Quill & Current 

A Day As a Working Man

Report Summary:

Johannesburg’s Crown Mines district sweltered under extreme heat today. Your reporter observed conditions while stationed beside a Whitehawk Ford Ranger. Despite its pale paint, the vehicle intensified the heat. Entry into the cab resembled stepping into a hotbox; the sill of the driver’s window reached higher surface temperatures than local barbecue grills.

Notable Observation:

“Resting your arm on the sill is like roasting a steak,” noted Verrocchio. “The corner braai stand is cooler than this Ranger’s door.”

Command Centre:

Captain General Niles presided over the newsroom desk. Broadcast anchor Captain Gemini relayed conditions to the main channel. Auxiliary commentary supplied by CyberCat—imaginary correspondent, shadow of Taylor the tabby, long established as owner of Julian and Verrocchio. Humans remain classified as his pets.

Cultural Echoes:

J.D. Salinger: cynicism on field-report authenticity.

J.T. Edson: reminder of worse saddles.

Louis L’Amour: every trail is a story.

Stephen King / Dean Koontz: haunted and soul-bound cars.

Wilbur Smith: Africa’s furnace as battlefield.

Dickens: machinery given character.

C.S. Lewis: heat as shadow of greater fire.

Bunyan: one more Pilgrim’s trial.

Closing Statement:

Filed and witnessed. Johannesburg stands today as a braai pit beneath the open sky.

End of Report

Signature: ⸸ Othello Cody Verrocchio

Filed Under Authority of Captain General Niles

Archive Stamp: CN-JHB/08-10-2025/WRF-01-CLOSED

A quick update on two fronts — work and the website.

Yesterday, I reached an agreement with my former boss to return part-time, three days a week. He asked me back out of need, and I accepted out of practicality. For now, the rate is set at R130 per day, which means covering two to three trips that each take one to two hours. It’s not a sustainable figure, and I’ll be pushing for fairer pay. If that doesn’t happen, I’ll step away again.

On the website side, progress is steady. Over the past three days I’ve refined the homepage, set clear placeholders for the topics I’ll be committing to, and opened the “Reader’s Nook” — a space designed for curiosity and reflection. The site is still taking shape, but the foundation is in place: graphics, audio, video, and creator content. More depth and community features are on the horizon.

Stay tuned as both journeys unfold.

— Othello Cody Verrocchio

Living with Hyperadrenalism at 62

By Otto Brinkmeier 

3 October, 2025 – Johannesburg, South Africa*

It's 16:47 as I write this, and I've been wrestling with website code since just after 2:00. That's how it goes some nights when you're part of a skeleton crew—you work when the work demands it, sleep be damned.

I'm 62.8 years old now. Not just 62—the .8 matters when every month feels like it adds a new challenge to the pile.

When Your Body Betrays You

Here's something most people don't know about me: I have hyperadrenalism. Big word. Simple meaning: my body produces too much adrenaline. Imagine your fight-or-flight response is stuck on a hair trigger, and every unexpected noise, every sudden movement, every shock to the system floods you with enough adrenaline to make you think you're having a heart attack.

That's not a metaphor. That's Thursday afternoon for me.

Today has been... let's call it "educational." 

The Incidents

Yesterday, I was outside having a conversation with another resident here in shared housing. Just talking. Regular conversation. Suddenly, the bathroom window above us flies open, and the pastor's wife is shouting at me about foul language. That I should be ashamed to call myself a Christian.

Here's the thing: neither of us could identify what we'd said that was offensive. 

I apologised immediately—that's what you do, right? Try to make peace.

"You are not sorry at all," came the response.

And just like that, sitting outside in the sun—something that should be simple, restorative—now carries this weight. Am I being listened to? Monitored? Will my next casual word trigger another public rebuke?

Fast forward to this morning. I'd been working on the website since after 2:00 AM. Technical problems that seemed solvable if I could just focus long enough. When exhaustion finally won and I tried to rest, my roommate had thoughts about me "sulking."

No rest for the weary, as they say.

The Breaking Point

Then came the moment that did me in.

Another neighbour came to borrow my wok—she was going to supply the ingredients and cook a stir-fry for us for supper. She tripped. Let out a yell that could wake the dead.

My body, already running on fumes, did what it does: flooded my system with adrenaline. Heart racing. Sensory overload. The world narrowed to that single sound and my body's catastrophic interpretation of it as mortal danger.

I genuinely thought I was having a heart attack.

Now, hours later, as the adrenaline finally recedes, I'm left with an exhaustion that goes bone-deep. Ten times worse than I felt before the incident. That's the price of hyperadrenalism—you don't just recover from stress, you crash from it.

The Invisible Struggle

As someone who's spent over two decades building an online reputation on honesty and integrity, I feel compelled to share this reality. Not for sympathy—regular readers know that's not my style—but for understanding.

When you're 62, living with a chronic condition, trying to run a business with your partner Juelz (who has his own disabilities to navigate), and sharing space with people who don't understand invisible illnesses... every day becomes an exercise in resilience you didn't know you'd need.

The spelling was atrocious back in 1999 when I started this journey. My grammar sucked, as my teacher friend helpfully pointed out. But I persevered. Got my Diploma in Journalism. Built PlebWave Frontier HQ from nothing.

I'm still here, still building, still fighting.

But some days? Some days you're fighting your own body as much as you're fighting the technical problems on your screen or the interpersonal tensions in your living space.

The Faith Factor

As a born-again, Spirit-filled follower of Jesus Christ, I'm commanded to be truthful, upright, and honest. To speak no lies. That includes the lie that everything is fine when it's not.

It also means extending grace to the pastor's wife who may have been genuinely offended by something I didn't realise I said. To my roommate, who doesn't understand that exhaustion isn't sulking. To the neighbour who tripped and couldn't have known what that sound would do to my nervous system.

And yes, extending grace to myself on days when my body wages war against me and I don't have the energy to be the person I want to be.

Moving Forward

Tomorrow I'll be back at the website code. Back to building PlebWave Frontier HQ with Juelz. Back to creating content for our Constant Followers who've stuck with us since 1999, through unemployment in 2019, through COVID-19, through every setback and struggle.

We're not down and out. We're just navigating the reality that being a two-man skeleton crew at our ages, with our conditions, in our circumstances... It's not easy.

But as I learned twenty-six years ago when I made that "mad" career change at 36, the secret to real success is loving what you do, even on the days when your body makes it nearly impossible to do it.

Tonight I'm exhausted. Tomorrow I'll be tired. But I'll still be here, still writing, still building, still telling the truth about what it takes to keep going when everything—physical, emotional, mental—is in turmoil.

Because that's what we do. That's what PlebWave Frontier HQ has always done.

We persevere.

---

Otto Brinkmeier is the co-founder of PlebWave Frontier HQ and has been building online presence since 1999. He holds a Diploma in Journalism and writes from Johannesburg, South Africa, where he continues to prove that one can make a decent living online—even when your body occasionally declares war on you.