Monday, 17 November 2003

Weekend at Gordy's - Kym and I blasted over to Papamoa beach on the Saturday morning and spent the night there coming back on Sunday evening. Everyone I told during the week about our plans for the weekend said... "Oh, dear, you know the weather's gonna be crap dont you?" But the weather forcasters in New Zealand are never overly reliable, so it doesn't generally deter me. So off we went ovet the Kaimai ranges on Saturday in total and blissful meteorlogical-ignorance. Saturday night we did bugger all, stopped in and had a few drinks watching the All-Blacks bomb out of the world-cup, both got shitty about it and had an early night. Fortunately the weather on Sunday was bloody brilliant. I managed to avoid having to sit on the beach for too long by suggesting a walk, and there was plenty of entertainment in the form of dozens of mazda-baters in their RX3|4|7's and thousands of more fleshy delights in bikins :-) 8:25:52 PM    Google It!

Sunday, 9 November 2003

Flying ... Low.  Monday is my birthday and today I got an early present from Kym which she'd arranged in advance last week. When she told me I needed to wake up on Sunday without a hang-over (for a change) I had my suspicions that it might be something like a rally-car drive or parachite jump or something, but turns out I was gonna be doin something equally as exciting. I got to fly a plane today !!! A real one ... not the Microsoft-flight-sim variety I've been blasting about in over the last 6 months or so in the office at home. This one was a Cessna-152, a cute little 110hp 2 seater with enough room behind the front seats for a set of golf clubs and a couple of dozen beers. Jeeze it was a blast. I didnt get to do the take-off or landing of course but once we were safely in the air I had the controls for about 20mins of flying time. I asked if we could fly out and around Ngahinepouri where I grew up, and where my Mum still lives, and this was OK with the instructor, basically we had the 20mins to use up and it didnt really matter where we went. I rang Mum before we left to go out to the aero-club to let her know to watch-out for possible out-of-control aircraft in the district at about 1:30pm. She told me tonight that she did poke her nose up from the gardening at one point, and even waived, but I was so freeked out keeping the plane on the level I didnt really have time to wave back. Barn-storming, I was not :-) Although I was bursting at the seams to let my instructor Roger (unfortunately I missed the chance to use the Roger-Roger line on him) know I'd knotched up a hundred odd hours in the flight-sim, I managed to keep it under my hat. I've learned that real-pilots basically dont give-a-shit about flight-sims. They just kinda smile condascendingly and try to change the subject as soon as possible. At $80 for a 25min trial flight I reckon its a bloody good deal. Its a thrill, plus gives you a pretty good idea about whether U wanna take it any further or not (a private-pilots-licence takes about 50-hours + exams and costs about $10,000) 9:28:22 PM    Google It!

Wednesday, 5 November 2003

You Must be Crackers - last night we went round to some friends for a BBQ and drinks to be followed by some jolly fireworks action. Dinner was great, the usual assortment of meats (including cheeze-sizzlers of course) and by about 8:30 it was time to head outside with a beer, a few lighters and a bag of Frankton model shop explosives. While the girls entertained themselves with the Sparklers (boys just dont use them) our fabulous host Chris-Cross got the ball rolling with a couple of flowery numbers, followed by some beauty fire-ball launching sorta things that make a bit of a noise and get the crowd going. It wasn't long though before we had our first alchohol-induced-mishap. I'd just lit the fuse on a big boxy thing that looked very promising (judging by the packaging) and stepped back to a critical-burns-safe-distance. The fuse crackled its way down the edge of the box and BOOOOM off up in the air went a fireball. Unfortunately, the first explosion tipped the box off onto its side and the cracker began launching the rest of its payload horizontally in random directions. Some into the hedge-fence of the place next door and others towards the spectators and house which got the girls (and Craig) running. Once it had stopped its death spiral we checked noone was hurt (actually we didnt) and continued lighting more fireworks. Next thing someone says "geeze there's alot of smoke coming from that fence". We kinda ignored the observation the first couple of times, but eventually someone pointed out that the neighbours fence was indeed smoking ... A LOT !!! More screaming was heard, and plenty of drunken laughter (from Sonia and Kym) and eventually an attack on the potential fire was organised using the hose that (fortunately) reached right round the side of the house. A few minutes later it was kinda under control, Sonia was still laughing, and we resumed lighting the rest of the fireworks. Then disaster strikes again !!! Another cracker Chris had lit went beserk, flinging fireballs round the yard and towards the house again. This time one of them managed to fly past Craig's head and into the house landing on poor Liz's brand new leather sofa, burning a patch in an obvious place where repair is gonna be a hassle. Not wanting to tempt fate a third time and burn the bloody house down we decided it was time to call it a night, give the neighbourhood dogs a rest, and resume the drinking while attempting to convince Liz that the burn on the Leather sofa "gave it some character" 8:37:47 PM    Google It!