Today is international volunteer day.
LOCAL NEWS
After the murder suicide in Taupo which included police using smoke, a knife wielding man stabbed three people, an elderly man fatally, then got taken out by police on Monday. It was in Railside Ave in Henderson, about 500m from the pool where Rory plays water polo and less than a kilometre from where Gavin lives. They thought he was trying to rob the Norcross sports store, but they then decided he was "just disturbed". He survived the shooting. A parking warden tackled the man with the knife, and is hailed as a hero, but not sure how he needed tackling and shooting.
Ironically, the same week, a parking warden elsewhere in Auckland keeled over and nobody assisted them. The warden got themselves up and back to base without any help.
Parking wardens in Wellington were also in the news for making a deal with each other to not ticket each other's cars.
New Zealand is the 7th fattest country in OECD, a dubious honour at best. Interestingly, I am not sure things would change if you brought in all non-OECD countries because they are mostly starving. US is first, Mexico second, not sure where Canada is, UK is third, Australia is sixth.
A brother and sister died within hours of each other this week, both with complications from Alpha1-antitrypsin deficiency, a disorder which affects the lungs and the liver (a condition which Rory and I both have, but hopefully not quite a serious). She had liver problems, he had lung problems.
Canadian-born but New Zealand resident Harmeet Sooden is one of four people captured in Iraq this week and threatened with death. We are getting lots on this right now.
Cabinet Minister and former teacher David Benson-Pope continues to attract attention. Despite not being charged, it certainly sounds like he pushed the boundaries of punishment. However, I think calling it bullying is inaccurate.
We are suffering from information overload about the new King Kong movie, alongside Narnia, they are two very large movies made in New Zealand.
Our interest rates and fx rates continue to be high. It is interesting that I know three people wanting to bring money to New Zealand from overseas right now (Koos GBP, Paul USD, and Brett AUD) and none of them are too happy about it.
WORLD NEWS
Van Nguyen, Vietnamese-born Melbournian, was hanged in Singapore, as scheduled on Friday. They made a massive fuss here. More so in Australia, I think.
McDonalds and other fast food companies continue to come under fire from various quarters. The latest is a magazine which tested meals and found most of them contained more fat than the figures published by the companies themselves (in one case three times as much). The tests also showed that the "healthy" salads weren't particularly healthy. Making a change to diet lemonade is not going to save the world from diabetes.
REAL SPORT
A weekend of contrasting games for Rory. The first game was for Western Springs against Kaipara College. It was close, again wasn't until the fourth quarter when the outcome became clear and even then with only one minute thirty on the clock. Final score was a 12-8 win, very high scoring, it was 5-4 end of first quarter. Rory scored an embarrassing 11 goals (sort of didn't know where to look). They had no subs so they were all buggered at the end. That is his highest personal tally in a game.
The second game was a club game, a dour grind where some of the lads were obviously off their form. They lost 4-8 and Rory didn't score a single goal. He had about three shots on goal at the most. Passing was shocking and the other team scored most of their from breaks.
The third game saw only six from the springs team show up, but only two from St Peters. This meant St Peters defaulted and they just played a friendly. Hannah got in and played and then I did too. Interesting. My first actual game of water polo on a day when I had already done 54 lengths that morning. We all played on same team. At one point I passed to Hannah, she passed to Rory, and he scored, that was cool. I was marking Tom, who coaches the team, and he just never stopped swimming. I was pretty tired, and shoulders were really quite achy last night but not so bad this morning. No other parents were silly enough to get in the pool.
SPORT
There hasn't been much on, sport wise.
The Black Caps lost to Australia in the first ODI.
Man City beat Charlton 5-2. Arsenal lost to Bolton, of all teams, 0-2, Spurs beat Sunderland 3-2, Man Utd beat Portsmouth 3-0 (they needed to).
MY SAD LIFE
A funny old week. Seemed busy but not much happened.
Our neighbour, Jim, had a stroke on Wednesday. Not a major one, he should be okay, but Pandora really misses him.
We met the "houses" (you know, like Gryffindor, etc) at Rory's new school on Thursday night, Rory is happy that there are plenty of kids he knows in his core class, house, and generally. The class structure is quite complex, with a form class that include kids from all ages. Hannah looked frighteningly at home amongst the potential year 9s.
While swimming this week, I did my fifty lengths without stopping for the first time ever (another futile attempt to prove to myself that I am not as clapped out as I really am). I usually do four then rest a bit. Took about the same length of time, which was interesting.
My car is now incredibly clean, thanks to Mum. It looks pretty good, I was quite surprised. The kids sort of helped but not a lot. I spent a fair amount of Saturday tidying things that needed it. My tools in the garage were all over the show, so they got tidied, my office got cleaned out a bit, I did more weeding of the lawn (it needed it badly) and trimming back foliage.
We had a barbecue on Saturday ostensibly for my birthday. It was good, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. It included a large number of people who receive this email so I have to mention them (Brett, Koos & Julie, Paul, Ross & Kath, Allan & Jacqui. Gavin & Yana, Mum, Ross & Kath, Matt & Kristy). Greta was also there, which kept Rory distracted. I was presented with a 12" action figure of myself, a heavily modified Darth Vader, which had been organised by Gavin and Diana. It is very clever, but I still don't quite know what to make of it. Worse still, the kids knew all about it and neither of them breathed a word. Traitors.
Koos has buggered off to Hong Kong again (left Sunday) so Julie can move in to their new house in peace (they took possession on Friday). This means, Heidi, that cards may not get to the right address, but I am sure they will put in a redirection order with New Zealand Post (that was a hint).
We are going to see John Cleese tonight. I hope it is good, I have been looking forward to it for a while. I am not normally one for concerts and things.
Heard from Helen this week, which was good. Haven't heard from big Rory in a while (how tall are you? Little Rory is now about 173cm).
Jono, when are you over?
Oh well, might as well do some work. Less than three weeks to Christmas.
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