So you think you've got everything organised, of course, until the day before you're about to leave for the world record attempt, when you discover ..

The radio station wants to interview you (great, thanks Jeff!) which takes a moment, then an hour or so working out how to record the interview, convert it to an mp3 file, and to get our star behind-the-scenes webmaster to link it into the frontpage (thanks Manu, rock on!). 

The laptop you've arranged to borrow for the trip (essential for daily media updates) has a totally cooked battery. The replacement you ordered from the supplier at R1500 (!) hasn''t been delivered because the courier "couldn't find your address'. Duh. Look on a map. [battery arrives minutes after you phone the courier company to blast them ... smile, life's a beach] 

the laptop doesn't have the software you're used to working with, so it's upload photoshop, upload google earth, upload the upload software for uploading the latest uploaders ... get as much of this done as possible, because internet access might be limited in the Karoo. finally let the laptop tour the flying area in google earth so it can soak up images into the cache - this means you can move about and see the landscape even if you don't have an internet connection ...

Then there's the winch vehicle to collect, which turns out to have lost its spare tyre release, so it's off to the auto workshop to get the spare removed .. it's better to have it loose in the back of the bakkie, than to have it stuck underneath, unusable. Things can get difficult when you have a flat tyre at Sonder-koffie-fontein.

Then there's the winch. Dear old Screecher. It fits on the towbar. Simple, you'd think. Yeah, sure. Until you come to remove those bolts that have been holding the towbar on for yonks, and they've rusted nicely. Well, for everything in life, there's always the hammer. Thinks he. After some choice words, the bolts are out. And .. they look like this.

Which means the nuts won't go onto the head any more. Thank goodness for dad's workshop. Grinding machine comes in handy.

Oil. Spanners. Try to lift the (heavyheavy) winch one handed while putting bolts back into narrow holes. Invent some more choice words. Finally it's on! We're in business. Except for the little thing that supposed to go 'piep!' as the winch pays out, it's totally sorted. Almost. Possible. Definitely. Ready.

Now, I've just got all my camera gear to sort out, suddenly all the batteries seem to be flat and need recharging, I've got to get the cellphone internet laptop data card thingy still (so you guys can get stories while they're still hot), I've lost my mittens for my gloves (i'm going highhhhh), and my best school-friend has just arrived from overseas and is coming for dinner right in the middle of all of it.

A day in the life of a world-record chaser. I can't wait to be at cloudbase, just flying free ...I keep feeling like I've forgotten something really important, but I can't remember what it is.