Saturday, September 15, 2007

Jess and I's Saturday Morning Fun

Attn Sir/Madam

You may be surprised to recieve this letter from me since you do not know me personally, I am Tony Mayo the first son of DR. EDWARD Mayo who was recently murdered in the land dispute in Zimbabwe. I ot your contact through network online hence decided to write you.

Before the death of my father, he had taken me to Johannesburg to deposit the sum of US$12.5 Milllion (twelve and half Million) United States Dollars, in one of the private security company, as if he foresaw the looming danger in Zimbabwe our country.

This money was deposited in a box as gem stones to avoid much demurrage from security company. This amount was meant for the purchase of new machines and chemicals for the farms and established of new farm in This land problem came when Zimbabwean President Mr.Robert Mugabe introduced a new Land Act reform which wholly affected the rich white farmers and some few blacks farmers. And this resulted to killings and mob action by Zimbabwean war veterans and some opportunist lunatics in the society. In fact, a lot of people were killed because of this land reformed Act for which my father was one of the victim.

It is against this background that, I and my family who are currently staying in South Africa decided to transfer my father's money to foreign account since the law of South Africa prohibit a refugee ( asylum seeker) to open any bank account or to be involved in any financial transaction throughout South Africa.

As the eldest son of my father, I am saddled with the responsibility of seeking a genuine foreign account where this money could be transferred without the knowledge of my government who are bent on taking everything we 've got. The South African government seems to be playing along with them.

I am faced with the dilemma of investing this amount of money in South Africa for fear of going through the same experience in future since both countries have similar political history . Moreover, the South African Foreign Exchange Policy does not allow such investments for an asylum seeker.

As a business man, whom do want to entrust my future since both my future and that of my family are in my hands.I must let you know that this transaction is risk free.If you accept to assist me and my family please you must have to be very honest to us

I have two options for you, firstly you can choose to have certain percentage of the money for nominating your account for this transaction. Or you can go into partnership with me for proper profitable investment of the money in your country. Whichever of the options you want, feel free to notify me.

Yours Faithfully,

Anthony Mayo
phone- +27-73-315-9099







Dear Mr. Mayo,

I am deeply saddened to learn of your father's tragic and untimely death. Your father and I spent many of our childhood years together. He was a good man even then and although we lost contact years ago, I have always fondly remembered our time together so long ago.

Your father always had an eye for the future. Using gem stones was ingenious.

Of course I care very much about the safety and security and providence of your family. I would hate to see the South African government take what is rightfully yours.

Best wishes.

A. DuBois

Monday, September 03, 2007

Happy 85th To Me!

Well, I had my birthday this last month (August!) and I turned 85. Practically. I'm such an old lady. This is what I've been up to in my month away from blogs and computers and all of this new-fangled technology:

1. Doing my genealogy. I know that not all old people do genealogy and that some young people do genealogy, but probably 85% of the people I talk to for work every day are retired folk. That's fine.

At work, they let us help them test a new publishing thing that we added to our site for almost-free. You can make your own full-color genealogy book with copies of census records and military records and all kinds of original source documents. You add photos and dates and places and stories, etc, and the wizard will throw time lines at you and family sheets...it all looks really cool. But my family's genealogy has been in boxes back in California, so there has been a lot of typing to do (the package of records from my mom weighed enough that I thought she might have sent an ancestor). I still have a lot to do, but I really have done an impressive amount of work. I'm excited to see my book.

2. Spinning yarn and knitting a blanket (but not from the yarn that I spun). I actually finished spinning the ball of wool that I had. My mom has been super excited about Jess and I going home because she's discovered several yarn stores that are pretty near our house that we didn't even know existed. (My mom loves that I knit and spin.)
I also finished knitting my biggest project ever, the baby blanket for my friend's baby. (Jess keeps telling me that I should keep it for my own unborn children. It came out a little small but quite nice. I keep telling her that I'll knit blankets for my own children when I'm pregnant. They'll be pink or blue. None of this white-business. She tells me she wants me to knit blankets for her children, too. I tell her we'll see.) I thought about knitting the baby blanket with yarn that I'd made (which would have been cool), but really, let's be serious--I hardly ever talk to my friend anymore and it takes a lot of time to make yarn, and it's for a baby that will spit and leak all over it. Meh. Maybe not.

Now that I'm done, I'm not sure what to knit. Should I knit a sweater? They sound so tricky, but I may actually be a good enough knitter to be able to handle one. A larger throw or blanket? Maybe. More scarves for this winter so that I have them in many colors? Probably, but those are quick and then I'll still need a new project.

Really, what I want to do is order a huge box of roving and go crazy with dying and spinning, but we'll see. The yarn store has been talking forever about doing a dying class and that would be helpful.

3. Enjoying nature and identifying birds. I finally ordered (and received!) a GPS, which has been loads of fun. I've been geocaching several times! I actually heard about geocaching years ago and thought it sounded like fun, but never tried it until now. I still haven't figured out how to download stuff to the GPS, or really gotten hard (hrad?) core into it, but I've ordered some of the little trackable things that people put into the boxes, which is a start. It's like treasure hunts for grown ups. Fun. A lot of them involve hiking, and it turns out that I like that.
On a somewhat unrelated note, I've taken up an interest in birds. Not sure where that came from. Often, when I'm outside I'll hear birds chirping, and I look for them and try to see what sort of birds go with which chirps. I have no idea why this interests me.

4. Taking walks. I'm training for my first triathlon, so I've been spending a lot of time at the gym lately. Especially with skybluepink, who is training with me.

5. Feeding the cat. Our cat is actually about to have a birthday. She was born in September, we're pretty sure. We're planning on throwing a party (of course), but it's all sort of ironic, I think. For her special day, we will invite loads of people to our house, and the one thing she really hates (aside from baths) is people. It will be fun, though.

That's pretty much been it, I think.