13 December 2006

08 December 2006

Nou vir 'n paar prentjies...

Die Eiffel toring... Soos julle kan sien. Dit is besonder indrukwekkend. Check hy verlig tot die wolke :) Ek het opgegaan met die toring tot bo, en dit was volmaan. (ok so dalk is dit nie toring wat die wolke verlig nie...) Jy kan nie die maan sien nie, maar so nou en dan het die wolke padgegee en oopgemaak. Dit was soooo mooi.
Die Seine rivier. In die nag. (obviously)
Meeste van die vrugte in die foto is egte vrugte :), die ingang van die winkeltjie is bitter smal.
Die Notre-Dame. Hier was nog 'n wonderlike ervaring. Ek het ingestap sondag oggend. (ek het sondag die PM shift gewerk) Daar was 'n diens aan die gang. Ek kon meer van die Latyn in die sang verstaan as die Frans in die preek, maar dit was ongelooflik mooi... binne en buite. En ek het regtig 'n heilige atmosfeer beleef (behalwe dat daar honderde toeriste deurloop tydens die diens...) Die katolieke verstaan iets anders van God. Die heiligheid en die prag.
'n Fontein naby die Notre-Dame... Ek moes versigtig loop, die wind het vreeslik gewaai en hy piepie mens nat... Gelukkig het die mond aan die regterkant nie gespoeg nie.

Die foto's is maar lae kwaliteit... Het nie 'n decent kamera gevat nie. (ek weet dis stupid, maar ek het steeds my ervarings, en dit bly myne, en ek sal dit nie verloor nie.)

Kestell

07 December 2006

Worlds 2006 --- Paris

Hierdie is my weergawe van worlds vanuit 'n magic oogpunt... Ek sal nog pics post (selfoon pics...) en 'n ordentlike weergawe in afrikaans vanuit 'n persoonlike oogpunt ook skryf.

Hey all

Worlds 2006, Paris

The setting is fantastic, magical even (if you'll excuse the pun)... The venue --- La Carrousel de Louvre... Literally 100m away from the infamous inverted triangle that was featured in the horrible movie the da Vinci Code (the book was good though).

As you approach the venue, you walk through a massive hall where the one wall seems really old, medieval even --- made of stone slabs that has seen the effects of years of erosion (a plaque adorns it... it's french... so sorry, can't tell you what's that about)

A massive crowd of people is hanging around the entrance... talking in tongues, a cacaphony of languages, reminiscent of the Tower of Babylon, or the coming of the Holy Spirit.

When you enter the venue, a larger than life statue of Serra Angel awaits you.. This statue, while impressive, was not nearly as impressive as so many other statues of angels in Paris. Very few people about... I am late for the judge meeting. (the Metro, or subway, took slightly longer than I anticipated it would and we get off at the wrong terminal, so have to walk about half a kilo further)

Sneaking into the judge meeting, I see a whole herd of Zebra's (as the judges are called). I am one of roughly 2 judges not wearing the black and white... We were distinctly asked NOT to wear them to the judge meeting.

Luckily I'm in time to hear which team I'm in. Seminars, headed by a judge from Argentina or Brazil... Juan del Compare. He has long black hair and a full beard, with john lennon glasses... Looked a lot like John Lennon actually.

I also receive a schedule for my duties for the tournament. Seminars, Main -- Deck Check, Sides AM, Main--logistics, Sides PM (from wednesday to sunday).

Seminars is your "off day" at worlds. It starts at noon and continues until 6 PM, all the while you are just sitting there... Chatting about stuff. Judge stuff, but still stuff. In the mean time... The side events hall has filled up to more than capacity... we don't have NEARLY enough seats for all the players... there was a 250 player PTQ... and we had to tell the other 300+ people to come back on another day if they wanted to play in a PTQ (eventually I think there was a PTQ every day, and days 3, 4 and 5, there were 2... all of them in excess of 250 players)

I would have loved to have my off day somewhere in the middle though... to give my feet a rest. Still it was really interesting. I met judges from all over, the three L3 judges in the team were from Finland (Johana Vitaghen?), Australia (Ryan Dare), and Juan. Later through the day we are joined by L5's Sheldon Menery and Gis Hoogendijk and Judge manager Andy Heckt. We dicussed the role of the various levels of judges, and the pending change in REL (regular, competitive and professional replaces REL1, 3 and 5 respectively), and the big one... DQ's

Now Worlds 2006 -- Paris, would be known for DQ's. This is another reason why I would have loved to sit in in the later seminars.

The judge community is moving away from game losses in general (other than tardiness and deck related ones), and more towards Warnings for stupid play errors, and DQ's for cheaters. So, the whole issue of, this game has deteriorated too far, GL to offending player... is history. We don't do that anymore. Both players contributed (in different degrees) to the game state.

Day 2 is limited. I do a whole lot limited deckchecks and moving around draft tables... I wont be going into too much detail here. It was a long day. Probably the longest day of worlds (from the players' perspective).

Day 3 is Sides AM... We had rented another side event hall for the friday-sunday. Sides AM had to set up this hall... Luckily the tables had been set up, there was probably 800 tables in that hall... It was a big hall. We had to set up Tensa barriers (I'm not sure how you spell that word... I wasn't aware it was called that, it's those poles with the ribbon used to control queues... What I do know about them is this... They are HEAVY, very heavy, 12 of them... right across an 800 table hall) --- this day I started feeling my feet... It was a tiresome day.

Sides should have started at 9:00 as far as I know. But due to the vast throng of people trying to register for the PTQ's all PC's were used to help get that going. So sides eventually only started at about 11:00. And the noon team soon arrived to assist us (the teams' times overlapped, sides AM was from 9:00 to 17:00 and the sides noon from 12:00 to 20:00 and the sides PM from 17:00 to 3:00 AM (eek, I know).) This was one of the major issues as far as leadership was concerned, because you would have 2 different team leaders and at least 2 more head judges trying to run things... And people started getting into each others way.

Saturday was team day. Team Rochester was the format. You draft, you build, you play. 4 Rounds, sounds short... It isn't. It took roughly 45 minutes to draft, then 30 minutes to build, then 60 minutes to play. That is more than 2 hours per round and then there's always that little time extra because of deckchecks and pairings going up... turned out to be roughly 11 hours. Saturday night... Judge dinner no. 1... I leave early (about 12:30, beacause the metro closes at 12:40) By now sides have been totally hectic and seminars have had to cut their time short and start helping at sides... Suddenly glad I at least had an "off day", and since so many judges was involved in sides, the dinner was split into 2.

Sunday... Sides PM... starts at 17:00 so I walk around Paris for the first bit of the day, and around 2:00 PM I decide to go have a look at the venue at what's going on. Aparantly after I left the dinner, it was announced that sides PM would start at 1:00 PM because we need to clear the hall at 11:00 PM. So late again. But I start to work... I am on the $2000 amateur championship event that had 8 rounds (which we made 40 minutes to try and fit into the time frame, no top 8 and we still did not quite manage the 11:00 PM cut off.)
My feet are soooo sore by now...

Awesome event. WAAAYYY too many players and we were *slightly* understaffed... ok grossly understaffed.

Monday, I start walking Paris... Louvre etc. my feet killing me... Paris is beautiful beyond belief. I am changed through this experience. I appreciate beauty as a gift from God.

All in all, my ticket was paid for by wizards, I managed to sell my compensation for enough to cover my hotel costs and we got 100 Euro lunch money... I am only about 1K down, and I went to Paris for that. Not many can say that.

Cheers, and be good. God Bless.

Kestell

28 November 2006

een reenerige dag...

een reenerige dag het chris in die modder gespeel

En in al die plassies wat hy kon kry gaan plas



Chris dink hondekos is die beste ding ooit,

veral omdat hy weet hy dit nie mag vat en in sy mond druk nie.


een sonnige dag in die opblaas swembadjie. Dit was nie heeltemal sonnig genoeg nie, so, ons het maar net in 'n bietjie water gesit en plas vir 'n rukkie, toe raak dit te koud.

vroeg in die more

Altwee mans in my lewe in droomland -- vrede

Maar nie vir lank nie, as chris wakker word, moet almal wakker.
Maar, 'n mens (in hierdie geval John Diederik) leer om te slaap
ten spyte van klein seuntjies se gebabbelAs ons klaar aangetrek het, word daar eers bietjie gespeel...
enige ding is 'n speelding.
Een van chris se ander gunstelling aktiwiteite is swaai.
Chris hou ook van die "waar's die baba" speletjie, en hy kruip dan agter die lakentjie wat in die kar as sonskerm dien (wat gewoonlik af getrek word) weg.

03 November 2006

nog prentjies

chris kruip nognie heeltemal nie, maar hy beweeg nietemin, voet boud voet boud. Ons werk aan knieg hand knieg hand.


na die 1e verjaarsdag het ons 'n grootmens partytjie gehad, chris het nogal die spotlight gesteel.

Hy't nog die verkeerde kant beet met die wyn glas, maar daar's nog baie tyd om te leer.





weer by die 1e verjaarsdag, word eerder mee gespeel as saam met gespeel.

prentjies





Pa en Seun.
Ek het probeer om studio foto's te neem maar Chris was nie regtig in die bui nie en Pa nog minder. Daar was darem 'n paar aprekende oomblike.














Ons was by 'n 1e verjaarsdag pattytjie op die 28ste Oct, en Chris was mal oor die swaai.






01 November 2006

Google Calendar

Right... Die laurie verjaarsdag kalender is geskep. (Link is daarbo, sowel as aan die regterkant vir ICAL, XML en HTML)

Egter, kort ek nog BAIE mense, so as jy iemand sin sien wat se verjaarsdag nie op is nie, net 'n comment los wat die birthday datum en persoon het. Of vir my 'n mailtjie stuur.

24 October 2006

Paar Mariele pics





Eintlik moet Kate dit upload, maar sy sukkel nog om haar blogger account te skep, so hier is dit. :-)

Soos ek verstaan is die ander mense in die prentjie Jeanne, en nog iemand. :-)

15 October 2006

Ouma se mooi tuin!


Dis die maand Oktober..

Ek was vanmiddag by Ouma se huis en die tuin is pragtig - rose, bouganvillas wit & rooi en nog baie ander. Dis sommer 'n selfoon foto, maar die idee is daar.

MVG
LMAC

09 October 2006

Paar images van my ma-hulle se toer na Krete

Trento in die aand.



Trento vroeg aand.



Zara, nadat sy roomys gehad het. (Ek dink amper dit was by Lea se party gewees)



My ma (Trienke) het nou 'n neiging om hoede te dra... hier is een van hulle.



My pa (Dirk) by Malia.



3 poppe...



My pa (Dirk) het 'n biertjie.



Die gesogte iraam-bessies... o, met die Marmolada toevallig in die agtergrond.



Nog Marmolada.




Wanneer mens foto's post, is dit my voorstel dat mens die center format kies, want anders foeter die prentjies soms die formaat van die blog op. Ook, sit jou text bo aan die image se text (as jy in HTML mode edit) - ek weet nie hoe "Compose" mode werk nie.

(Net so terloops, so ver ek weet is daar nie iraam-bessies nie)

Eerste post, wat die doel verduidelik.

Hallo lesers.

Die doel van die blog is dieselfde as die googlepages site (http://reenenlaurie.googlepages.com), behalwe dat archiving is ge-automate. Die bogenoemde site raak regtig op die oomblik bietjie bulky, en slegs mense met vinnige konneksies kan regtig dit waardeer.

Die idee agter die blog is dat mense sê-goed, mannerisms, foto's enige iets related tot die lauries kan post, en dat die ou goed nie verlore gaan nie, maar op 'n sinvolle wyse ge-archive word vir die nageslagte.

Ek het soveel van die Laurie-gebruikers as wie se emails ek ken uitgenooi as users van die blog, maar mail my by rlaurie *by* gmail *punt* com vir 'n uitnodiging om 'n user te word.

Enige iemand kan comments post.

-Reenen