Over the last two days I’ve witnessed two jaw dropping incidents in the ICC Champions Trophy, both of which involved England, and these have had a serious impact on Luke. The first and most controversial was an incident involving Graham Smith and Andrew Strauss during the SA vs. England game on Monday evening.

Smith was on 124 runs with South Africa needing another 69 from 36 balls to stay in the ICC Champions Trophy and requested for a runner yet Strauss declined it. After the match Strauss explained that “He asked for a runner and the umpires took the view that cramp is a symptom of fatigue. Being tired does not qualify batsmen for a runner under the laws of the game”.

It is my belief that this decision by Strauss was a defining moment in the match and was a major contributing factor to our loss. After Strauss turned him down you could see Smith’s whole demeanor change. Couple that with the fact that he could barely walk and Smith was now forced to look for boundaries to try and steer our team to victory which ultimately lead to the fall of his wicket at 141.

If you asked me Strauss knew that Smith could win the game for South Africa and he wanted him off the field as his bowlers were pretty much ineffective against him. I believe that Strauss broke the rules of the gentleman’s game in a display of the worst sportsmanship I’ve ever seen in cricket in recent times.

The impact this had on Luke astounded me. He was in Graham Smith mode at the time, with pads on and bat in hand, trying to win the game and when he saw how upset Smith was he went from excitement to total disappointment. He got furiously angry with England and accused them on cheating and not being fair and this frustration ultimately brought him to tears. It took a long time to console him and explain to him that sometimes things happen in sport that prevent you from winning but he struggled to comprehend it all.

This was the first time that he’s ever understood and been exposed to injustice in sport and he didn’t like it one bit. When he went to bed he told us he’s never playing cricket again – a truly shattering moment for a child who just wants to be the next AB De Villiers. As parents this was a difficult moment for us and I’m not convinced we handled it as well as we could have. Be that as it may, Luke agreed to take up cricket again the next morning.

The second incident I witnessed was during the England vs. New Zealand match yesterday evening. Paul Collingwood, who had been declared run out after wandering out of his crease, went up to New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori and had a mini-conference with him. Soon after they shook hands and Vettori decided not to uphold the appeal and Collingwood was allowed to continue his innings.

To be honest I’m shocked that England expect every other team to honour the Spirit of Cricket ethos while they only really do so when the pressure is not on them.

It is true that Andrew Strauss had made a similar decision in England’s opening match against Sri Lanka by recalling Angelo Mathews however there wasn’t the same sense of pressure or intensity during that match. The truth is, when England are on the ropes they are simply bad sports.

If you don’t believe me then lets look at last year when Collingwood was captaining England when New Zealand’s Grant Elliott had been run out after a mid-pitch collision with Ryan Sidebottom. The umpires were obliged to rule him out, but Collingwood’s refusal to withdraw the appeal had infuriated Vettori and invited widespread criticism from the media.

Vettori’s decision yesterday was more significant as there was no case of obstruction in this instance, and Collingwood had no one to blame but himself for venturing out his crease. In addition, it was a do-or-die match for New Zealand yet despite this Vettori still showed outstanding sportsmanship at the time.

You make your own decisions around this but I for one am disgusted by England’s tactics and the fact that the ICC continue to back this team and the decisions taken by them on the field. What example are we setting to the youth who idolize these players and the game?

At 17:15 on 15 April 2008 Ben Hartman was born. It’s impossible to quantify how much Ben has changed our lives over the last 12 months and it always amazes me how quickly time flies.

Ben is our second born son and I really love to see how different each of our children are. Luke is cautious and shy by nature while Ben is a maniac who shows no fear. He’s already given me tons of new grey hair and I’m positive there’s going to be a lot more in the years to come.

While Ben can’t really understand the significance of today, Luke is completely excited that his little brother is one year old. Yesterday he said he was going to invite everyone we knew to Ben’s birthday party but as we’re recent Capetonian immigrants we don’t really have anyone to invite

We don’t want to damper Luke’s excitement so we’re off to buy Ben a really cool present this afternoon and then we’re hitting the spur for a birthday dinner.

To this ordered chaos in our new home in Cape Town:-

I have to say that moving to a new city is really not as easy as it seems and proved to be an immense challenge for all of us.

When we knew that we’d have to move it really seemed like an awesome idea at the time. I mean, who wouldn’t want to move to a city with reduced crime, beautiful oceans, mountains and a better overall quality of life?

While I am not regretting the move at all I didn’t/couldn’t anticipate how trying this would be both emotionally and physically to all of us – including the people we left behind. Packing boxes is no fun, unpacking even less, but the really difficult aspect has been the emotional loss of our families and friends.

As adults, Colette and I are able to understand our emotions and deal with them accordingly but what we’ve found with Luke, our five year old, is that this is not so easy to do. While Luke is content about 90% of the time there are moments when he’s tired and run down and it’s then that he yearns for his family and our domestic worker left in Johannesburg.

This is gut wrenching stuff for us but we’ve just tried to make it fun for him to try and mitigate the loneliness and heart-ache he’s experiencing.

On the work front I’m loving every minute of being involved in a startup. These are exciting times for Afrigator and at the moment we’ve been working hard on setting up relationships with people here in Cape Town as well as working on some interesting developments for the website and community.

There is a new and different kind of stress being involved in Afrigator but at the end of the day I’m doing this for myself which makes it very motivating and highly exciting. I really think we’re going to do some awesome things over the next two years.

Finally, on the blog front, I’ve decided to change my writing style and theme somewhat. Moving forward this blog will highlight my experiences running a startup which I’m doing mainly to alleviate some of the stress and I’ll also be writing more about my personal life and the adjustment to life after Jo’burg.

In short this blog is about startups, technology and life and you can expect this to be the core focus moving forward. Not sure how much I can post these days as things are pretty busy but I’ll do what I can when I can.

Mary Fitzgerald Square will be turned into a white winter wonderland …… all in the name of fun in the inner city.

Yeah right!

Yesterday we shipped off to Mary Fitzgerald Square in Newtown, Johannesburg where we’d hoped to share some moments like the one below.

To our dismay though the Snow in the City event, sponsored by Nando’s, The Star and JDA, turned out to be a miserable disaster.

When we heard on Radio 702 that the Johannesburg CBD was to be turned into a massive snow day we couldn’t resist taking Luke to play in some real snow.

We arrived shortly after 11:00 only to discover there was a massive queue for tickets. We stood in the line for nearly an hour and a half because Computicket only had two people issuing tickets at the event.

Entrance fee was R15 and for this cover price you were entitled to:

• 1 x 20 minute ice rink session
• 1 x bucket of snow
• 1 x snow drink
• 1 x free Nando’s crisps
• 5 x slides on the snow slope.

Luke is now super excited and is eager to hit the snow slope so I take him to wait in another long queue. Unfortunately for us the queue for the snow slope is about 900m long and there is no way either of us are prepared to stand for another hour just to go down the slope.

We decide that we’ll go ice skating. The queue for the ice rink is much shorter however as each skate is 20 minutes long the queue simply doesn’t move. To make matters worse I notice that the ice rink is not an ice rink at all, it’s a plastic mat that obviously simulates an ice rink.

No point in staying. We leave.

I’m utterly disgusted with the organisation of this event. The only real snow was on the snow slope and in the bucket you could get if you managed to brave the long queue. The ice rink was minute and was an insult to everyone.

There were far too many people to make this event viable and while I realise they were trying to raise money they should have limited numbers so that everyone could have a chance.

We were all expecting to see a massive ice rink (made from real ice) with a play area covered in snow but clearly the organisers of this event thought that a plastic mat and a bucket of ice would do the trick.

However, the biggest upset of this all was the very disappointed 4 year-old that never got to experience what we went there to do. Luke was so looking forward to playing in the snow and all he ended up with was the chance to throw some pieces of paper that somewhat resembled snow.

On Tuesday we had a very small gathering for little Ben’s Bris ceremony. While no parent likes to watch their son’s penis being cut to shreds I have to say it all went down very well and I managed to keep the tears to myself!

I’m a very fortunate guy as I know a professional photographer in Gregor and he happily obliged to take a few happy snaps on the day. The results simply blew us all away.

I knew the pictures would be good because I love Gregor’s style but honestly I didn’t expect to be moved so emotionally as I was when I first saw them. Gregor is without doubt a very talented boy and I’ve included the pictures for you to see below. If you want to view a slideshow of the event then visit this link.

Thanks to everyone who could make it to this special event in our lives – it meant a great deal to all of us.

Felicity: Morning Mr. and Mrs. Hartman, I have a man here from Discovery Health and he wants to shoot your son. He is specifically looking for a white boy to shoot.
Me: He wants to shoot my son? Are you being serious?
Felicity: *laughs*, no sir, he is here to do a TV advert for Discovery Health and wants to know if you’ll be willing to let them use your son for the advert. They will pay you of course.

Hmm… I started to see a couple dollar signs.

Colette: Could we get free medical aid?
Felicity: *laughs* – I don’t know.
Me: Ok bring him in. We can’t guarantee anything but we’re willing to chat.

In steps Maurice, seemingly not from Discovery but rather the film crew involved in the Discovery advert.

Maurice: Hi folks, congratulations on the birth of your new child. We’re shooting an ad for Discovery and we need a white, newborn baby to complete the scene.
Me: What exactly would my son have to do?
Maurice: Well the scene would involve having your son put into an incubator and then the tough-looking father comes in and touches his hand.
Me: ok…
Maurice: If you agree to let us use your son for the advert I’d have to drive to Pretoria so I can get him a work-permit.

A work-permit? What for? Oh wait, he’s under 16… never mind that he’s less than 2 days old.

Colette: When is the advert being shot?
Maurice: Tuesday morning.
Colette: That’s going to be a problem because Tuesday morning is when our son’s Bris is taking place.
Maurice: Oh…
Maurice: Can’t you change the date?

My wife chuckles because a Bris has to be done 8-days after the baby is born.

Colette: No.
Me: Sorry Maurice, but we’re just not going to be able to do this. Thanks for your time and sorry!

*Maurice scampers off disappointed*

Colette and I haven’t agreed yet on a name for our new son but this will be revealed when he has his Bris in about 8 days time.

The 15th of April was a rather crazy day and I went through a vast array of emotions in the process; stress, fear, excitement, nervousness and ultimately – elation. There are no words to describe what it’s like to watch a child being born and I’m truly humbled to experience the miracle of life once again.

Colette was forced to have a C-section due to the fact that she had one when Luke was born and while it’s a fairly quick operation it got very scary at times. Unlike Luke, our newborn just refused to come out and Colette had to endure some serious physical pain before eventually he popped out.

At one point I really wasn’t sure if they’d ever get him out but thank God it all worked out in the end and I’m very excited to show you what a miracle we’ve produced.

You can view all the birth pictures on my Flickr stream.

My biggest concern today though was how Luke was going to handle the whole affair. For a 4 year-old, who’s never been subjected to pregnancy and birth, this is an unimaginable scenario to put him in and I have been paranoid for months on how this will affect him.

Over the last couple weeks we’ve been trying to prepare him for the events that would transpire and while this wasn’t easy he showed some immense enthusiasm at becoming a big brother. At the same time he was also very scared of the unknown but we tried to reassure him about things whenever we could.

At around 18:15, only an hour after our baby was born, I left the hospital to go and fetch Luke but he simply didn’t want to come back with me to visit his mom and brother. He was overwrought with fear but eventually, through some bribery, he reluctantly agreed to come with me.

We stopped off at the hospital cafe to buy his new brother a present and while we were at it he and Colette also got a couple gifts. Stapled to my side we made our way to the devil’s lair so that Luke could finally meet his new fate.

While it was very uncomfortable for him initially (he refused to look at his new brother, let alone touch him) we made some great breakthroughs. By the end of the hour that we spent there Luke managed to overcome his fears of his new sibling and the result of their relationship is highlighted beautifully in the pic below.

Yesterday was fascinating for me because while I was extremely honoured to become a father again I had to focus more on making this day special and important for Luke rather than myself.

There’s a lot more I did for Luke when he was born such as bathing him for the first time, changing his first nappy etc. but instinctively I knew that my newborn son needed his mom and Luke needed me.

Luke can’t wait to go to the hospital again and I can’t wait to spend more time with my family.

Finally I have to say that I am so proud of Colette for her courage and endurance. It really wasn’t easy for her during pregnancy but she has handled the whole thing so well and put up with my crap in the process. She was amazing today.

Being a father for the second time round is even more daunting for me than the first but I’m nervously excited nonetheless.

It’s been more than four years since Luke was born and we made a decision to utilise the services of the Netcare Park Lane Clinic once again for our newest arrival.

We didn’t actually have a very good experience with Park Lane when Luke was born, as the staff where really quite useless, however most people have great things to say about the hospital which is why we’ve decided to give them a second chance.

That said I am completely freaked out with Park Lane’s (and Netcare in general) newest policy forcing us to pay R3,400 for the privilege to have Luke visit his mom and new brother.

While one of the two wards is allocated to medical aid clients the other is for semi- and fully-private rooms which come at a premium. The catch here is that if Colette stays in the medical aid ward then no children are allowed at all while the private one allows siblings to visit in the room during visiting hours.

The cost for the semi-private room, which has 4 beds, is R800 per night and you have to pay for four nights upfront when checking in. If you wanted to go fully-private then that cost shoots up to R1,400 per night.

Now I understand that these private rooms are a luxury and come at a price and I’m not ignorant to this but what I fail to understand is why a sibling isn’t allowed into the medical aid ward?

Seriously, what difference does is make to anyone if a sibling under 12 visits his mom and new brother in a ward with 12 beds? To me this is just a manipulative policy by Netcare to make more money out of us and it stinks if you ask me.

How am I supposed to tell Luke that he’s not allowed to see his mom or brother for four days? It’s already going to be such a stressful time for him and I simply can’t do this to him so now I’m forced to fork out the money which I really can’t afford.

Had we not already paid the R350 registration fee I would have sought an alternative hospital – not this casino that claims I’m in safe hands.

The net result after three days in the hospital is that I’m waiting for her to now come out of surgery. Being 29 weeks pregnant the doctors really wanted to avoid this but alas, here I sit – a nervous wreck.

I’m just hoping all goes well and that Colette and my baby are going to be ok.

In recent weeks Luke had a minor operation and Colette had an Amniocentesis to test for downs-syndrome in our unborn son.

I’ve just received my medical aid statement for November from Discovery and below is a breakdown of the costs incurred.

You can see that the total cost for both procedures was R9,024.09. Of that I have to pay R4,271.99 and an amount of R2,085.43 was paid directly from my savings account. This means that Discovery’s total liability was only R2,666.67 – the rest is paid using my money.

Now I might be missing the point here but how is it possible that a medical aid company only covers 29.5% of hospital procedures? It’s not like we went to some designer optician and spent R9,000 on matching his and her glasses – these were both hospital induced costs and I find myself paying more than 70% of the total bill.

I’m wondering if a hospital plan is not a better option for me seeing as I pay a fortune for Discovery each month and ultimately end up paying most of bills anyway?

Pathetic!

Rian was shot in the right side of his body and was then tied to his daughter while the four scum rummaged through his fridge, ate some dinner, cleaned his cottage out and left him there to die. His daughter Helene was visiting him from Thailand and was beaten and taunted all the while watching her father slip away.

“I looked forward to returning to South Africa, but I cannot live in a place where such pigs are terrorising the community. Nobody is safe. It’s not enough to rob. They want to kill.” — Helene Kerkhof (21)

Rian used to own a Sneakers store in Cape Town before he lost his business and it was during this time that he gave me my very first pair of Nike shoes at age 13 and I will always remember him for this – he was my hero.

After he lost his business Rian struggled through the years and I really felt for the man as no human being should ever go through the hardships he went through. The fact that he was so brutally murdered just sickens me to the stomach and this whole incident just makes me furious.

I can’t help but feel absolutely powerless when I witness the events that take place in South Africa. I love my country, have contributed on occasion to SA Rocks to prove my cause and have even tried to make a small difference with my localised web applications yet at moments like these I just want to run far far away.

When is this lack of respect for life ever going to change? We’re a savage nation that cares nothing for the value of life and I’m struggling to come to terms with these brutal murders that take place every day in this country.

I am often fearful for the safety of my family but when it hits home like this I am completely hopeless.

My deepest condolences go out to Rian’s wife and four children – words can not describe the sadness I feel for them right now…

I knew this was an issue and I could feel the impact it has had on her but I was going along with the idea that all this work was going to amount to something at some point and secure our future. While there has been good progress I have to ask at what price does this all come?

Certain other people will agree that Venture Capital in SA sucks and as a result every bright hair-brained scheme I’ve had has been implemented on zero budget with very little resources.

While I have had an awesome experience in the process and learnt a lot about my capabilities there is only so long one can go on for before nothing needs to amount to something and I guess this is where I am.

The time I’ve lost with my family can never be recovered and I simply can’t hold on to the idea that at some point something will work – what if it doesn’t?

I’ve done some soul searching and come to the conclusion that if it doesn’t make me money it isn’t worth my time and I will now focus solely on my job position at The Times and continue with Afrigator for a limited time to see if our new business model can actually work.

This morning Luke had his operation and thank God, all went well. I was dead scared about this operation but thanks to some great comments in my earlier post I lost a lot of the pre-op concerns and in truth I was completely fine up until Luke got his anesthetic.

His courage right throughout amazed me and he took to the dreaded mask without a fight or a complaint and I was seriously expecting worse. At the point of losing consciousness Luke started to freak out a little and I was forced to pin him down until he was out and that was my turning point in the whole experience.

Guilt, helplessness and fear all overcame me and I just wanted to get him out of there – I cried instead.

What I’ve learned through this experience:

1. Kids are tougher than we give them credit for.
2. Trust the experts, they know how.
3. Emotionally I was ready – practically I simply wasn’t.
4. Time in the recovery room is longer than the operation itself.
5. Don’t plan to be at a 9:30am meeting when the op is scheduled for 8:00am.
6. Take the day off work. I didn’t.
7. Make sure there’s lots of yogurt, custard and juice – with straws.
8. Always have a comfort present for afterwards. We had to get one.
9. This is certainly not something I’m going to do again in a hurry.
10. It doesn’t take much to make me cry…

Luke and Mom are at home recovering and when I left for work he seemed almost back to his normal self.

The problem is this work can’t be done in the chair and the dentist has advised that we do this under general anaesthetic. We could barely get him to sit in the chair for the preliminary consultation to the Dentist so in my mind this does seem like the only way to resolve this issue.

That said I am crapping myself. This is the first time that I as a parent am faced with a really difficult decision and I’m lost for the right answer. On the one hand I know if we don’t resolve this now he’ll end up with teeth problems for the rest of his life but on the other hand I’m so worried that something goes wrong and I jeopardize his life as a direct result of this anaesthetic.

Luke is scheduled for this operation on Wednesday morning and I’m really getting the pre-op jitters.

Does anyone have any advice for me?

User unknown to parents has managed to creep its way into Mom’s tummy. Pictured above the little bugger is 7 weeks old, only 0.88cm big and has a healthy heart rate of 171bpm. Needless to say Mom, Dad and Luke are delight at the news!