I am looking forward to provincial rugby, roll on Air NZ cup.
North Harbour fixtures can be found here
Monday, July 13, 2009
Monday, June 08, 2009
Partying at Mangawai
As Alison has just hit that big five oh milestone, we thought it would be good to celebrate by renting a holiday house away from Auckland and inviting a few friends around. So off we went to a great place at Mangawai heads. there we 8 of us there, me and Alison, her sister Gillian, Janet, Greg and Sharon & Kevin and Charmaine. Joan came up for a while but had to head back to look after the family.Unfortunately for me I came down with a cold/cough on the Thursday, as we left for a long weekend on Friday lunchtime, but I was still able to enjoy the weekend even if I was a bit quieter than normal and took the occasional nana-nap.
My folks very kindly came up to look after the kids which was very nice of them, I think Megan & Duncan would have been very bored with the weekend, and Megan was suffering from the same cold she gave me.
The weekend went as expected, too much food and drink, some walks outside to work a little of it off, and plenty of good company. Altogether, very worth while.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Digital economics
Article that made sense to me how technology is fundamentally changing the basic principles of economics
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
NZ Beaches
I have decided that I really enjoy NZ beaches. Over last weekend (Waitangi day weekend) I spent time at a number of beaches, each of them with their own charms and pleasures.
On Friday we swam from Island bay in the Waitemata harbour around to the Chelsea sugar refinery, with a naughty jump off the mooring 'bollard' at Kauri Pt. Island bay was very plesant, but most of the swimmers won't leave thinking too much of Chelsea. Rocks covered with shells meant most swimmer came out with cuts or scrapes from the shell, luckily I got away scott free.
Fri afternoon the family took a drive up to Tauwharanui, whuch I have heard about from many people, but never been to. The kids, including Duncan's friend Cody, where well impressed as there was great surf on the beach. Many requests for a return visit.
On Sat Vic, Sue & I swam from Milford to Mairangi, and then I got to spend the rest of the day on patrol (I was covering for Russle Schoones). A great day on the beach, tons of people there (>300) with huge numbers in the water.
On Sunday I was down at Karioitahi. I am in the process of becoming an examiner in Surf Lifesaving and this was the first of 3 exams as a probationary examiner. The whole process went really smoothly and we were done by 1:00. Had a swim in the sea, leaft a geocache, and then went back to Auckland and a birthday party at Jan's house.
It was still very hot so once we left we went to Winstone's cove for a final dip. Kids really enjoyed themselves on the rope swing and are getting much better at swinging out.
What I enjoyed was the variety of beaches I was able to get to over 3 days, each of them with thier own good and bad points. Not many places in the world you could do all this.
On Friday we swam from Island bay in the Waitemata harbour around to the Chelsea sugar refinery, with a naughty jump off the mooring 'bollard' at Kauri Pt. Island bay was very plesant, but most of the swimmers won't leave thinking too much of Chelsea. Rocks covered with shells meant most swimmer came out with cuts or scrapes from the shell, luckily I got away scott free.
Fri afternoon the family took a drive up to Tauwharanui, whuch I have heard about from many people, but never been to. The kids, including Duncan's friend Cody, where well impressed as there was great surf on the beach. Many requests for a return visit.
On Sat Vic, Sue & I swam from Milford to Mairangi, and then I got to spend the rest of the day on patrol (I was covering for Russle Schoones). A great day on the beach, tons of people there (>300) with huge numbers in the water.
On Sunday I was down at Karioitahi. I am in the process of becoming an examiner in Surf Lifesaving and this was the first of 3 exams as a probationary examiner. The whole process went really smoothly and we were done by 1:00. Had a swim in the sea, leaft a geocache, and then went back to Auckland and a birthday party at Jan's house.
It was still very hot so once we left we went to Winstone's cove for a final dip. Kids really enjoyed themselves on the rope swing and are getting much better at swinging out.
What I enjoyed was the variety of beaches I was able to get to over 3 days, each of them with thier own good and bad points. Not many places in the world you could do all this.
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Thursday, September 25, 2008
400m PB
Well I wasn't expecting it this morning as I had had a bit of a cold earlier in the week but I did a 400m personal best this morning.
400m freestyle in 6:14 - Yippee
I still am aiming at getting under 6:00 (fresh water, no wetsuit) at least once.
400m freestyle in 6:14 - Yippee
I still am aiming at getting under 6:00 (fresh water, no wetsuit) at least once.
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Geocaching and SMS
Last month one of the guys at work told me about some open source software that could be used for making SMS or TXT applications. It called kannel and can act as a SMS gateway (and also a WAP proxy, but I'm not interested in that). All that was needed to get a simple SMS application going was a cell phone with a serial connection.. This was a bit of a challenge, but I got an old Nokia 6210 from Kevin and bought a serial cable off the internet and it worked.
My original though was to make an enhanced Geocache where you get a set of co-ordinates and a question, you go to the co-ords and TXT the answer to the cell phone attached to my server, e.g. if the question is "What's the colour of the letter box?", you could text back "Green". When the system receives the right answer it sends the next co-ords and question. The final co-ords would be the physical geocache.
However the main dudes at GroundSpeak, the company that runs geocaching.com the most popular geocaching web site decided they weren't going to allow this kind of cache as it was too similar to sending an email. I posted a forum topic here to try and drum up some support from the geocaching community and received some interesting feedback My takeout from the comments were:
Megan showed some interest in using this as a treasure hunt game that could be played with her friends. Could do it is a mall or shopping centre and would not use GPS co-ord to move you around. I will think about changing the programs to accommodate this.
I have also run a quiz at work that seemed to work and may use it for a fun work activity some time.
My Wiki entry on this is here
My original though was to make an enhanced Geocache where you get a set of co-ordinates and a question, you go to the co-ords and TXT the answer to the cell phone attached to my server, e.g. if the question is "What's the colour of the letter box?", you could text back "Green". When the system receives the right answer it sends the next co-ords and question. The final co-ords would be the physical geocache.
However the main dudes at GroundSpeak, the company that runs geocaching.com the most popular geocaching web site decided they weren't going to allow this kind of cache as it was too similar to sending an email. I posted a forum topic here to try and drum up some support from the geocaching community and received some interesting feedback My takeout from the comments were:
- Most geocachers seem to be American, very few comments from Europe and other places. Maybe it's just Americans who go into the forums, other nations just do the caches.
- Quite a bit of concern about privacy, although I'm not sure people have thought it through. All I would end up with is a series of mobile numbers that have done the cache, but no info as to who holds them. I suppose I could check my logs and see when people log their visit, which means I may be able to link a mobile number to a geocahing identity, but still wouldn't see real names.
- Lots of people who dislike cell phones, possibly only when they are geocaching.
- A number of people who didn't like something new, especially if it involved technology. Quite bizarre when you consider that GPS is a really serious new technology and that Geocaching has only started since GPS capabilities have been made available outside the military in the last 10 years.
Megan showed some interest in using this as a treasure hunt game that could be played with her friends. Could do it is a mall or shopping centre and would not use GPS co-ord to move you around. I will think about changing the programs to accommodate this.
I have also run a quiz at work that seemed to work and may use it for a fun work activity some time.
My Wiki entry on this is here
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Sunday, September 21, 2008
Beautiful spring weekend
A second great weekend, the sun is shining and the weather is definately warming up. I swam yesterday at Takapuna beach and while the water is still cold, once you get going it's fine and you warm up fast once you are dressed.
Life's been a bit hectic recently. Alison was sick this week so I've been doing the cooking, and going to scouts, one or two nights a week, and I'm training the last of the rookies to be lifeguards two nights a week at the moment. I'm still swimming at 5:30 two mornings a week and going to the gym on the other days so there is not much time left for discretionary activities. But one more week to school hols and then there will be less kid related activities.
I'm off shortly for another swim with Vic, Rothsay bay to Mairangi, where there are hot showers, and then North Harbour rugby game with Duncan & Kevin at 2:30 this afternoon. So I'm in the dog box for not doing enough around the house, I'll still try and dig a drainage ditch so the proposed veggie patch does not continue to get waterlogged.
Life's been a bit hectic recently. Alison was sick this week so I've been doing the cooking, and going to scouts, one or two nights a week, and I'm training the last of the rookies to be lifeguards two nights a week at the moment. I'm still swimming at 5:30 two mornings a week and going to the gym on the other days so there is not much time left for discretionary activities. But one more week to school hols and then there will be less kid related activities.
I'm off shortly for another swim with Vic, Rothsay bay to Mairangi, where there are hot showers, and then North Harbour rugby game with Duncan & Kevin at 2:30 this afternoon. So I'm in the dog box for not doing enough around the house, I'll still try and dig a drainage ditch so the proposed veggie patch does not continue to get waterlogged.
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Chocolate Bingo
Megan & I have just been to a fund raising night at the scout den, a bingo night with all the prizes being donated chocolate. It was good fun, Megan enjoyed herself even if she won't admit it. And I think the scout group made some money too.
Speaking of scouts, I'm going camping with 5 scouts in the school holidays, the WINTER school holidays, and at the moment the weather is truly shocking. I changed it from a 3 night camp to a single night so there is a limit how miserable we can get. You never know, we may get lucky.
My knees have been pretty sore lately, especially after playing volleyball. It's a tight line between 'resting' the body enough and getting out and being active which is what I like doing. One day I'll get it right.
Speaking of scouts, I'm going camping with 5 scouts in the school holidays, the WINTER school holidays, and at the moment the weather is truly shocking. I changed it from a 3 night camp to a single night so there is a limit how miserable we can get. You never know, we may get lucky.
My knees have been pretty sore lately, especially after playing volleyball. It's a tight line between 'resting' the body enough and getting out and being active which is what I like doing. One day I'll get it right.
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Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Games and beaches
The two memories I think I will take away from this little holiday is about games and beaches.The weather has been quite cool, almost cold at times, so we know that winter is just around the corner. So we have spent a lot of time as a family at the bach, reading books and playing games. We have played checkers, chess, cards(black bitch, go fish, kings and a...holes) and board games.I'm holding my own against the kids at chess, checkers & black itch, but its getting harder each time. I'll have to enjoy the brief time remaining when I can still beat them.
The other memory is my beach walks in the morning before the rest of the family has got out of bed. Tairua has a lovely beach although it slopes up quite steeply at high tide which is when I did all my walks. It makes for a tough beach to swim at as the waves will 'dump' really close to the shore and really hard for the lifeguards to launch an IRB.
The walks were very peaceful and, while I didn't solve any of life's mysteries, I certainly managed to relax and unwind on the walks.
Yesterday we went to hot water beach to look for the hot water. Unfortunately either the tide did not go out as far as it sometimes does (neap/spring tide) or the sand has moved around. We were able to get our toes in hot water by digging our feet in the sand while knee deep in water, but couldn't dig a pool to sit in hot water. Pity, but never mind.
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Monday, April 21, 2008
Travelling books
I can't remember when or when I first heard abut traveling books but the idea has always appealed to me. The idea is that a traveling book has a note put in it to say it is a traveling book, and then 'released' into the open, i.e. left for someone else to pick up. The idea is, when they have finished reading it, they then release it. Books can be left anywhere, on a bus seat, in a cafe, or at a bach, like I'm going to do. As always there is a website dedicated to this, I found it here bookcrossing.com. The idea here is to register the books you release, then, hopefully, if people find them and read them they will register on the site that they have done so and where they released it.So I've released a couple here at the Barnes-Grahams bach, we'll see if anyone finds & reads them, & maybe updates the web site.
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