Archive for Adventures

So it’s been a little while

{ December 5, 2006 @ 8:20 am } · { Adventures, In the news }
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I did try to be all enthusiastic about blogging but as you can see it lasted all of about 2 weeks. Consider this the second attempt. I often have the thought of “that’s something I could blog about” when a certain event occurs or I read something but I just can’t get over that hurdle of doing it, most of the time I’m not in a position to immediatly write about something and just forget.

Well, here’s something I just couldn’t get past… SMH has reported that apparently there are a bunch of people who want Australia and New Zealand to merge into one big happy country. Hilarious to me, but even funnier is imagining the reactions of anyone living outside either country and their close neighbours, a confused look followed by “But I thought… aren’t they already?”. I understand as well, no visa to get in for Aussies, sure, but I didn’t even get a stamp on my passport.

I actually like New Zealand, had a great time there on holildays last December/January and look forward to going back there again. It’s a great place for a first international trip, similar enough that you’re not completely disoriented, but a different landscape to take in. My biggest hurdle was the give-way-to-your-right-no-matter-what rule when driving, I got used to one way bridges with train tracks and being asked for a pin when getting money out (sorry? No I don’t have a pen on me, it’s savings not credit I shouldn’t need to sign). I also love that the Maori got it right – one language that could be used to communicate anywhere with anyone (if I remember correctly), how many misunderstandings can happen when you don’t have a common language to communicate with someone? Surely that saved a lot of fighting.

If we could some how tow New Zealand a little closer – say, close enough for a bridge or ferry between the two I’d vote for it. Plenty of things will need negotiating, just don’t touch the dialect, the polarities where they exsit will be amusing for some time yet, “fesh and cheps” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Wait a minute, there goes my house *blink*

{ September 27, 2006 @ 7:55 pm } · { Adventures }
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For the first time -ever- in the 8 or so years I’ve been catching the train by myself, I missed my station. For the last 3 or 4 months I’ve been catching the same trains at least 4 nights a week, I could surely get on and off with my eyes closed if I had to but the problem was they were stuck in a book. I keep thinking I need to make a list of all the books I’ve read and maybe if someone sees it and has read some they might be able to recommend me some more (not that I don’t have enough for the time being). So for the record right now I’m almost finished Jeffery Zeldman’s Designing with Web Standards, awesome read and just the starting point for about a billion things I want to look into more.

How not to make a bridge banner

{ September 9, 2006 @ 3:51 pm } · { Adventures }
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Josh's Banner My sister’s boyfriend had been in England playing cricket for 6 months-ish and Thursday was the day of his return, great day for them and great for the rest of us because we no longer had her sulking around the house. In order to celebrate, she wanted to make one of those banners to hang up one of the bridges they would pass under on the way home from the airport. I was enlisted to help out and brought along my other half to, of course we couldn’t just do a normal bed-sheet-and-spray-paint effort, instead we bought a bunch of material and cut out huge letters of the white fabric to go on the dark blue back. Tuesday night I helped draw and cut out letters, then about 11:30 started at the sewing machine to sew on the tags to tie the thing up (one in each corner, one in the middle on the sides and two on the top and bottom – so 10 in total). Not only am I a shocking sewer (but still better that the other two) but I was dead tired, and fell asleep shortly after on the lounge while the others went on the glue all the letters on the sheet. As you can see the results were pretty impressive.

Fast forward to the next morning, and after weeks of gorgeous weather, rain is forecast. All day at work I was staring out the window hoping it wasn’t too bad and it wasn’t.  My sister left us with the banner and we scouted out the potential bridges after work, the plan being to go back about midnight and hang it up . It had to be late, a) for dark cover, b) Sister’s Boyfriend’s Dad would have driven under the bridges that night but his parent’s didn’t know he was coming home. About 11pm it pours, we wait it out and jump in the car about 11:45, again in pours so we wait in the car near the target bridge till it eased off and we ran out. Again it started, light at first so we started tying up the banner then it pours on us and the sign and the umbrella. Afterwards we did a loop and drove under the bridge, pulling over to get a couple photos – lucky.

The next morning on the way to work we drive under the bridge, on the approach there is a blue area but no white, turns out the glue wasn’t really water resistant, all the letters came off and were half dangling off the edge of the bridge under the big dark blue reactangle hanging proudly.

Moral to the story: spray paint on a bed sheet might not look quite as pro, but at least rain wont wash it away (if it does, at least it didn’t take you all night to make).