2008-09-14 -> 2008-11-05
WOW…..so much has happened….where do I start?
I haven’t really been much in the mood for writing anything. The non-sale of the house has been getting me down as well as the non-payment of my pension. So let me tackle things one by one.
HOUSE
Finally last night we received an offer we could not refuse. After much thought and discussion, we decided to accept the written offer placed under our noses 
We told the agent we would like to keep the offer overnight so we can read through it. The buyer is a young attorney who obviously got her degree recently and like all these professionals who have just obtained their degrees, they think they know it all and think they can shove their weight around which is exactly what this one tried to do LOL. But she didn’t know who she was dealing with now did she? 
I have a degree in LIFE and I know when someone is pushing their luck. But nevertheless, after about 1 or 2 hours, I called the agent and said, document has been verified and signed after certain amendments were made. Within 15min he was here to collect the documents
But being a pessimist by nature, I will not get excited until the bank has confirmed that she passed the FICA process and that she has been approved to obtain a bond. When that happens, I will celebrate and I’ll go to JBay with 100Tons off my shoulders.
I don’t think anyone realised how stressed out I was over this issue and my pension not being paid out.
Watch this space for more.
GYM
It’s been going well. Not as fast as I was hoping but I think I was pushing my luck and being somewhat unrealistic.
Having said that, my young Personal Trainer has been very helpful in accommodating my aches and pains that have re-surfaced, i.e. my knee that was operated on a few years ago has decided to play up every now and again and the elbow that was operated on, has also decided to give me grief.
Nevertheless, we work around it. I have managed to lose 7kgs so far and I feel good. I prefer losing slowly because then at least it wont pile up fast when I stop going to gym. I have however decided that my eating habits have to change by default. But I am mentally prepared for that. In fact, it comes naturally now that I ask for and stick to healthy food when I go out. I will however have 1 “cheat” meal every now and again so that I don’t get to the craving stage and end up binging.
PHOTOGRAPHY
I finally finished my photography course. It was great although I was hoping it would be more hands-on. Only the first lesson was hands-on and thereafter it was theory with physically doing assignments.
So now I have my certificate
The strange thing is that I took better photos before the course than after the course LOL. But having spoken to a few photographers, that’s perfectly normal until I develop my own style of photography.
So I have decided that seeing as I just cannot manually focus, I will use auto focus on the lens and Manual on the camera when the opportunity and situation demands it.
You can see my assignment pics on my facebook account. If you are on facebook, let me know and I will add you as a friend. You won’t be able to add me as my restrictions are super tight and I am not searchable.
I have also entered 3 of my photos taken at the Pretoria Botanical Gardens in the Pretoria Botanical Gardens contest. My entry is number 00041, so if you happen to go there, have a look at them on display
MY PENSION
Well, I am not impressed at how this lot was handled from the staff at my previous company to the company they use for the pensions. I am still trying to figure out who was worse and I cannot reach a decision on that one.
Plenty finger pointing took place. Now here is an example of lack of teamwork and support. I get called by one of the ladies in the HR dept, basically saying we should communicate by phone so that things happen quicker. I said OK but at no time did I say that I wouldn’t confirm discussions on email. You see I am used to dealing with this crowd……issues get dealt with on the phone and then you have NO proof/evidence when things go wrong…..and believe me….most time something goes wrong or commitments aren’t kept.
After a few calls backwards and forwards, I get told that the cause for the initial late submission was due to another lady in the HR department. Now, firstly I never asked for names, it was just given to me. Secondly I don’t believe for one minute it was the lady accused, however, if it was, I wouldn’t hold it against her since she is given tasks over and above what she is meant to be doing, and seldom gets recognised for it. Now I ask…..where is the teamwork and support for one another…..and this in a department consisting of 4 ladies. Now isn’t that sad???
Moving on………After one of my telephone discussions with the HR lady, she undertook to get certain information to me by a specific time….. (morning). By afternoon, I had not received an email as promised, or a phone call saying there would be a delay or any communication whatsoever. Now if you want to annoy me, do exactly that. Don’t communicate when you say you are going to. So I emailed all the facts of our discussion and sent it to the lady in question and the Head of HR.
When the lady in question opened her email late that afternoon, I received a call. This lady forgot somewhere along the line that I had every right to be pissed off at the way this whole pension story had been and was being handled. She was mistakenly under the impression that just because she phoned me to give me information, that I was OK with the whole thing. She soon found out it was not the case.
She started by saying that she thought everything was OK and that she thought I was OK with the way things were progressing and that the impression I created on my email to the Head of HR was that she wasn’t doing anything about the situation.
My response to that was, that if everyone reads the email correctly, I was confirming facts of discussions we had which obviously indicated that she was doing something and then she responded that I came across very pissed off or that the tone of the email indicated that I was pissed off.
So I said to her that if that is what came across, then I achieved what I wanted because I WAS PISSED OFF!!! Just because a few phone calls were exchanged, did not deter from the fact that we were in this mess because the HR department were more interested in pointing fingers rather than focusing on sorting out the problem and that is what I told her and also because she never came back to me when she committed to do so.
Naturally I still talk to a lot of people in the company. A few days after this incident, I was told that the HR lady told a few people that she had “blasted” me. Well when I heard this, I almost fell on the floor from laughter. The person who told me this fortunately knew me better than to believe garbage like that because I would not stand for it, not from someone who was in the wrong to start with.
Having gone through all that, eventually the money was paid to me by mid October. I now have a very important question to ask them…….if my money was disinvested at the end of August 2008 and I was only paid by mid October 2008 that means my money was sitting in someone’s account for the month of September and at least 2 weeks October 2008. To date, they have not even come forward and said…..here is the amount of interest that YOUR money accumulated while it was in our account….which by law I am fully entitled to. But I am first going to see my financial planner tomorrow (5th Nov) and then I will tackle it with the relevant people.
So as you can see, I had fun and games.
MY LAPTOP
Sadly my 3 month old laptop passed away on Saturday, 1st November 2008 at around midnight.
Cause? It was struck by lightning while I was working on it.
I miss it dearly. It was a Lenovo Y710-3 Core 2 Duo with surround sound, 2 hard drives and 2 processors. It was a gaming laptop and I miss it so much.
It had Vista (my ex boss M would cringe or laugh if he read this) but the laptop had the power to deal with Vista and it worked beautifully. It was a powerful laptop!
I have logged an insurance claim with our insurance company so I’ll see whether they will repair or replace.
I see the Quad is out
RATES
Recently property rates increased as did Business rates. That was all good and well. When we received our account, it was double the amount it used to be. So our new rates were over R2K. I just thought…..damn but its getting pricey. I then decided to speak to my BF and he looked at the account and picked up the error. They were billing us for BUSINESS instead of RESIDENTIAL. So I phoned the rates department on the 17th October. They could only go as far back as January 2008. It seems that ever since we moved in 12 years ago, we have always been paying BUSINESS. If this is true, that means they owe us thousands!! But they did say it would take approximately 6 weeks before they would come back to me. Welcome to the New South Africa where tomorrow is another day 
CAR ACCIDENT and CAR REGISTRATION PAPERS
Sadly yes N had a car accident on the 23rd September with his car. He was not at fault, it was a truck that went into him damaging the drivers and passengers door. We decided not to claim for this as it was not N’s fault. So I am still trying to get the money out of the trucks insurance company so I can repair the car.
When I logged a claim with the other parties’ insurance company, I was requested to produce my car registration papers.
Well this opened up a can of worms in the sense that even though my 3 cars were fully paid for and me as the registered owner; I wasn’t the Title Holder for any of them, and the respective financing institutions were. It was their duty to inform me that I had to change the Title Holder and it was their duty to send the original documents to me so I could have the Title Holder changed to my name. None of the 3 institutions did this.
One of the institutions was BANKFIN. I called the call centre, told them what I want and I get told I have to FAX my request through. My response was….where must I get a fax machine from? I told them I do not have a fax machine at home in case ABSA wants me to send a request by fax. I also told them that ABSA needs to get with the times. Email is now in operation and has been for a long time. They then told me to phone the Registration department direct, which I did. The gentleman I spoke to said, no problem, he will arrange it. So I ask…..you don’t need a fax request? He said NO. Talk about the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.
I tell them, listen, the documents are in my old married name and I have since changed to my maiden name is that going to be a problem when they courier the documents? NO they say. So I said…OK.
Today I get a call from CCD couriers because they want to confirm details and deliver the documents. So they read the name to me and say I must provide my ID. I said I cannot provide my ID with that name as I have subsequently changed my name. The guy then says that it is a problem because he cannot verify who I am. So I said, in that case YOU go and have a chat with them and get back to me. Still waiting.
GOALS (2008-2010)
So my main goal for this year is to move down to JBay which unfortunately due to the sale of the house only happening now, means I will have to come back in January for a short period of time and then I move down permanently.
My goal for next year is to arrange an overseas trip for N and myself. My idea is as follows:
Take a cruise from South Africa to the island of Madeira (where I was born), spend 1 week there with godparents and parents, then fly to Portugal with my parents and stay with them for the remaining 3 to 4 weeks. At least 1 week I want us all to go down to the Algarve where my aunt from Canada has an apartment (Quarteira)…..so that is the plan.
Next year hopefully we will also try and build our own home or maybe only in 2010. Will see how things go
MY BROTHERS 50TH – DECEMBER 27TH
My brother will be celebrating his 50th this year so N and I will be flying up for 3 days only. I do not want to spend one day more than I have to up in JHB So we fly up from JBay on the 26th and fly back to JBay on the 28th.
Well that’s all for now………