Martin Diessner’s blog

Yeah – what a weekend! Over 40 Celsius on Sunday, which made the race organizers of the Argus MTB Challenge stop the 55km route even before the cut off time!

Had a fantastic time – and good results on Saturday, but Sunday definitely a hard time, including a flat tyre 1km before the finish which made me carrying the bike on my back and running through the line instead of pumping up a new tyre!

Thanks to Jason for sorting out the Dirty Dog Sunglasses mountain bike shirts and for us being the official race team!

Just found out my results from Saturday (Sunday was not so great!) – 41 overall from almost 1,000 participants

Martin Cape Town, Sports

Since some people could not view the pictures of our wedding and honeymoon on Robyn’s Facebook account, here we go again

Martin Cape Town

I got involved in a new Camps Bay resident project which is all about green energy in Camps Bay. Naturally, I setup a quick blog which is for residents by residents in Camps Bay and will host multiple project groups. If you are stumbling upon this post and interested in joining any of these groups (or even initiating one of your own), please contact me or join the mailing list on the www.campsbaycommunity.com website.

Martin Cape Town

For the first time the almost ready new football stadium switches on its lights…so happy and proud to be living in the mother of all cities – well done CAPE TOWN !!!

Martin Cape Town

More than 100 surfers broke the Guinness World Record for the “Most surfers riding the same wave” in Cape Town on Sunday. The record was made at the Earthwave beach festival.

We went to the Muizenberg beach on Sunday and had an awesome day by the beach – sunny and despite ice cold water Robs and Cammie made it into the waves for 2 hours – freezing cold!

Here are some pics:

Martin Cape Town

Which way is the bus below traveling?

To the left or to the right?

Can’t make up your mind?

Look carefully at the picture again.

Still don’t know?

Pre-schoolers all over the  SOUTH AFRICA were shown this picture asked the same question.

90% of the pre-schooler’s gave this answer.

“The bus is traveling to the right.”

When asked,

“Why do you think the bus is traveling to the right?”

They answered:

“Because you can’t see the door to get on the bus.”

How do you feel now???

I know, me too.

Martin Cape Town

Have been thinking about this for a while, and finally got my head around to actually do it: Most of our electricity is being used to power geysers that heat up water for our daily shower(s) and other use of warm water. From an environmental point of view, there are a couple of problems:

1. The geyser is in most houses completely over-speced e.g. we have 2x 200 liter geysers and 1×150 liter for our guest house.
2. Unless you have kids, you would typically shower or bath in the mornings or evenings, and don’t really require hot (as in 50C) water during the day. Most people are too lazy to switch the geyser off while they are out of the house, or don’t have a timer switch built into their geysers.
3. In places like Cape Town, you have so much sun available that could heat up the water or provide electricity using solar energy that the use of electricity from the grid is a complete of waste.

In an attempt to make our home more environmentally friendly, we started looking at how to save energy and how to become completely independent from the grid one day. Apart from minimizing waste by recycling and using a compost, and running all electrical power and light circuits in our house via a Clipsal computer optimized system, we now have 3 solar panels that provide heated water.

Depending on the light intensity provided by the sun, water gets pumped through into the roof where solar collectors heat up water and then pump back into the Geyser. The whole system is controlled by a Geyser Wise Thermostat where I can set minimum temperature of water required over 4 different zones, that can be programmed on a timer. The thermostat automatically cools down water in the very hot summer if usage is little, in order to avoid overheating of the panels (that can get up to 80-90 Celsius easily). In case that the solar energy is not sufficient, the geyser will switch automatically to normal mode using electricity from the grid.

The only drawback that I have found at the moment is that 2×200 liter geysers take quiet some time to re-heat, once cooled down e.g. over night and I am not sure if the every morning re-heating process during winter is energy efficient compared to a ‘constant on’ mode. I will soon find out from my kW consumption bill .

The system with 3 panels, 2 controllers was procured from Germany through South African provider Solar Zone and setup by One Solar who did a great job during the 3 day installation.

Martin Cape Town Environment, Solar

Last night, Robyn and myself went with some friends to the Cape Town Baxter Theater to watch Pieter-Dirk Uys’s Elections & Errections, which is an awesome piece about South African’s politics.

Elections and Erections is a personal journey through the minefield of fear and fun on the eve of South Africa’s most crucial general election. Pieter-Dirk Uys ala Evita Se Perron celebrates the two issues that were illegal for most of his life in South Africa: democracy and sex. He uses humour, his weapon of mass distraction, and compares today’s freedom of speech to those years of no freedom.

I had met Evita already (together with Desmond Tutu) at one of Cape Town’s fund raising dinners of the HIV Aids Foundation, but this show has definitely made me laugh a lot. Amazing how Pieter-Dirk Uys changes his character, and how openly he takes the p*** out of SA’s infamous politicians. Wonder if this would ever be possible in Dubai

The highlight was the appearance of Helen Zille’s predecessor of the Democratic Alliance, Tony Leon, who’s party almost took 50% of the votes in the Western Cape, which is definitely a tough test against the ANC, yeah!

On a separate note – the Baxter theater is an architectural masterpiece of the 60th – see those pictures below:

Martin Cape Town Architecture

Last weekend we participated in the two Two Oceans marathon (half and full 56) and despite a chaotic start with overcrowded people we had a fabolous day.

Run was super slow (took 30 minutes for first 4 kilometers) but from Southern Cross upwards had a fantastic time.

Spent afternoon @ my favorite wine fram in Constancia.

Awesome family day!

Martin Cape Town, Sports Marathon, Robyn

Google Map and Earth has added terrain view and finally updated South Africa with a comprehensive road map which one was used to from Europe and the States.

Finally can plan my mountain bike routes using Google Map and Garmin

Feel free to stop by Barbara Road #12, Camps Bay.

Google Map Terrain View

Martin Cape Town, Web Stuff Google