Stick it to the man!
;-)

People are strange

Why is it that when faced with the prospect of being locked inside an aluminium tube for 12 hours (at 40,000-ish feet) everyone is eager to be the first in? (in fact some people pay extra for the privilege!)

It's not so surprising that everyone wants to be the first out as well...

Lightning Flash

I was driving through Auckland last night during some reasonably nasty weather (nasty weather seems to be all the rave in NZ at the moment). The rain was torrential for most of the trip and the plumes of spray behind the cars were being blown sideways.

As I drove over the harbour bridge the lightning started, and by the time I had made it to the Victoria Park viaduct the Sky Tower had been hit 4 times. This was party due to the traffic going at typical Auckland speed, and party because the Sky Tower is always the first thing to get hit when there is lightning.

Some people say the Sky Tower is a target because it's the tallest building in NZ. I prefer to think it's because it's so damned ugly!
Lightning doesn't strike the same place twice? ... unless God doesn't like your architect...

Flash ventures outdoors

Well, it's been quite some time since we've been fishing. Launching the boat without a car is reasonably tricky, and the weather hasn't been helping either.
Today was a fine day so we decided to head to Pakiri beach for a spot of land-based fishing. Not usually my fav form of fishing but beats sitting in front of a computer (writing blogs etc...)
This had nothing to do with me being jealous that everyone else is travelling around and I'm still here in NZ...

Low tide was at 12 noon so we got to the beach at about 11am (this had more to do with me sleeping in than the tides).
Pakiri beach is really beautiful (everywhere around here is beautiful).

Normally Pakiri is a surf beach but there was absolutely no surf today, it was flat as a pancake. There was a bit of wind blowing though (and a nice 'crisp' southerly at that) but otherwise it was a beautiful 'blue-dome' day.

Our fishing spot was about an hours walk from the car park. Along the way we discovered a really impressive bed of mussels!



Yum! Mussels!
It was pretty cool to see so many mussels growing this close to Auckland. Most mussel beds around here have been totally decimated.
We grabbed a few for bait and kept going.

Finally we got to spot-x.

A rather nice spot. The water drops to about 3 or 4 metres and today the visibility was really good. The best thing about land based fishing is being able to see all the fishies swimming around (before you catch them and drive a metal spike through their brains).

It didn't take long for the blue maomao to show up. Very pretty fish (and not target species so they were safe).

A little later we saw a John Dory. Now they are a target species!!
We didn't have any live bait so I did my best to make my bait look alive. Alas my puppetry skills just weren't up to the bar.
However a passing kahawai thought my efforts were worth rewarding and so I had my first fish for the day.

More attempts to catch the John Dory were fruitless so I went back to targetting snapper, which was just as well because a little later this guy turned up.


We estimated that he was 1.5 metres across (I thought 2 metres, Todd said 1.5). Very impressive!
Sting rays are hard enough to catch at the best of times, and this had to be the biggest one I'd ever seen (I didn't even know they got that big!) so there was no way I was going to try and catch it ( by 'catch' I of course mean 'lose all the fishing gear when it snaps the line').
So I went back to casting out for snapper, while Mr Stingy continued to patrol the coast.
It's no wonder we get Orca around here. Orca love to eat stingies.

On the next cast I got seriously snagged and in trying to get un-snagged I managed to snap Todd's fishing rod clean in half (I don't know my own strength!). After some rather panic'd casting with the other rod we managed to salvage the broken rod from the water, but it was totally munted. Theres no way we'll be able to fix it (not even with an ample supply of glue and nails).

We stayed there for another hour or so. Todd fished and I played with the berley (as you do when you no longer have a fishing rod). That wasn't too bad coz' it was a really beautiful spot. The JD turned up again and Todd had a go at luring it to eat a dead bait but it wasn't having any of it.
On the way back we collected a couple of dozen mussels for lunch. Mmmmm, smoked mussels in chilli sauce :)
I think we'll be going back there again :)

Sans F3

Boris was sleeping on top of Todd's monitor last nite (as he does). Unfortunately he has recently been a wee bit too 'healthy' to perch on top of the screen without having bits (mostly stomach) protrude over the front.
This makes work a little harder for Todd as the top few inches of the screen are covered by fluff.
Last night Boris fell off the monitor while asleep (such an agile cat!) and landed on the keyboard. Sadly the F3 key took the brunt of the impact. I'm pretty sure Todd didn't want that key anyway...

What??!!

I live in the most beautiful place in the world

I even uploaded this image at high-res so you can download it and use it as desktop wallpaper (and stare at it every day wishing you too live in Leigh :)
Aren't I kind!

Chocolate + Children = Chaos

Ok, so we've just survived another Easter.
To be honest Easter doesn't really rock my boat. Ever since the whole chocolate allergy thing when I was growing up (and way too much carob! yuk!) easter has lost it's charm. I now indulge in chocolate but seem to have lost the ability to eat way too much of the stuff (and then feel sick for the rest of the day). My niece and nephew on the other hand... oh they can knock back the chemically charged brown stuff like the best of 'em.

Hmmm.... kids with too much sugar and chocolate in their system.
It would be a waste to let all that excesss energy go untapped. What game should we play to help burn off those calories?


Tee hee :)

Of course that only lasted for about 30 minutes. Mum and Dad may have a big house but this little blighter is amazingly quick with a vacuum!

So it was outside to play in the hammock. The girls weren't too keen on Callum joining them and so tied him up (as you do).



Apparently this was more fun than you'd expect, so Callum asked to be tied up more.



And after he escaped that lot he came back for more (wriggly little blighter!).



What a great way to spend Easter. Nothing beats a good ol' festive hog-tying.

A few hours later this is where it had progressed to:



Yes he escaped that lot too. He's a little Houdini I tells ya!

...if you work for Child Youth and Family my real name is Gilbert Von Trinkle-Bottom and I don't live in Leigh...