The Drought and the Flood

Well, the drought has ended – in every sense of the word.

Most importantly, the 9-month dry-patch of work is over. I’m now gainfully employed, which after that long without a paycheck has come none too soon. And it’s actually something with a useful future in it – IT stuff specialising in analytical data cubes. Lots to learn in a short space of time, but then I guess the deep end is the best place to learn how to swim. Small company, good people, interesting and flexible work with a focus towards learning new stuff and finding new opportunities. Couldn’t really have asked for much better. And the pay is good, too!

Other droughts – went dancing on Friday, which I hadn’t done in well over a year. There was a salsa evening at The Valve in town, so I went with Andi. Good fun, live band, but very hot. I had also been bowling the night before (company team-building thing), and taken my Dad to the airport at 5am on Friday morning, so I was already very tired before we even started dancing. The bowling was fun, too – not least because the IT team (of me, Jacques, Tony and Ian) managed to clean up the competition despite taking it far less seriously than any of the others. There were a lot more springbok shooters and draft down-downs on our team, and a lot less practice and earnest striving to perform, so we had the most fun and also won. All good.

Went to ECCC with Rory last night, too – good to see a lot of the folks there again. Had tea at his house later, musing on the present and charting the future.

But perhaps the most significant drought which has broken is the literal one – Cape Town has had water shortages for several months now, but yesterday the floods came down. Rory’s house sprung a couple of leaks as the high winds and bucketing rain lashed the Peninsula. Torrential downpour which continues well into this morning, with roads washed out and flooded highways extending the trip in substantially. Last week I left home at 7:15 and got in at about 7:50, today I left at 6:45 to try and beat the traffic jams and still only got in at 8:00. I guess everybody had the same idea.

As I write, I’m at work but unable to do any development because the rains have flooded into the server room, so we are fearful of switching any of the networks on. Hence no internet, no database connections, and no work, which is why I have time to write this…