Snails and Missing Buildings

We've been having a strange spell of rain the last few days and suddenly there's this inflation in the number of snails slithering around by night. I noticed this last night when I stepped on 3 of them within about an hour. It's quite a saddening feeling when you get out of your car, take 2 steps and crunchplat. Shame... He probably didn't even know what hit him...

Another interesting thing happened last night. I was driving home from my girlfriend's house on the same road I always drive. Now I mean this literally. In 2004 I took that road home from class, for the last 2 years I've taken that road home from work. Lately I've taken that road home from my girlfriend's house and from kick boxing practice twice a week. It's a normal 2-lane road between houses that has a slight rise to it.

So I'm happily cruising along listening to Soilwork and I noticed the city lights to my left through some threes. So naturally my first thought was: "Who put that there?"

You see, there used to be an old-age home there, obstructing the view of the city lights. It kinda got me thinking... We assume a building will be there forever because it's such an expensive and, let's face it, solidly large object. If you haven't been in a specific city for a while you would still give someone directions based on landmark-style buildings.

This triggered thoughts of another problem. I live in South Africa. After the whole "apartheid" thing the people are almost trying to forget it ever happened. Specifically they're renaming historical building that were named after "apartheid" pioneers. The Nico Malan Opera House in Cape Town is a beautiful building that was a big part of my childhood. It is now called the Artscape Theatre. I don't mind so much that they changed the name, but the fact that it was named after a person gave it a soul. I have no idea who Nico Malan was, but the name stuck with me, which is probably why people name building like so, or have statues erected... Who knows...

Another rather large problem, which my 1 or 2 international readers might like to check out, is that the Johannesburg International Airport has been named the OR Thambo Airport. In that case it's just plain stupid. The airport was the DF Malan International Airport, then they decided that no airport shall be named after a person, to prevent confusion. A few months later they do it again! How can we trust a government that doesn't follow its own guidelines?

I think I better stop now, or else I'll keep going all day...

Rock on.

\m/_(^.^)_\m/