracted me from my real work. Heisenberg describes some pretty interesting stuff with regards to particles; and how if you try to locate a particle, its velocity becomes uncertain; also how if you determine the velocity of a particle, its position then becomes uncertain…

Besides having my brain blasted, I came across a really new and cool coffee place on Kloof Street, in fact it’s so new that it doesn’t even have signage outside yet (perhaps it's because noone had observed the sign yet...). The place is called Java Lounge, Origin one of my favourite coffee spots, supply their beans and train their baristas. Best of all they had a coffee special (I think it ends soon though). R5 for a cappuccino…freakin’ score!

Livin' La Vida Loca

Another morning and another Vida ! I’m a crazy fan of the Vida brand, and love how it has flourished and grown organically, as the marketing fundis might say. Since the very first Vida cappuccino I had, from the Kloof Street branch, a few years back; I haven’t been able to get enough of them. I think I’m addicted to their baked confectioneries, sandwiches and in particular their coffees. Perhaps someone can prove me wrong but I think their stuff is laced with crack!

A lot of Vida’s success amounts to the passion the people, associated with the brand exude. The staff are highly effective, happily friendly and well trained, and because of this: top notch products and service are produced each and every time. I always feel more, lively when an energetic staff member greets me with a “Howzit Bubba! What can I get you?” And perhaps it’s the combination of the energy from the staff and caffeine fix that gets me buzzing for the rest of the day.

Martin Luther King might have had a dream, but I have a loyalty card…so maybe he’s dream may trump my loyalty card but I think the deal you get is still pretty damn dreamy: Basically the deal with the card is you get 10% off of whatever you spend, straight back to the card every time you swipe it…In the beginning I had no clue how the thing worked, but I signed up and swiped it, each time anyways. I figured I went so often that, at some stage, it was bound to pay off. Eventually one day one of the guys cracked, and asked me why I hadn’t used my loyalty card yet, since I must have accumulated a heck of a lot of Vida credits!

Life for a while, after that fateful day was sweet! And I had a free Vida coffee everyday for close to a month. I’ve been swiping my card without using my credits for a while again so as soon as I build up enough credits! I’ll be Livin’ La Vida Loca! Baby!

Lets Get Naked...

Now that I have your attention... re the title of my blog.

Some good news! For those of you who have been following, I got my phone back. Turns out I left it at Xavier's after all, and as soon as I posted yesterday's blog, my brother got a message from him; to say that I should meet him at the French school, where he teaches, to fetch it. All I can say is that I felt very awkward to have so many little people around me, being 5 foot nothing myself it was odd indeed. And it was even more awkward with all the parents, dropping off their kids, staring at me. They were probably wondering who on earth this suspicious looking character was (being oriental and at an all French school you kinda stick out like a sore thumb), and whether he might perhaps be a pedophile...preying on their children.

Rest assured, while being young at heart; a pedophile I am certainly not! However there could be some danger of me stealing some of the goodies from out of their lunch boxes. Speaking of which, after preparing my lunch and packing it neatly into my lunch box for work today. I somehow managed to leave it behind on the kitchen counter...rather irritating, but not completely horrible, since it gives me an excuse to try out all the cool places around my new work (Kloof Street).

When lunch time came; my new work colleague, Deon, also without lunch plans suggested: now wait for it "Let's Get Naked...". I'm not one to try further my career by performing, indecent acts, but had the proposal come from an attractive member of the opposite sex I might not have been so hasty to turn the offer down...

Luckily, it turned out that Naked is the name of a place that does cool wraps. The inside is pretty funky with the drawings and messages of satisfied customers written all over the walls. The wraps themselves are filling, tasty and quite affordable with me opting for a Mad Cow Wrap (Cheese, Avo and Steak) and Deon opting for The Proudly South African (Mrs Balls chutney, boerewors and egg). At under R35, I was quite impressed.

I wonder if the owner purposefully named the place, Naked, and how many other people have been confused by odd lunchtime proposals. Whatever the case or reason, I'll be sure to remember it and keep it in my repository for casual first dates...

Am I Too Corporate?

I had a great start to the day; celebrating an early morning, birthday coffee with Lauren at the Loading Bay; which is fast becoming one of my favourite coffee hang outs. And from the seems of things also one of my coffee clubs (started by myself, Ernst and Ducassa Nova a.k.a The Bevanator), having our third Loading Bay visit in the space of 5 weeks.

The cappuccinos and the Lebanese style breakfast's such as the Manouche, flat bread filled with some delectable filling are awesome and keep me coming. Although I'm beginning to wonder if the same reasons could be said for the ladies in our club...In fact, I would not be a surprised should a "JP Bolus Fan Club" group appear on Facebook, with a large contingency of members making up the "Sat Morning CT Coffee" group too.

One thing I've certainly noticed at my new job is how relaxed things are on Kloof Street compared to in Jozi. Today I wore some suit pants, a neat open collared shirt and my cool preppy, sleeveless, sweater vest; hardly anything out of the ordinary or over the top. If I had been working in the business hub of Sandton though, I would have been well under-dressed, with most people kitted out in power suits and double-cuff shirts!

But as I was walking down to get my after lunch espresso at the Vida near my offices; I noticed that there were some serious stares coming my way. At first I chalked it up to my sheer animal magnetism, but after some time I noticed that they weren't the good kind of stares..."Was my fly down?" I checked. "Nope", it wasn't. I then started to notice that most people were in jeans, flip-flops and at most formal, a t-shirt. More than appropriate business attire it seems in Cape Town. I quickly realized the reason I was getting evil-eyed was because of being completely over-dressed.

"Sweet"! After this week of impressing (you guessed right Victoria) the bosses with my snappy, conservative, and very corporate wear, I'm going to start rocking it out in something more casual.

Down but Not Out

Procrastinating for over a year and a half, after setting up my Blogspot; I finally decided it was a good time to be proactive, start my blog and freshen up on my literrr...littry...ahhh screw it, writing skills. With such a long time passing, I've since forgotten my "User Name" and "Password", as one does when one procrastinates; and with my new found Carpe Diem attitude, I decided to seize the day and figured that the Facebook Notes application would be a good a place as any to write my first entry and be the temporary home for my needless rantings.

I started my first day of work at a software development company called DVT yesterday. It was a rather strange experience after having worked for Reflex Nutrition South Africa. It was strange because at Reflex, being one of the directors, I was my own boss and never really had to report to anyone. Even stranger was the fact that the two industries are on completely opposite sides of the spectrum. Sports Nutrition has no significant similarities to software. One industry is saturated with binary cowboys while the other protein, obsessed he-men.

So different, sudden and unexpected - perhaps due to the distraction of showing a pretty, cool Canadian, named Katrina around Cape Town - this change came, that I had a mild panic attack on the eve of starting my new job. It suddenly dawned on me that I was 25 years old, single, and not nearly as financially set as I was hoping to be. My ambition to beat the rat race seemed to distance itself further from actualization (is that even a word?).

Luckily, I have a background in IT otherwise I think I would have fallen to pieces, as computers, I have found, instills fear in the hearts of even the most hardened veterans. I've seen top business persons cry, because of work lost due to not knowing how to work their software correctly.

In such times of tribulation I look up to my hero, John Rambo for inspiration. My friend Bryan and I are such big fans, that he especially flew up from Port Elizabeth last week so we could witness the greatest theatrical experience of all time ever, together...okay so he was up for a family do, but none-the-less the timing was perfect.

Pigeonholed with all the odds against him, being 60 years old, sun beaten and weathered, Rambo single handedly disbanded the Burmese opposition. And as I watched one quote in particular stood out amongst the gore and death "Live for nothing, or die for something!"

So as I sit and contemplate on the way forward with my cup of Starbucks Pike Place Special Reserve coffee - A blend that can only be found at the Original Starbucks in Seattle's Pike Place market, courtesy of Ernesto; and with manna from old Sly, I feel a supernatural assurance about my future.