Filed under: Travel
"This is not a group xmas sms... you may think it is, but it's not. Your name is only missing because there were no more characters left. Merry xmas."
This is the sms that I want to send out to everyone… group style. But I won’t.
Herded like sheep… The herding has begun.
– Posted by Kyle
It is indeed Christmas time.
It is also indeed true about the visa and tickets. We have the tickets, as well as insurance for the trip.
It is also indeed true about me doing all the work so far.
Then do something about it Jen.
This blog could be used for communications whilst we are away from each other… or not.
What Jen didn’t mention, was that we also managed to find a travel bag for here, at Cape Union Mart. Luckily, her dad paid for it, but it was a real keeper. 85L K-Way travel bag… has this k-rad panel on the back that zips up over the back-packing straps and things. Very toit bag, for toit travellers. I was very much impressed.
Planning on getting the same bag here down in Durban… My dad’s also going to be funding mine (xmas present), so I’ve been looking at the same thing down here at the coast. What struck me, was that the bag at the Gateway branch was R150 cheaper than it was at the Sandton branch. This sparked questions in my mind about kosha franchisee behaviours, and so I questioned the appropriate sales person at the Gateway branch. He says that they should be the same price no matter where you are in South Africa, so long as it’s a Cape Union Mart… it was… and it still is. Investigations will follow. Heads will roll.
Along with me on my journey to Durban, was all of my alternate crap. Alot of the stuff that isn’t going to go overseas with me, but also needs a place to stay. Clothes, PC, printers, screens… That sort of thing. Forgetful (my desktop box) is going to be used by my mom whilst I’m away… He’ll do a good job. He’s been a strong friend, as well as a companion. Don’t laugh. Geeks spend a lot of time with their PC’s… which is why we name them. It makes life easier to be able to refer to him/her as an actual person… stops you from feeling crazy when you’re talking to them.
My trip to Durban has also been way worthwhile because I got to meet my nephew, Finley James. He’s fantastic. He pees on family members, and cries at the best of times. His fingers are long, and his feet are massive. He’s a porker, but also a rock star.
The last big hurdle for us at this stage, is working out just exactly how we’re going to take the money that we have overseas. Whilst Jen has her own problems regarding that, I have a make shift plan of action at this stage. I’m very much considering going the Rennies Money Passport route, and pushing some ZAR’s onto a “debit card” of some sort, which can be used anywhere in the world. You load your money onto it in whatever currency you choose… in this case, Pounds… and then whenever you draw out of it, it will always convert into the currency that you’re requesting. They charge you a pound every time you draw from it. We used one when we went overseas 2 years ago, and it worked like a charm. I’m thinking that I may do the same this time around… I don’t like the idea of travellers cheques… I think that they’re outdated, unsafe, and close to obsolete. Plastic is the new paper.
Linux is the new Windows.
Bush is the new terrorist.
–Posted by Kyle
Filed under: Travel
After being prodded by Hotpinkflush to write another blog entry (the girl is a writer, and just puts everything on paper or cyberspace, as the case may be) I am suitably cowed and contrite. Hence The Almost Christmas Post. The idea of this post is to point out the bleeding obvious: that it is almost Christmas. Yay! Also, it is my second last day at The Job. Today The Boss is at home so much hilarity and loud music reigns. I can also hopefully get all my work done so that The Replacement does not die in stress induced heart failure. Going from sleepy Rhodes lifestyle to this type of working environment is not so much a big jump as it is it you looked at the Grand Canyon and thought: ‘Maybe I should pole vault that bad boy’. Or maybe I am just super dramatic.
On another note, Kyle’s visa has been approved, tickets have been bought, and my final salary has been paid, so it really does seem like there might be travelling in our future…if I can get myself into gear. As usual I am procrastinating about a whole lot of different things, mostly money, and probably just causing myself additional stress- so really, I am functioning the way I have my whole life, cause then I don’t have to think about it til tomorrow. This frustrates Kyle who is, as usual, blindingly efficient and had basically done all the work for this trip so far.
Sorry Kyle.
And now, I have worked myself up into a frenzy of nervous anxiety, so I am going to go and choose winners for the LOL DVD competition instead of continuing this post. Wish me luck!
~posted by a now overwrought Jen
Filed under: Travel
We’ll be going to London on this…
We’ll be returning from London on this…
We’ll then be buying this…
Done.
–
I had posted this, and then decided that I may need to elaborate on it a bit. Well, the possum’s self-explanatory, so theres no more info on that.
Have made final reservations for the plane tickets today. Been dealing with Student Flights, based next to Wits campus. A guy by the name of Richardt is a manager there, and he’s been incredible with all the bookings and visa’s and whatnot. I really recommend you go there if you ever need any travel arrangements. They also classify students as under 30 or something, so you don’t have to literally be enrolled at a university to get the rates… a common misconception. I suppose Jen is proof of that. (not the misconception, but rather the process 
shoo. )
So we’re flying Virgin. Going there on a Boeing 747-400 (Image “A”), and returning on an Airbus A340-600 (Image “B”). I prefer the Boeing though… It’s the bubble man… the bubble. The prices that I got off the internet, and from all the other booking agents, were R6750 return… Richardt has managed to give it to us for R6400, with a free ticket change. Again… Student Flights… it will rock your world.
Just going to confirm the payment with them tomorrow, and then try and make the payment via credit card. It’s apparently better if you have the ticket against your credit card… for insurance, and other, purposes… apparently. Not too sure. Have asked Richardt. He usually responds about 3 minutes before you sent the email.
Think about that for a second. Not too hard though… you may get a kernel panic.
– Posted by Kyle
Filed under: Travel
Things seem to be moving along. Planning has kicked in, and a couple days and evenings have been spent chatting about the places that we plan on heading, the dates of those movements, and the details involved. Whilst our original plans were to not plan *anything*, I have realised that at least some planning is involved. So, what do you do in situations like these? Easy, you fire up Inkscape, and you start drawing diagrams, for ease of planning. I added a link to the diagram in the “Pictures” section of this blog, it’s 1.6Mb, so don’t be scared of the download time for an image. It’s like 9000×7000 or something.
Plane tickets are being discussed as well. We’re in negotiations with my Dad at the moment, who is investigating the possibility of using his Voyager miles instead of purchasing the ticket(s) with ZAR. I’m pretty much certain that if there is no usage of Voyager miles, then we will be flying on Virgin, direct to London, on the 18th of January.
Started sending the emails out to peeps over in London at the moment, making sure that they’re keeping to their promises of free accommodation, whenever we get there. Tam Titcombe will most probably be the first person we go and stay with… aah, good ole Tit’s. She’s a ripper.
Barcelona is the new favourite, and we’ve decided that after our time in France, we should cross the border into Spain, and start dancing around like crazy people in Barcelona.
Sangria.
Whopaa.
– Posted by Kyle
Filed under: Travel
Ok, so the planning has begun. We are pretty much certainly leaving on the 18th January, going overseas, hanging out in London, then hopefully going to France for ten days, then on to Barcelona! Yay for Barcelona! I have never been, but Kyle says that it is really beautiful, so I am getting super excited. Woooohhoooo- soon I will be a real traveller with a backpack and everything. The world is my oyster.
The only thing worrying me now is planning, and money. Neither of which are my forte. Aaargh. (Deep breaths: the front of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is emblazoned with the words Don’t Panic).
In other news, I might be sick and sniffly and disgusting, but I only have 8 working days left. Yeah baby. I am starting to break the news to clients and stuff. I also have started to receive some corporate gifts for Christmas, which is a new and exciting feeling- this morning I got salad servers.
I think blood and sweat vs salad servers might not be a fair exchange, but it is nice anyway.
-posted by Jen
Filed under: Travel
I have a UK working holiday visa! Thats right… in just 4 days, the British Embassy granted me two years of working time in the UK. What nice peeps. Nice one, bruva!
Hurdle… crossed.
– Posted by Kyle
Filed under: Ducklight Travels
Should Ducklight Travels happen, we are still missing the core component of the entire project.
The video camera.
I’ve always been keen on buying a video camera for myself… If I plan on being in the TV production industry, it is something that I know I will need to own at some stage. I have always fancied the Canon XL2. It’s worth a shag. Though, for now, the price tag on that puppy is way to high for a project as low key as Ducklight Travels. I could never get over spending R20k+ on a camera at this stage in my life.
The alternatives… Well, Panasonic have a really nice amateur/professional type camera, that sells for around R5k in the UK, and around R7k here in ZA. I’m not totally against buying it in the UK, upon arrival. Another cheaper alternative is the Canon Elura 100. Both cameras have been selected as the best in their category, for 2006. Both have their pro’s and con’s. These are the pro’s and con’s, in a nutshell:
Panasonic GS-300
Advantages: 3CCD; built more for production rather than handycam; OIS (Optical Image Stabilisation, which is critical for filming on the run, like we’ll be doing); 3MP still shots.
Disadvantages: Battery life of only 1.5 hours filming time; price; Panasonic rather than Canon; only 10X optical zoom.
Canon Elura 100
Advantages: Battery life of over 2.5 hours filming time; price; Canon; 32X optical zoom.
Disadvantages: 1MP still shots; EIS (Electronic… not as good as Optical); small small small camera, hard to keep steady; 1CCD.
It’s a toughie. I also looked into some of the new JVC hard drive based video cameras, but wasn’t too impressed with their overall features, as well as the fact that the people in the know are generally hinting at staying away from such new technology. They have either a 20Gb or 30Gb drive… which is lank cool… but the picture quality does suffer, with shite colour, and also only achieves a 0.8MP or lower still shot. Keh keh keh.
Over and above the camera, we will need a wide-angle lens, fish-eye, and possibly a Telephoto lens. Lenses aren’t too expensive… the fish-eye ones are like R150, and the wide-angle are also pretty cheap. Both of the above mentioned cameras are MiniDV, so we’ll also need a crapload of MiniDV tapes.
“The rain forest, the polar ice caps, and the MiniDV – three quickly diminishing resources we would like to save.” – Camcorderinfo.com
What a great quote.
“MiniDV is the Linux of today’s video camera recording media.” – Kyle Whittington, 2006.
Thats for free.
– Posted by Kyle
Filed under: Travel
Ok, so i am getting chewed out for not updating regularly enough…but you know, sometimes amidst dancing to the tune of the piper who pays the bills, reading rubbish on the internet and surfing for movie images (no, that is not a euphemism for porn) a girl just doesn’t have time to write endless blog posts.
Another thing is that I am not a blogger by nature, and every time I read Kyle’s posts they intimidate me because we have such different writing styles…and I am not sure that the contrast will work from a ‘literary’ point of view.
Anyways, we saw our friend Kelly, fresh from the UK, on Monday which was really great, and got me all excited about the trip again. Oh ja, and thanks for the Vote For Pedro shirt Kel
Ps: Matt has your butt as his avatar on gmail. Rage against the commodification of your anatomy for popular consumption. Pps: nice ass
And…I’m outta here. If anyone wants to use my body parts as an avatar, please feel free to contact me.
published by jen
Filed under: Travel
So, I mentioned Ducklight Travels in my last post, and theres been an incredible interest in finding out what exactly *it* is, so I thought that I’d elaborate somewhat. What needs to be remembered here, is that it’s still a 0.1-beta idea… ie, close to half-baked. More baked than most ideas, but not quite cake.
One of my main ambitions in this life, is to be some part of the making of some really new-age and interesting reality TV show, South African style. Programmes similar to, and a hybrid version of, the following catch my fancy: The Real World, Amazing Race, Survivor, Big Brother, 8th And Ocean, Laguna Beach… all the classic reality TV shows… plus a whole bunch of Travel Channel experiences and a mix of some of those Discovery Channel host shows. The end result… a sort of hybrid reality TV show, focussed on travel, but also following the experiences of the people who are on the quest, and the characters that are involved along the way. Showcasing the ups and downs of the travel experience, whilst also giving a documentary-style look at the places that were visited, the people that you came across, and the interaction between all of these variables.
It’s Ducklight Travels.
So why Ducklight? Well, Jen and I were sitting drinking wine one night, not-so-long-ago, and we both started throwing ideas around. Eventually, we decided that we needed a name for all of these ideas… After getting some insight into name creation from the one company that I’ve been consulting at, we started to formulate names. Cool name creation is usually found by joining two (or more) nouns together, and forming one (or two) words. It can either go pearshaped, and end up in words that mean absolutely nothing, or it can be relatively fruitful.
After about half an hour of playing this game, we came up with two real pearlers. The first: Bug Unit. The second: Ducklight. It was clear which one should be the name of the blog, and which one should be the name of the travel TV show.
So thats the idea. Jen and I are going to film and produce a couple episodes of Ducklight Travels, throughout our journeys around Europe next year. It’s not going to be crappy, amateur footage either. With both of us coming from a production industry and background, we’re confident that we can produce some pretty reasonable footage, and create some awesome episodes along the way. With my 3D background, to create intro sequences, and possibly characters to interact with during the shows, as well as my keen eye for camera angles, and general direction, plus Jen’s fabulous TV abilities from her 4 year Journalism degree, ranging from editing to producing… I think we may be able to pull this off.
My original idea was to concentrate a lot more on the idea of Reality TV, and create a show that really does captivate the entire journey that we’ll be going on… from the hi’s to the very lows. I was thinking along the lines of a “never turn the camera off” show, which would have tons and tons of random footage, that was then just cut up to form a story, documenting our travels. I was talking about including footage from our fights even, to give it that reality TV vibe, bar nothing.
Jen wasn’t too keen.
She isn’t a stuck-in-the-mud or anything because of it either. I think she has a point, in that it may be a little but too much for us, and a little bit intrusive on some levels. However, I have always felt that if you’re not doing something that really stands out as taking a big leap, in terms of anything really, but especially when it comes to making a TV series, then you may as well not do it. I want to immerse myself in reality TV just so that I know how it feels, and when I eventually do a major production one day, I too will know how it feels to be under the spotlight 24/7.
We’ll see where it goes. As I said before, it’s still in it’s infancy as a half-baked idea. One major hurdle in all of this, is purchasing a video camera that will be good enough to use for production footage (in a way). With a small budget, and a half-baked idea, the only cameras that you can look at are “handycams”, really, with decent shooting capabilities, but unbelievably small casings. Small cameras are impossible to control, and the jitter is usually what spoils the production. We will also purchase a tripod, however, which will help with those more composed and planned shots, but not with the random on-the-run footage.
Shoo. Anyways. Ducklight is an idea that I hope comes to fruition, and I’m really looking forward to being one of the two people who direct, edit, and produce some sort of reality-meets-travel show.
– Posted by Kyle
