We've had rain, hail, and further south snow. It has been quite a rough bit of weather, really but I can't see our lake levels being much of a problem.
LOCAL NEWS
There was news that a Christian group has supplied some intelligent design material to 400 high schools. It seems to be being treated with the lack of respect it deserves.
The trimaran Earthrace finally made it around the world, it's been trying and we've been hammered with updates over and over again. It took just under 61 days. Shame it was about 62 days after we lost interest.
Police made an arrest on a seven year old murder case. This wasn't a seven year old that murdered someone or was murdered, but a case that was seven years old. Oh, never mind.
Some guy that is trying to sell an "energy drink" called Cocaine in New Zealand that is sold overseas. Not yet approved because of the caffeine content. Turns out he is a convicted paedophile, not sure what difference that makes, other than proving he is unlikely to be selling this stuff for the public good.
We had a murder in Wanganui, nasty incident where a woman was shot in the head.
A rest home resident had her mouth taped shut by a worker at an Auckland rest home. Not a nice thing to do, but you can easily imagine why.
Despite the weather they still reckon the hydro lakes are low in the south island.
WORLD NEWS
French President and his main squeeze got a shock in Israel when a gunshot went off just as they were boarding their plane. The shot came from a nearby policeman shooting himself in the head. Israeli authorities are now considering changing the rules to stop requiring the use of the fatal salute.
Mugabe had his one horse race in Zimbabwe. Not sure if he's told everyone he won yet, he might wait for it to look like some votes were actually counted.
REAL SPORT
Despite the pretty bad weather this week, Hannah's school soccer team played Avondale on Wednesday in brutally cold conditions with a little bit of wet thrown in. It was my first game solo coaching them, and we had no subs. We really struggled to get out of the box at first but the first time we cleared it we screamed down to the other end and scored. Couldn't score again in the first half. In the second, an opposing player pushed one of ours over, from behind, with both hands, inside the six yard box. It was a penalty from wherever you looked at it but the ref didn't see it that way. We scored from the corner, so wasn't the end of the world. Hannah scored the last goal with a nice little pass back to her and popped it over everyone and in. Now three wins from three and firmly fixed at the top of the table.
Rory found out he won $10 from his swim meet, which he got when he finally went to swim squad.
All soccer on Saturday was cancelled, there was no training all week.
Hannah's club polo team had a warm up game on Sunday. I didn't really want her to play (see below for reason). She didn't play much, team was 1-3 when she came one. She helped tidy things up and they came back to draw 3-3.
SPORT
Paul Chambers rightly pointed out that I neglected to mention Euro last week. We saw Holland knocked out over that weekend and Spain beat Italy on penalties last Monday morning. We've had problems with video feed but was world wide in Turkey v Germany semi-final, which Germany won 3-2 about 1 minute from full time. The Spain v Russia semi-final was close until Spain started to establish their position, winning 3-0 in the end. I thought Russia might have had a chance.
The Black Caps won again, putting them ahead 2-1 in the series with one game left. That weather shortened abandoned game may yet haunt them, but good on them so far. The last game was at Lords on Saturday night, our time, and they managed to win that even more convincingly to take the series 3-1.
This morning, Spain beat Germany in a replay of the war in the 1930's, except there were less tanks. Spain won 1-0, good result, feel a little sorry for the Germans but they have won it a lot already.
MY SAD LIFE
Diana enjoyed her birthday. We had lunch at Prego, for a change. We have been going there more than twenty years. The kids and I made dinner. Rory took the junior role, doing little more than grating cheese. Hannah and I did the bulk of it. Nobody was ill, which was a great relief (it was fettuccine with a mushroom sauce), and some other bits, I forget.
In the rain coming back from the supermarket for supplies on Monday night we picked up Karen and her little dog Poppie. I indiscreetly said to her it was so much nicer seeing her while I was wearing underpants (because on Sunday, after swimming I had to go commando, which was really bad given that we had to go shopping and we bumped into so many people we knew, including Karen). The good news is that I did remember them this week, all three times that I went swimming.
Hannah hurt her finger again at training on Thursday night. We checked it out Friday, it wasn't broken, but pretty sore. We are getting quite a collection of x-rays, we are thinking of decorating her room with them.
We moved the new chest of drawers into her room during the week, rearranged things, and Hannah did a lot of very overdue cleaning. I wouldn't say it is a massive improvement, but it is an improvement, the floordrobe is smaller than it was.
Bit of a funny weekend, weather sucked, no soccer, but a few other things happening around the place.
Mum is in Sydney at the moment, staying with Penny and family.
Seeing Euro 2008 is now finished, I think Paul Chambers must be having his 25th birthday this Wednesday. A quarter of a century, yuck.
Hannah has been a little high-energy this week, had no soccer training (all three trainings cancelled) and only one soccer game. However, she's also had more homework, and had to write a story about being a refugee. It could have been about the suffering of a teenager in the holocaust not having credit on their cellphone but it wasn't. I thought it was a pretty good story, really.
I now have three cellphones. One is work, on Telecom, one is my secret one (the free one that is dying), and one is on Vodafone so the kids can text me. It is also useful for checking the Vodafone networks call routing like over this weekend just gone when we had a big job to do. Yeah, I know, sad.
30 June 2008
23 June 2008
South Auckland's reputation continues to head south, the status quo returns in Zimbabwe, weird things in our street - 23/06/2008
LOCAL NEWS
Two people were awarded $1000 each for being served dishwashing liquid instead of mulled wine. Sounds rather odd. Pretty sure it wasn't an accident but why do it?
Another nasty incident in Manukau with a woman being hunted in a car park after her handbag was snatched. They hit her with their car, she got pretty serious injuries. South Auckland is getting very bad press at the moment, a nasty place to visit and you wouldn't want to live there. Arrests have since been made.
The same day, a woman was quoted in the news telling us how we needed positive stories about South Auckland. You have to admit the timing wasn't great. We do get plenty of positive stories:
- police made a positive ID of the gunman
- sexual attacks by HIV-positive men
- man dies after being positive he was on the correct side of the motorway
A senior police officer was killed on a bicycle this week, he was an advocate of bicycling.
A week after black Friday, we had a pretty bad one. Two died and one was injured in a boat crash. A man was crushed by a digger. Another man was toasted when a car caught fire in South Auckland (yep, South Auckland again). It think there was another event as well, but who needs it?
Winston Peters, who has managed to play a part in every government since MMP came along, has announced he is going to re-take Tauranga. I would hope that all his elderly supporters have died or got dementure sufficiently to have forgotten who he is and the younger ones coming through have seen enough to be convinced he doesn't need to be voted for.
Been a bit of gang warfare going on this week. It came to a head in Hawke's Bay, after gate crashing a party. This was not South Auckland, which was a good thing.
WORLD NEWS
As the GW presidency commences it's death roll, he now wants to open up offshore drilling for oil again. Let's think, he has about five months left. One awful thing per month should do it. How about:
- free maccas to every house-bound morbidly obese person;
- a scheme to give firearm offenders a course on firearms use and a second chance (should create a whole generation of law-unabiding sharpshooters;
- compulsory intelligent design instruction in schools;
- repeal amendment 21 (which repeals amendment 18, which was abolition);
- allow the use of pets, mannequins, and sacks of hammers in the car pool lane (because anything with a higher IQ than GW is a person too)
An Australian and a New Zealander fell 26 stories when something failed while they were patching walls on a multi-storey building on the Gold Coast. Not nice.
Morgan Tsvangirai has pulled out of the run-off election in Zimbabwe. That can't be a good sign. He says a fair poll was impossible among all the violence. Mugabe wins because he has more goons, eh? Democracy at work. When you think about it, it does basically come down to money. Whether you buy hired muscle, spin doctors, or advertising, is it really any different?
Yet again, boating in the Philippines is proved to be a little x-games like with 800 missing. Must have been a pretty big ferry.
REAL SPORT
Hannah's school soccer team played Lynfield this week. Lynfield looked scary on paper, having scored ten goals in two games and conceding none. We'd only had one game, had no trainings for two weeks, and didn't look convincing in the first game. However we scored reasonably early, then scored again from a penalty when the goalie picked up a ball passed back to them from their own player, and then the floodgates opened. We won 7-0, which would have been a bit of a shock to the Lynfield team. With only two games under their belt, Springs are now top of the table (some have played three), and Lynfield is second.
On Saturday, in pretty ordinary conditions, Hannah's team played another team that came up to div 1 after grading. They weren't bad but didn't really have much of an attack. Hannah's team won 2-0.
Rory played three games of polo over the weekend for his under 16 team. They drew 5-5 with Northsport, beat Marist 7-3, and then drew 6-6 with the New Zealand U15 team which contained four players who came from our club. Rory scored the last goal to equalise with 5 seconds left, great effort, he was pretty happy.
SPORT
The Black Caps are not having a great tour. In an ODI on Wednesday that they were going to win, rain forced abandonment just one over before they could call it a game. Even at that point I think that if England had taken one wicket with every ball in the unplayed over, New Zealand would still have won (not quite true, but not far off).
The All Blacks beat England 44-12 in the second test but key players Richie McCaw and Ali Williams were injured, not sure how bad.
And the same night the Black Caps managed to beat England, finally, to level the ODI series. Wasn't a pretty game though, nobody got a decent score.
New Zealand won the under 20 world rugby title and the NZ team got three golds in the world rowing event in Poland.
MY SAD LIFE
Spent 90 minutes getting from Roskill to Otahuhu on Wednesday. No wonder I avoid going places. I heard the Mad Butcher on the radio while I was in the car (and the same adverts over and over again). He had a conversation about dyslexia, which he has, except he pronounces is "dillexia". It was pretty sad.
Kind of scary on Thursday, the invasion of the babies. Was leaving to go to a meeting and there were four or five pushchairs charging down the road. It was for a coffee morning that Sarah was attending. I just focused on the road and got the heck out of Dodge. It was nearly as bad as the weird chanting going on in the front house when we walked past it on Sunday, which was very "village of the damned".
On Friday, went for a walk with Sarah and the twins. I was pushing them up and down when Sarah was in the post shop. Lots of randoms kept coming and talking to me, it was weird, haven't had that happen for a while.
We seemed to be seeing the Chambers family serially this week. Hannah and I bumped into Jaqui on Friday, Allan popped in on Saturday, and Hannah and I saw Emma on Sunday when we were, um, shopping. We are going looking for Paul today to complete the set.
We had to go see teachers about Rory's performance in exams, it went okay, just made Thursday night kind of busy.
Hannah delivered her presentation on scallops on Friday, and does sharks today. She seems to be really in to seafood subjects at the moment.
I finished reading the God Delusion. Interesting, but a bit overwhelming at times.
Today is Diana's birthday. A dinner is planned, not sure how good it will be. Scurvy could result.
Two people were awarded $1000 each for being served dishwashing liquid instead of mulled wine. Sounds rather odd. Pretty sure it wasn't an accident but why do it?
Another nasty incident in Manukau with a woman being hunted in a car park after her handbag was snatched. They hit her with their car, she got pretty serious injuries. South Auckland is getting very bad press at the moment, a nasty place to visit and you wouldn't want to live there. Arrests have since been made.
The same day, a woman was quoted in the news telling us how we needed positive stories about South Auckland. You have to admit the timing wasn't great. We do get plenty of positive stories:
- police made a positive ID of the gunman
- sexual attacks by HIV-positive men
- man dies after being positive he was on the correct side of the motorway
A senior police officer was killed on a bicycle this week, he was an advocate of bicycling.
A week after black Friday, we had a pretty bad one. Two died and one was injured in a boat crash. A man was crushed by a digger. Another man was toasted when a car caught fire in South Auckland (yep, South Auckland again). It think there was another event as well, but who needs it?
Winston Peters, who has managed to play a part in every government since MMP came along, has announced he is going to re-take Tauranga. I would hope that all his elderly supporters have died or got dementure sufficiently to have forgotten who he is and the younger ones coming through have seen enough to be convinced he doesn't need to be voted for.
Been a bit of gang warfare going on this week. It came to a head in Hawke's Bay, after gate crashing a party. This was not South Auckland, which was a good thing.
WORLD NEWS
As the GW presidency commences it's death roll, he now wants to open up offshore drilling for oil again. Let's think, he has about five months left. One awful thing per month should do it. How about:
- free maccas to every house-bound morbidly obese person;
- a scheme to give firearm offenders a course on firearms use and a second chance (should create a whole generation of law-unabiding sharpshooters;
- compulsory intelligent design instruction in schools;
- repeal amendment 21 (which repeals amendment 18, which was abolition);
- allow the use of pets, mannequins, and sacks of hammers in the car pool lane (because anything with a higher IQ than GW is a person too)
An Australian and a New Zealander fell 26 stories when something failed while they were patching walls on a multi-storey building on the Gold Coast. Not nice.
Morgan Tsvangirai has pulled out of the run-off election in Zimbabwe. That can't be a good sign. He says a fair poll was impossible among all the violence. Mugabe wins because he has more goons, eh? Democracy at work. When you think about it, it does basically come down to money. Whether you buy hired muscle, spin doctors, or advertising, is it really any different?
Yet again, boating in the Philippines is proved to be a little x-games like with 800 missing. Must have been a pretty big ferry.
REAL SPORT
Hannah's school soccer team played Lynfield this week. Lynfield looked scary on paper, having scored ten goals in two games and conceding none. We'd only had one game, had no trainings for two weeks, and didn't look convincing in the first game. However we scored reasonably early, then scored again from a penalty when the goalie picked up a ball passed back to them from their own player, and then the floodgates opened. We won 7-0, which would have been a bit of a shock to the Lynfield team. With only two games under their belt, Springs are now top of the table (some have played three), and Lynfield is second.
On Saturday, in pretty ordinary conditions, Hannah's team played another team that came up to div 1 after grading. They weren't bad but didn't really have much of an attack. Hannah's team won 2-0.
Rory played three games of polo over the weekend for his under 16 team. They drew 5-5 with Northsport, beat Marist 7-3, and then drew 6-6 with the New Zealand U15 team which contained four players who came from our club. Rory scored the last goal to equalise with 5 seconds left, great effort, he was pretty happy.
SPORT
The Black Caps are not having a great tour. In an ODI on Wednesday that they were going to win, rain forced abandonment just one over before they could call it a game. Even at that point I think that if England had taken one wicket with every ball in the unplayed over, New Zealand would still have won (not quite true, but not far off).
The All Blacks beat England 44-12 in the second test but key players Richie McCaw and Ali Williams were injured, not sure how bad.
And the same night the Black Caps managed to beat England, finally, to level the ODI series. Wasn't a pretty game though, nobody got a decent score.
New Zealand won the under 20 world rugby title and the NZ team got three golds in the world rowing event in Poland.
MY SAD LIFE
Spent 90 minutes getting from Roskill to Otahuhu on Wednesday. No wonder I avoid going places. I heard the Mad Butcher on the radio while I was in the car (and the same adverts over and over again). He had a conversation about dyslexia, which he has, except he pronounces is "dillexia". It was pretty sad.
Kind of scary on Thursday, the invasion of the babies. Was leaving to go to a meeting and there were four or five pushchairs charging down the road. It was for a coffee morning that Sarah was attending. I just focused on the road and got the heck out of Dodge. It was nearly as bad as the weird chanting going on in the front house when we walked past it on Sunday, which was very "village of the damned".
On Friday, went for a walk with Sarah and the twins. I was pushing them up and down when Sarah was in the post shop. Lots of randoms kept coming and talking to me, it was weird, haven't had that happen for a while.
We seemed to be seeing the Chambers family serially this week. Hannah and I bumped into Jaqui on Friday, Allan popped in on Saturday, and Hannah and I saw Emma on Sunday when we were, um, shopping. We are going looking for Paul today to complete the set.
We had to go see teachers about Rory's performance in exams, it went okay, just made Thursday night kind of busy.
Hannah delivered her presentation on scallops on Friday, and does sharks today. She seems to be really in to seafood subjects at the moment.
I finished reading the God Delusion. Interesting, but a bit overwhelming at times.
Today is Diana's birthday. A dinner is planned, not sure how good it will be. Scurvy could result.
16 June 2008
Footbridges attack people, a lucky mistake, car beats bus, free gift in tinned tuna - 16/06/2008
LOCAL NEWS
The dead shopkeeper became quite a controversy this week. It seems the police were reluctant to enter the scene until they were convinced the area was secure. So while friends and family were with him inside, the ambulancemen were there 20 minutes before they went in to assist. This does seem excessive and you wonder why you'd bother using sirens to rush somewhere if you have an extra 20 minutes to get there. Also, while they waited, some others came in and actually stole more stuff from the shop, which is not only incredibly tasteless, but shows that many did not see the risk the police saw.
A quality of living survey has Auckland as fifth, behind Zurich, Vienna, Geneva, and Vancouver. It was the highest placed southern hemisphere city. The bad news is the survey is used to determine how much extra to pay employees that are posted to those places so you don't get much to come live in Auckland.
It was the agricultural field days at Mystery Creek this week. The Goodins were down there for it, as is now the norm. It is traditionally the coldest week of the year but it didn't seem that cold.
Two bodies were found on top of a rail carriage in a shunting yard in Christchurch (funny how we find bodies but don't often lose them). They didn't think it was suspicious, and yet they had not yet determined the cause of death. Later the story unfolded and it sounded like they hitched a ride and maybe met the ceiling of a tunnel on an unplanned basis. Sounds like more accurately there was a rail carriage decorated with an interesting new colour known as "hint of hitchhiker". As for the cause of death, it's not real hard to figure out when the bodies don't appear to have any bones above the C3 vertebra. They have found a footbridge with a matching stain.
We had a car versus bus incident this week, where the car won. It wasn't a proper sized bus, just a mini-bus thing, but the driver ran off the road and down a bank.
A guy found a gold kiwi label pin inside a tin of tuna, he didn't seem to bothered (he found it in his tuna sandwich, actually).
An 80 year old woman died as a result of a home invasion in Manurewa, the place where the liquor store guy was shot. It's getting a bit of bad reputation.
The principal of a Wellington high school has copped flak for naming a girl who killed herself. Apparently it is illegal to say a cause of death before the coroner has done their bit. However, I can imagine that most of the school were already aware and misleading gossip would probably have been more harmful. It is more likely it could be used to put people off the idea than encourage others to do the same thing.
An Avondale man got it wrong on a TAB ticket (ticked the wrong race) and won over $10k, but didn't realise and biffed the ticket in the bin. The TAB noticed the win was not claimed, checked security footage, found the ticket in the bin and tracked him down. Got bit of police work in the name of customer service.
WORLD NEWS
It's bad enough with women's magazines and their headlines of dubious accuracy, but the headline "Bond star slices finger off while shooting" was just bollocks. He sliced the finger-tip off, not even one bone, he was back filming a few hours later. What a crock.
GW met with the Queen. Described (ad nauseum on the breakfast news) as a quiet meeting between old friends. Well, if that is the case, my esteem for the Queen is severely diminished.
REAL SPORT
Hannah's soccer team were missing both their centre backs for the game (Hannah being one of them), but she got there at half time. They were never really in trouble, winning 8-0.
The team I help coach ended up with only seven players, which was woeful, they lost 2-3, which was pretty damn good considering.
SPORT
I watched Netherlands versus Italy, a game with two quite remarkable goals and one more normal one. Holland beating Italy 3-0 was quite a surprise. I also watched Netherlands versus France, yet another game where the Dutch disposed of a world cup finalist, 4-1 this time.
I went with Koos, Julie, Heidi, and others to see the All Blacks play England at Eden Park, they won 37-20.
MY SAD LIFE
Hannah had stage challenge on Wednesday, we saw a version of it on Tuesday evening. She spent 15 1/2 hours at the Aotea Centre, got home at nearly midnight. Unbelievable, when you consider they spent about seven minutes performing.
Rory achieved new heights this week. After a party on Friday night, they went walkabout to Maccas, ordered 20 extra patties and made ridiculous burgers with them. On the walk home they were asked by police if they had been near the weed. The irony is you could smell a ton of it on Bond St walking to and from the rugby.
Rory borrowed a Nintendo Wii off someone this week. It seems quite stupid. People stand there waving their arms about.
Hannah also had her dance show this weekend, which we went to see on Sunday. It went well, I cannot claim to be an expert so won't put a review here.
Once the show was over, Hannah had to do a speech on shark attacks and do two portraits. She did Diana and me. They weren't too bad although I think mine was easier to do.
Hannah and I have just been to the hand clinic for what was the final visit. She's all go, just a couple more weeks of being careful. She did the hand strength thing today and I got to do it too. I got 46 on both hands so I am very well balanced.
Rory is off to Waihi for school today and left early.
It is Diana's birthday next week. I was going to suggest people give me ideas for a present but I think we should save a bit of bother and you just buy the gift and send it directly to her ;-)
The dead shopkeeper became quite a controversy this week. It seems the police were reluctant to enter the scene until they were convinced the area was secure. So while friends and family were with him inside, the ambulancemen were there 20 minutes before they went in to assist. This does seem excessive and you wonder why you'd bother using sirens to rush somewhere if you have an extra 20 minutes to get there. Also, while they waited, some others came in and actually stole more stuff from the shop, which is not only incredibly tasteless, but shows that many did not see the risk the police saw.
A quality of living survey has Auckland as fifth, behind Zurich, Vienna, Geneva, and Vancouver. It was the highest placed southern hemisphere city. The bad news is the survey is used to determine how much extra to pay employees that are posted to those places so you don't get much to come live in Auckland.
It was the agricultural field days at Mystery Creek this week. The Goodins were down there for it, as is now the norm. It is traditionally the coldest week of the year but it didn't seem that cold.
Two bodies were found on top of a rail carriage in a shunting yard in Christchurch (funny how we find bodies but don't often lose them). They didn't think it was suspicious, and yet they had not yet determined the cause of death. Later the story unfolded and it sounded like they hitched a ride and maybe met the ceiling of a tunnel on an unplanned basis. Sounds like more accurately there was a rail carriage decorated with an interesting new colour known as "hint of hitchhiker". As for the cause of death, it's not real hard to figure out when the bodies don't appear to have any bones above the C3 vertebra. They have found a footbridge with a matching stain.
We had a car versus bus incident this week, where the car won. It wasn't a proper sized bus, just a mini-bus thing, but the driver ran off the road and down a bank.
A guy found a gold kiwi label pin inside a tin of tuna, he didn't seem to bothered (he found it in his tuna sandwich, actually).
An 80 year old woman died as a result of a home invasion in Manurewa, the place where the liquor store guy was shot. It's getting a bit of bad reputation.
The principal of a Wellington high school has copped flak for naming a girl who killed herself. Apparently it is illegal to say a cause of death before the coroner has done their bit. However, I can imagine that most of the school were already aware and misleading gossip would probably have been more harmful. It is more likely it could be used to put people off the idea than encourage others to do the same thing.
An Avondale man got it wrong on a TAB ticket (ticked the wrong race) and won over $10k, but didn't realise and biffed the ticket in the bin. The TAB noticed the win was not claimed, checked security footage, found the ticket in the bin and tracked him down. Got bit of police work in the name of customer service.
WORLD NEWS
It's bad enough with women's magazines and their headlines of dubious accuracy, but the headline "Bond star slices finger off while shooting" was just bollocks. He sliced the finger-tip off, not even one bone, he was back filming a few hours later. What a crock.
GW met with the Queen. Described (ad nauseum on the breakfast news) as a quiet meeting between old friends. Well, if that is the case, my esteem for the Queen is severely diminished.
REAL SPORT
Hannah's soccer team were missing both their centre backs for the game (Hannah being one of them), but she got there at half time. They were never really in trouble, winning 8-0.
The team I help coach ended up with only seven players, which was woeful, they lost 2-3, which was pretty damn good considering.
SPORT
I watched Netherlands versus Italy, a game with two quite remarkable goals and one more normal one. Holland beating Italy 3-0 was quite a surprise. I also watched Netherlands versus France, yet another game where the Dutch disposed of a world cup finalist, 4-1 this time.
I went with Koos, Julie, Heidi, and others to see the All Blacks play England at Eden Park, they won 37-20.
MY SAD LIFE
Hannah had stage challenge on Wednesday, we saw a version of it on Tuesday evening. She spent 15 1/2 hours at the Aotea Centre, got home at nearly midnight. Unbelievable, when you consider they spent about seven minutes performing.
Rory achieved new heights this week. After a party on Friday night, they went walkabout to Maccas, ordered 20 extra patties and made ridiculous burgers with them. On the walk home they were asked by police if they had been near the weed. The irony is you could smell a ton of it on Bond St walking to and from the rugby.
Rory borrowed a Nintendo Wii off someone this week. It seems quite stupid. People stand there waving their arms about.
Hannah also had her dance show this weekend, which we went to see on Sunday. It went well, I cannot claim to be an expert so won't put a review here.
Once the show was over, Hannah had to do a speech on shark attacks and do two portraits. She did Diana and me. They weren't too bad although I think mine was easier to do.
Hannah and I have just been to the hand clinic for what was the final visit. She's all go, just a couple more weeks of being careful. She did the hand strength thing today and I got to do it too. I got 46 on both hands so I am very well balanced.
Rory is off to Waihi for school today and left early.
It is Diana's birthday next week. I was going to suggest people give me ideas for a present but I think we should save a bit of bother and you just buy the gift and send it directly to her ;-)
9 June 2008
Road rage spreads to swim lanes, petrol and cheese thefts increase, Hillary throws in the towel - 09/06/2008
LOCAL NEWS
A government survey reveals we are a nation of fatties with only one in three considered an ideal body weight.
There were concerns about "lane rage" this week, like road rage but in swimming pool lanes. It doesn't surprise me, I could bore you for hours about idiots swimming slowly or badly in the wrong lane, hanging off lane ropes, and being utterly ignorant and inconsiderate.
Weird thing in Ngongataha at 3am on Thursday morning, when a body was found next to a hedge fire .
First news I have heard about petrol syphoning was this week, I have been silly enough to say I was surprised that it hadn't been happening more with the price of gas. I am not sure any of us need to be reminded of the price. We noticed this week a drop in the price of the 1kg block of cheese, now 900g to save us money.
Very nasty car accident where a 50 odd yo man announced he was going off to top himself, headed south, drank some booze, smashed in to two other cars, killed a woman, but failed to actually finish himself off.
A shopkeeper was shot in South Auckland during a robbery over the weekend. He later died.
A Polish tramper was lost for a week, but his body was finally found over the weekend. He was attempting a rather challenging trek but he was found in a stream.
The public helped pull four people from a burning van over the weekend. Funny, doesn't really equate with the guy at Rory's school that was knocked off his bike, broke his arm badly, and was ignored by passing drivers.
We continue to be told we are on the brink of a power crisis, with hydro lake levels lowest since 1992.
WORLD NEWS
The focus in the China earthquake zone has moved to unblocking rivers from rescuing people.
It seems like it's all over for Hillary Clinton, but one must wonder whether all this attention on the Democratic primary and the fact that Barack Obama has been in the news way more that McCain (although he does have the French fry connection to help name recognition, whereas Obama rhymes with Osama) that it could help his chances in the Presidential election. And let's be honest, he's not very black. Apparently it's the first time a black man has beaten a white woman in public and not gone to jail.
REAL SPORT
Hannah had her first high school soccer game on Wednesday. It was away at Rutherford High School. Hannah's team has four pretty good players, a number of okay players and some real newbies. They were up 1-0, then conceded a goal to be 1-1 at half time. They had some great attempts in the second half before finally scoring about ten minutes from the end and they managed to keep the opposition out of their goal (although there were some nervous moments).
Didn't quite go so well in her club game. They were down one nil, came back to 2-1 up, but a late penalty against them meant a 2-2 draw. The goalie didn't have a great game, she basically scored both goals. I had to referee the first half, and ran out of steam so got another guy to ref the second (which was when the penalty was, I am really glad I didn't ref that).
The teams for U14 club polo were announced on Sunday, Hannah is in the A team, not really surprised. Don't think the team is particularly strong this year to be honest, I think it was a stronger team last year, although the coach is better this year.
SPORT
The third test between the Black Caps and England started on Thursday night our time. The Poms batted first and was hard to tell who was better placed on day one. Then day two things turned to poo and it just didn't get any better for the Black Caps on day three with them fight a losing battle.
The All Blacks played Ireland, who have never beaten the ABs, and they didn't this time ever, losing 11-21
Euro 2008 kicked off over the weekend. Switzerland and Austria both lost (they are joint hosts). Not sure how I am going to manage to see any of the games. I could subscribe to the UEFA website but you can't copy the video to watch it on a DVD player or anything you have to watch it on a PC and that sucks. Even worse, I could get Sky for a month for $299 (unbelievable) or get it for a minimum of 12 months and that will cost just over $300. So I guess I am not going to see it.
MY SAD LIFE
Rory finished his exams on Wednesday and then achieved nothing for the rest of the week because others still had exams so he had nothing to do.
Today is Ross's birthday, the first of the rush in June. Tomorrow it is Craig's. They are both 44. I suppose a magnum would be appropriate? (you have no idea how long I have waited for that little play on words, so obscure that only the truly sad would understand).
For Ross's birthday, we went to laser strike on Saturday night. It was pretty funny, with a mix of newbies and veterans. The mums (like Kath, Diana, and Sue) who had never been anywhere near such a place, didn't quite know what to expect. They enjoyed themselves a lot more than I would have predicted, in fact I was surprised they all wanted to do it. Rory had a lovely time pwning the noobs. Hannah and I teamed up a bit. I came dead last in the second one when I was trying to survive (and rest a little) and that was lame so I went Rambo styles and came second.
I seemed to see an awful lot of small children over the weekend. Saw Sam and Jack on Friday. Sarah and I had a feeding race and me and Jack won (twins are 17 weeks old tomorrow). Then on Saturday we saw the Bambis with their two girls (although they are like five and three so not that little) between soccer, stage challenge, and laser strike. Gavin and Yana popped in with Maria on Sunday, Maria is about 10 or 11 months old.
Drama this morning at 7:45 when Rory realised he was going to Waihi for the day. That was exciting. Hannah also had lots of homework due, so it was a bit of a scramble. We recycled something Rory used for one thing, and as Hannah helped with the first attempt it seemed okay. Will be interesting to see if anyone notices (it was two years ago so I doubt it).
It's a very busy week this week with the Stage Challenge thing on Wednesday (a performing arts school competition that Hannah is doing) and Hannah's dance show this weekend also. But life should be considerably simpler next week. The additional practises have been crazy.
Oh well, that will do for now. No Hannah section, she forgot to do something.
A government survey reveals we are a nation of fatties with only one in three considered an ideal body weight.
There were concerns about "lane rage" this week, like road rage but in swimming pool lanes. It doesn't surprise me, I could bore you for hours about idiots swimming slowly or badly in the wrong lane, hanging off lane ropes, and being utterly ignorant and inconsiderate.
Weird thing in Ngongataha at 3am on Thursday morning, when a body was found next to a hedge fire .
First news I have heard about petrol syphoning was this week, I have been silly enough to say I was surprised that it hadn't been happening more with the price of gas. I am not sure any of us need to be reminded of the price. We noticed this week a drop in the price of the 1kg block of cheese, now 900g to save us money.
Very nasty car accident where a 50 odd yo man announced he was going off to top himself, headed south, drank some booze, smashed in to two other cars, killed a woman, but failed to actually finish himself off.
A shopkeeper was shot in South Auckland during a robbery over the weekend. He later died.
A Polish tramper was lost for a week, but his body was finally found over the weekend. He was attempting a rather challenging trek but he was found in a stream.
The public helped pull four people from a burning van over the weekend. Funny, doesn't really equate with the guy at Rory's school that was knocked off his bike, broke his arm badly, and was ignored by passing drivers.
We continue to be told we are on the brink of a power crisis, with hydro lake levels lowest since 1992.
WORLD NEWS
The focus in the China earthquake zone has moved to unblocking rivers from rescuing people.
It seems like it's all over for Hillary Clinton, but one must wonder whether all this attention on the Democratic primary and the fact that Barack Obama has been in the news way more that McCain (although he does have the French fry connection to help name recognition, whereas Obama rhymes with Osama) that it could help his chances in the Presidential election. And let's be honest, he's not very black. Apparently it's the first time a black man has beaten a white woman in public and not gone to jail.
REAL SPORT
Hannah had her first high school soccer game on Wednesday. It was away at Rutherford High School. Hannah's team has four pretty good players, a number of okay players and some real newbies. They were up 1-0, then conceded a goal to be 1-1 at half time. They had some great attempts in the second half before finally scoring about ten minutes from the end and they managed to keep the opposition out of their goal (although there were some nervous moments).
Didn't quite go so well in her club game. They were down one nil, came back to 2-1 up, but a late penalty against them meant a 2-2 draw. The goalie didn't have a great game, she basically scored both goals. I had to referee the first half, and ran out of steam so got another guy to ref the second (which was when the penalty was, I am really glad I didn't ref that).
The teams for U14 club polo were announced on Sunday, Hannah is in the A team, not really surprised. Don't think the team is particularly strong this year to be honest, I think it was a stronger team last year, although the coach is better this year.
SPORT
The third test between the Black Caps and England started on Thursday night our time. The Poms batted first and was hard to tell who was better placed on day one. Then day two things turned to poo and it just didn't get any better for the Black Caps on day three with them fight a losing battle.
The All Blacks played Ireland, who have never beaten the ABs, and they didn't this time ever, losing 11-21
Euro 2008 kicked off over the weekend. Switzerland and Austria both lost (they are joint hosts). Not sure how I am going to manage to see any of the games. I could subscribe to the UEFA website but you can't copy the video to watch it on a DVD player or anything you have to watch it on a PC and that sucks. Even worse, I could get Sky for a month for $299 (unbelievable) or get it for a minimum of 12 months and that will cost just over $300. So I guess I am not going to see it.
MY SAD LIFE
Rory finished his exams on Wednesday and then achieved nothing for the rest of the week because others still had exams so he had nothing to do.
Today is Ross's birthday, the first of the rush in June. Tomorrow it is Craig's. They are both 44. I suppose a magnum would be appropriate? (you have no idea how long I have waited for that little play on words, so obscure that only the truly sad would understand).
For Ross's birthday, we went to laser strike on Saturday night. It was pretty funny, with a mix of newbies and veterans. The mums (like Kath, Diana, and Sue) who had never been anywhere near such a place, didn't quite know what to expect. They enjoyed themselves a lot more than I would have predicted, in fact I was surprised they all wanted to do it. Rory had a lovely time pwning the noobs. Hannah and I teamed up a bit. I came dead last in the second one when I was trying to survive (and rest a little) and that was lame so I went Rambo styles and came second.
I seemed to see an awful lot of small children over the weekend. Saw Sam and Jack on Friday. Sarah and I had a feeding race and me and Jack won (twins are 17 weeks old tomorrow). Then on Saturday we saw the Bambis with their two girls (although they are like five and three so not that little) between soccer, stage challenge, and laser strike. Gavin and Yana popped in with Maria on Sunday, Maria is about 10 or 11 months old.
Drama this morning at 7:45 when Rory realised he was going to Waihi for the day. That was exciting. Hannah also had lots of homework due, so it was a bit of a scramble. We recycled something Rory used for one thing, and as Hannah helped with the first attempt it seemed okay. Will be interesting to see if anyone notices (it was two years ago so I doubt it).
It's a very busy week this week with the Stage Challenge thing on Wednesday (a performing arts school competition that Hannah is doing) and Hannah's dance show this weekend also. But life should be considerably simpler next week. The additional practises have been crazy.
Oh well, that will do for now. No Hannah section, she forgot to do something.
2 June 2008
Warning! May contain an excessive number of exclamation marks - 02/06/2008
LOCAL NEWS
We had a bit of good old-fashioned public service junket controversy this week when someone revealed that 94 Housing New Zealand went to a conference in one of the country's most luxurious venues (great publicity for Tongariro Lodge). They spent $65,000, which sounds like a lot, but they reckon was $250 a day. That sounds reasonable but I am sure some more middle of the road venue would have done it for less. Housing New Zealand is responsible for providing low cost housing and so living the high life for a couple of days does seem a little out of place. Not sure it was going to win National the election, but worth a go I suppose.
Assault with a hedgehog made the news here and all over. There was some question as to whether it was alive or not. I am going to solve this mystery, it wasn't a hedgehog, it was a toilet brush head. Meanwhile we heard about the mistreatment of hedgehogs whilst trying to film a news item on the subject.
An New Zealand born photographer has been found dead in Kenya. Probably beaten up for his camera gear.
The mayor of Manukau City collapsed on stage at a concert thing this weekend. He had a mega-heart attack, but is still alive. Not sure what he will do at his next appearance (except that it could be lying in a wooden box).
Had another guy die while evading police, a 31 second chase near Dargaville was enough to finish him off. Saves heaps of time in courts and stuff.
The credibility of global warming theory suffered when we had the coolest May since 1992. That year we had power outages to contend with, it was the year Rory was born.
Being Queen's Birthday Weekend we had some honours given out. Who cares.
The house for auction for $1 reserve sold for $395,000. Rory wanted to flash mob the venue and stop genuine bidders from being able to bid, could have been interesting.
Been a fuss about three high profile cases resulting in not-guilty verdicts. Yes, the police might not be doing their job, but surely it is okay for someone to be not-guilty otherwise why do we bother?
WORLD NEWS
Some guy went to get an old piece of junk (given to him by his rag and bone man grand father when he was a boy) valued and it turned out to be a 2,500 year old solid gold Persian thing that he used to shoot with a slug gun and is now worth over a million dollars. Lucky guy.
Meanwhile a guy in Brisbane had a possum come out of the toilet. Interesting. He filmed it and stuck it on Youtube, I checked out one of the videos, it was crap.
REAL SPORT
Just the one game this weekend, Hannah's soccer team played the team that came second in grading (Fencibles). Previously they lost to them 0-2 when Hannah wasn't playing. It was a tight game, very exciting. They scored first, then we equalised with a very nice goal involving three players. The other team scored again and we hammered their goal but couldn't get one, so we lost 1-2.
SPORT
England managed to win the second test,
The Crusaders sort of scraped passed the Waratahs to win the Super 12 final. Oops, Super 14, whatever.
The All Black squad was named, they play Ireland next week.
MY SAD LIFE
Paul thinks Hannah's bit last week was better than the rest. I am not speaking to him now.
We managed to see some people this weekend, the Goodins on Saturday (Rory arrived home just in time for dessert, the scumbag) and Allan and Jacqui on Sunday.
We had a few other things over the weekend, Rory had three polo trainings and a swim meet. I was at the pool already because Hannah had training at 6:45am so I stayed there to assist (He consisted of the whole team from his swim club so it didn't seem right to leave him alone). It was pretty funny, he hasn't done any solo races in a swim meet before, so his official time in both was the slowest of the race (the group heats based on times, slowest to fastest). Rory was in heat one of six for the 100m breast stroke. He was with a bunch of 11 year olds, standing on the blocks there were all these little guys then a giant in lane 8. He basically beat everyone in his heat by a length, shaving 42 seconds off his time. The poor bugger that was the fastest in the fastest heat got about 3 seconds on his PB and Rory still beat him. In the second race, some kids next to me said "geez, look at the guy in lane 8 go". He was about 0.3 sec off qualifying for level 1 in the 50 free (think his time was 27.56, my best would be about 45 seconds). He needs to make level one to swim in the group he wants in training.
Jono is in Auckland at the moment. He popped in on Friday and distracted me a bit. We wandered around the point a little and saw a weird guy standing on a surf board paddling around.
Hannah is starting to use her finger more, it is going pretty well, she is almost like a normal player in polo training now. The training on Sunday was part one of the selection trial for the Pan Pac tournament in July. Don't think there is too much doubt for her this year.
Rory has been doing mid-year exams this week and has more this week. Not studying as much as he should but he is doing some.
HANNAH'S SAD LIFE
This is part two of Hannah's section in the Monday morning email. I went to school on Thursday with two red pens, at the end of the day I had lost both of them. It was quite sad. In case you haven't heard I want to be a brain surgeon, and a wardrobe full of shoes. What's for dinner tonight? Chicken darling! You have to play the sims2 it is the greatest! I don't recommend the university expansion pack, its really boring. I have my dance concert coming up. I had water polo trials yesterday. I have a broken finger. Yes, life is all about me! Give me shoes! How on earth will I ever earn enough money to buy a house? I'm growing beans. They have started to grow, its really cool. TRISHAN!!!! Haha you just read the word Trishan. AND AGAIN. I like grapes, and dogs. I'd really like a dog dad.
Hamling(my secret other name)
We had a bit of good old-fashioned public service junket controversy this week when someone revealed that 94 Housing New Zealand went to a conference in one of the country's most luxurious venues (great publicity for Tongariro Lodge). They spent $65,000, which sounds like a lot, but they reckon was $250 a day. That sounds reasonable but I am sure some more middle of the road venue would have done it for less. Housing New Zealand is responsible for providing low cost housing and so living the high life for a couple of days does seem a little out of place. Not sure it was going to win National the election, but worth a go I suppose.
Assault with a hedgehog made the news here and all over. There was some question as to whether it was alive or not. I am going to solve this mystery, it wasn't a hedgehog, it was a toilet brush head. Meanwhile we heard about the mistreatment of hedgehogs whilst trying to film a news item on the subject.
An New Zealand born photographer has been found dead in Kenya. Probably beaten up for his camera gear.
The mayor of Manukau City collapsed on stage at a concert thing this weekend. He had a mega-heart attack, but is still alive. Not sure what he will do at his next appearance (except that it could be lying in a wooden box).
Had another guy die while evading police, a 31 second chase near Dargaville was enough to finish him off. Saves heaps of time in courts and stuff.
The credibility of global warming theory suffered when we had the coolest May since 1992. That year we had power outages to contend with, it was the year Rory was born.
Being Queen's Birthday Weekend we had some honours given out. Who cares.
The house for auction for $1 reserve sold for $395,000. Rory wanted to flash mob the venue and stop genuine bidders from being able to bid, could have been interesting.
Been a fuss about three high profile cases resulting in not-guilty verdicts. Yes, the police might not be doing their job, but surely it is okay for someone to be not-guilty otherwise why do we bother?
WORLD NEWS
Some guy went to get an old piece of junk (given to him by his rag and bone man grand father when he was a boy) valued and it turned out to be a 2,500 year old solid gold Persian thing that he used to shoot with a slug gun and is now worth over a million dollars. Lucky guy.
Meanwhile a guy in Brisbane had a possum come out of the toilet. Interesting. He filmed it and stuck it on Youtube, I checked out one of the videos, it was crap.
REAL SPORT
Just the one game this weekend, Hannah's soccer team played the team that came second in grading (Fencibles). Previously they lost to them 0-2 when Hannah wasn't playing. It was a tight game, very exciting. They scored first, then we equalised with a very nice goal involving three players. The other team scored again and we hammered their goal but couldn't get one, so we lost 1-2.
SPORT
England managed to win the second test,
The Crusaders sort of scraped passed the Waratahs to win the Super 12 final. Oops, Super 14, whatever.
The All Black squad was named, they play Ireland next week.
MY SAD LIFE
Paul thinks Hannah's bit last week was better than the rest. I am not speaking to him now.
We managed to see some people this weekend, the Goodins on Saturday (Rory arrived home just in time for dessert, the scumbag) and Allan and Jacqui on Sunday.
We had a few other things over the weekend, Rory had three polo trainings and a swim meet. I was at the pool already because Hannah had training at 6:45am so I stayed there to assist (He consisted of the whole team from his swim club so it didn't seem right to leave him alone). It was pretty funny, he hasn't done any solo races in a swim meet before, so his official time in both was the slowest of the race (the group heats based on times, slowest to fastest). Rory was in heat one of six for the 100m breast stroke. He was with a bunch of 11 year olds, standing on the blocks there were all these little guys then a giant in lane 8. He basically beat everyone in his heat by a length, shaving 42 seconds off his time. The poor bugger that was the fastest in the fastest heat got about 3 seconds on his PB and Rory still beat him. In the second race, some kids next to me said "geez, look at the guy in lane 8 go". He was about 0.3 sec off qualifying for level 1 in the 50 free (think his time was 27.56, my best would be about 45 seconds). He needs to make level one to swim in the group he wants in training.
Jono is in Auckland at the moment. He popped in on Friday and distracted me a bit. We wandered around the point a little and saw a weird guy standing on a surf board paddling around.
Hannah is starting to use her finger more, it is going pretty well, she is almost like a normal player in polo training now. The training on Sunday was part one of the selection trial for the Pan Pac tournament in July. Don't think there is too much doubt for her this year.
Rory has been doing mid-year exams this week and has more this week. Not studying as much as he should but he is doing some.
HANNAH'S SAD LIFE
This is part two of Hannah's section in the Monday morning email. I went to school on Thursday with two red pens, at the end of the day I had lost both of them. It was quite sad. In case you haven't heard I want to be a brain surgeon, and a wardrobe full of shoes. What's for dinner tonight? Chicken darling! You have to play the sims2 it is the greatest! I don't recommend the university expansion pack, its really boring. I have my dance concert coming up. I had water polo trials yesterday. I have a broken finger. Yes, life is all about me! Give me shoes! How on earth will I ever earn enough money to buy a house? I'm growing beans. They have started to grow, its really cool. TRISHAN!!!! Haha you just read the word Trishan. AND AGAIN. I like grapes, and dogs. I'd really like a dog dad.
Hamling(my secret other name)
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