Posts by BenWilson
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Very sad, Sam. I hope that the day she died will cause you to remember her fondly every year at the same time. My first love's father died on Christmas day, although tragically well before his time. She and her mother would always take a particular time on Christmas to remember him, a special private moment between them. It seemed more affirming than mournful, a recognition that they still had each other.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 1: Beach…, in reply to andrew r,
Auckland sea temps get to 20c at best - 25c would be sooooo nice.
Hell yes. Pt Erin was 23 and that was pretty nice, 25 would probably seem like a bath.
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We put on family Christmas party this year, so the 3 days leading up to Christmas were spent hard at work in the garden, which got away on me over the year. Mowing, weeding, transplanting, cloning, mulching, composting, pruning, and some extended savagery with a reciprocating saw. The kids played in the garden, spending a lot of time in paddling pools, but they both took a real interest in what I was doing too, mimicking my actions with all the toy tools. That made what promised to be days of hard labor into a really pleasant time.
After Christmas, we went to my parents' bach on Waiheke, and whiled away the days swimming, snorkeling, kayaking, walking, entertaining, drinking, bodysurfing (after the gale), and celebrating a friend's child's birthday. It might seem like a bummer to have a birthday between Christmas and New Year's, but it did occur to me that you'll always cash in on the fact that a lot more people are on holiday, and in a partying mood.
I bought a boat early in December, but the damn thing is broken and no-one is around to work on it. However, I've got the backup solution organized, a secondary motor I'm picking up this week, so I hope to get out on the water for some fishing - I've been priming Marcus to this task, taking him to the popular spot by Westhaven. I soon discovered that shore fishing was all about having a big rod. Anyone with a really big rod made a real show of the casting, standing in casting pose for up to 30 seconds before unleashing to distances that seemed over 150m. However, a couple of Chinese guys turned up with what appeared to be traditional Chinese fishing equipment, bamboo poles and interesting colorful tracers - they sat right at the water's edge and were instantly successful. So I don't feel the need to indulge in a rod-size competition just yet.
Like Russell, I noticed a demographic gap - the bach owners on Waiheke seemed to be mainly white. I took the family to Pt Erin pool on the weekend, and brown was predominant color, despite being in the heart of pluty white suburbs. Ironically, when I used to go to Pt Erin as a child, it was not so, those suburbs were only just beginning to gentrify, so the experience was a blast from the past, St Mary's Bay as I remember it.
I only got a few days off (also working for North Americans), but these summer evenings are almost like stealing an afternoon pass every day.
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well, there's no excuse for Eddings, really. Except that people like to hear the same stories over, and he perfected that. And made a lot of money doing it.
The way he tells it, he also found it quite enjoyable, as did millions of his fans. That's plenty enough excuse.
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Merry Christmas to all PAS denizens! Happy Holidays!
Sophie and Steve, have a fantastic time up there. Make sure you put 3410 to work, if only to drive the sounds :-) Keep the pics rolling!
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I'm very glad Leo has shown more interest in the NotSchool's syllabus, and I'm not at all surprised he's scored highly in literacy. Working with him was a great experience, and I'm still amazed at how tolerant he was of my amateur efforts, considering that we were both learning Java together. One of the best parts for me was him teaching me about games, about which he talks with passion and clarity, and extensive knowledge.
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At least most women aren't faced with the conundrum of shaving 'down there' simply making a bald patch on their body. I mean shaving my pubes would look rather odd amidst an otherwise generally quite hairy body.
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On the "just saying" front, I was there today, during the busiest weekend of the year. Arrived at 11:30, right at the peak of the busiest day, last Saturday before Christmas. There was an easily avoidable queue of cars on St Lukes Rd, so I got into the carpark without even having to stop. It took me 30 seconds to find a carpark. It's not that bad, people.
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Auckland is most certainly higher density than Brisbane & Perth: two cities with extremely popular rail systems that continue to be expanded.
Also two cities on flat land.
I agree with Mark.Rickerby that binary thinking on this is crazy. It's OK to "just say" that, without fingering anyone specifically (which only contributes to a binary war). Of course we need multiple options. Practically, the car itself is still the first choice of most commuters.
I think one of our biggest difficulties is in the integration of the transport modes. If ticketing was integrated, then buses and trains would be complementary.
For instance, a main reason in my household not to commute to the city via train was because the train station is 2 kilometers away. I actually feel blessed to live so close to one. But the parking at the station is hopeless, and only getting worse. The main problem isn't finding a park, it's theft and vandalism.
We could catch the bus to the train, but would have to pay for two tickets. Both of these issues impact on train usage. So in the end, my wife would catch the bus to the CBD, even though it went right past the local station on the way there. Or she would catch the train, if I would drop her off there (I'm a telecommuter), or more likely (because they just weren't reliable enough a few years back), we'd do that at the other end of the day, I'd pick her up from the station.
I also like what Richard is thinking, regarding low-rise in the inner suburbs. I don't have a problem with more high-rise in the CBD itself, though, both of those choices would have appealed to me as a younger man, although neither of them currently appeals as much as not-so-inner, actual sub-urbanity. Where the hell am I going to park the boat in a terrace-house suburb?
As for 'burbs themselves, they don't need encouragement. They'll always appeal to a sector, probably families, and people who work out there. The way to get people out of the 'burbs isn't to make the 'burbs stink, it's to make the inner-suburbs and the CBD more attractive.
Currently, the biggest detractor from those areas is actually price. The virtual absence of low-rise means that living in inner-suburbs means extremely high cost-occupancy ratios.
I'm not sure what the best kind of low-rise is, though. Terraced housing seems like an anachronism - better would surely be the apartment complex?
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Aw, we spied on Fiji, but the cables don't contain any juicy details of Fijian military communications. Just cellphones.
Goes to show that hi-tech spying just isn't really up to much. We might live in a 'surveillance society' but it's still very easy to communicate secretly - you just use ITF technology, which most humans are equipped with at birth.
As for the Fijian coup, where there even any secrets? Friends who lived there said it was virtually announced in advance what day the latest coup would be on, so that people could be prepared, and no important rugby games would be interrupted.
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