My Weblog - Pat Ramadass - emediaIT

While taking a break from ASP.NET MVC and WCF in Cape Town...

Photo on my phone from the top of Table Mountain in Cape Town...

'Tis the Season to be Healthy

After my post about getting back into a proper fitness regime, I have to admit that the festive season has almost ruined my well laid out plans. Too many functions (including our emediaIT Christmas Party yesterday), too much eating and not enough sleep. I must however mention that my pool volleyball has improved greatly. Normally the next few days including Christmas follow that same formula, but this year I am determined to do it differently.

Gym tomorrow morning before work here I come...

The long road back...

3 days of gym, eating healthily (well more healthily) and drinking loads of water in a row, which in the last few months/years has definitely been the exception rather than the norm. I can honestly say that this is the best I have felt in ages. I have more energy, more focus and am more productive.

It's probably been around 3 or 4 year's since I was what I could call pretty fit. A good friend and colleague of mine and I used to destroy ourselves 6 days a week on "The Rock" all body weights workout, followed by a super circuit and then some cardio. Not Ironman material I know, but we were happy.

If I look back on those times now and at the type of hours we were putting in at work (which often still happens now, but not to quite the same extremes, i.e 90+ hour weeks), it really was only possible because of 2 things, stubborness and our bodies and minds being able to handle a large and sustained workload. Even now, I really believe that one of the main reasons we are able to maintain long periods of high pressure work is because of the strength and endurance we built way back then.

emediaIT has grown in leaps and bounds in the last 2 years and that growth looks set to continue in 2009 so the need for me to "be the best I can be" is greater than ever. I've given myself 3 months to get back to our previous levels of fitness, but it's going to be a long (and probably painful) road back...

NMMU ICT Advisory Board & Council

A short while ago emediaIT was invited to attend the ICT Advisory Board meeting for the local university, the NMMU. It was truly an honour to attend on behalf of emediaIT and there was representation from many of the leading local and national companies, including Telkom, Dimension Data and Korbitec.

The meeting went extremely well and we were able to give input in a free and open forum. In addition to this I was nominated for a position on the NMMU Council which I hope will give emediaIT and I further opportunity to contribute to the ongoing development of education locally.

There are so many colleagues and friends of mine which have come from either UPE or Technikon (Now combined as the NMMU) here in PE at the time and are now leaders in their various fields, especially in IT. It's really important that we should continue to show the rest of the country and the rest of the world the quality that our city and region can produce.

http://www.nmmu.ac.za

Cokefest 2008 - Cape Town

After skipping Cokefest in 2007 when I heard that Guns n Roses (or rather Axl and some other people) were no longer coming, I decided that we had to go to this year's Cokefest. We ended up going to the Cape Town one at Kenilworth Race Course and I have to say that it was really awesome, which considering I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt when it got really cold, is saying a lot.

Organisation of the overall event was excellent I thought, with suitable close parking and more than enough food and beverage stalls/tents. We opted for parking opposite one of the pain entrances in what looked like a large school field which was great for getting in, but not so great (45 minutes) for getting out.

Highlights for me were definitely seeing Chris Cornell sing Black Hole Sun and Spoonman which we used to play over and over again as kids and both Muse and 30 Seconds to Mars were great crowd entertainers, including some acrobatic antics from Mr Letto. The main reason we went however was to see Korn and they didn't let us down, with Freak on Leash and ADIDAS resulting in a lot of screaming and some activity in the mosh pit, although I didn't venture there with my sandals on. Almost everyone came away looking like mine workers thanks to all the dust being kicked up.

Looking forward to next year, I have heard a lot of people wishing for the Chilli Peppers and similar.

Placement Partner - Is your company name not good enough?

As I tend to do from time to time, I googled our company name, "emediaIT". I expected to find our website at the top, followed by perhaps some newsgroup posts from our various employees, but could only chuckle when I saw...

I chuckled not because it was overly funny, but more because of how sad it was. To go to the trouble of paying to show up as a sponsored link when someone searches for your competitor, i.e. us, is nothing more than a pat (excuse the pun) on the back for the competitor. Thanks Placement Partner, glad to see that emediaIT and in this case our product, PeopleSource Recruitment, is on the right track.