It rained yesterday for the first time in about two weeks. It's raining today.
LOCAL NEWS
Massive amounts of fuss in the media this week for the return of the "unknown warrior". Not an obscure league player, but the body of an NZ soldier from Belgium from the First World War. He arrived in Wellington, laid in state for a day, and was then interred in the National War Memorial in Wellington with much ado on the 11th of the 11th (Armistice Day). People cried, he was awarded a number of medals and an RSA honour (the guy could have been a deserter or an army bureaucrat for all they know). While I guess it is a nice symbol of the sacrifice made by the few for the many, it feels very orchestrated. Interestingly, there are some I know who felt that it was an important thing to do (Peter Smith has an Uncle who never returned).
The driver that survived when Possum Bourne was killed was sentenced to 300 hours community service and a $10,000 fine.
The Kawerau College school yearbook was recalled by the head master after discovering that some of the ambitions of the students leaving school included drug dealing and motor cycle gang boss. The editorial process seemed to have been somewhat lacking.
Five drivers involved in the excessively fast motorcade driving the PM a while back have been charged with various offenses including speeding and dangerous driving. Helen's assertion that she failed to notice the speed is bollocks. They averaged 128Km/h and it was not a 100Km/h zone the whole way so they must have been going over 140 in places. You'd notice.
A fourteen year old south Auckland girl has been missing for a week.
A man was run over by the car he just bought at a car fair on Saturday. He had just handed over $2000 when the vendor tried to leave the scene in the car he had just sold to the victim. The purchaser jumped on the car and was thrown from it.
The Northerner, an overnight train from Auckland to Wellington, has taken its last ride. After 95 years it is no longer, due to competition from cheap air fares.
A battle is erupting between Dick Hubbard, the new Mayor, and the deputy Dr Bruce Hucker who seems to have got enough councillors on his side to control every committee and vote from here to election day. Things are not comfortable at the council.
Labour held their conference over the weekend, and the polls seem to be favouring them. I am not sure there has ever been a three-term Labour government.
WORLD NEWS
Yasser Arafat's passing suggests the dwarf thing failed. Meanwhile, most people want to know how come his wife was so young.
Fallujah continued to be fought over all week. They seem to have control and are just cleaning out pockets of resistance now.
REAL SPORT
Team 2 had to play Team 3 in the semi-final, the nightmare scenario as playing your mates isn't fun. Rory had some divided loyalty because he has played so many times for them and many of Team 3 will be in his team next year. Diana said Rory should play for Team 3 but he didn't want to. The kids in both teams were very excited, much more so than normal. It was never going to be pretty.
We had the A team plus Bob out there in the first quarter, and Rory scored a couple of goals. By then second quarter, we were up about 6-2 and Rory had scored the first four of them. Third quarter, Rory was off and the team struggled. Poor defence and not enough passing, Team three scored and it was 6-3. Fourth quarter, Rory came back out and we scored four more times, final score 10-3. Rory got six goals, and at least three assists. He missed one sitter, but was devastating otherwise, possibly the best game he's played. Chloe got 3, David 1. He looked very good out there. Not that he was under any pressure, he had a lot of family there watching (Sarah, Nanny, and Granny all came as well as the rest of us). Diana was absolutely stoked, we all were, but very pleased to see him show what he can do, and that the training pays off (he has either played, trained, or swum every day for the last three weeks now).
We have the final this coming Friday and his development squad plays a game tonight against the B team from our own club (he is in the C team). Got news last Monday that we have a tournament on the 5th in bloody Tauranga.
SPORT
The ABs beat Italy 59-10. Not sure anyone cares.
Australia beat NZ 54-49 in the netball, reversing the results of the clean sweep earlier in the year.
NSW was all over the Black Caps in a warm up cricket match, not a good sign. First test starts on Thursday.
Arsenal beat Spurs 5-4 in what must have been a heck of a game to watch. Chelsea won 4-1 over Fulham, Liverpool beat Crystal Palace 3-2. Man Utd beat Newcastle 3-1.
MY SAD LIFE
Wednesday night, after dancing, Hannah came to the pool with Rory and I. Rory set a new personal best by swimming sixty lengths (1500m), I swam 40 lengths (1000m), and Hannah (who's previous best was 12) did 32 lengths (800m). We were all knackered but happy. Sunday afternoon, we went again, and did even more. Rory did 80 lengths, Hannah and I did 50. Given that Hannah is only swimming twice a week she is doing very well, she can be quite determined.
Both the kids had athletics at school, neither qualified for inter-school but both did pretty well. Hannah made the 200m final, Rory came fifth in the 100m final (I saw him race in a heat and he did it in 13.59 seconds, which is pretty quick but not sure how credible the timekeeping was).
Friday afternoon, I picked the kids up about an hour early from school, along with Rory's friend Jared (all supplied teachers with notes) and took them to Big Boys Toys to see the Honda Asimo walking robot. We also played with automatic weapons, a bazooka, the kids sat in the driver's seat of an armoured car, we played Halo 2, and scored the usual selection of stickers, posters, and condoms (remember the time we went, Koos?). Not only was it fun, but it was really fun because they missed school for some of it which made it even better. Naughty, I know, but the kids have been working hard and it was a good treat for them. It is really busy on the weekend and a weekday is heaps better.
It was Caitlin, Nanny, and Helen J's birthday on Saturday. It's Allan's birthday today, and Emma turns 18 tomorrow.
We saw lots of people over the weekend, it was quite social - in between the homework. Rory had to finish a maths (vaguely) thing on designing an apartment block. Rather than let him make futile sketches the size of a large postage stamp on grid paper for hours (he did a couple) the family constructed it from Lego. I suspect his work will be over the top, but we shall see. When we hauled it to school, the kids in his class seemed to make the right noises, while we saw a number coming to school with an A3 coloured piece of paper.
The Goodins don't have enough to fill their empty lives so they are tidying the house for sale, listed on Friday.
Oh well, just back from a walk, we got rained on a little, better do some real work now.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment