Sunday will be my first Father’s Day. My son will be 24 days old, so not quite able to do his own shopping (but almost, right?). It’s tricky one anyway – my dad’s never been into the whole thing, always telling us it’s all a big commercial ploy, right up there with Valentine’s Day. It meant the most to him if we were all just home for a braai, or outdoors somewhere, doing something together.
I could get all soppy and philosophical about how I’d also just be happy to celebrate the day doing something outdoors with baby Kai, but right now he’s pretty much a laundry-creating machine – feed, sleep, poo (in whatever order). I hope those funny faces he pulls while asleep means he’s dreaming about surfing good waves or fighting river trout on fly gear, but if it’s not, maybe he’s composing a symphony or working out some crazy maths problem, and that’s cool too.
All I really want for father’s day is to teach one day him that if he (hopefully) wants to buy his dad a gift, to do what his dad would do – get something practical or something we can enjoy together. Or buy me something he’d really like to have himself.
Here’s my wish list right now:
Olloclip
I’m not sure whether having a photographer as a dad is a good or bad thing. A colleague said to me the other day, “Of course you know, you now need a hard drive just to store photos of the kid.” He wasn’t wrong – I’ve already taken hundreds, most of these with my iPhone 4S. The camera and photo-processing Apps are unrivalled, but to take it to the next level I really want the Olloclip. It’s a lens that connects to your iPhone (4 or 4S) and includes fisheye, wide-angle and macro capabilities. No really, R900 (orms.co.za) basically turns my phone into my back-up camera when on assignment.
Salomon Slab Skinpack
It’s the evolution of the hydration pack (that necessary evil on longer trail runs). It’s more vest than backpack, so doesn’t bounce around on your back when rock hopping and is light and comfortable. But that’s not all, the surprising amount of packing space it has would make it the ideal (if somewhat colourful) fly-fishing pack for mountain missions up in Du Toit’s Kloof. With your water supply for the day you could pack flies, leader lines and the like. Around R2 000, www.salomon.com/za.
Oakley Radarlock
I’ve ridden and run (and fished, with the polarised lenses) with Oakley’s since I can remember riding and running. The Radar frame set the standard for sports eyewear. Then came the Jawbone – lighter, with anti-fog vents in the lenses and the ability to change the lenses to suit riding conditions. Radarlock is the next level – all of the Jawbone technology in the Radar frame. Yes please, but you’re going to pay for quality, around R2 600 depending on the lens option. And then of course you want to get all the lenses available. www.oakley.com/za.
Outside
I measure all other mags by Outside magazine – spectacular photography and well-researched, finely written articles on travel, adventure sport, fitness and the personalities who orbit these. When I was at Getaway, we had an office subscription. Being a junior I was always last in the queue, but man, I looked forward to dog-earing those already much-turned pages. Since then, I’ve had my brother bring back as many copies as he could fit in his luggage when he came home from varsity in Montana twice a year. It’s near impossible (and helluva expensive) to get hold of paper copy any other way. Today we have Zinio, cheaper, faster and much fewer complaints about heavy bags from my boet. R205 for 12 issues http://za.zinio.com.
