Startup Overview: Adrenaline Hunter
Sunset in Cape Town
It was a sad day in Cape Town with Shannon’s departure. She’s off to Cairo as I write this. We’ve had an amazing couple of months and can’t believe it’s coming to an end. My sadness was briefly distracted with the sight of a beautiful rainbow during sunset. It’ll be a long two months, but I can’t wait to about her adventures. I’ll try to keep you posted. Now it’s game time with one week until our 88mph Demo Day. Read more “Sunset in Cape Town”
Mweb 88mph Overview Video
Mweb is trying to steal Arnaud and my thunder, but I’d say they did a nice job of it in their video they put out about 88mph.
Viva La Residence! (Franschhoek)
I have to preface this post by saying that I hope you all get the chance to visit this place at some point in your life. Pretty amazing.
Last Friday night we (Reidruffs) headed to Franschhoek for some wine tasting and a night at the La Residence. A colleague of mine, Andrea, had mentioned that this place is amazing. She had firsthand experience given the fact that her boyfriend, Nick, works there. I was not skeptical and was really just looking forward to it.
Our arrival was greeted with 5+ smiling faces, waving hello to us as we drove through the gate. What? Upon alighting, a glass of bubbly wine was placed in our hands and the girls were given mini bouquets of flowers. I could get used to this. We were amazed at the decore and the scenery in front of us. Here’s what we saw:
I believe I was asked to be pinched multiple times to wake up from the dream I was in. But wait, there’s more. Andrea had mentioned that we wouldn’t want to leave our rooms once we arrived and I believe she was right. Each room is uniquely decorated for the 40 max guests a night. Shan and I had the Armani room. The thing that is so unique about the place is not only the extravagance of the rooms, but the size of the bathroom as well. Again, I’ll let the pictures do the talking:
We spent the rest of the day enjoying the pool, the scenery and a great dinner with our host, Evan. Please be sure and keep an eye out for Evan as he is full of wine knowledge. He made our dinner a memorable one. Thank you to Nick for arranging.
Parking Ticket Payment Success?
Some of you might remember from my post Don’t Park Here that I had some problems paying my parking fine last time around. I thought I’d give it another go this morning. I woke up early, biked down and found a nice short queue at the Office of Enquiries. I walked up, asked to have my fine reduced as agreed upon by the Prosecutor and you know what? Not in the system.
With the intention of paying my ticket I found it a bit odd that the ticket was not yet in the system, but it had to be paid this week. I pushed further. “But I’m leaving the country soon and would like to make the payment,” I bluffed. “How soon?” he retorted. In an honest, white lie I replied “About 3 weeks.” His lack of confidence that it would be done was revealed when he went away again behind the curtain. He returned shortly telling me that they would make an exception. An exception?!? Paying on time is an exception?
I’m now happy with receipt in hand and payment made.
I’m pretty sure next time that I just shouldn’t pay the ticket and act like I never got one.
Sunday Bike Day
Sunday was my day to try to keep busy since Shannon wasn’t around. My genius solution was to kill myself with a long bike ride. Sure, it wasn’t that daunting, but I saved the hard part for last. My trek took me through the city center, past the V&A waterfront, around Mouille Point, along Sea Point, past Clifton beach and into Camps Bay. The final part was the climb from Camps Bay back over to the city bowl. Needless to say I was huffing and puffing my way up that hill. Only had to get off once to walk so I consider that a success.
Tried an experiment with my GoPro mounted to my bike. Every 10 seconds it took a picture in my attempt to get a time-lapse. My experiment somewhat failed, but here are some pics from the trek.
Cape Town Wind
I’ve talked about it before, but on March 30th we had some serious wind in Cape Town. It hit 70km/h gusts. The wind was so strong it was blowing water from the tops of the white peaks in open water. We traveled to Hout Bay this day and sand was being blown across the road. The following video is a quick visualization of that day:
Here’s a pic of me being blown away at Hout Bay. Not sure on wind speeds here, but it’s the strongest wind I’ve ever been in.
Lunch in Heaven
I’m a big backlogged at the moment with my posts so I’ll try to fill you all in soon. So let’s start with Heaven.
A couple of weeks ago Shan and I made the decision to get out of town for the weekend and headed to Hermanus. It’s a great beach town and I’ll post some pics soon. On Saturday we headed out of the area and decided to check out the Newton Johnson winery per a recommendation of local.
We stopped in for a wine tasting and lunch at their restaurant, Heaven. The scenery was great and the food was pretty good. I’m thinking the risotto is not their specialty so I suggest trying something else if you make the trip. All-in-all it’s a great place to stop and enjoy some wine for the day.
Check out this house in Camps Bay
Had to post some pictures of this place in Camps Bay. Unreal.
See more pics here: http://airows.com/first-crescent-house-lions-head-camps-bay-south-africa/
When the Lights Go Out In the City…errr…Apartment
This was the scene in our apartment this morning.
Do you remember me telling you about the prepaid electricity meters? Well, as Shannon was packing this morning at 5am to leave for her trip we found out just how important it is to watch it. With iPhone in hand we saw a flashing 0.0 with a nice smiley face next to it. Not sure why the smiley face.
Neil, I need my Homebug now so this doesn’t happen anymore.
I signed up for online payment via Powertime.co.za, so should it happen again I won’t have to trek out to the gas station in the wee hours of the morning.
Shan’s First Departure
I say first departure because she’ll be gone one week and then returning here for 4 days and then she’ll be leaving Cape Town (note my sad face as I write this).
She’s off with her family on a week-long trip through Botswana and Zimbabwe. I’m very jealous and sorry to see them leave, but it’s crunch time with work and cannot be escaped. We had a great week in Cape Town. I’ll be sure and write more about it soon.
I miss them all already and I’ve only had a half day by myself. Wish me luck on a first day in Cape Town without my partner in crime.
Savoy Cabbage
Taking a trip to Cape Town then this is definitely a restaurant to consider. It’s a small restaurant hidden up Hout, away from the Long St turmoil.
The food is excellent. It’s not the cheapest place, but a good value for the high quality.
The item we were told we had to try was the tomato tart. Very good, but we were left wondering why it was on the list of ‘Things you have to eat before you die.’
They pride themselves on their preparation of their game and I have to agree that they do it very well with the springbok that I had.
Definitely worth a trip and I think I’d say next time I want to try their pork prepared 3 ways.
Kresten’s Place
The founder of 88mph has been very generous in having the group over on many occasions. I thought I’d share some pics of the place because it’s ridiculous.
88mph Episode 2 – Meet the Team
Notice something in this picture?
Look closely. In order to get this you must know that our cat’s name is Walvis. We named him this after the coastal Namibian town of Walvis Bay. It was a place that Shannon and I had great memories from and thought it fitting for our cat.
So here’s why I’m posting this. We’ve had our cat for 3 years and never thought anything of his name until yesterday while in Hermanus. With my great brain power I deduced that Walvis translates into Whale. We named our cat ‘Whale’ in Dutch/Afrikaans. Wow. Sorry buddy.
Mentor Wisdom
88mph brought in over 30 mentors for the first two weeks of the program to share their wisdom. Here’s a quick video we put together on the topic:
Our Day Off
Thursday was Human Rights Day here in Cape Town. Due to a last minute cancellation of our boat cruise we opted for a picnic at a winery. I have no idea how to pronounce it but we spent the day at Buitenverwachting.
We had our own private table and 4 large platters of bite-sized food items.
We finished the day off with a soccer match. U.S.A, Italy & Germany vs. Denmark and South Africa.
Great day.
The Dogs Bollocks
Last night we met up with Grant from Innovate the Cape. His dinner suggestion was The Dogs Bollocks. We’re happy he made this suggestion.
The ‘restaurant’ is located in the Fringe. It’s in a dark alley with no signage and pretty easy to miss. You definitely wouldn’t just stumble across it, but it’s worth searching out.
He serves burgers and that’s it. Man are they good and HUGE! You write your name on the wall with how many burgers you want and then what toppings you want. Wait 10 min and be prepared to be amazed. We weren’t really sure how to start, but it was fun figuring it out. Sauces were flying and taste buds were dancing. Arnaud suggested the best way to wash up after was just having a bucket of water thrown on you; I tend to agree. Shan’s burger had some awesome nacho cheese and tomato sauce. Mine had some sweet chili.
Get there early because apparently he only serves 30 burgers a night and when he runs out he closes.
Mini Mini
Shan saw the moment and had to capture it. Nice shot.