2006 Archives
Commie Pinko Veggie Baby
I haven't been forcing her to watch Motorcycle Diaries or anything, and yet Lillian shows many signs of being a good little commie pinko veggie.
Continuing adventures of Lillian Oona
Lillian continues to delight and amaze us.
Lillian Oona
Lillian Oona was born Friday, Oct 13 at 4:45pm. Minette, myself, and she are all doing very well. I've collected some photos from her first week. Minette and I are both still fairly groggy from lack of sleep, but that is slowly improving as our schedule adjusts to Lillian's.
Apparently this Friday the 13th was unique from others in the past 476 years.
Ahoy, me hearties!
Today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. Arrr, ye scurvy dogs!
Home Cooking
I wouldn't mind this on a t-shirt. Still taken from Steal This Film.
Recycling Conspiracy
Last week on my street's garbage day I strolled outside for my daily run to my favorite coffee place, only to find some of my garbage strewn across the sidewalk. The recyclers had already come and gone, but the garbage truck hadn't yet. I picked up the debris and threw it back in the bin, only to discover that all of my recycling had actually been dumped into the garbage bin. It wasn't just dumped on top, either. The garbage had been lifted out, the recycling dumped in at the bottom, and the garbage replaced on top of the recycling.
The 70's were brown, green, and mustard
I recently received a package of goodies that included some slides dated from the 1970s. They certainly have gorgeous color. I wonder if everything really looked this way, even without the aid of hallucinogens.
TidBits
For the longest time I've used an old FileMaker database to store login and password information to all the various things in my life that require such information. Mostly I needed this because I have a terrible memory for such things. But working with the ol' FileMaker has been a pain, and I had plans for some time to create a web-based database to manage this data.
Well, after a couple of weeks of late night hacking... TidBits came into being. Ye ol' FileMaker database, may she rest in peace.
Busy times
I found some beer at Minette's parent's house... vintage mid-1960's.
I installed hooks and hung our hammock.
So much to see and do.
29
29 must be my and Minette's lucky number. Our flat in San Francisco was number 29, then on the 29th of May we purchased a house in Auckland, also number 29. Perhaps it is time to buy a lotto ticket.
Fast Food Nation: The Movie
Fast Food Nation, a book which I think Matt made everyone read, has been made into a movie. The official site has a teaser trailer up. You can also read a preview of the movie.
Quite possibly the dumbest error message ever
"Transaction (Process ID 97) was deadlocked on lock resources with another process and has been chosen as the deadlock victim. Rerun the transaction."
It sounds like a line from Half-Life! This is from the "Voted New Zealand Best Online Maps 2005" website, www.wises.co.nz. I find the site works about 50% if the time, if you're lucky. Google Maps, where are you?
?
South Island adventuring, part four
The final leg of our South Island adventure was a drive up the West Coast with an overnight tramp up the Copland Track to Welcome Flat where there are several hot spring pools available for soaking in. They were superb, indeed.
After the tramp we drove to Greymouth after which Don/Rebecca hopped on a bus to go over Aurther's Pass and on to Christchurch, while I continued driving up the West Coast and on back to Picton to catch the ferry back to Wellington. On the way I stopped in Punakaiki to view the so-called pancake rocks and blow holes.
Finally I rejoined Minette in Wellington (catching an evening ferry instead of my booking of an early next morning one) and spent one more day in Wellington before we drove back to Auckland to bring the lovely holiday to an end.
Lucy "Ate My Mate" Green, championship rally driver
South Island adventuring, part three
The next leg of our holiday was another tramp: the Kepler Track. One of New Zealand's Great Walks, the Kepler was created to relieve crowding on the nearby Milford and Routeburn tracks. Apparently it didn't and instead became just one more popular Great Walk, with the distinct advantage of being easily accessible from Te Anau and a loop (loop tracks seem hard to come by in New Zealand). Unfortunately for us the storm system we saw coming in at the end of the Rees-Dart track struck Fiordland pretty hard over the first night and second day of this tramp, ushering in snow up to our knees and enough wind to make standing, let alone walking, next to impossible. In the end we turned back on the second day, stayed a second night at the Mt. Luxmore hut, and walked out and back in the reverse way to the Moturau Hut.
South Island adventuring, part two
The second leg of our South Island vacation was a guided 3-day kayak trip on Doubtful Sound, a fjord (or fiord as they spell it here) in the south of Fiordland. Access to the fjord is by way of a water taxi across beautiful Lake Manapouri, just south of Te Anau, followed by a 4WD drive over a pass to Deep Cove.
South Island adventuring, part one
Friends Don and Rebecca joined me, or perhaps the other way around, for a few weeks of roaming around the South Island. We left Wellington on a early morning ferry and hooned down to Glenorchy by way of Christchurch, Lake Tekapo, and Queenstown. We had a wild start actually, as I forgot one important bag (with food and some tramping gear) back at Cecile and William's house. Lucky for us Cecile was kind enough to race down to the ferry terminal in under 15 minutes (still in her pajamas, with Minette by her side!) and bring me the bag. From there we drove all the way to Lake Tekapo, where we camped, and then drove all the next day to Glenorchy.
The following day we started the Rees-Dart track which would take us through wide open valleys, over mountain passes, past some glaciers, and through moss-covered forest. We had five days of beautiful sunshine for this tramp, when I had been bracing for rain, rain, and more rain. Don and Rebecca might have had the wrong idea about New Zealand weather if it had not been for the rain and snow to catch up with us later...
#@$!#@* computers
Minette and I left Auckland on the 26th of March for a three week vacation to Wellington and the South Island. Late on the night of that very same day the hard drive on msqr.us died. Thus msqr.us has been dead for a few weeks. I guess I'm not too bad off since after the last time the hard drive crashed on msqr.us I implemented some more stringent backup procedures... but @#&^$!! what are the chances of that? It's been less than 2 years since the last drive failure. At least the last drive had the decency to fail after I got back from vacation.
Computers can be so damn lame.
Whangapoua weekend getaway
Our friends Don and Rebecca are currently travelling the world over 6 months for their honeymoon. They plan to spend about 6 weeks in New Zealand, so of course Minette and I want to show them a good time here. First outing: a weekend trip to the Coromandel Peninsula where we rented a super-flash bach.
Players and Workers
And for something a bit more recent, I found this essay about politics as a game quit good.
Underwater turbine converts tidal energy into electricity
I meant to post this article on underwater turbines ages ago (it's about a year old by now). Sometimes it just take a while to get around to it, but it's still relevant and quite a cool idea.
Summer holidays
It's been beautiful over the high summer holiday season here: warm, sunny, and rainy. Sometimes all at once. I've got a few photos from some camera-worthy outings. First, Minette and I joined William and Cecile and their family for another Tongariro Crossing tramp. Second, Minette and I were invited to our friend Amy's father's bach (kiwi for summer cottage) on the island of Kawau, less than an hour's drive north from Auckland.
msqr.geek.nz
msqr.us has finally migrated to New Zealand, too, as of about a week ago. Since Minette & I moved here msqr.us had been living at a friend's office in San Francisco. It took about a week for it to fly from there to here, including time to clear customs. Everything went according to plan, and the only hiccup was the disruption of email service during that week.
To celebrate msqr.us's new dual citizenship, he is now also (affectionately) known as msqr.geek.nz. Turns out New Zealand does not allow arbitrary 2-level names, so msqr.nz was not possible. The 3rd-level names are pre-defined, and the only one that actually described msqr.us was .geek, as described in the official New Zealand government documentation:
- .geek
- For people who are concentrative, technically skilled and imaginative who are generally adept with computer [sic]
Apparently it's also for people who speak in strange sentence structures.