Well, that's about enough weather for Auckland, would anyone else like some?

LOCAL NEWS There has been some controversy about a competitor at the Commonwealth Games (oh, yeah, they are on, not sure very many people care) who was born a man but is competing as a woman. I am not sure how I feel about this. It seems highly improbable that a male athlete would be motivated to become a woman primarily to gain a competitive advantage, but conversely, it seems quite unidirectional (like people born women are not likely to ever have the ability to compete as men, perhaps in gymnastics. It would seem that I missed some pretty wild weather in Auckland on Tuesday. The usual sort of power out and such was reported, I didn’t see it as being anything beyond an average storm. You know things are bad when Hannah posts that she has power at the bakery. It appears to have been a lot more serious than the usual ones, our house was without power for nearly two days. Wednesday night Hannah had to shower at Rory’s house because her house didn’t have power either, and Diana did at Sarah’s house. The weather just kept going, even today there is more stormy weather coming. A tanker rolled in Dunedin blocking traffic. I think I forgot to mention a truck that rolled in Pt Chev a few weeks back, I saw it, and weeks later I noticed some decorative shrubbery boxes that were pushed and toppled by it that were still in the wrong place. WORLD NEWS So apparently not winning 30 popularity polls in a row is a reason to stop being prime minister in Australia. Part of me wonders how effective government is if it is merely a popularity contest. Some drug impaired Tasmanian man drove the wrong way up a street in Melbourne in a campervan, apparently the fact that he was Tasmanian explained a lot. Another drug addled man was restrained by an off duty policeman after crashing his car, removing his clothes, and causing disturbance. The clothing removal was “accidental”. A road rage incident in Australia resulted in a punch up then one winner wandered around threatening people with a “live” chainsaw (not my word, but they meant it was turned on). He didn’t use it. All news I heard all week was mostly how Australia was basically winning all the medals at the Commonwealth Games. That and how they told everyone living on the Gold Coast to leave and how all the hospitality people had no customers and how tinder was really busy at the games village. REAL SPORT I have reinstated this section to honour young Tom (and I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that not sure I know his actual surname, but Anna and Jono’s 15yo son). We watched him play soccer on Saturday morning for his regular team, he was playing centre back, wasn’t too happy there prefers centre mid (like they all do). Anyway, he did okay, but the team lost 2-3. Then Jono drove Tom and teammate Reuben (and me) on a scenic tour of Sydney soccer grounds before getting to a second game about 30 seconds before kick off. This was an under-18 game for which the team was more than decimated by a wedding (what under 18 boy cares about a wedding, let alone half a sodding team?). Anyway, short version is they had eleven for the first half including three ring-ins, was 2-2 as half time. Second half they started with nine, got bolstered to ten, then with one going to hospital they ended the game with eight for a good 25 minutes. They nearly had a player red-carded when he went to pick up the ball and the ref walked in between and thought it was a physical attack, but the player did very well to defuse the situation and remain on the pitch. About ten minutes before the end Rueben fed a ball to the now mostly crippled Tom, having played about 150 minutes of football, limping since before half time, and now playing centre forward, Tom got in to the box and put the ball in front of another player who slotted it for a goal to put them 3-2 up and after ten minutes of dour defence they came off the field utterly exhausted but delighted with a most unexpected win (the other team had three subs). The two boys were basically physically hollow husks of cramps, but they were fizzing at the result. MY SAD LIFE Work was mildly mental this week which provided some challenges. Madelaine felt I was working too much and on Monday I probably was, but it was all things that would hold up other things and it was a perfect storm of multiple events all hitting my desk at once. Despite this, I managed to go for a walk with Madelaine and Brett (separately) which meant I got some breaks. Madelaine took me into an Italian supermarket, and my brain imploded. Having tried to speak in French, in a store very much in Italian, listening to Australians, it was very confusing. Also interesting. We went to Madelaine’s daughter’s house for dinner, the boys have grown, they were a little shy at first but were very chatty. I can’t tell who is who easily, one of them was searching how to unlock a character in their Lego Batman 2 game on the tablet and his typing was slow but his vocab was pretty good for seven. Brett got bitten by a suspected spider on Monday night but didn’t realise anything was amiss until Tuesday evening. He saw medical professionals on Wednesday and had various tests, by Wednesday night the suspicion of the spider had diminished and it was released on bail. Brett still isn’t completely certain of the cause of the problem, and (I think) it prevented him going to the gold coast with the family on the weekend. Tuesday night Auckland got an actual storm, it was weird being out of it. Even more so as my understanding of the extent of it slowly unfolded. Diana sent me a couple of emails that just didn’t hit my radar for a while. I did hear the next day that even at Guide Dog Central they had trees down, fences damaged, but the dogs were fine. Their kennels are pretty solid. Tuesday in Melbourne I went in to the city, and bought a bag to replace the one I use on walks, which used to be the swim bag, and has had exceedingly heavy if occasionally intermittent use over more than ten years. On the return from the tram I also did a typical Rob thing and purchased a ridiculous number of socks. My cheapy white socks have become far too unreliable and at home I actually carry a spare pair in case I blow a sock because blisters are a serious business. This week I had two packages being delivered so last week I tried to negotiate delivery without signature, then this week customs wanted more info about the packages, then they wanted invoices, then they wanted duty, then they didn’t. I have never had so many emails about a package (or a pair of packages), it was bizarre. I wasn’t in any particular hurry for them and I think in the end they were out for delivery the day they were originally expected despite everything. Diana said the weird mystery parcel also was reported again, and then I got notification it was delivered, but I really don’t think it was. The fictional parcel that wouldn’t die. The way Wednesday unfolded for me was exceedingly weird, initially I missed it then slowly begun to see how much of a storm had hit Auckland. A friend had no damage except for one heavy wooden outdoor chair being knocked over, then later in the day Diana shared a photo of our outdoor bench seat having kamikazeed off the deck (despite my boots holding it down, I hope my boots are okay). I went for a bit of a wander late morning Melbourne time. Didn't quite see the super courteous drivers that seemed to be abundant earlier in the week and particularly the night before. I nearly got cleaned out by an Indian in a hurry. I do enjoy just walking and exploring and it is nice to do it somewhere beyond the mundane at home. I reckon I walk the main routes in Point Chevalier about 150 times a year, double if I have to go both ways, that gets repetitive. So in short Wednesday was actually pretty good until just after I wrote the paragraph above while slurping a flat white on Sydney St. Then one of those finely balanced emotional/assumption hand grenades hit me in the face, courtesy of a phone call from Guide Dogs about Maddie. She needs surgery on her eyelids, may (as in very probably) not stay being a breeder and could possibly go in to guide dog training. We should know more by the end of this coming week. Meanwhile about five different outcomes exist and Maddie becoming a mother seems the least likely of those. It’s hard to say it wasn’t a shock, but we have always known Maddie wasn’t our dog, and we don’t make the decisions. That being said, the whole thing is hard to get used to when the new status is so thoroughly uncertain. I am not putting anything on facebook until the outcome is more known. I had a last supper with most of Brett’s family on Wednesday night, the boys had been to see an Avengers holiday thing in Federation Square, and we watched Back to the Future part 3 to celebrate Brett’s acquisition of a DeLorean for them. Madelaine included some of the anchovies I bought at the crazy Italian supermarket into one of the three sauces on the pasta, she told me the name of it, wide ribbony stuff, pappardelle, I had to check the spelling. We also tried some weird whitebait in a jar that I had to try at the Italian supermarket. I have had times this week when the dual time zone thing messed with my meagre head. I should be better at this but I am clearly out of practice. Today is the 30th anniversary of the Goodins promising an earnest young priest that they would procreate profusely and raise their horde in the Catholic way. The very same people who’s number one daughter thought Easter was about the birth of Elvis. Also, two isn’t really a horde by any measure. So really it’s about 30 years since they told porkies to jesus. I wonder if the priest is still priesting? He certainly hasn’t made it to Pope yet. I was able to use the lounge at the airport, which was why I chose Virgin but it never worked in the US for domestic flights so I wasn’t too optimistic. It was relatively quiet but a nice venue. I started to get a little fidgety though so I went off for a wander after I had charged my phone. It was weird, the free wifi wouldn’t allow me to send emails but I could enable my automation testing no problem. I walked up and down from gate 1 to 10 and back and forth for a while. The three or so days with Jono and family were a bit of a blur. To go with Gunther being ill and on all sorts of drugs, Elke blew a leg and we had to take her to the vet on Friday night. She started limping about 20 minutes after I arrived on Thursday night, but I deny any responsibility. She slept with me while I stayed at Jonos on the ground floor because going up the stairs was a bad idea. To be fair, Elke was a pretty good roommate except for after she got up for her morning pee and would just lie in the middle of the bed. Isabel remembered me from Christmas and wanted to know where Maddie was. Being with Jono in Sydney was my turn to be the embarrassing guy that pestered strangers about their dogs. Friday morning, Jono thrust me in to the outside world before I was ready, we dropped Issy at school then stopped at a very cool little patisserie called Choco Cannelle run by a very French man. Jono had a chat to him, and it was very interesting, and I think Hannah should talk to him some time. We visited the shop twice more in the following two days, quite an achievement given that he was shut on Sunday. Thankfully, work on Friday was a little calmer than it had been earlier in the week, it usually does go a little quieter on Fridays, usually. I managed two swims at Jono’s and was a little sun burned on Saturday afternoon, not seriously. Jono ditched me at the airport only to pick up his parents from the city on the way home. I am not sure how Elke feels about sharing her bedroom with two people. The flight home from Sydney was absolutely packed with children, being the first weekend of the school holidays in New Zealand and NSW. There’s a lesson in that. The woman in the seat next to me had a sub-one year old baby with her and was an exceedingly good example of a high maintenance demanding customer that is very probably utterly certifiably bonkers and would typically send any rational person screaming for the hills. Despite my misgivings about brats on the plane, it was quite uneventful and really just flew by. I think Tuesday would have been my father’s 80th birthday. Maybe 81, but I think 80. It doesn’t matter terribly, either way, I suppose. I have passed day 50 of continuously practising and learning Francais. This coming week, Diana has volunteered us to board Lulu, a golden retriever and one of the terrible trio that includes Lewis and Lightning. Lulu is the one that met Jacinda a couple of weeks ago. I am totally okay with us having a furry distraction, it will be nice to have a dog around while we wait for news of Maddie. When I walk Lulu I intend to tell people it’s just Maddie, and she’s had a bad dye job and hair extensions. This morning I went for a solo walk, got a little distracted, forgot I was supposed to be on an audio at 9:30 and did it while walking. The park at Western Springs was half closed with workers trying to clear trees, one tree had been sliced off at ground level and the trunk was a larger diameter than the table on our deck. Elsewhere the foliage continues to be in a state of wandering freely and our street looks like some gardening guys went mad then gave up before they hauled it away (which is basically true). There are dead fences, broken railings, and all sorts, and the weather is rough again today. PHILOSOPHY CORNER (possibly inspired by a certain passenger sitting adjacent to me recently) Sometimes you need to be enough of a friend to tell someone that they are just being a total batshit psycho. I hope I have at least a few friends willing to do that with me. I have a sneaky feeling that sometimes they might be doing it but on a level too subtle for me. Right, that’s it. There should be more, but I have to send it. Rob PS Expect Golden Retriever photos next week.

No particularly big news this week, except for a bit of unlikely to be useful advice

LOCAL NEWS The scary toll of Easter wasn’t the road deaths, but that Countdown, one of the larger supermarket chains in New Zealand, sold 400 tonnes of chocolate eggs, 80 tonnes of bunnies, and 13 million hot cross buns. I had 2 so I guess I am under performing. Middlemore Hospital has been in the news for a while with building issues, leaky walls, leaky sewer pipes, leaky electricity, sounds like their buildings (the super clinic also) are crap. We seem to be well in to the new government and the old playing blame games. The Nats are being blamed for Middlemore, and the dodgy repair methods for houses in Christchurch, both of which seem pretty damn fair to be honest. Repaired houses in Christchurch are a very unattractive option for purchasers, worse than leaky homes, and very probably leaky as well. Meanwhile the government is planning an increase in fuel levies for public transport, mainly, and although the impact is likely to be comparatively low for many it has people hating it all. They reckon maybe $250 per year per car, which isn’t massive. My relatively low petrol consumption means I am not particularly bothered by it. I still think they should be taxing the internet. There was a story about concern for Pacific Island families struggling to fit in to new smaller houses. Good grief, if you can’t afford a large house then don’t have a large family. If you have a household with grandparents as well, or cousins, or whatever, then if everybody does their bit the cost should be lower for everyone. Stop your whining. The Warriors have almost provided compelling evidence for the parallel universe theory because they have won their first five games of this season. Bad weather is coming to New Zealand. I won’t see any of it with luck. WORLD NEWS Five elephants escaped from a truck on to a motorway after a crash in Spain. Fiji was evacuating people from a small island for a hurricane, well to avoid a hurricane. China and the US are grumpy with each other over tariffs while the Poms and Russians continue to squabble. The best New Zealand could do was say we couldn’t find any Russian spies, either way that doesn’t look very good. A bus crash in Canada was pretty serious, more than decimating a youth hockey team (given that decimation is by definition one in ten dying, and 14 died on the bus). There was a terrorist even involving a van driving in to a crowd in Muenster in Germany. They have a really cool tank museum there. Good thing the bad guys didn’t use a tank. MY SAD LIFE The Bambi walk on Wednesday was exceedingly weird due to the lack of Labrador involvement. We trekked from our house up to Mount Albert, I snuck food to a black Labrador boy we saw up there, just a biscuit. It was a good two hour walk. We tried to bamboozle Hannah on the return, which mostly failed. The dentist on Wednesday was okay, I guess, I am beginning to feel like a dental cyborg. I really won’t mind not going for a while. However, it has to be said I seem to have no anxiety about going, it’s become tres banal. I borrowed little Pia on Thursday morning for the GDP walk (she boarded with us for ten days a couple of months ago, she is eight months old now). She was quite happy to come with me, I took her on this walk when we had her, so not completely unfamiliar. There were only six dogs on the walk and five at the café, and they were really well behaved. One of the regulars, Ivan, is being withdrawn from the program which is quite a shame, Russ, Ivan’s puppy walker, is a nice guy, retired ex-cop. Thursday night was the final check and fiddle with the lights for the pre-ball on Saturday. I have a couple of parcels due to arrive next week, and I had to jump through hoops to authorise them to not require signatures. Such a mission. Fingers crossed they arrive, been waiting for these since June. Saturday morning I did Mt Eden, walking without the dog is really weird. The supermarket on Friday was so much easier without having to deal with her, but still felt weird. I could use the escalator, which doesn’t happen often. Saturday was a bit of a blur, getting myself ready for trip to Australia because I had to leave for the airport about 6:30am Sunday. We got to the Goodins a little early but I was all ready to go with the photos. I took around 2000 photos in about two hours. I had spare memory cards, a spare battery on charge, needed none of that. I don’t know how many people were there, it wasn’t as many as I said last week, which was something of an exaggeration, but it seemed like a lot. Diana helped out on the hospitality side with Sue and Amy. Thomas was sort of like the ambassador, but was also a bit of a photo whore until Lily finally arrived. Pippy was sensible and stayed out of the way for the most part, Tinky not quite so much. It was Brett’s birthday on Saturday, so I didn’t annoy him until Sunday. Then I really annoyed him. I going to annoy Jono on Thursday. We have heard nothing of Maddie and honestly I don’t expect to until close to when she’s released. We don’t even know is the whole mating thing is going to happen, I think it is likely given her lack of frequency but who knows. We may not hear anything until about 19th April. This coming week is a bit of a scary test for my French skills. Brett’s wife Madelaine speaks French properly, so I was feeling some pressure. I reckon I will have completed what I would call the first pass of the course I am doing within the next two to three weeks. I think talking with a native speaker could help once I get over the terror. The flight to Melbourne was interesting because the plane was piloting wifi so it was free, which is cool. I think they are planning on charging about $10 for it. It’s not real quick, in fact it is really damn slow, but it is enough for a few little things. I got a ton of work done on the flight. At the terminal, they took a male black lab past everyone and despite me not having dog biscuits in my pocket he was interested in me, so I got questioned then directed to an weird holding bay then got the third degree from a guy who I was beginning to think I may come to know as “Mr Jellyfinger”. I got all the questions about did I pack my bag myself and did I know the contents and so forth, I was starting to get a little nervous. I did point out that I had been in contact with an in season female dog, and that could explain the dog’s interest (it helped that I could back that theory up with Maddie’s ID card that said breeder on it). After emptying my laptop bag and suitcase (the suitcase part seemed unnecessary, given that the dog was interested when I hadn’t gone to baggage claim yet) they sent me on my way without having to remove my clothing. I have no clue what the dog was checking for. Sunday afternoon was pretty low key, I went for a walk with Brett which included a store of interest, and later we all went to a Thai place for dinner. Work is mental. Also, a tool I rely on decided to die and I have no idea how to fix it, works fine on my desktop but laptop is knackered and I have to decide if I can wing it without it this week. Do I feel lucky? Madelaine learned that a Prince can make a Princess but the converse is not true (like the progeny of Prince Andrew compared to Princess Anne). ERRORS AND OMISSIONS Apparently I mentioned the ornithologist twice. Saves me mentioning him this week. I failed to mention the real reason for going to see Bambi, apart from the rabbits and the tripods, was to take out a piece of pipe for the bunnies to play in. I left that at home. I also failed to mention how quickly the neighbourhood cats moved in when Maddie disappeared. Diana saw Chops chasing birds on Monday morning on our back lawn. Saw him again on Saturday. Have a good week. I expect Diana’s will be peaceful. Rob PS The advice? Well, that’s basically this: you never know when your pants might smell like an in-season dog (but now you know a way to find out).

I humbly suggest you pay attention this time

Seriously, you should. LOCAL NEWS I learned this week that having a meeting with a cabinet minister is illegal somehow, because Carol Hirschfeld resigned after her meeting with the Broadcasting Minister wasn’t in her diary. A drone got within 5m of a plane coming in to Auckland. The drone rules are stupid, but drone pilots are even more stupider. 65,000 people signed a petition to take away the knighthood of Sir Bob Jones. Goes to show people really don’t have anything better to do. The government continued to make a fuss about 4,000 new houses going in near Unitec, despite them being on the cards for at least a couple of years. Not sure why anyone really cares, except the neighbours. An alpaca was stolen in Auckland, leaving it’s blind brother without a guide alpaca. No, I didn’t make this up. The Facebook fallout continued, including the Privacy Commissioner in New Zealand saying it wasn’t complying with the Privacy Act. I am sure there are many organisations that are not. Data is dangerous. New Zealand Post increased their prices again, speeding up their inevitable demise. On a similar note, Sky TV reckon they may not get the rights to Rugby World Cup 2019. Depending on who does, that could be a real blow to Sky TV. Their CEO announced he was retiring this week, he’s a dinosaur, so that could help them. Some boxer had a fight on Sunday morning and lost. A couple of kids died in a crash on the Desert Road, they were appropriately restrained. The weather has been pretty good, therefore unremarkable. WORLD NEWS A sailor went overboard in the Volvo Ocean Race, in the Southern Ocean. The ball tampering by the Australian Cricket Team has caught the imagination of everyone. One of the best was The Civilian (New Zealand blog) who said that severe disciplinary action had been taken against the non-cheating players for failing to uphold the standards of Australian Cricket. Some professor did the maths for some football player sticker book in the UK for the coming World Cup and reckoned the full collection would cost 773 pounds, and even with 100% effective trading would still cost over 200 quid to complete. I think plenty of people already worked out it would be ridiculously expensive to complete. MY SAD LIFE I had another trip to the dentist this week, the expensive dentist for the tricky stuff, it seemed to go okay. The chair was pink, that was weird. There was a screen on the ceiling, also. It saved me having to count ceiling tiles, and dots on ceiling tiles. There was no Bambi walk this week, he didn’t get back from Melbourne until Wednesday. The really bizarre thing this week was I saw this super sexy Mercedes, I think a AMG GT Coupe, with an old white guy driving it, and (you’ll never believe this) he let me in to the queue in front of him!!! A posh Merc driver that wasn’t a complete dick! Who knew they existed? Tuesday I had an expensive trip to the ornithologist for one of my problem teeth, it went okay, and very expensively, another visit on Wednesday that should mean I am done for about six months, finally. The chair was bright pink and they décor was…interesting. He was very cheerful, and chatty, but the patients can’t really talk back. I had to do a weird drive/walk around Pt Chev looking for halls to rent for Bambi on Tuesday, after a booking SNAFU. Maddie got a small bonus walk at Big King on Wednesday because I was in Epsom dropping something off and it was very close by, we just did a small circuit, but she was very happy. Facebook really does have some issues, it’s decided I need to like more church groups, I really can’t tell why. Everyone is hating Facebook and I see why, half the screen is advertising crap in manky groups to me rather than showing me things that I am clearly interested in. Good Friday was quite special, not because of the birth of Elvis or anything, but because Maddie finally went in to season. This meant a trip out to the Guide Dogs breeding centre, to drop Maddie off. She had been very naughty in the morning, taking off for a KFC bucket at Onehunga lagoon, so I wasn’t very happy with her. Rory came with me to drop Maddie off, Hannah and Allister were grumpy they weren’t invited. In theory, this is the one when my little girl with be deflowered and make me a grandfather. Saturday we checked out the studio for Caitlin’s preball next Saturday, a small function for Caitlin and 170 of her closest friends. I also took Pippy and Tinky for a short walk, which was nice, but weird, because they don’t go on lead. I am not feeling any pressure at all with regards to taking photos. Sunday morning Diana took me for a walk around the viaduct, and we had breakfast in the sunshine looking out across the water. Then we went to visit Bambi in Waitoki to borrow some photography gear for the preball. Diana got to fondle rabbits, Mareea (don’t blame me for that spelling) is breeding them, she has three pairs and there were a few babies. Easter is an appropriate time for that, I suppose (fondling rabbits, not breeding them). Sunday night we had the family over for dinner, which was the first time since Christmas Day, but also the first time ever that it included Hannah J. I opened a bottle of red wine, a 1990 special reserve Cab Sauv. Diana reckoned it would be foul and it really wasn’t, it was quite nice. Between me, Rory, and mother, we finished it off. I figure it’s time some of that wine was consumed. Hannah made some brioche and they were evil. Also she shared some news, and it wasn’t about a bloody dog. This morning I borrowed Conrad (Eva’s brother) and picked up Hannah and Allister and went to Big King for a walk, they hadn’t been there before, it’s very close to their house. Then Diana, Rory and I went to visit Nanny, Rory hasn’t seen her since January. She’s muddling along. As Rory correctly pointed out today, we’ve seen him four days in a row, which means we probably won’t see him again until Diana’s birthday or perhaps Mother’s Day. I have been learning French for 37 days and my fluency appears to be hovering around 62%, not improving, that is a concern. I have finally added Ross to this list, so now Kathryn doesn’t have to talk to him. I have also added Allister as a recipient to this email, I guess he has the right to know what I say, now that he is Hannah’s fiancée. It’s been quite a week. Not going too far from home with the dog proved to be a good idea, and also we seemed to have plenty happening anyway.

Just when it was almost late again...

LOCAL NEWS Another National MP has resigned, an electorate one, forcing a by-election. This guy was offered a job he couldn’t refuse. The party should have to pay for the cost of replacement. Barack Obama is in New Zealand. We never get rock stars until they are past it has-beens. The first man (Mrs Jacinda) is now a Guide Dogs ambassador. Apparently some employers are hiring only non-smokers. I don’t blame them. You may not be able to ask, but non-smokers often say so on their CV anyway. It was Pasifika on Saturday, so it rained, but it actually stopped pretty quickly. Then it rained again. The Tuvalu stage show had zero people watching it and five swans not even watching the stage. A police search and rescue training exercise resulted in them finding a body, seems the training worked better than expected. A motel owner is in trouble for his sign which also says “Welcome to Turangi” and gives directions. The directions are correct and it’s in an appropriate place on the edge of Turangi (not Picton). Jacinda met Ed Sheeran. He’s been doing concerts. Jacinda met Lulu, a guide dog puppy we know, in Pt Chev, as did Mrs Jacinda. Lulu didn’t even come see us. A very big chunk of road washed out on state highway 1 in the far north, the good thing was it was very far north, beyond Kaitaia, so the impact is reasonably limited. The gap in the road was 5 metres deep and maybe 10 metres long, even the Dukes of Hazzard couldn’t jump that. WORLD NEWS A study has decided that self-employed people are happier and more engaged, despite working longer hours and having less job security. No surprises, except I call bullshit on the job security question. They avoid being the victim of corporate reorganisation and politics. Someone reckoned a million pounds of rat meat is being sold in the US as boneless chicken wings. Chicken wings are not even meat. It’s kind of funny, and very reminiscent of the story in King Rat. William Shatner turned 87 this week. Some Islamic guy went silly with a gun in a French supermarket. It didn’t end well. So there was some fuss about facebook and privacy and data and so on, people rage quit, etc. It’s not like I put my bank account number on there, I don’t even have my birthday. MY SAD LIFE The teachers had a stop work meeting on Tuesday, so I picked the brats up from school. We started work on a lego version of the Saturn V rocket, which I just happened to have lying around (an accident with a mouse and a credit card). Of course I had to show the twins photos of the real one I saw in Houston, which was in 2012, which seems like a long time ago now. Hannah had a minor power emergency on Wednesday morning, which was readily sorted, Diana dropped some replacement units off. Then I had a money emergency (left my wallet in the wrong magic pants) so I had to borrow money from Hannah so I could coffee. We met another working guide dog this week, recently placed with a local Point Chev resident, his name is Loyal and he is from the same litter as Leo and Lily. Maddie had a big Thursday with the other guide dog puppies. There were 12 black labs and the three golden retrievers. It was mayhem, Then on Friday I took Maddie to Spark for Guide Dog fundraising, we were ferried with two Spark people up to Airedale St, and we went through about six floors in two buildings, including the floors where two of the teams I work with are based, which was nice. I reckon Maddie got patted by well over a hundred people, and she was pretty much knackered by the time we got home about 1:30pm. Koos had his birthday on Saturday. We saw him for a damp dinner then he went to a damp concert with a guy from work. Anna returned home on Friday I think after swanning off on the east coast of the US, and it hadn’t gone all Lord of the Flies with Jono in charge back at base (so I lost money on that bet). We saw Rory again on Saturday, with Hannah J, he got Diana a new phone. It seems to be going okay but selecting a suitable ringtone is problematic. No Bambi walk this week, he’s been in Melbourne for the F1. I am on a quest today to find a place for cubs to sleep for him, it’s a long story. Sammy did a competition in the weekend and got a number of reds and greens. Sarah didn’t say what the competition was actually in, so in my head it was for yak yodelling. I also have no idea what green or red means, and given Sammy told me that green means stop and red means go, if you are eating a tomato, I am basically bereft of all clues. I really should have asked for clarification this morning when I bumped in to them. We popped in to see the Goodins at the beta-house and we wandered down the road for an early lunch on Sunday morning, beforehand we did Big King with Maddie and it was exceedingly pleasant and quite quiet due to the earlier rain. Some confused Mormons where there trying to recruit, dyslexics I think, it’s a dog park, not a god park. Hannah and Allister popped in last night and had dinner with us, as did Koos. I have now done la Francais for 30 days in a row. I sometimes listen to French audio in the car, aussi. I think it is best to describe my progress as steady and modest. I tried to watch a movie in Francais without English subtitles and it was hopeless, I am a very long way off that, and uncertain I will ever be close. I will try to find French movies with English subtitles but even that could be a struggle. Easter this weekend means a relaxing of beach rules for dogs and daylight saving ends. Could be tricky with the dog sleeps. Check out http://retrolens.nz for a look at old aerial photos of New Zealand, it’s pretty cool. Anyway, now seems like a good time to hit send.

The week that God met Stephen Hawking

LOCAL NEWS Some survey reckons getting meth is easier and faster than marijuana. One third of respondents said they could get meth in less than 20 minutes, which is impressive given that a coffee can take that long in some places. The Labour Party seem to be winning at the sexual molestering Olympics at the moment. After the death of two people evading cops, and an innocent bystander, we got the rhetoric about should police chase people. Of course they should, otherwise people will just drive away from police cars at 60km/hr in a 50 zone and wave good bye to the police, that would be ridiculous. On Tuesday night, a couple of young ladies drove into the house on Pt Chev Road at the end of our street, the house was a mess, the car was written off, and the women were unhurt but arrested. Apparently the Honda Torneo is the most stolen car in New Zealand, I’ve never heard of one, apparently it’s the name they use in Japan for the Accord. A parcel that was very obscurely labelled made it to its destination. Social media wet itself because New Zealand Post rarely delivers anything in one piece. Dairy owners want the government to pay for cigarette vending machines in their dairies so they can make money out of something that kills people without the inconvenience of risking getting killed by cigarette thieves. Seriously? Some guy was named in an insider trading trial. He wasn’t very good at it, he sold two days after he got the tip that sales weren’t good, and it was for a lousy $15,000 worth of shares. I mean, if you heard some bad news was coming, wouldn’t you consider selling? I thought Insider Trading was all about people on the board selling their shares before some big secret thing happened, like the Intel guy recently. An 11yo girl died in Ngaruawahia when she was hit by a train on a railway bridge. Apparently most of the laundered money in New Zealand is from drugs and fraud. Not sure how burglary is so much less than drugs because I thought drugs were paid for by burgling. WORLD NEWS Stephen Hawking dying was very big news, not completely unsurprising, he did well to make it to 76. He threw a party for time travellers, and nobody showed up, he didn’t send invitations until afterwards. It was a fun idea. Is it just me or is Russia constantly in the news for doing dodgy deeds? If they’re not annexing property, poisoning people, or swaying elections it’s not a real news day. Meanwhile, the USA proved they can’t swing an election like Russia can as Putin appears to be returning with a bigger majority after their election. The news of a year in space altering 7% of an astronaut’s genes was thoroughly misleading, how some genes were being expressed failed to change back to normal after, on 93% returned to previous. He still has the same DNA, and his telomeres actually increased. Toys R Us is finally closing up shop, they have been in trouble for a long time. I can’t say it is a shame, because they were big but not very good. The collapsed bridge in Miami wasn’t nice, but six people isn’t many, more get shot in Miami before tea time on any given day. St Patrick’s Day happened, people wore green and claimed to be Irish a lot. Trump fired someone else, I think it was the guy who installed the revolving doors in all the high offices. Some news service is forcing people to answer questions to prove they have read the article before they post a comment. What a wonderful idea. Such a simple thing yet it could improve the nonsense out there considerably. MY SAD LIFE Tuesday morning the place was crawling with Year 5s and 6s with luggage off to school camp. On Thursday I saw one of Rory’s old teachers doing the crossing on her own, she asked me how Rory was doing. He had her when he was about seven. I was impressed she remembered. I finally got the new monitor going, not at a very high resolution, I need a better video card. Wednesday’s Bambi walk was in considerable darkness, the most exciting bit was checking out the house hit by a car, and the six herons at the dog park, one of which botched a landing in a tree, it was kind of funny. We then saw the house that got hit by a car, it was messed up, I reckon the whole side wall has been shifted, they are getting a structural engineer to check it out. I posted a letter on Wednesday, that was exciting. $1.20 for a standard post letter within New Zealand! I had to use three .40c stamps, which we have clearly had for a couple of years or maybe ten. Thursday I dropped Hannah and Allister at the airport. Friday morning we had a surprise walk with Maddie’s BFF Lily, it was nice to see her again, they were both very excited. Saturday was even more surprising. We drove out to darkest Flatbush, to Barry Curtis Park, for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at Walkathon, they raise money for Guide Dogs each year and so the GDF like to have a presence there. There were 23 people from Guide Dogs, four dogs, including two young puppies (Rossie and Topaz, both about four or five months), Maddie, and a working guide dog called….Mack. This was very exciting, because Mack is Maddie’s brother and littermate, Maddie is #106681 and Mack is #106682. We met his handler, Laura, and Maddie and Mack got to have a bit of a play, then did a lap of the track together, and then chilled with each other while Laura did a couple more laps. We haven’t seen Mack since he was about 12 weeks old, but Laura reckons he’s not really interested in other dogs much and that certainly wasn’t the case with Maddie. Their hospitality at the even was pretty good, they did some food after, and we stayed quite a while. It was quite a big day and by the time we got home we really didn’t achieve very much for the rest of it. Sunday morning, Diana went to pilates on the beach at Takapuna, and I took Maddie up Mt Eden. There was a walking event happening for Downs Syndrome children, which I didn’t know about, so Maddie met a couple of specials. Later we went to the GDF Puppy Fun Day, about fifty different guide dog puppies, breeders, and retired guide dogs. It was mayhem, but plenty of fun, we didn’t go last year because Maddie was in season. The first time we went we were noobs with one of the youngest pups there, this time she was the only non-breeding breeder. Hannah and Allister went to Melbourne for a tournament. Allister won two gold medals and a silver (pretty sure that’s right), I would hope he’s happy with his results. They stayed with Charles and Steph, I didn’t realise it was Steph’s birthday on Friday. The good news is that Hannah and Allister weren’t locked out of there flat so they didn’t show up at our place at 2am this morning. We saw Rory and Hannah J last night, about three weeks since we last saw him, Diana was getting a little grumpy. I am continuing to grind away with my Francais. The DuoLingo program isn’t perfect, so I am supplementing with other things. Diana bought me a French grammar book because she was sick of me swearing when I put mangez instead of manges or mangons or whatever. I am supposedly about halfway through the program but really don’t think I am remotely competent yet. Done 23 days in a row so far. Okay, not too late today by my standards recently.

The week my stack overflowed

LOCAL NEWS The met office confirmed what we already knew, it was a hot summer, they think the hottest on record. They aren’t sure because the records all melted. Gareth Morgan was in the news this week because he is about to qualify for superannuation, and he thinks it is stupid giving it to people that don’t need it. A man was shot in Pukekohe, it’s rough, it’s in South Auckland. Meanwhile policed seized a bunch of some drug called “Brown Sugar”, which I suppose will appeal to Maori, and cash and cars and also $200,000 of cryptocurrencies. Would be interested to know how they found that. Five people were arrested. Apparently we only collect tourist data from proper hotels, not through Airbnb, don’t see why the government can’t ask for info, it’s not like they don’t collect data on a computer somewhere. The country had two less idiots when they died failing to evade police near Nelson on Sunday. Sadly, they took an innocent motorist out with them. Anyone that says police should stop chasing these people are even bigger idiots. A cyclone was due to hit at 2am last night, it’s been in the news for days, Hola it’s called. Nothing’s really happened yet. The new National caretaker leader rearranged his deckchairs, the old school got demoted, mostly, and the new faces got promoted. How Judith Collins is still there I really don’t know. Another fleeing driver got in trouble, not fatally, his car caught fire as he continued to drive on no tyres, then he leapt from a bridge in to the river to escape the fire and possibly police, he didn’t escape police. WORLD NEWS Researchers have worked out a way to separate two liquids using lasers and magic. It will make public swimming pools pee-free by 2023. Apparently Rik Mayall would have been 60 this week, but he’s still dead. Someone reckons they’ve confirmed Amelia Earhart’s bones on a South Pacific Island. It wasn’t Waiheke. Someone else found an aircraft carrier in the Coral Sea, sunk during WWII. They’ve been busy, maybe they were all looking for ML370. It was the 40th anniversary of HHGTTG this week (Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy). I listened to some of the original radio play this week as I worked, it’s still on my iPod. Of course the more significant anniversary is in two years time (think about it). I haven’t really figured out all this Russian poisoning in Salisbury in the UK, but it seems nasty. Author John Le Carre didn’t die this week, but I learned that it was still possible (that is, he isn’t dead yet). MY SAD LIFE Tuesday night I had a planned outage and upgrade, nothing serious, oracle patches and things. It went fine. I seemed to have considerable difficulty with time this week. I got stuck in to some serious projecty work a couple of days, hit some walls, had Stack Overflow rescue me in six minutes with one thing. Had a new build deployed on Tuesday night so had to work on and off until about 10pm. Then Stack Overflow delivered again overnight. Thursday morning was the Bambi walk, wasn’t very exciting, we had to be fast because I had the GDP walk that day. It was International Women’s Day on Thursday, so Maddie and Lulu asserted their womanhood by going in to the creek. I am going to change her name to Muddie. I got a call from the anti-fraud people at Westpac this week, I was trying to unsubscribe from something and the only way to delete my credit card was use another, and my old expired card was on my desk so I tried that. The website declined it, turned out it tried to charge US$1 on it as a test. They didn’t tell me off, but dayum I was impressed with their speed. I did Big King again with Maddie on Saturday, and Diana tagged along to Onehunga on Sunday. The temperature has been pretty good, and both walks were quite pleasant. Maddie disappeared twice on Saturday at Big King, I was getting genuinely concerned the first time, and after the second time (both were in places where I thought there was limited scope for absconding) I minimised opportunity even further. Koos came over on Saturday, but I kept getting distracted with work. Someone had a planned outage on Friday night from 10pm to 7am and they finally were back up about 5:14pm Saturday afternoon. I got sick of hanging around about lunchtime. Allister visited our house four times on Saturday, we weren’t there for every one, he needed tools. The really cool thing was that he was working on the work bench in the bakery, meaning that I wasn’t. That, I like, a lot. Meanwhile, as an interesting counterpoint to Allister, we haven’t heard anything from Rory since he told Diana he was particularly busy the weekend before last. The dodgy car yard had signage go up, finally, but a couple of days later it was gone. Very, very weird. This morning I had yet another magical reply in my Stack Overflow inbox and yet another minor mystery was solved allowing me to push forward on my testing thing. Have you ever done one little thing that snowballed into a cascading series of ever growing changes? That was me this morning. My main monitor has been annoying me, it’s a television rather than a monitor, so it needed a remote for some silly things, like powering it on. I was stupid enough to purchase a replacement, slightly bigger than the previous, and higher resolution, because that’s how you do this. It arrived this morning and that’s when it all went horribly wrong. The precis version is that it didn’t fit on my desk between the other two, it was too high. This required some really serious bush engineering, I got there in the end but it wasn’t pretty, mistakes were made, swear words may have been uttered. Maddie got tangled in my phone headset and she was trying to pull monitor, laptop and phone off my desk to get away and finally I realised saying “wait” was the trick and she stopped and let me get her loose. It’s sort of done now and my desk is very clean (found an awful lot of Labrador fur on it), but the floor is covered in things to sort out. The whole process took me about two hours. That was until I gave up and went back to the old monitor. I am going to have to figure out how to make the new one work, the PC seems to struggle with it a little. I think this monitor can handle inputs from two computers and display them side by side which would be cool. This week a tried a slightly dubious was of entering a competition. Every purchase got you an entry in the draw, and I needed four units, and I don’t pay for delivery so I placed four separate orders, quadrupling my chances. Let’s see if it pays off. With Hannah still winning things I think it must be my turn. Hannah and Allister are off to Melbourne this Thursday for a TKD tournament, back Sunday night or maybe Monday. I continue with my Francais, 16 days continuously. I have downloaded some more ebooks and audio books to try to supplement the DuoLingo app. Apparently I am now 48% fluent, which I believe is utter bollocks. I could probably slowly get through many basic written things but writing in French is a long way off, as is understanding spoken French with any great success. A SHORT STORY I got a box this week, it was full of shorts. I decided to replace some tired magical pockety shorts, and found someone who had them on special, so I got five pairs. I couldn’t decide which ones to get two of so I got two of both my preferred colours. I have transitioned in to a couple of the new pairs, and actually thrown out one of the old ones. So more of “a shorts story” really. SPEAKING OF CLOTHING My socks keep wearing out, so much so that I now carry spares when I walk so if I blow a sock I can replace it and avoid blisters. They wear out on the heel. Blisters are serious. I have had some complaints about timing of this email. It’s still Monday morning somewhere. You can always apply for a refund.

Another week bites the dust, and it is March already

With summer ending this week, it does feel like the weather has calmed down a little, not so hot, and not so much wet. LOCAL NEWS A woman climbed Mt Maunganui 38 times in one day, she started at 1am and finished at 11pm, apparently it’s the same climb as Everest, but of course she had to climb down in between as well, but she didn’t risk adema. Apparently motivated by something called the Mount Everest Challenge where people are meant to do it 38 times in a month. The Prime Minister is moving out of Point Chevalier, to Sandringham, going all fancy. Or perhaps not. Wellington is considering abolishing free parking on Sunday. We have that in Auckland and it’s bloody handy. There is talk of departure cards for leaving New Zealand being dropped, Australia has already. A man died outside a Flaxmere pub last night, police are investigating. Nobody wants to go like that. A South Auckland man got burned after the car he was working on caught fire, and then he caught fire. There was talk of demolishing a pretty tired block of flats in Greys Ave in Auckland City, then others decided they wanted to save the eyesore. You can’t win. Tomorrow is official census day, but they haven’t bothered with the census taker people coming to houses at all, far as I know. WORLD NEWS Apparently Planet of the Apes, the first movie (with Charlton Heston), was released 50 years ago. New Zealand sent a plane to search after a distress beacon was detected near Tuvalu. I really don’t expect to ever go back there. They reckon Millennials will be the fattest generation. Trump attacked European cars, Canadian steel, and lord knows what else this week. He is also talking about clamping down on video game violence, because people rampaging around schools with an Xbox is what kills people. Now he wants to talk to Kim Jong Un. Sir Roger Bannister, Minnie’s brother, and the first man to be measured to run the mile in less than four minutes, died. So did David Ogden Stiers, actor pretty much known for his role in MASH as Charles Emerson Winchester the Third. After running out of KFC, the UK is running low on bread, milk, and eggs, but it’s no big deal if they can handle their KFC without gravy. Apparently there are 80,000 young people not in work or training. Because they are useless wastes of space, basically. Everyone else has a job. Blah, 90th Academy Awards today. They make far too much of a fuss about it. Happy to see a highlight reel, TBH, at the most. MY SAD LIFE Because the Bambi walks had become a little humdrum, we pushed the boat out this week, we did a one-way walk to Westmere, through Cox’s Bay Reserve, and up the far hill and through some very large and fancy houses to Jervois Road. We put Maddie in her coat, and caught the bus back again, to the bakery, purchased breakfast, and toddled home. The bus was pretty full but I managed to tuck Maddie mostly under a seat, it was tricky when people got off. A Persian youth appeared to be terrified of Maddie and looked like he was seriously considering climbing out the window when Maddie sniffed his seat. On Thursday, I had lunch with Hannah then we wandered off to check out doughnuts that the Z Station are selling for Easter (they were pretty average, TBH), then the new butcher that has replaced the dodgy Mad Butcher guy (their mince was really cheap, $7.99/kg for premium mince). I discovered this week that it is actually really hard to report a crime to the police. It wasn’t actually a crime, but it was the possibility of a crime with four different things that all sort of pointed to a car yard near us being not really a car yard. I took some photos of the cars the next morning, to check the number plates, they aren’t stolen, and the plates match the cars, but I reckon someone was sleeping on one of the cars. That seems less than professional. As well as contacting the police, nothing appears to have been done so far on that one, I sent a request to the Ministry of Commerce under the Official Information Act with regards customers changing electricity providers. A response is due in 20 working days. That’s not anything like the turnaround I gave the Commerce Commission today in their query of telephone number porting today (I gave them a two year history in around 11 minutes). Koos went to a thing with music and people at Western Springs on Saturday, he got there about 11:30 and I think it was probably finishing nearly 12 hours later. I really don’t know why. We went to see the house the Goodins are moving in to during renovations, and we farted about replacing some curtains, it felt very much like how things were about 30 years ago when we first moved in to our first houses (which will be 30 years ago in December this year). Then Caitlin and her mates left while we were in the room over the garage. We emerged to discover we were locked out with all the keys inside, and Kathryn’s shoes, Ross’s car keys, the handbags, you name it. Luckily, I was wearing my magical pockety pants and had my phone, wallet, and glasses. Also luckily, Thomas had retained a set of keys and he came to the rescue on his white stallion (a VW golf, but it was white). Without Thomas having those keys, we would have been breaking a window. It was a bit of unplanned excitement. Then we went down the road for traditional Malaysian takeaway, but had it in the restaurant, which I believe was a first for all of us. Saturday morning, I took Maddie to Big King, it wasn’t too unusual. In the afternoon I took her for a brief walk and bumped in to all sorts of people including the father of a boy who was in Rory’s soccer team, some kids who had a lovely time patting Maddie, a guy who needed directions to the boat club, and finally the twins were in the dairy with Katrina (their grandmother) so we walked a little way with them. We walked around the viaduct on Sunday morning, turned out the Round the Bays run was starting at 9. It wasn’t too busy, surprisingly. Also, tons of hospitality tents and conference things going on because of the Round the World race. Had no clue any of it was going on. On Sunday afternoon we accompanied Koos, and Kay, to the outdoor one in Hobsonville Point, saw Gavin and his kids there also. I also bumped in to a couple who used to work at a customer of mine, she left there about 14 years ago, which is kind of scary. They live in Hobsonville Point also. Koos went to three concerts over the weekend and left two of them when he wanted to. Paul and Patricia have now been married five years. The Hawaii adventure feels a very long time ago now. Sunday night we went to see the movie Ross booked for Saturday (don’t ask). Red Sparrow has some pretty hard core brutal violent moments, it’s not for the faint hearted. The bloody motorway was closed coming home, and the diversion was a stupid route, I nearly went my own way and really should have. Diana didn’t lose her phone this week, but she left it at home this morning. I am now nine days in to my learning of French, still got a very long way to go. I have been quite diligent, exceeding the ambitious minimum I set each day. Apparently I am 35% fluent, but that seems exceedingly optimistic in my view. My comprehension of written French is getting pretty bon, but verbal is tres comme ci comme ca. As for written, forget about it. Autocorrect really doesn’t help. I had an unexpected knock on the door this morning, an old grey haired chap accompanying an older no-haired chap, who wanted to walk down memory lane. He was in his 80s and grew up in our house, I reckon he must have been just about the first occupant. The people in here before us must have been here at least ten years and so it must be a minimum of 30 years ago but I would guess more like 60, minimum. A couple of ladies a little older than me did a similar thing a few years back, they were supposed to email me photos but they never did. Jono, I’ve been thinking about your sister. Tell Lisa she lives in Hobsonville Point. I reckon anything past Villa Rosa is HP. It might be old HP, but it’s still HP. She’s either living there or in denial. Today facebook told me that Diana and I have been tagged in the same photo 40 times. That seems excessive for nearly 30 years of marriage. Meh. Send time.