I’m still here

Yes I am still alive and still wanting to post. What with kids, new baby arriving, study, work and the fact I’m trying to get back into my running again I just haven’t had time.

Anyway, just to let you all know that I care about you here is my top 10 list of things I wish I had written about but just didn’t get time to:

1. Paul Potts – Quite wicked and I can see why he’s famous. He’s done a record that I wouldnt mind to hear but the clips they play on the radio make it sound a bit cheesy.
2. Police chases – Look I really, really feel for the family of the kid who died in a police chase the other day. But when are the press here in NZ going to stop blaming the cops for pursuing the guy and start blaming the idiots who run away from them. If we tell the cops to stop chasing what the hell would you do when they go to pull you over, run away because you know they cant chase you!
3. Awww damn it… only got to 3 and I gotta go again. I’ll be back soon… promise…

From tinkles to tantrums

What does it take to get a 4 year old to stress out and loose it? One baby alive and 4 AA batteries.

Our little angel has earned herself a huge prize, something that turned out to be $100 worth of pure stress. We agreed on the prize early on and I tried to talk her out of it when I found out the actual cost, but gosh darn it, she was focussed on getting this damn doll.

What did she do? Without giving away all the gory details she finally started going wees on the toilet, something we have been working on for 2 years now, yes thats right 2 very long years…

In our excitement we promised her a baby alive, something she had been asking for, if she filled a "star chart" with 1 star being awarded for each tinkle. Lesson here is always check the price of something before you agree to it, never assume you know what it costs.

Well our little miss stubborn, who wouldn’t even enter the room containing the toilet a mere week before hand was up there peeing up to 6 times a day or more. When she got upset nothing would come out we told her she had to drink something first, so she would grab a glass, knock it back and run to the toilet and wait for something to happen. Explaining it too time for the body to process the drink meant she would sometimes go away only to check back on the toilet every 5 minutes to see if it was ready… God bless her she tried so hard.

So after 22 confirmed tinkles and one final attempt to talk her into something ‘better’ (i.e. cheaper) we bought her the baby alive.

What is it I hear you ask? Have you seen the Stephen King movie Carrie, and perhaps are also familiar with Chuckie? We’ll if you answered yes to both of those you have a vague idea. This thing is a little girl stress machine.

As I speak Beth is fast asleep, absolutely exhausted from the few hours of work of looking after the worlds most demanding baby!

My new computer

Wahey! I ordered a brand spanking new computer today, finally replacing old faithful after about 5 years or so of loyal service.

Its a Dell E520 and is a big upgrade from what I currently have, very excited and really bummed that its going to take about 2 weeks for it to arrive. Oh well never mind.

Old faithful is going to the old folks home, that is mum & Chris’ place. I’ll give her an overhaul and then theyre all set and raring to go. If anyone wants an old, but good, monitor, keyboard and stuff let me know though as I’ve got some left over bits.

Kuaotunu 2007

So we just got back from a week away in Kuaotunu in the Coromandel. Friends of ours, Dave & Kirsten, very kindly let us use their batch for the week. It was fantastic, so didn’t want to come home!

The weather was pretty good, cold the first few nights but then it warmed up, which is pretty damn lucky for June. I mean who has stolen winter this year? Anyways they can keep it!

Kuaotunu is a pretty small spot about 20km north of Whitianga, about 3hr drive from Auckland. The beach is oh so quiet, with bugger all people there in summer, let alone winter, so we had the place to ourselves. Not a hell of a lot to do there but play outside, go for walks, read books, make sand castles and generally just have a really, really relaxing time.

The kids loved it, being pretty much free to do anything they wanted, except watch TV. Lots of outdoors time and it was really great to see the two of them really start to bond. Their favourite game it dancing to the teletubbies theme song, which if you dont know I could happily give you a quick rendition, as could any of the Hawkes neighbours in Kuaotunu as it tended to get blasted out a few times a day. But as much I would happily drown ‘Tinkywinky’ the kids loved it. Its amazing what a little forced time together can do, plus the absence of other distractions.

As I said, not ready to leave after only 6 days. Maybe it was because I had to drive down to Thames one day to sit an exam, or just that after being so busy for so long it took 5 days to unwind, or maybe its just because it would have been nice to have some more time. I dunno, but I cant wait for a decent holiday now! Beth is still talking about going for tractor rides, and driving the tractor (with a little help from dad). I also think she’d just at the chance to go exploring around the rocks again looking for sea snails and little tiny anemones… although she was a little dissapointed not to see Nemo in any of them… and a little relieved not to see Bruce.

I’ve posted up some holiday snaps if your interested, you can find them by clicking on the picture below:

Writers cramp

So today I sat my first exam in about 10 years, and the first non-engineering exam in about 15 years. By non-engineering I mean one where you cant just put numbers in the answers, I actually had to write essays and I tell you my hand hurt!! I mean who actually writes anything of any length with a pen and paper these days, I certainly don’t. So sitting there and writing for nigh on 3 hours solid was a bit of a challenge. Perhaps before my next exam I should practice sticking needles in my hand as part of my preparation!

I didn’t have a hell of a lot of time to prepare so I was a bit stressed anyways, and once I read the exam questions I found I’d managed to study just about everything except what the questions were about, but I gave it my best crack and cant do better than that. I spent the last 10 minutes after I finished quickly marking my own work, gave myself 49%, I just need 40% to pass the course so fingers crossed I wasn’t too easy on myself.

Happy Birthday Scooby

Its had to believe its been four years since our little <ahem> angel was born, but it is!!

On saturday we had a joint party with her friend Ollie who was turning three. Beth had a fantastic time, a little overwhelmed and I’m not sure it really sunk in that it was her birthday, that she was the centre of attention, but she loved it. Lots of pressies and cake and lollies and a fairy!

We organised a fairy, Fairy Floss, to come along and entertain the kids. Not all the kids were into her but our little fairy princess absolutely loved her. The best part was when Floss was leaving Beth was about to start opening all her presents, with her hands on the bootie she stopped, and quietly asked me if the fairy was going to fly? I told her I didnt know but we could go look, Beth immediately left the presents, and all her friends and went up to the fairy to ask her, very politely, if she could watch her fly away. Unfortunately Floss had run out of pixie dust so had to drive, but thems the breaks. 

Our little girl has come a long way in the last four years, its hard to believe the little munchkin that comes in everymorning and wakes me up, who can be an absolute angel one minute and be throwing chairs in a tantrum the next, is the same little babe who so transformed our lives with her arrival four years ago.

 

 

What not to do with an iron

So thought I would share with you all the dangers of mixing beer, rum, poker, chilli beans, a stove element and an iron all together.

So some of the guys are coming around for a poker game one night. I know as Im not driving I’ll probably drink a bit and will be running late for work the next morning so iron my shirt when I get home. Have a few beers, maybe a rum or two, then get hungry so go to heat up some chilli beans for dinner (nachos). Now somehow I managed to turn on the wrong element, rather than wonder why dinner was only luke warm I first thought… what is that smell? The Chris asks if all that smoke is meant to be coming from the element… isnt that your iron sitting there?…

"Ceasers Ghost!" as my grandfather would say. Anyways the moral of the story is if your planning on drinking just go to work in a wrinkled shirt, its much cheaper that way.

Peggy Turner 1910 – 2007

Went to a memorial service today for an old friend, Peg Turner. Peggy was my grandfathers cousin, but I knew her as our fantastic neighbour from when we lived in mission bay. It was only by chance we discovered we were related.

Peg was an incredible person. She was so active, with the church, with community groups, with her family, around her house. We lived in a block of 3 units, Fe and I at the front, Jim & Daisy Edwards in the middle and Peg at the back. Jim & Daisy didn’t have the greatest health so I used to make sure I did the lawns around the place, and Peg would do all the gardens, including often picking up the clippings with a couple of old licence plates. She was so active for what we thought was a 70 year old woman, imagine our suprise to find out she was 90!

Peg was a huge inspiration to so many people, a real lover of life and someone who just took you for who and what you were. She never pre judged anyone and lived life to the full. She was direct in her speech but caring in her actions. Someone who made a real difference in my life and I hope I have learnt something from her.

I would like to say rest in peace, but that doesnt seem appropriate. Wherever you are Peg, I hope your having a great time.

Happy Birthday to me!

Good friday was my birthday, great day. The fangdamily all came round for a huge fry up breakfast (mmm… sausages…) and then Fe and I went out for dinner. As much as I love the kids its was nice for the two of us to get out for a bit of a break.

Speaking of the kids I managed to catch them on video singing me happy birthday, to be fair this was a couple of weeks ago, but hey!

CeBit

Well I’ve been pretty slack lately, so much going on haven’t had time to catch up on it all!

Works been pretty insane with some M&A stuff going on and in the middle of it all I spent a week in Germany for a trade show.

What a trade show it was. CeBit is the biggest trade show in the world, it mainly covers consumer electronics but also has a host of business to business stuff there to. Its in Hanover, which sort of seems to be a bit of a hole, except for its show grounds. I mean over half a million square meters of show grounds, 27 halls, 35 function rooms, resteraunts, shops even a beer hall to seat a few thousand people. There are buses and taxis ferrying people around, it took me over 15 minutes to walk from where we were based to where most of our customers were towards the other end of the grounds. Amazing stuff. They reckon they get about 500,000 visitors through, which is pretty impressive for a town with a population of about 500,000! Only in Germany could they pull this off. I mean the whole city gets together to get people too and from the showgrounds, even the motorways turn into one way systems to get people in, with public transport running every few minutes. We never had to wait more than a few minutes for a bus, train or taxi. Bloody amazing stuff.

Anyways I’ll post again soon on some of the other stuff we’re up to.