LOCAL NEWS
Bit of a storm in a teacup when an MP from the Maori Party referred to Australian Prime Minister as a "racist bastard" over the actions to get things under control with Aborigines in Northern Territory. Funnily enough, the quote included the word "bastard" but newsreaders just said the word "racist". Perhaps they already knew he was a bastard, I don't know.
Real storm up North, took out power lines all over. Lots of people without power for days. I thought perhaps Kathryn had snuck up there as it was -5 in Invercargill when she went there, so I was expecting some causal effect.
A frail granny stabbed an intruder with his own knife, which was pretty funny. Karma in action.
Pet food is bad for you - a man died when he was crushed by three tonnes of cattle feed.
The hostages in Nigeria were freed on Thursday, so all happy there. They have since come home to visit family but will be returning.
Sad story on Saturday when a train collided with a car, killing the two parents and the 5 year old daughter survived. Not sure why they didn't see the train coming.
An old car once owned by the family of the prime minister was sold on trademe for $5815 - nearly triple what someone bought it off her father for two years ago.
Ice is cramping the style of people jet boating near Queenstown - well duh. Why would you want to even consider jet boating when the water is that cold?
A New Zealander working security in Iraq died when his truck hit a mine.
WORLD NEWS
America appears to have woken up to the problem in Iraq. GW is starting to get a hard time and they are doing the maths about withdrawal and have realised the losses won't stop until they have all got home.
In Sydney, a guy went ape in a tank-like APC and took out seven cellphone repeater stations and a power substation. Love to see video footage of that.
The Beckhams arrived in LA. Oh dear. I can't see what it will do for football.
REAL SPORT
Only one game of soccer this weekend. We were missing a key player and one of our strikers was taken out with an ankle injury ten minutes into the game. We led for most of the match but just got soft in the end and lost 2-3. Hannah scored both goals. I think she has scored seven goals this season, which is very good, definitely more than she has scored in previous years put together.
I hear Katie also scored two goals on Saturday and got POD, and their team won.
SPORT
Board sailor Barbara Kendall has qualified for the Beijing Olympics for the fifth time. The grandmother of the New Zealand Olympic movement has won gold, silver, and bronze so far.
All Blacks beat Spring Boks 33-6 but it was a dubious achievement as the boks are resting most of their first line players.
The Silver Ferns beat Jamaica twice, by about 40 then about 20 goals.
The Warriors had a win over St George Illawarra (40-16 I think).
Four New Zealand rowing teams have won gold at a meet in Lucerne.
MY SAD LIFE
Mum has had some friends from soggy Kaeo visiting because an ex-neighbour was on his way out. I knew Roy Taylor when I was a young kid, and spent a bit of time with his two sons. I think Koos actually worked with Roy for a while when he was at varsity. Anyway, Roy died on Saturday.
The second week of the holidays wasn't quite so exciting for the kids. Hannah did go to Rainbow's End on Friday and after a few changes of plan ended up catching a bus back to civilisation from Manukau through Otahuhu and Otara and finally to downtown about 6:45pm. They are back at school today. Hannah did also make dinner twice this week. The risk of Rory ever making dinner is exceedingly low.
The movement from my office to Rory's room continues. We got some new shelves up on Monday and Wednesday and started moving some cabinets in. I still need some electrical stuff to be done, no phone yet. I am not sure he will be in there by next weekend, but I hope so.
We've all been sick on and off this week, Diana was out of action for a day, the kids were both unwell for a day or two, I finally succumbed yesterday. Not sure if I have improved yet, but will do some work today because if you feel like crap and the weather is awful, you might as well go to work.
Diana was surprised and upset when her slow cooker died on Saturday. The whole bottom of the ceramic pot-thing just came off, in a surprisingly even piece. It did explain the inexplicable leakages between the heating unit and the pot.
Well, apologies for the dullness of this weeks entry.
16 July 2007
9 July 2007
Taranaki has a bad week, Gavin becomes a father, Hannah creates her own wind - 09/07/07
LOCAL
Finance Company Bridgecorp went into receivership on Monday, not a good look. We've had a few finance companies fail.
SAS soldier Willy Apiata was awarded the Victoria Cross, the first New Zealand soldier to get the award since the 2nd World War. You'd expect the most likely situation requiring bravery would be driving an army Unimog truck. Apiata did the classic hero dash 70 metres to rescue a wounded comrade over broken ground while under fire.
I failed to mention an incident where a cabinet minister was accused of smacking his child in a shopping mall. He pulled them away from something. Storm in a teacup.
We had some tornados on Wednesday in three different places in New Zealand, quite unusual. Then on Thursday Taranaki got nailed with many houses ripped to bits in a place that used to be called Oakura (it is a gaping wound now).
A teenager failed to get a strike when he skittled a group of cyclists in his car, only scoring three.
Weather has generally been pretty extreme. Lots of snow in the South (so Kathryn is going to Invercargill today, Nanook of the South returns), black ice, etc. Also a small flash flood in Taranaki over the weekend.
Exceedingly random bit of news is that some professor wants to increase the intelligence level of the population by putting contraception in the water. The theory being that the well-educated with have planned children, and those that aren't won't breed like rabbits. It's all very master-race like, and quite dubious.
WORLD NEWS
England continued to deal with the failed terror attacks.
Five people were kidnapped from a Nigerian oil rig. It was interesting because two of them are New Zealanders.
A squall hit a youth yacht race and capsized 90 boats, in Scotland (or somewhere in UK). That's a lot of people needing rescuing all at once.
Frank Bananarama continues to piss New Zealand off by calling us bullies and other names for reacting to his bully-boy tactics and responding to him expelling diplomats. Fiji needs us a lot more than we need them and I suspect considerably less people are visiting Fiji at the moment.
REAL SPORT
No real sport this week, but we got news of the U16 polo team for Rory. He is a floater. This means he will play in the A team and the B team, and will probably go to Nationals. This is a very good result for him as he will be U16 next year also and playing for two teams will give him more game time.
SPORT
Wallabies beat Springboks 25-17 in Sydney.
Federer won Wimbledon for the fifth time.
Kimi Raikonen won the British Gran Prix, Hamilton came third.
MY SAD LIFE
The kids, being on holiday, did various things. Hannah stayed away one night, had Josie stay another. Rory stayed at Cassidy's for a mini-party on Friday night, going to sleep around 6:30am.
Karma was in play this week. Hannah bought a raffle ticket off Josie, who was raising money for her trip to Hong Kong. Hannah won two passes to Ski Planet (indoor skiing thing). Hannah took Josie with her to Ski Planet on Friday, and Josie's Dad took them. They were there for eight hours. They got wind burn, indoors, from skiing down the hill so fast there was wind where there should be none.
Maria Jean Cosh was born at 12:30am Sunday morning weighing 3.6kg and 52cm long. Congratulations to Gavin and Yana. Gavin sounded very happy when he called.
Sunday was also Heidi's birthday.
Saturday was the 4th anniversary of my Father's passing.
Diana, Hannah, and I took Pippy for a walk on Takapuna beach on Sunday because Diana needed beach time. The Goodins are not well, so I think they were quite happy for her to be walked.
Rory and the gang filmed their commercial for a competition this week (the gang being Raf, Cassidy, and Maddie). They were woefully disorganised, but seemed to enjoy themselves. This week they have to figure out how to edit it all.
Work on shifting me and Rory between his room and my office began in earnest over the weekend. We have created some space in my office, disassembled some shelves, and he has created some space in his room by filling the lounge (Diana not too impressed about that). The garage is also accommodating some of the fallout. It's all a bit like a puzzle where you have to move pieces around to make room (you know, those 2D 4x4 with one square missing that make pictures and things).
Finance Company Bridgecorp went into receivership on Monday, not a good look. We've had a few finance companies fail.
SAS soldier Willy Apiata was awarded the Victoria Cross, the first New Zealand soldier to get the award since the 2nd World War. You'd expect the most likely situation requiring bravery would be driving an army Unimog truck. Apiata did the classic hero dash 70 metres to rescue a wounded comrade over broken ground while under fire.
I failed to mention an incident where a cabinet minister was accused of smacking his child in a shopping mall. He pulled them away from something. Storm in a teacup.
We had some tornados on Wednesday in three different places in New Zealand, quite unusual. Then on Thursday Taranaki got nailed with many houses ripped to bits in a place that used to be called Oakura (it is a gaping wound now).
A teenager failed to get a strike when he skittled a group of cyclists in his car, only scoring three.
Weather has generally been pretty extreme. Lots of snow in the South (so Kathryn is going to Invercargill today, Nanook of the South returns), black ice, etc. Also a small flash flood in Taranaki over the weekend.
Exceedingly random bit of news is that some professor wants to increase the intelligence level of the population by putting contraception in the water. The theory being that the well-educated with have planned children, and those that aren't won't breed like rabbits. It's all very master-race like, and quite dubious.
WORLD NEWS
England continued to deal with the failed terror attacks.
Five people were kidnapped from a Nigerian oil rig. It was interesting because two of them are New Zealanders.
A squall hit a youth yacht race and capsized 90 boats, in Scotland (or somewhere in UK). That's a lot of people needing rescuing all at once.
Frank Bananarama continues to piss New Zealand off by calling us bullies and other names for reacting to his bully-boy tactics and responding to him expelling diplomats. Fiji needs us a lot more than we need them and I suspect considerably less people are visiting Fiji at the moment.
REAL SPORT
No real sport this week, but we got news of the U16 polo team for Rory. He is a floater. This means he will play in the A team and the B team, and will probably go to Nationals. This is a very good result for him as he will be U16 next year also and playing for two teams will give him more game time.
SPORT
Wallabies beat Springboks 25-17 in Sydney.
Federer won Wimbledon for the fifth time.
Kimi Raikonen won the British Gran Prix, Hamilton came third.
MY SAD LIFE
The kids, being on holiday, did various things. Hannah stayed away one night, had Josie stay another. Rory stayed at Cassidy's for a mini-party on Friday night, going to sleep around 6:30am.
Karma was in play this week. Hannah bought a raffle ticket off Josie, who was raising money for her trip to Hong Kong. Hannah won two passes to Ski Planet (indoor skiing thing). Hannah took Josie with her to Ski Planet on Friday, and Josie's Dad took them. They were there for eight hours. They got wind burn, indoors, from skiing down the hill so fast there was wind where there should be none.
Maria Jean Cosh was born at 12:30am Sunday morning weighing 3.6kg and 52cm long. Congratulations to Gavin and Yana. Gavin sounded very happy when he called.
Sunday was also Heidi's birthday.
Saturday was the 4th anniversary of my Father's passing.
Diana, Hannah, and I took Pippy for a walk on Takapuna beach on Sunday because Diana needed beach time. The Goodins are not well, so I think they were quite happy for her to be walked.
Rory and the gang filmed their commercial for a competition this week (the gang being Raf, Cassidy, and Maddie). They were woefully disorganised, but seemed to enjoy themselves. This week they have to figure out how to edit it all.
Work on shifting me and Rory between his room and my office began in earnest over the weekend. We have created some space in my office, disassembled some shelves, and he has created some space in his room by filling the lounge (Diana not too impressed about that). The garage is also accommodating some of the fallout. It's all a bit like a puzzle where you have to move pieces around to make room (you know, those 2D 4x4 with one square missing that make pictures and things).
2 July 2007
Not a good week for kids, or people on the roads, or people who are into New Zealand sport, or the English - 02/07/2007
LOCAL NEWS
An altercation between teenagers at a primary school and the husband of a teacher resulted in the man whacking them with the handle of a tomahawk to drive them off. Rumours exist that he was buzzing on P but frankly I applaud his actions as too many kids misbehave because of the lack of consequences. These teens had been ignoring trespass notices and terrorising people at the school for quite a while.
An accused rapist who carried on for four hours, reckoned it was consensual. Doesn't explain why he made her have two showers to remove evidence, does it? I don't think his story holds water.
A youth dived into the Waikato river to evade police and either succeeded or drowned. No proof exists either way as yet.
The introduction of Kiwi Saver, the voluntary government assisted pension scheme, began on 1 July. Bit slow off the mark but let's see what happens.
Not a good weekend for young children. A three year old was run over by a bulldozer, another young child was found dead in a back yard. A third baby died after being scalded in the shower by water from a wetback (they seem to get water too hot and people don't notice).
Weekend road toll was nasty, six died in a non-holiday weekend.
WORLD NEWS
Britain upgraded prime ministers this week and had terror attacks failing all over the show. The worst was the announcement of the Spice Girls getting together.
Meanwhile they had a concert for Princess Diana, ten years after she died. Hasn't Britain suffered enough without having Duran Duran and P Diddy play their music?
REAL SPORT
Despite heavy rain on Friday night, soccer was still on. It eased by game time and although we had a we pitch we had no rain. The opposition was from Bucklands Beach, they had not won a game yet in the championship round. We were 2-0 up at half time and 4-0 at full time.
The really big news was the other two good teams in our league played each other, and the team we thought were the weaker of the two won 3-2. We were scheduled to play the team that won last week (when Hannah was sick, so I am very glad we didn't) and we play the team that lost weekend after next (no game middle week of holidays).
Rory has made the U16 A-team at club, as a floater which means he will play in the B-team too so he gets more game time. This is a good result as he has another year in U16 after this one and the experience will certainly improve his game. He didn't seem overjoyed but I think it is a good thing.
SPORT
Team New Zealand won the third race then lost the fourth, and the fifth, and the sixth. One more and it's all over.
The All Blacks lost to Australia 15-20.
The Black Sticks (Men's Hockey) came from in front to lose to Argentina in the final in a shootout. They were ahead 2-0.
The Warriors were the only bit of good news with their third win on the trot, after six losses in a row.
MY SAD LIFE
Went to midnight showing of Transformers with Rory and Cassidy on Wednesday night, was a bit of a wreck the next day. Made Rory go to school. Cassidy had a test and didn't show up at all. Wimp. Cassidy isn't my favourite person, he headbutted Maddie (our centre back) and fractured her nose. Not a good look seeing they are an item.
We had a few minor failures around the house this week. The roof leaked (was fixed Thursday), the toaster became a semi toasted, the frypan was agreed to be a non-non-stick frypan, and the bed was falling apart. Diana and I repaired the bed on Sunday. We haven't replaced the toaster so we swap the toast over for the second run, takes ages. It is on the list of things to do.
Rory and Hannah went with the Goodin children to separate movies in separate theatres on Sunday. Rory and Thomas have both seen the Transformers movie twice already.
The kids are on holiday for next two weeks, they are going shooting today with Bambi.
Yana was due to sprog on Sunday, I think. No news yet, Gavin has his mother in law visiting to help around the house.
Diana has been working full days but gets a couple of days off around the weekend so we may try to go somewhere for a quick break.
Linda's daughter Jen was in the winning cheerleading team in a competition in Brisbane.
An altercation between teenagers at a primary school and the husband of a teacher resulted in the man whacking them with the handle of a tomahawk to drive them off. Rumours exist that he was buzzing on P but frankly I applaud his actions as too many kids misbehave because of the lack of consequences. These teens had been ignoring trespass notices and terrorising people at the school for quite a while.
An accused rapist who carried on for four hours, reckoned it was consensual. Doesn't explain why he made her have two showers to remove evidence, does it? I don't think his story holds water.
A youth dived into the Waikato river to evade police and either succeeded or drowned. No proof exists either way as yet.
The introduction of Kiwi Saver, the voluntary government assisted pension scheme, began on 1 July. Bit slow off the mark but let's see what happens.
Not a good weekend for young children. A three year old was run over by a bulldozer, another young child was found dead in a back yard. A third baby died after being scalded in the shower by water from a wetback (they seem to get water too hot and people don't notice).
Weekend road toll was nasty, six died in a non-holiday weekend.
WORLD NEWS
Britain upgraded prime ministers this week and had terror attacks failing all over the show. The worst was the announcement of the Spice Girls getting together.
Meanwhile they had a concert for Princess Diana, ten years after she died. Hasn't Britain suffered enough without having Duran Duran and P Diddy play their music?
REAL SPORT
Despite heavy rain on Friday night, soccer was still on. It eased by game time and although we had a we pitch we had no rain. The opposition was from Bucklands Beach, they had not won a game yet in the championship round. We were 2-0 up at half time and 4-0 at full time.
The really big news was the other two good teams in our league played each other, and the team we thought were the weaker of the two won 3-2. We were scheduled to play the team that won last week (when Hannah was sick, so I am very glad we didn't) and we play the team that lost weekend after next (no game middle week of holidays).
Rory has made the U16 A-team at club, as a floater which means he will play in the B-team too so he gets more game time. This is a good result as he has another year in U16 after this one and the experience will certainly improve his game. He didn't seem overjoyed but I think it is a good thing.
SPORT
Team New Zealand won the third race then lost the fourth, and the fifth, and the sixth. One more and it's all over.
The All Blacks lost to Australia 15-20.
The Black Sticks (Men's Hockey) came from in front to lose to Argentina in the final in a shootout. They were ahead 2-0.
The Warriors were the only bit of good news with their third win on the trot, after six losses in a row.
MY SAD LIFE
Went to midnight showing of Transformers with Rory and Cassidy on Wednesday night, was a bit of a wreck the next day. Made Rory go to school. Cassidy had a test and didn't show up at all. Wimp. Cassidy isn't my favourite person, he headbutted Maddie (our centre back) and fractured her nose. Not a good look seeing they are an item.
We had a few minor failures around the house this week. The roof leaked (was fixed Thursday), the toaster became a semi toasted, the frypan was agreed to be a non-non-stick frypan, and the bed was falling apart. Diana and I repaired the bed on Sunday. We haven't replaced the toaster so we swap the toast over for the second run, takes ages. It is on the list of things to do.
Rory and Hannah went with the Goodin children to separate movies in separate theatres on Sunday. Rory and Thomas have both seen the Transformers movie twice already.
The kids are on holiday for next two weeks, they are going shooting today with Bambi.
Yana was due to sprog on Sunday, I think. No news yet, Gavin has his mother in law visiting to help around the house.
Diana has been working full days but gets a couple of days off around the weekend so we may try to go somewhere for a quick break.
Linda's daughter Jen was in the winning cheerleading team in a competition in Brisbane.
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