I think the amount of content in the Real Sport and My Sad Life sections should explain the paucity of content in Local News. Haven't had a lot of time to pop the head out of the gopher hole to see what is happening in the real world.
LOCAL NEWS
Well, some nice individual left a pile of poisoned wheat in Western Springs Park, and some eighty birds ingested it and many died (30). We aren't talking endangered birds, mostly geese, swans, ducks, pigeons, but pretty ugly nevertheless. They left the poison packet in a nearby bin so at least they knew how to counter it (the poison lowers the body temperature so warming them up helped. (Western Springs Lake and Park are very close to where Rory goes to school and Hannah's soccer club, hence they are both named after it).
A truck took out a female motorist near Morrinsville.
News this week that the Maoris want to own all our fresh water. That could be pretty interesting.
An 82 year old diver vowed to continue diving solo, despite being rescued from rocks.
A 46 year old diver got stung by a sting ray (in the stomach so he didn't do a Steve Irwin) and lived to sell his story.
They are still talking about the anti-smacking legislation, with no mention still of what this will mean for dominatrixes (dominatrices?).
Another truck killed a teen who should have been more careful crossing the road. My experience with certain teens in our house is that this of course is highly unlikely. The teen was only hit with the wing mirror, but it was a good shot.
We had our first car surfing fatality this week, more natural selection there. It was on the way home from a funeral for a friend who died in a car accident. Seems we have an unbreakable chain there.
The NZ bio-fuelled boat Earthrace seems doomed. It munted a propeller then ran into a fishing boat and one man was lost.
Bit of a fuss this week about a convicted killer working at the zoo. Not sure why that is such a bad thing. He was convicted of killing his mother six years ago and this part-time work is part of his preparation to return to the community. I suppose it could turn into a situation like that other psycho that went on a rampage and lost a leg a month or two back. But killing animals isn't considered murder, so I don't get it.
A woman rock climber died when she tried to catch a falling rock, whilst celebrating her birthday. Nobody seems to know if it was the rock's birthday.
WORLD NEWS
Helen went to visit George this week. George thought she smelled funny, and laughed at jokes that weren't jokes. Like the one about free trade. Funny how leader of the free world isn't in to free trade. Helen felt it was a successful meeting. George wanted to know how come the Prime Minister from New Zealand didn't sound Dutch, and whether it was traditional for men to wear skirts there like in Scotland.
REAL SPORT
Hannah had her soccer trial on Tuesday and Thursday night, and it was a bit of a trial I have to say. Not sure what's going to happen, the teams are all over the show. There is no 14th grade this year (we found out after the trial) so she could be playing 15th.
Hannah and Charlotte played for both WSC Junior Boys then Girls on Friday. The Boys were missing three key players (Rory, Gareth, and Ben) who were playing the Senior game at the same time. The Junior Boys lost 4-9, but if we'd had our regulars we would have won. We had seven girls playing, and if we'd got all the boys out we would have done better (it was first game ever for one of the boys). The Junior Girls played straight after, recording their second win, 7-4.
Rory's Senior team were playing Kelston Boys, who were expected to top the group. WSC was 0-4 down but they fought their way back for a surprise 4-4 draw. This was an excellent result for them.
Hannah and Charlotte helped again on Sunday with the Junior Boys. They were playing Massey Boys, which I wasn't too worried about but then a bunch of their girls showed up. Their girls are very good, and three of their best got in the pool (they beat the Springs girls 15-0 a week ago). It wasn't the rout I was dreading, in fact quite the reverse. Final score 12-1 win for Springs.
Hannah had her intermediate polo trial on Saturday. Rory and I helped with the selection, grading them in different aspects of play. Rory is going to coach the 2nd team. There is little doubt Hannah will make the top team.
Found out last night that Rory has New Zealand U15 Polo trials coming up.
SPORT
The Blues beat the Waratahs 34-6 (The Waratahs are not having a good season). The Crusaders beat the Stormers 36-11. The Highlanders lost to the Bulls 13-22 at home. The Hurricanes lost 7-30 to the Lions (with their All Blacks playing, which is a surprise). The Brumbies ended the unbeaten run of the Sharks 21-10.
New Zealand Cruised through top of their group (C) in the World Cup. Not sure who they play next. Australia won group A. Sri Lanka won Group B and the Windies unconvincingly won group D.
The Chiefs snuck a rare win in the Super 14 21-19 over the Reds (who aren't doing well).
The Warriors continue their winning form, beating the Broncos (last year's championship winners) 24-14. This is first time ever they have won the opening two games of the season.
NZs All Whites lost 0-4 to Costa Rica (soccer).
Euro 2008 qualifying over the weekend. England had 0-0 draw with Israel, Kazakhstan beat Serbia 2-1, Turkey beat Greece 4-1, Spain beat Denmark 2-1, Russia beat Estonia 2-0. France beat Lithuania 1-0, Portugal beat Belgium 4-0, Germany won 2-1 over Czech Republic, and the Netherlands drew 0-0 with Romania.
MY SAD LIFE
Well, I neglected to mention seeing the Goodins briefly the weekend before last. During the visit, Hannah gave Caitlin some old tap shoes, and they made a racket out on the deck for a while. On Monday, I was informed by Ross that Caitlin woke them up on Sunday morning with a demonstration in the shoes, which were fastened with paper clips because she can't tie laces yet. Very cute, very funny, and I take no responsibility whatsoever. We haven't seen them since which suggests they aren't prepared to risk the kids picking up any new nasty habits.
Caitlin has her introductory tap lesson today at 3:30pm.
We had a stretched Hummer show up in our street. It was big, man. Remember all my jokes about the pantry? Many would apply to the Hummer, baby. It was big. (pantry jokes are now re-treaded at end of this email) Anyway, the kids got in it, they got photos around it. The guy driving it drives it for his mate now and again, and lives in our street across the road and few doors away. He is Charles Riechelmann, used to play for Auckland, the Blues, and was an All Black but kept getting injured.
Hannah's school project dominated spare time in evenings until Thursday night. Now, let's consider the phrase "spare time". Bearing in mind that I have not spent an uninterrupted evening at home since Saturday the 17th, there certainly doesn't appear to have been a lot of time spare. Friday morning, Hannah and I went to the pool at 7am with the WSC girls for some extra polo training, then took the project to school directly from there. It looked pretty good, it just took too much time. Apparently many kids asked for extensions on time. I could not bear to drag the thing out even longer.
I bought a new hard disk video recorder on Tuesday because I don't ever get to see television shows when they air. The new one does a few things better than the old one. No news on repair of old one yet, when the old one returns we will be able to record two channels at once.
Hannah didn't win the cake thing, but she did get highly commend and won a block of chocolate. It didn't make it home.
Paul unearthed a letter from me that was written by me back in 1992, about ten weeks after Rory was born. It describes his birth, me grappling with parenthood, and a few other issues of the day. It is interesting how similar my writing style still is.
Koos turned 42 on Saturday. His broken wrist turned 63. We had dinner with them on Saturday night, and Sjaan, Pam, and Sander. Was good to see them all. We were given news of a likely visit from Heidi in August. The scars on Koos's wrist from the surgery to repair the break are impressive. He's just returned from another couple of weeks in Hong Kong.
Allan is crossing the great arid continent on a train. I don't know if Jacqui went with him. Not sure when he returns.
Rory reinforced the widely held belief (in our house) that teenagers are morons with legs. He had a shower and failed to notice the water lapping around his lower calves (ie above ankles) and proceeded to water the bathroom and hall. The next morning he left the house unlocked. I can't believe we let them vote let alone drive. I think I can say that the punishment has been so far appropriate and should also be motivational in preventing future lapses in water awareness. No texts, no games, no computers, no fun.
After some reshuffling on Saturday, decided I had more time to go see the Motat military on Saturday than Sunday. Took Rory and an unamed female (she lives in Meola Road, plays polo for Western Springs). We saw the Bambis there, stayed a couple of hours. Watched them shoot lollies out of a mortar, Rory and Priya had a radio control tank battle and went for a ride on a military truck. Was knackered after that (we walked there and back as well as around a fair bit) but went straight off to intermediate polo trial. When we saw Bambi on the train as we arrived he called out to me:
Bambi: "Hey Rob!"
Me: "Yes"
Bambi: "We're on a train!"
Me: "Really? Well done!"
Me: (under breath) "I did wonder what the big black thing with smoke coming out the chimney was, I did think it was a coal fired car."
Plans for Matt and Kristy's wedding are drawing to a close, I now have a brief for the speech and plan for the weekend. It is weekend after next.
I cleaned out the pantry on Sunday, so the jokes seem even more apt than they did previously, especially as there now appears to be more space in there..
I also found a sodding big female weta under my laptop in my office. Just imaging for a moment typing on your keyboard then noticing two rather large jagged legs hanging out from beneath your keyboard. Diana thought it was dead but it wasn't. What really worries me is that she might have laid eggs in here somewhere and I am going to see a ton of baby wetas emerge.
The number portability project I have been working on for the last few years is about to go live this coming Sunday, 1st April, a day that has been burned into my mind for quite some time. My cellphone number ported on Wednesday, finally. Seems to go okay so far.
Almost it for now, don't say I didn't warn you about the pantry jokes.
Oh, and in case you are wondering, I did check for wetas this morning before I started typing.
Rob
If you are bored, read on…….
THE PANTRY JOKES
In case you never saw them first time around, here they are again, four years later. Like Steve Martin's 20 nose jokes, Rob's 20 pantry jokes:
1. If it was in Africa, it would be declared an independent state.
2. So, are we going to go shopping in odd months or even ones?
3. If Diana misbehaves, she can sleep in the pantry.
4. Oh look! Dr Who has just landed in our kitchen.
5. The cat is hiding because she knows I want to find out if I can swing her in it.
6. I'm going into the pantry, I may be some time.
7. The Guinness Book of Records want to come and measure it.
8. Boeing just called, they want to build a 747 in it.
9. If the pantry was in Ross and Kath's house they would have a family of Pakistanis living in it.
10. We found a tradesman in there this morning that has been lost since Thursday.
11. It wouldn't just be gays that would take a while to come out of the pantry.
12. In case of an emergency in this pantry, follow the red light strips to the nearest exit.
13. How many trees gave their lives for this pantry?
14. Why doesn't it have a remote for the door like the other garage?
15. The only pantry in the world that is required to have it's own smoke alarm.
16. It's so big that the food is past it's expiry by the time it makes it to the shelf.
17. Please address deliveries of food to 36a Dignan St.
18. It is the only pantry visible from space.
19. You've heard of a walk in pantry, this is a drive in (and you can certainly take a walk IN the pantry).
20. When you open the pantry, the tide comes in.
The 21st is from Gavin, and isn't funny at all:
21. At last, a pantry that is in proportion with my waistline.
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