May be lucky to get the extenda box fixed but will have to fix the other myself.

these days i wonder how on earth i managed in the years before i had massages

i guess the skill is finding a good massage therapist and keeping them!

I’ve been taking the train into Wellington on $2 Thursday for many years now.

Had a good time – lunch at @mojobond; visit to Te Papa and the colossal squid; visit to Museum of Wellington and walking around some other places. Here’s my photo journey.

Colossal squid sighted @ Te Papa

Photo of Gandhi outside Wellington Railway station

Statue of John Plimmer and his dog at the bottom of Plimmer steps

Formula 1 car @ Te Papa

Political statements found within the exhibits @ The Museum of Wellington

As I walked around the water front I noticed a series of maritime/military themed plaques which I photographed.

July’s theme is Routine so for the rest of July I’ll post about routines routinely …. {insert insane laughter}

It’s well worth watching. @teachernz challenged his readers to list how many of the things mentioned we’d done as children. My response:

Let’s see. As a child I:
1. played with fire – my parents taught me how to make the BEST campfires
2. owned my own ‘bowie’ knife – wasn’t called that but you know what it looks like
3. threw everything – we made spears and bows and arrows (and actually i was also taught how to fire a gun!)
4. i don’t remember pulling things to pieces … but have encouraged others to do so (especially computers)
5a. break the dmca – i have no idea if that was law back when i was younger but as a teenager i copied records onto tapes …
5b. drove a car – my dad had some kind of small car – it had part of the roof that slid back and i got to stand up and hang outside while he drove the car around the field then i got to drive it – don’t remember how old but pre-10

perhaps i should share my shooting story?

So here’s my shooting story.

Dad had guns in the house. He was a member of the Kings 100 (top 100 marksmen in the armed forces) and had some fancy guns. (Rifle/pistol/revolver.) So he taught us 3 older children how to handle guns safely and how to shoot. Of course an adults version of safety and a child’s version can be quite different.

We three set up a shooting alley down the hallway. My bedroom door was at the top end facing the entrance to the bathroom. At the end of the hallway was the door to my brother’s bedroom and to the left the hallway continued for about a metre to my sisters bedroom door. We set the target up against my brothers door – a box with newpapers in it to absorb the pellets we would be firing (we didn’t call it a BB gun but I guess that’s what it was). One person was the shooter – the other two had to get from either my bedroom or the bathroom down the hall, round the corner and into my sisters bedroom with out getting hit by any of the bullets. No one came away unscathed.

Many years later (40 or so) going back to visit the old house the current occupants asked if we had any idea what all the little holes were in a particular door!

We also never attempted to fire like that with the ‘real guns’, we never fired at anyone’s face, and none of us shoot today.

gravelboy likes his pancakes and so purchased 2 lots

and ate them faster than i did mine …

and as for flashdrives …

L to R

at school i also have another couple of flashies …

last week while home sick i was checking out dealaday.co.nz when they had a special “FREE” deal – only pay freight on a 1GB Transcend MicroSD Card – that was something i couldn’t pass up since i only had a 512MB card in my nokia

2 days later a parcel arrives – i open it and in it was a 2GB Transcend MicroSD Card – the invoice with the parcel stated a 2GB although my emailed invoice stated 1GB

having fiddled around so i could transfer the data from the old card to the new card (i basically downloaded it into a folder on my macbook via bluetooth) i inserted the new card and hey presto – my problems have disappeared!

i wasn’t sure if the problems had occurred because of extreme temps or something else – still not sure why they occurred as my card memory wasn’t maxed out … but it’s nice to have it all working swiftly again …

i’ve finally got to this post from a blog i’ve recently started following

Prepare to introduce your jaw to the floor.

My week of encounters with elderly folks continues. (Warning: coarse language … post will not be to everyone’s taste.) We arrived in Vancouver at the hotel where I’ll be working tomorrow. After finding a parking spot we got to the elevator and waited beside a woman of considerable age and, judging by her clothing, considerable wealth. She glanced a hello to us, we glanced back. Subtle social interactions really are in my skill set though many would disbelieve.

The elevator openned and there were two youths, maybe 15 or 16, slouching against the wall. The woman said to them, is this elevator going up or down. One of them said through a sneer, “Don’t be so retarded, this is the bottom floor.” She said, sweetly, “Oh, dear, I didn’t know.” It was a large elevator so we were all able to get on.

Just as the door closed she looked at the boy who had spoken and said, “If you wanted to be both accurate and offensive you should have said, ‘old twat’. You see, I clearly don’t have a developemental disability, so something about my gender would have made more sense. Maybe, ‘Droopy tits’ or ‘Wrinkle puss’ those would have worked too. You see when you speak you don’t want to be considered foolish.”

The boys stared at her, horrified, I was dumbstruck, Joe turned vermillion. She wasn’t done, “I understand the need to express anger or disapproval, I just wish you kids would be a little more rigourous with your name calling.” The door opened and she called after them, “Remember, ‘Old Twat’ works too.”

The door closed and she looked at us and said, “I’m sorry about that but I hate that word that he used. I always like to get them back.”

When she got off we saw her walk away with a spring in her step.

I have a new hero.

Now THAT’S presence!