Grandad's photos

Hampton Downs 21 Jan 2012

2012-01-21T15:57:00.004+13:00

A few pics from Saturday's racing.

And back into the traffic!

Here's a small (400K) MP4 clip of a Leyland cornering in style.

Woodhill Forest with the Land-Rover Club

2011-11-29T12:04:00.003+13:00

The Land-Rover Owners' Club had a day in Woodhill Forest with the intention of letting owners try out their machines and learn some new skills. It was great fun and I learnt a lot about low ratio and diff-lock. My 1983 Series 3 V8 was the oldest vehicle there.

Here are some mp4 videos I took. Mud, sandhill tracks and my view of a particularly bumpy section!

Here is a 14 min Youtube Video about the day out.

Muriwai Gannets, nesting time.

2011-10-22T14:05:00.005+13:00

22nd October, it's nesting time, the gannets are busy gathering twigs and laying eggs. You can see one egg in the last picture.

A couple of other occupants of the coast.

Manukau 4WD Club Winch Challenge 2011

2011-10-09T13:17:00.015+13:00

This was held at Onewhero, these shots are from Sunday morning. The vehicles are heavily modified 4WDs with rollbars. These first pics show the sequence what they do, down into a stream, a winchout from the stream bank using a ground anchor or handy tree, over the hill then back along the stream and up the bank again. Here is a small mp4 movie.

These shots below are some more interesting snaps from an entertaining day.

Transport for Seniors

2011-09-19T15:35:00.003+12:00

I always wondered what owning a V8 was like, now we have one in a 1983 Land Rover 4WD. No doubt fuel consumption will be the first lesson.

This one is described as a Series 3, 109 inch wheelbase, V8 station wagon. They are known as a Stage 1 in UK because they were produced as stage 1 of a multi million pound capital injection into Landrover. A Rover 3.5 litre V8 is installed, detuned to about 93 HP by the addition of restrictors in the inlet manifold which are easily removed to immediately get 150 HP. But I don't intend to do that, all the power would be at the top end, the fuel bill would go up and the brakes would not stop it.

This vehicle was originally owned by the NZ Government. They were used by Lands & Survey, Ministry of Works, etc. Similar ones are ex-Army radio vehicles, they have 2 batteries and some other additions. The last owners let the rego lapse and it cost them $3K for a full compliance inspection including sandblasting the chassis to bare steel, looking for rust. It has 93,000 km on the clock, and that appears to be right from the ownership papers. In 7000 km it will read 00000 so there may be a hidden "1". The body is all aluminium.

It runs full-time 4WD, with selectors for high/low ratio and diff-lock if wheel spin occurs. We will use it for some 4WD club outings as well as transport to camping grounds.

Nokia E71-3 locked to Three Australia

2011-08-01T08:56:00.009+12:00

This is the saga of a Nokia E71 that I bought in eBay on 21st June 2011 from a seller in Perth. I had no messages from him until 27th June, then again on July 8th when he said he had sent it via my daughter in Bendigo. It arrived loose in a box on July 8th, with a charger and no padding. She tested it turned on, removed the battery because Australia Post will only send phone batteries by road, repacked it and airmailed it to me in NZ.

The E71 comes in 4 flavours, E71-1, E71-2, E71-3 and E71x for the US market. Each one has slightly different 3G frequencies. E71-1 and E71-3 work in NZ.

When it arrived, I found it would not accept any SIM card as it was locked to Three Hutchinson network, Australia. On 17th July I sent the following via eBay:

Hi Corey,
I have the phone in NZ now, but it won't run my SIM card because it is locked the Three network. I have tried mobiunlockers.com but they say they can't unlock it. Three should give you the unlock code free, can you please contact them? Phone model is E71-3 (RM-407). IMEI code is 35682002091xxxx

He replied:

No problem Doug, I am sorry I didn't know it was locked, I will call the phone company ASAP
Sent from my iPhone

Nothing happened until 24th July when I tried to get the unlock code myself from three.com.au and received this stock answer.

Hi Sir/Madam,

It looks like you're asking about mobile locking. All mobiles sold by 3 are locked to our network. Simply put, this means you can’t use a SIM from another company in your mobile.

Some of these mobiles that can be unlocked, this information can be found on our website (www.three.com.au) or by simply calling us on 13 33 20 (or 13 19 21 if you're a 3 Prepaid customer). When you call us, we can supply you with an unlock code to release your handset.

These codes are provided free of charge for all 3 postpaid customers. (If you receive a bill, you're a postpaid customer).

If you are a 3 Prepaid customer and wish to unlock your handset within the first 12 months of joining 3, a $199.00 fee applies.

If your mobile is permanently locked (and some are) then we won’t have an unlock code available. These mobiles can only be used on 3 Australia.

If you have any further questions, or would like to enquire about having your mobile unlocked, call us on 13 33 20 (or 13 19 21 if you're a 3 Prepaid customer). To enable us to handle your enquiry you'll need the following information when you call:

3 mobile number, 3 account PIN, mobile type and IMEI.

You can find your IMEI on the back of the handset under the battery or by entering *#06# into your mobile from the default screen. Write this down, as customer care will ask for it before giving you the unlock code.

If the above information didn't answer your enquiry, if you require more information or if you'd like me to pass your enquiry on to a live agent. Please send an email to customercare@three.com.au or call 3 Care on 13 33 20.

Regards
3 Care

I had another attempt on July 25th, asked them to call Corey and get his approval to release the code, and received this reply:

Dear Doug,

Thank you for your enquiry regarding your 3 service.

We attempted to contact Corey 0425 892xxx, but not able to get him on the phone.

Doug, we would request you to contact him and ask him to give us a call at 133320 to get the unlocking code and the procedure. We will not be able to provide this information without his consent.

If we can assist you further, please contact us again via email or call 3 Care on 133320

When replying to this email, please ensure you include your 3 mobile number and four-digit account PIN.

Regards,
Yeshu,
3 Care
www.three.com.au
It's good to be 3.

I then bought one of these SIM unlockers for $7 off TradeMe and tried it.

It did get past the first simlock and gave menus, but even though it displayed all three services as available (2 Degrees, Vodafone, Telecom) it would not connect.

I continue to text and email Corey to call the 3-Care free number and get my unlock code, but no response.

I contacted several phone unlockers. They can plug in a cable and run software that unlocks the phone.

Omni Tech say: If its on high security then it will take 2-3 days otherwise it can be done with in an hour. Price could vary from $60-$100.

UnlockIt in Papakura say: We can unlock your Nokia E71 for $65 (incl GST) - This process will permanently remove the network/sim lock; allowing your phone to be used here in New Zealand and anywhere else in the world.
Please note approximately 1% of this model that were manufactured have the new SL3 security and a different procedure is needed to unlock the phone. If this has the new security unlocking can take around 2-5 days to unlock and will cost $119.95 - If it does have the new security we can let you know, and you can choose weather or not you want to go ahead with the unlocking.

Giga Computers say they can't unlock it.

MobiUnlockers.com took my money $AU 5.99 and said "Sorry I have been unable to generate the correct unlock code for your mobile. There are so many mobile out there sometimes the firmware on certain versions mean I can't generate the code." They refunded it.

The saga continues, 6 weeks gone by ......

2 August. Now I have 3 quotes from firms that say they can unlock the E71-3, or no charge. $57.50, $60 and $80. And I have raised a dispute with paypal to try and force Corey to supply the free unlock code.

3 August. Yay, he sent me the unlock code and it works!.

Warbirds Ardmore 5 June 2011 D-Day

2011-06-06T09:55:00.015+12:00

Warbirds held their D-Day celebrations on 5th June 2011 with an airshow and mock battle.

The P40N Kittyhawk, subject of an interesting book 'The Whole Nine Yards' by John King if you can find it.

The mock battle comprised a reconnisance by the Miles Messenger, 22 parachutists dropped from the Dakota and an air battle between about 8 Harvards, a Messerschmidt Me109, P40 Kittyhawk and the Spitfire.

It was just great seeing the Spitfire flying, the first time for me. Want to hear the sound of a Merlin V12? I took a short movie 2 Mbytes MP4 or WMV format.

There were lots of other planes:

A De Havilland Fox Moth, recently restored and the DH Rapide.

The Catalina and aerobatics from the MX1

The P51 Mustang, taking up a passenger.

The StrikeMaster, a later version of the Jet Provost trainer.

Simon Gault of Masterchef fame in his Thunder Mustang. A share of this plane is available for $300,000 if you have a few lazy notes.

Our hot-water heat pump

2011-03-30T10:48:00.006+13:00

We have bought a hot-water-heat-pump system from Econergy http://www.econergy.co.nz/heat-pump-products.htm A sparky and a plumber hooked it up yesterday in a few hours.

We chose this as it was the best of the ones tested by Consumer http://www.consumer.org.nz/reports/heat-pump-water-heaters as well as being NZ-made.

These things heat hot water at about one-third of the price of a normal element inside the cylinder. The box outside dumps cold air in order to make the hot water. Should save us at least $50 a month off our bill, so good payback on just under $5000 installed incl GST. You can also buy these units integral with a hot water cylinder.

I am going to switch from Contact Energy to Powershop, as they don't have fixed charges, you just pay for the power. That will give us a better bill reduction.

If we move, we can take this with us as it is mounted outside and plumbed into the existing cylinder. Flip a switch to go back to the immersion element.

Update 14 April, it has been installed for 2 weeks now and our power consumption has gone from 24 units per day to 14 units per day, saving about $2.50 a day or $75 a month from the power bill.

St Patrick's Parade 12 March 2011

2011-03-12T16:17:00.007+13:00

Great day in Auckland today. Train ride, picnic lunch, parade and a pint!

A Spitfire sort of a Day

2011-01-31T13:28:00.005+13:00

There was to be a flying display over the harbour by a Spitfire today (Auckland Anniversary Day) at 11:30 am so Julie & I went out to Ardmore on the offchance that we would see Doug Brooker's MH367 (ZK-WDQ/FL-A) take off.

It was pulled out of the hangar by its electric tow wagon.

Doug Brooker climbed in after putting his parachute on. The parachute becomes the seat cushion.

He fired up the engine and taxied to the end of the runway. Unfortunately the wind had got up to gusting 29 knots and he was not prepared to takeoff and risk a dodgy landing as the Spitfires have a narrow and weak undercarriage. There was an earlier incident that caused the insurance company to have a few words to say. The plane is valued at about 3.5 million dollars.

So back he came and we assisted with putting it back in the hangar.

Bit gusty for this Piper Cub!

Bumble Bee

2010-12-26T12:05:00.002+13:00

This one seemed a bit stunned, so was easy to photograph on the deck.

A Bee

2010-12-23T14:44:00.003+13:00

More fun with the poor man's macro.

Bee sitting on a Sunflower leaf. Flew away.

And a lime tree flower.

Birds in the Rain

2010-12-16T19:57:00.002+13:00

I'm sure David has some better shots than these (more ISO, bigger lens), but a few bits of bread in the rain produced plenty of action.

First Day at Work (Unpaid)

2010-12-12T15:54:00.004+13:00

I joined Warbirds at Ardmore and spent my first volunteer day there on Sunday afternoon. It was pretty quiet with only two planes out, I guess they had had enough flying at the open day last weekend. The work will involve helping shift planes, deal with the public, sell their merchandise and help out on public open days.

In the hangar next door was a P40 Kittyhawk and this Aero L39C Albatross, a jet trainer from Russia and Czechoslovakia dating from about 1974. Had a chat to the owner, he had only had it for 3 weeks, this was his fourth flight. One hour's fuel remains once it lifts off.

A Macro lens for $10

2010-12-09T15:26:00.003+13:00

I found on eBay that if you add some rings between an ordinary lens and the camera, you can convert an ordinary lens into an ultra close-up macro lens. You lose the auto focus & exposure but for $10 that's OK.

Here are some shots of Dizzy Lizzy and Alyssum flowers, and a stamp so you can see how big the image is. Taken with a 50mm Nikkor lens.

End of our trip to Oz

2010-10-06T18:07:00.010+13:00

We fly home to NZ tomorrow. Here are a few pictures that never made it to Julie's Blog, mainly due to struggles with Internet connections. Here in Melbourne it is fast, other locations varied from useable to nil. We used a $2 SIM card from Crazy J ohns, and bought two 200MB data packs at $10 each. It all ran on a Huawei Vodafone NZ USB stick, thanks to MWconn.

Melbourne Zoo, a duck with a blue beak and a Snow Leopard.

Shots from The Great Ocean Road on the South Coast.

In the Pinnacles: it's not Julie on that rope! It actually was a 9 year-old girl.

At Lake Eppalock.

In Oz

2010-09-24T10:12:00.002+12:00

Managed to get Crazy John's data SIM card working in the NZ Vodafone USB mobile internet stick that was designed never to be used this way.

Pictures and trip blog is at http://www.nanajulies.blogspot.com/

Strange Bird

2010-09-09T15:47:00.002+12:00

I was waiting at the airport lookout for a few minutes, and this Pukeko jumped on top of the hedge, walked along the top, then flew away down into the valley. Odd!

Fathers' Day Drags at Meremere

2010-09-05T15:45:00.005+12:00

I spent a pleasant few hours watching the Drags at Meremere today. They were all street-legal cars. Over the top of the windscreen of this one reads 'Random Breast Testing'.

Chris (The Burger), our tyre man and Rob's friend was there with his Camaro. He gets 12.75 or so on a good run. This run was 13.33 seconds, crossing the line at 101.5 mph.

Look at the power going from car to road through the tyre.

Here is one of the quickest runs of the day. 136 mph = 231 kmh in under 10 seconds!

Tuis in the Botanic Gardens

2010-08-31T10:34:00.003+12:00

I think this last picture is a young bird, with much lighter colours. David has much better pictures on his blog.

Calculating GST after 1st October

2010-08-13T13:05:00.003+12:00

We have had it really easy, current GST is 12.5% = 1/8. Add GST to $80 and you have $90. Divide by 9 and you get the $10 GST component. You can also multiply the $90 by 0.8888888 to get the $80 GST-free part but only geeks do that.

From 1 October it's going to be 15%. Your $80 x 1.15 = $92.

You can't divide by any whole number to get the $12 GST component. Divide by 7.6666667 to get the $12 GST component. Multiply the $92 by 0.8695652 to get the original $80 GST-free part, or divide by 1.15.

Pacific Sun cruise ship

2010-06-15T08:57:00.003+12:00

My driving job yesterday involved picking up 42 passengers from the Pacific Sun at Queens Wharf, dropping them at the Domestic Airport, then picking up another 32 on their way to the ship. The passengers were processed in the sorry-looking corrugated iron freight sheds that the city council thinks deserve heritage status. Weather was about 11 degrees, wind & showers.

Whoever designed the Domestic Airport layout should unload 42 passengers' bags in the rain. They would pretty fast put up some sort of awning to keep the rain off the airport visitors.

While waiting for the incoming flights, this sparrow decided the windscreen wiper would be a nice perch. It was nice to have some company. The photo was taken 6 inches from the sparrow who didn't seem to regard anything through the glass as a hazard.

End of the Wine Tour

2010-05-18T16:55:00.004+12:00

The Aussies from the 'Granite Belt Wine Society' are winging their way back to Brisbane as I type. We visited a lot of fine vineyards and heard from some very talented wine-makers with rows of gold medal awards.

This winemaker is from Mills Reef at Bethlehem.

After Mills Reef the next stop was at Morton Estate, near Katikati. Neither this one nor Mills Reef nor Ohinemuri have local vineyards, the soil is too rich. They have vineyards in Hawkes Bay and Gisborne but make the wines in the estate and have the cellar door sales.

Some of the places were not designed for buses, like Ohinemuri at Karangahake Gorge. But lunch was very, very nice. The winemaker was a witty German, he said he was actually Kiwi but the wind blowing down the valley makes him sound like a German.

Wine Trail N.I.

2010-05-16T18:46:00.004+12:00

I have had 18 Aussies from a wine society South of Brisbane on my bus for a few days, watching in envy as they tasted $60 wines with comments from the wine maker.

A quick stop in Featherson caught the pride of KiwiRail coming through at a good clip. I didn't know they have the only surviving Fell steam engine on display, and that they had 400 Japanese POW's during WW2, as well as a mutiny and quite a few killed.

Here's the bus spoiling the view at Craggy Range.

I got them tonight, they are at Te Puia (Whakarewarewa) for a hangi and a hongi - what's the wine match for that? Smelly hot water?

I had a nice salami pizza at 'Eat Street' with Chianti and Toscana as my wine match.

Heading for Auckland tomorrow via two Tauranga and one Karangahake vineyards.

Skyline gets older

2010-05-10T13:38:00.002+12:00

250,000 popping its head up!

WRC Rally, Yumps and Choppers

2010-05-08T08:57:00.011+12:00

I took a Red Bull busload to the WRC Rally near Brynderwn and spent the day watching the cars and the fifteen helicopters. Here's a few pics. (The jumps are called yumps by the Swedes and Finns).

Jari-Matti Latvala and Mikko Hirvonen of Finland.

Sebastien Loeb and Sebastien Ogier from France. Note Loeb's crumpled door, where he hit a bridge that probably cost him the rally win.

Sardel from Sweden and Solberg from Norway. Not sure if this is Henning or Petter Solberg.

Tuonino of Finland and Dani Sordo of Spain.

Mark Tapper (NZ) and Wilson (UK). Steel-nerved photographers.

Waiotapu via Taupo to The Chateau

2010-04-29T15:28:00.004+12:00

Waiotapu was the first stop today and a walk for 1.5 hours through the thermal valley. A lot of mudpools, silica formations and different coloured pools.

At 10:15 it was time to visit the Lady Knox Geyser. It was originally discovered by prisoners about 1900 who did some washing in the warm pool and set it off by letting soap go down the vent. They put a cairn of stones around it which have since been covered by silica. Every day at 10:15 a man gives a talk and drops in some soap!

Then through to Taupo via Huka Falls and on to Whakapapa where the weather was low clouds and rain. Tomorrow 6am departure for Hamilton Airport and the end of the tour.

Rotorua Agrodome & Geysers

2010-04-28T15:04:00.003+12:00

We visited the Agrodome for their morning show, this was good entertainment! They had about 15 different breeds of sheep that were very tame, and didn't even mind a dog on their back! Several from the audience hand milked a cow, and hand fed some lambs. We watched a sheep sheared and an eye-dog rounding up some geese on the stage without barking.

After that a visit to Rainbow Springs to see big trout and a lot of native birds, then to Te Puia for geysers and the Maori village.

Whangamata and Waihi

2010-04-27T17:06:00.004+12:00

I took the two customers to Rotorua, via Whangamata, Waihi and Mt Maunganui. Weather was close to rain but not too bad.

They had the beach to themselves at Whangamata.

At Waihi we had a look at the big hole that is Martha Mine, a local told us they were about to set off explosives. The local school came up to watch, but it wasn't that amazing and the wind was so strong we couldn't hear any bangs.

Cathedral Cove & Pauanui

2010-04-26T17:33:00.005+12:00

Here's a couple of phone camera snaps of day 1 from my trip away this week with 2 people from UK in a rental car.

Cathedral Cove, near Hahei.

Pauanui, from Motu peak.

New Phone

2010-04-10T13:54:00.004+12:00

Although my Nokia 6230 is working fine, it only cost $40 and being essential for my job, I thought a spare would be a good idea. Nokia improved some aspects of the 6230 in the 6230i model. They put a centre button in the navigation key, which more often than not selected something you didn't want. And they improved the old 0.3 Megapixel camera to a 1.3 Megapixel. And the screen is a nice and sharp 204 x 204 compared to 128 x 128. It's very nice to use, bought on eBay from UK. Being a similar model it fits the 6230 batteries & chargers and runs Bluetooth for the handsfree earpiece.

Here are three shots from the camera.

Bus Trip to Warbirds

2010-03-25T09:12:00.006+13:00

In the last two days I was with a group of business people from USA, Australia, Holland, UK, who were all part of a group that share ideas to improve their lives and businesses. This trip was all unplanned, for people whose lives are always totally planned. They didn't find out what was happening until about an hour before it happened. The first day I took them to remote Karekare beach, near Piha where they went surf-boating with the surf club, walked in a rain forest, were ambushed by Maori warriors and had hangi and spit-roasted lamb.

The next day I took them to Ardmore, where they had rides in the Warbirds Yaks and Harvards, off in formation for simulated bombing attacks on a Gulf island.

Due to crosswinds, the 'tail-dragger' Harvards could not be used until about 3pm when 4 of them also did the bombing runs. There were some pretty big smiles after each plane returned, pity 'busso' didn't get a go. Then it was out to the airport for a ride into Wellington on a bad weather day, in a chartered Boeing 737 with motion-sickness pills in demand.

The Warbird pilots get their weather information from this stone.

Paihia and Russell

2010-03-15T16:20:00.007+13:00

The bus tour had a free day in Paihia today so I took the ferry to Russell and walked up Flagstaff Hill, (the one Hone Heke cut down four times). Great views towards Paihia and out to sea. A nice chat to a camper-vanning Dutchman and his wife, from Haarlem.

Some seagull shots around the Russell wharf. The brown gull is a juvenile black-backed gull, they take 2 years to get the adult colours. But what a great dragon shirt that guy has, I had one just like that with red dragons....

Back in Paihia I walked up to the lookout in the hills, more good views and I came upon this little bird, I thought it was a fantail but I think it maybe is a wren.

Muriwai Beach

2010-03-06T18:21:00.005+13:00

I took a busload of Japanese students to Muriwai for the day, and had the chance to take a few snaps.

Surfers were having fun, except for this guy.

Rock fishing is safe, isn't it?

Ready ... ... Go!

7 Irish Tenors at Te Mata Peak

2010-02-04T15:55:00.002+13:00

Leaving Havelock North we went up to check out the view at Te Mata Peak before heading for Palmerston North. We intended to go via the wind turbines but ran out of time.

7 Irish Tenors Tour

2010-02-02T23:01:00.007+13:00

Here are some shots of the 7 Tenors and the string quartet on their visit to Orakei Korako today, in transit from Hamilton to Havelock North. They have a morning memorial service for the 1931 earthquake and an evening concert in Hastings tomorrow. We all enjoyed a BBQ tonight. My Titanic T-shirt was the most Irish thing there!

Botanic Gardens

2010-01-02T15:04:00.008+13:00

A nice sunny day for a walk in the gardens. The roses are at their best.

A big yellow thing....

Lots of other flowers...

A chaffinch and one of many ducks.

Rotorua and Wellington Tour

2010-01-02T09:07:00.005+13:00

On 30th December I took a tour group of people and their kids from Auckland to Rotorua, then to Wellington in a 50 seater Leopard coach (2007 Volvo B12B). They were a very nice group to be with and I enjoyed their company. They seemed to like my commentary and sledgehammer wit. They had a great few hours on Mt Ngongotaha, up on the gondola, a nice lunch and some luge rides. Here's a couple of phone camera pics. Who invented these awful cameras?

Ardmore Warbirds Airshow Dec 09

2009-12-06T15:58:00.010+13:00

The Warbirds held their open day at Ardmore today, 6th December. It was a little less relaxed than last time ("stand back while we start the engine") as the public were invited this time, but at $5 each it was all good fun.

If you were adrift in your liferaft in shark-infested seas, the Catalina would have been a welcome sight.

Checkers were flying in close formation.

Warbirds Dakota took time out from its scenic flights.

The Harvards put on their usual fine show.

Emirates A380 flew past on approach to Auckland, about 15 miles away.

The Trojan in carrier landing mode and the Thunder Mustang, a modern version of the wartime P51 Mustang.

A fine slow-aerobatic display by the Tiger Moth.

Desktop sized pictures

2009-11-22T09:34:00.009+13:00

Here are some hi-res 1280 pixel pictures from our trip that are suitable to place on your desktop. Click on the picture to view full size, right mouse 'Set As Desktop Background'. They are about 600-700Kb each so will take a little while using dial-up.

Giant's Causeway in N.Ireland and a canal scene from Haarlem.

Amsterdam 5 Bridges and Loch Lomond in Scotland.

Boats on the beach at Beer, Devon. The harbour at Ballycastle, Northern Ireland.

Loch Lomond, Scotland and the seafood seller at Brixham, Devon.

Roses in Vianen, Holland and the Main river at Miltenberg, Germany.

The William Wallace memorial and Stirling Castle, Scotland.

Boats at Urk, Holland and a merry-go-round on the Thames Embankment, London.

VCC Chelsea Hillclimb 2009

2009-11-08T13:11:00.008+13:00

Without a car this year I had to resort to being a photographer. David took some pictures as well.

This Buckler was very similar to my Orchid Special, and going well.

Roy King from Taranaki in his pint-sized Austin 7 and Alan Blundell in his Jaguar SS100 Special.

Steve Sharp in his Buckler and Roger Herrick in the A40 Special.

Ron Roycroft's Bugatti is back on the road.

And a few of the others running today.

Martin Greentree's funeral

2009-11-08T08:06:00.003+13:00

Martin Greentree died this week aged 51, the service was held in his LDS Church, Pah Rd, Royal Oak. He left Mala and 4 children, all grown up. The school that he taught at gave him a guard of honour. Martin was a very nice person with a keen interest in genealogy.

Birds taken on our trip and a couple of other things

2009-11-04T12:58:00.014+13:00

Here's a video of a windmill at Kinderdyke, working away pumping water.

Here's a wee recording taken at Edinburgh airport, whilst awaiting our flight. His Scottish was very easy to understand!

There were not many chances to take bird photos, but here are the notable ones:

The robin at Loch Lomond.

The heron at Enkhuizen.

Birds at Portballintrae.

The geese that bit me at Kinderdyke.

Seagulls at Brixham & Dartmouth.

Well, not really a bird, but it does fly.

These starlings in Amsterdam were behaving like pigeons.

What we have found in Northern Ireland

2009-10-01T05:16:00.004+13:00

Before we came here we could not understand why the people of NI chose their separation from the Republic of Ireland and a life with the domination of England.

We were expecting some good pubs, good Irish music and people that were Irish. All wrong.

The people here are mostly Ulster-Scots protestants. They sound Scottish in their dialect. They partly identify with England, but more with Scotland. Every town has its Orange Hall, Union Jack and St George flag. On the 12th of July they hold their Orange parades, accompanied by big drums that bang away for days before. It must be very intimidating to the Catholics.

Apart from the little pub at Lisnagunogue where we have had some enjoyable conversations with the lady that runs it, the pubs have been like NZ sports bars, with a big TV and little else. The music on BBC Radio Ulster is 99% boring American country or of unidentifiable origins. A restaurant where we had Sunday lunch had on Herb Alpert and the Tijuana brass. The pub opposite the huge castle at Carrickfergus had run out of Guinness, also the local ale I chose as second option, and we ended up with our choices on a sticky table.

Except in a few Catholic schools, the kids don't learn Irish Gaelic. I have spent several years learning the NI Ulster version of Irish, and have not found anyone who speaks it at all.

The animosity between Catholics and Protestant continues after 400 years. Sadly, this country needs a dose of Helen Clark's social engineering to alter the school kids views over a couple of generations and start to create one people that identify with the land they live in, Ireland. The NI constitution allows for NI to be joined with the Republic when a referendum is held that votes accordingly. There is a lot of work to be done, and even while we have been here the violence, bomb scares and killings continue, even near to our cottage.

But all the people we have dealt with have been cheerful and welcoming, so who are we to criticize?

Grattan family update

2009-09-30T23:06:00.002+13:00

Here you can see how Rt.Hon Henry Grattan is linked to our family. Rev-Patrick-Grattan-descendants.pdf.

My 6 x gt-grandfather is Rt.Hon Henry Grattan's gt-grandfather (Rev Patrick Grattan).

I have not loaded all the information yet into this family tree.

Planes and things

2009-09-20T19:21:00.006+12:00

Here's a couple of shots that didn't make Julie's blog at Exeter Airport.

A Flybe Embraer plane that delayed our flight due to landing with a medical emergency on board.

Travel agents have their own Airbuses in UK. A Thomas Cook plane came in as we left.

Rollout for a Dash-8 Q300.

This BAC 167 Strikemaster was around the airport. Spot the bird!

The Dave Channel

2009-09-17T23:16:00.003+12:00

One of the channels on UK Freeview TV is the Dave Channel!

UK trip 2

2009-09-01T18:51:00.005+12:00

Here's a few pics that didn't make Julie's blog.

Over China, there were some air conditions that showed the low pressure zone over the wing that holds up 300 tons of aeroplane.

Here's a couple of buskers in Jubilee Park. I never thought of making money by being a dog in a carry basket!

More details on Cleopatra's Needle.

UK trip

2009-08-31T19:36:00.001+12:00

Our UK trip is being posted on Julie's blog.

Hamilton trip

2009-08-15T09:24:00.003+12:00

Yesterday I bussed a group of 30 who all work in window framing companies, to look at NALCO's extrusion plant in Hamilton. As well as getting lunch, we all looked around the factory and viewed the aluminium being pressed from a 'log' into long lengths of window frame shapes. The machine heats the raw material to 400 degrees then forces it with 1500 tons pressure through the dies. We also looked at their powder coating and packaging. Very interesting!

A job for 'Busso'

2009-08-13T19:50:00.003+12:00

An interesting job yesterday. I was driving one of 12 buses picking up 600 Telecom techs at a conference held at Sky City, taking them to several decile 1 schools around Otara. The techs planted fruit trees like mandarins and feijoas, painted hopscotch and basketball courts and repainted play equipment. Then it was back to Sky City for a beer and dinner (for them).

This camera shot is my Leopard bus by one of the Variety Club Bash vehicles that joined in.

The Orchid Special arrives in Austria

2009-08-08T11:10:00.000+12:00

The race car has arrived in its new home in Austria.

Artistic question

2009-06-11T09:54:00.001+12:00

When you try and paint a sunrise or sunset, applying yellow over the blue makes green.

But a real sunset has yellow over blue, but no green. Why is that?

The Orchid Special goes to Austria.

2009-06-10T12:09:00.003+12:00

I pulled the Bain post because of a big fuss on Facebook.

Today the Orchid was crated up and started its trip to Austria.

About 5500 people viewed the Trademe ad, but it got only 2 lookers and one low offer that was withdrawn. A free ad on Classic Cars For Sale in UK resulted in enquiries from UK, Germany, Austria and Portugal.

Melbourne & Bendigo

2009-05-27T17:17:00.000+12:00

All the posts about our Australia trip are at http://nanajulies.blogspot.com/

Camera Phone

2009-05-16T16:34:00.003+12:00

Armed with my TradeMe Nokia 6230 phone with 0.3M camera I took a couple of photos of a colleague's QANTAS flight coming in. It was so slow to save the picture that by the time I took the second shot the plane had nearly landed. I don't think you will see many camera photos up here! This photo came through a Bluetooth Dongle!

New Pacific Blue plane

2009-05-06T10:22:00.002+12:00

This Embaer 190 starts flying NZ domestic routes today.

Auckland Airport Airbus A380

2009-04-13T13:37:00.007+12:00

We headed out to catch the Emirates A380 landing. It flies in three times a week. Julie and David were also there with their cameras, you can check their blogs, too.

There were a few other flights and some birdlife to help us get focussed...

A couple of Boeing 767s.

An A320 from Air New Zealand.

An A340 from Cathay Pacific.

An A340-500 from Emirates.

And here comes the A380!

Whenuapai Airshow 21 March 09

2009-03-22T09:44:00.026+13:00

Great weather for this show attracted thousands of people, all who had to enter the airfield through one road, causing traffic chaos at the end as 20,000 cars all tried to leave at once. But the weather was great and there was a surprising variety of planes.

The P51 Mustang makes a very nice noise, having the same Merlin engine as the Spitfire. Hear it here.

Aerobatics by Yak 52s, Russian trainers, and this MXR Technologies MX2.

The Corsairs were aircraft carrier planes, and the wings are bent to give prop clearance for the big propellor, needed to handle the 4000 Horsepower. They were flown in WWII in the Pacific.

Warbird's Dakota in its new livery lifts the tailwheel and a DH Dominie. The Dominies were NZ passenger planes in the 1950s but were never very popular as they would not fly on one engine.

There was a huge collection of Warbirds planes, some like the Corsair and the Russian jet that I had not seen before.

I loved this intrepid lady skywalker. Swing the prop and off into the blue yonder on the Tiger Moth! Thank you for the applause, now where's my comb for all this knotted hair?

The NZ Air Force P3 Orion does all our long distance search & rescue. These are based on the Lockheed Electra that used to fly the Tasman in the 1960's. The bit at the back holds radar gear.

The NZ Air Force's Airtrainers put on a good show of formation flying.

The Army demonstrated their Iroquois choppers with a mock raid, attacking some mercenaries in a blue Datsun ute as well as having the novel idea of lifting up a people carrier to a great height and dropping it.

Helen's Boeing 757 was very impressive, this is one of two that NZ use for military and government transport, except when John Key wanted them to move NZers out of Bangkok they were both away in USA being serviced.

The US Airforce C17 Globemaster was huge and very manoeverable. These fly in and out of Antarctic.

C130 Hercules put on a good show, (once they got it started).

Highlight of the day was the Australian airforce F18 Hornet running through some extreme aerobatics. The leading aerofoil seems to be stalling in the last two pictures, and the first one. Look at those afterburners - what a noise!

St. Patrick's Day, Auckland

2009-03-14T15:49:00.009+13:00

We enjoyed the big parade, but then down came the rain and we left after one lot of damp Irish dancing.

Some very fine musicians.

Our Rose of Tralee.

St Patrick was there.

One wet dance, before my view was blocked by umbrellas.

Wellington March 09

2009-03-05T19:33:00.010+13:00

A couple of days in Wellington allowed us to see the Monet Exhibition, Parliament, Karori Wildlfe Park and was half paid for by Flybuys and Air Miles. Here's our Air NZ 737 in Auckland and a view of Mt Egmont.

We stayed at the Quality Hotel, located at the scruffy end of Cuba St and lacking air-con & ventilation. Nice view, though, from the 7th floor. The night shot picked up the TV reflection.

We enjoyed checking out some Wellington spots, here's a few pictures from the balcony of Molly Malones. Why do the trolley bus lines say Frog 15km? Why is there a rowboat by the traffic lights? Why did a man come up to me and ask if I was the More FM Fugitive?

The Karori Wildlife Park was just great, good views of Kakas, Saddlebacks and N.Island Robin that was hopping around our feet. As well as all the more usual Tui, Bellbirds, Waxeyes, Grey Warblers and more.

Heading homewards we flew Pacific Blue 737-800. Nice plane and lots of legroom.

Queen Mary and visit by a data thief

2009-02-24T19:40:00.003+13:00

We headed into town yesterday to see what we could see of the visiting Queen Mary cruise ship. We could only see the rear-end from Devonport. We drove through the traffic jam on Quay St up Gladstone Rd, and all we could see were containers stacked 6 high. The ship was too big to dock at the passenger terminal at Princes Wharf. The best view was from the Devonport ferry that we didn't go on....

Anyway, for a completely different story, related to the current fuss over legislation to force an ISP to bump people off their Internet account, we were visited by someone who stole nearly all of our monthly data allowance, as you can see. They either cracked our wireless modem, with WEP 64-bit encrypted password (I don't think so) or some b****** at World Exchange (who can read our password) passed on the login and password to one of their hairy mates who uploaded and downloaded stuff during the night hours on 13 and 14 February. They uploaded 1.5G and downloaded 2.5G and we are now on restricted download of 64K because we have exceeeded our monthly data cap. World Exchange said it's not possible for the broadband to be logged into by two people at the same time. I think facts show otherwise.

I received two emails about data useage, one at 02:08 am on 14 Feb that 75% of the data had been used, the next at 04:12 am on 14 Feb that 92% had been used.

With the proposed new legislation about illegal filesharing, World Exchange could cancel our account and our phone line. Currently the new legislation has been put on hold.

More from Christchurch

2009-02-08T11:56:00.002+13:00

Here's a few more shots from our day in Christchurch. The sight-seeing DC3, the penguin juggler, and a couple more of the very talented Russian Pole Trio.

The girl could do a triple backflip and land right back on the bar.

Campervan Relocation Part 3

2009-02-07T12:18:00.010+13:00

Blenheim - Picton-Ferry-Wellington-Otaki Beach-Motuoapa-Auckland.

Here are some more pictures from the aviation museum near Blenheim. The planes are generally displayed with very lifelike wax figures and situations. Many of them are originals where only 1 or 2 exist.

We stayed in the Blenheim motorcamp on the North edge of town, set by a river below a road and a rail bridge. At 3am a train makes a big noise!

Some cousins of Julie's duck appeared for some bread scraps.

We explored Picton and caught the 2pm Bluebridge ferry to Wellington, heading out into the first traffic we had seen for a while. There is not a single road sign showing directions when you leave the ferry.

A night at Otaki Beach and then North for a night with Dave & Ruth at Motuoapa, then home.

Caught this train with 3 electric engines crossing the Mangaweka viaduct.

For the 5 day trip:
The campervan cost $50.88 when we booked (5 days at $5 a day plus something I forget), then $60.33 of road user charges for the 1260km we did. We used 121.74 litres of diesel for 1260 km, so 10.35 km/l, or 9.66 l per 100km, or 29 mpg. The diesel cost $124.27 and lpg $9.00. Camping grounds totalled $94. The rest was supermarket bills that we would have paid anyway. And the flight down was on air miles.

Some very clever features were fitted to this van. Shower/toilet cubicle, gas fired hot water. The table was used to fill the gap between seats and make a double bed. 2 burner lpg cooker & rangehood. 12V fridge. You could plug into mains power at the camp site and that would give you use of a microwave, toaster and heater, two power points, and also charge the lighting battery.

Campervan relocation #2

2009-02-03T16:35:00.005+13:00

We have arrived in Blenheim, having had a quick look at Hanmer Springs (bridge above), crossed the Lewis pass and stayed last night in Reefton, travelling here today via Murchison and the Buller Gorge.

Very scenic trip with little traffic on good roads.

Looked in on Lake Rotoiti in Nelson Lakes National Park. A Model T 100 year convention is in Blenheim, this is a 1926 Ford T Misc.

We visited the Aircraft Heritage Museum near Blenheim, a stunning collection of planes from WW1 era.

Oh no! Fokker triplane crash! Charlotte will like this one!

We only have slow Net connection here, so there are only a couple of pictures.

Bluebridge ferry to Wellington tomorrow at 2:30pm.

To Christchurch and back by Campervan

2009-02-01T17:42:00.015+13:00

We flew to Christchurch, not by Airbus (yay!). Boeings are good.

Picked up a backpackers rental car, a Honda Fit, so called because the engine has a fit if you try and pass anything. Then off to Akaroa, nice old French village. Temperature was over 30 degrees which made it a bit difficult.

We won't talk about being lost in Westfield shopping centre in ChCh!

Sunday we walked from our hotel through Hagley park to the city centre. This bellbird was in the gardens.

Julie checked out an Anglican church service in the cathedral.

We watched a trio of buskers, the 'Russian Pole Trio', doing some amazing stuff. They are from Canada.

Then out to Waikuku Beach to visit a distant relly of Julies. Look at these people swimming with 40 knots of onshore breeze!

Auckland Car Sales finding business tough

2009-01-14T11:21:00.003+13:00

Car Sales are at an all-time low and some yards like this one are taking 50 years to move their vehicles!

Plane Watching

2009-01-14T11:15:00.004+13:00

A Great Barrier Air Trislander

An Air New Zealand 767 heads out to Cairns.

Things that plug in, in a modern office

2009-01-10T15:45:00.003+13:00

Back in the 1980s, I had a manual typewriter and a calculator in my office.

Now, under my desk, I count 17 things plugged into the power, most of them 'always on'. Lots of other things have cables (USB, Ethernet, Mouse, camera, Skype phone) so they can talk to each other.

Computer
Monitor
Laser printer
Colour printer
Speakers
Sound to FM broadcast (to hear Irish music in the kitchen)
External Hard drive to USB adapter
UPS, powering ADSL modem, wireless router, VOIP phone.
Laptop power supply
Nikon recharger
NiMh AA battery recharger
Printing calculator
Desk lamp
Cellphone charger

It's a rat's nest of cables down there.

The Moth on the Toilet Wall

2009-01-06T19:49:00.004+13:00

Sometimes, when you have a moment of peace, you see a moth on the wall and think 'that might make an interesting picture...'. Here's my best shot with the Nikon D70.

Here's one of David's shots with the D300....

Nice moth! Nice camera!

Still life art

2008-12-21T11:38:00.002+13:00

Here's my latest attempts at still life. No photos, painted directly.

Napier Visit

2008-12-20T15:07:00.005+13:00

We had a night in Napier after one in Motuapa on the way, to attend a funeral of Julie's aunt.

Napier was looking good, beautiful weather with some interesting lenticular clouds over Cape Kidnappers, due to the westerly wind.

The pohutukawas were all out.

Chelsea VCC Hillclimb Nov 08

2008-11-12T07:58:00.004+13:00

Here are a few shots from Sunday's hillclimb at the Chelsea Sugar Works. I was a bit busy to take any photos of my own. The Orchid was second overall, beaten by a Cooper race car. Cars up to 1960 are allowed, nothing newer.

Kiwiana Production Line

2008-10-29T09:02:00.004+13:00

Here's the next 4 paintings, these plus 'Rangitoto' below should have gone in to 'An Eye for Art' at Manukau in the next few days. But she is messing me around so I will try Trademe for a week. They are all about 36" long, 914 mm. The two Noelexes on Taupo might be recognised :-)

My Artistic Career

2008-10-20T11:19:00.004+13:00

The art shop in Manukau City is willing to try and sell my paintings and wants a range of them for starters. She has given me some good tips on where to buy supplies and how to make the final picture glossy so it can be wiped clean.

This is the sort of thing that she sells and the first I've done in this style. It's just under a metre long. The punters don't seem to want aircraft.

Update: the economics are tough this project. The shop marks up 2.2 X cost. Typical sell prices are $220 for this sort of thing so $100 for me for 2 days work. This size 12" x 36" canvas board cost $25 but I have found a source at half that price, 10 at a time.

Bye, Brenda

2008-10-12T08:00:00.001+13:00

It's been great having you stay. Out goes Pacific Blue to Gold Coast, 0750 right on time.

A380 first visit to Auckland

2008-10-10T12:57:00.024+13:00

The first QANTAS Airbus A380 paid Auckland a visit today. Some thousands of people were at the free viewing parks.

It flew over Auckland, came back for a flyover and then landed.

What a big plane!

The best carpark was taken by this guy and his son, who watched the plane land at 11pm and slept in the van all night! The Pukeko was enjoying some bits of their left over muesli.

There were other planes landing to keep us entertained, here is a sample.

The Britten-Norman Islanders needed a few more seats, so more power, and a third engine was fitted to the tail, becoming a TriLander. An ATR-72 on the right.

Some Boeing 777s, an Air Pacific 737-800 and Air NZ 747-400.

Spring in the Botanic Gardens

2008-09-25T15:10:00.012+12:00

Nice day to walk the poodles.

The sculpture He-he-he-he-Ha! is still there.

Julie's duck is still at one end of the lower pond, but also in the pond is a white duck that is larger than the other ducks, and it has two other ducks, similar to Julie's, darker, but with not such a fine white front.

Pretty sure this little guy is a Dabchick with a young one, I think. They both swim underwater, and are brown and a lot smaller than a coot.

The first picture I took, with the camera on auto, came out like this. Nikon must think it want's to do its own watercolours!

How to wire a TV aerial

2008-09-17T08:40:00.004+12:00

Here's how the neighbour has hooked up his TV aerial.

1. Stagger dangerously around on the edge of the roof connecting the cable.
2. Buy the minimum length of cable, thus saving money and the cost of clips.
3. Locate where the TV is and using a long drill bit, drill straight through the outside wall into the living room, right behind the TV!
4. Picture on the big screen! (House painting can wait).

New look for a concrete wall

2008-09-15T12:38:00.002+12:00

As you can see I have too much time on my hands, apart from bussing at 3:30 am.

Cessna Paintings

2008-09-12T12:27:00.003+12:00

The man at the Pilot Shop at Ardmore saw my pictures and thought there was a market there for the Ardmore Flying School student pilots. Many of them are from overseas. So today he has 6 paintings on display, similar to the above. I always wondered why I took all those plane pictures at Ardmore!

Trip to Orewa

2008-09-07T15:56:00.007+12:00

A night in Orewa was an enjoyable break, with excursions to Wenderholm & Mahurangi Regional Parks, then Puhoi for a coffee and some cheese. Shopping at the Orewa New World is exceptionally well located, 20m from Muldoon's Irish pub! We visited Long Bay Regional Park on the way home.

Plenty of birdlife at these parks.

This is a juvenile Banded Dotterel, and an oystercatcher.

Now that I am an artist, ;-) I like to take some reference photos for my backgrounds. Here are a few.

D-Day unknown history

2008-08-26T13:12:00.001+12:00

Bet you didn't know about when the Kiwi Dakotas saved Europe!

Ronnie Drew

2008-08-19T10:00:00.002+12:00

I was sorry to see Ronnie Drew has died, aged 73. He founded the Dubliners. Here is Seven Drunken Nights one of their first songs, banned when released in 1967 but played on the pirate ship Radio Caroline which resulted in 40,000 sales of the record.

4 Dougs

2008-08-11T08:06:00.002+12:00

All four Dougs in the same corner!

And here's the bird, a gannet at Muriwai.

And the dawn patrol I promised.

Grandad's Art #2

2008-08-04T16:40:00.003+12:00

Thank you for your kind comments, the Circuits & Bumps has had another plane added to take the subject out of the centre, also the clouds softened a bit and Tarawera is now finished (I think). It's A3 sized, canvas-on-a-frame. You can keep altering acrylics, and by watering them down treat them as water colours, so if you don't like something a few dabs will fix it! A light yellow over the sky could make the planes Dawn Patrol.

Grandad's Art

2008-08-02T16:39:00.005+12:00

After being inspired by a bus trip involving taking some oldies to two artists studios in Matakana and hearing the artists talking about their methods, I thought 'I could do that!'.

'Circuits and Bumps' at Ardmore.
This is acrylic on a canvas texture, about A4 sized. It's the first one that has not been regarded as a fire lighter.

MX5 lucky escape

2008-07-22T19:59:00.003+12:00

Thought you might like to see what I found when I adjusted the toe-in on the MX5 after the WoF man noticed the front wheel out of alignment, and the alignment people subsequently found a bent lower arm on the front suspension. It would be caused by hitting a kerb or rock.

The 'rack end' (a critical part of the steering) has a lock nut that had been wound back to cover a crack, resulting from the previous owner bending the rack end straight after an accident, thus saving himself $31 and for 6 months exposing us to sudden failure, no steering and a swing to the right for a head-on crash.

I am planning on the culprit getting a visit, and an explanation of how it would feel in a coroner's court, charged with manslaughter. Will keep you posted.

Learning Irish

2008-06-29T10:00:00.006+12:00

Fáilte! (Welcome!)

I've been working away on my Gaeilgh for about a year now, so I thought I would put up some links that I have found really handy. The problem with learning this language is that many written words don't match the pronunciation. For example 'teach' meaning house is pronounced 'cha'. So some audio sites are really useful, especially if you can download them as .mp3 files and listen to then when you have a bit of spare time. There's another small snag, there are quite big pronunciation differences between Northern Ireland, Dublin, Munster and the west of Ireland, they even use different greetings.

The BBC has the site that I have found really good, with 30 sessions of about 15 minutes each, called Giota beag (a little bit) and Giota beag eile (a little bit more). It's in Ulster Irish, so if you are Dublin you will have to forget Cad é mar atá tú? and use Conas atá tú? (How are you?)

The same BBC site has some fun games with Colin and Cumberland (his dog) which gives good repetition and some amusing graphics. Also on the BBC site is a series of listening and writing lessons called Bitesize aimed at Irish language GSCE pupils, and it includes Foundation Level and Advanced Level.

Youtube has a couple of videos that I like, from Jesjes1, you will find several more if you check this first one Hello, Please, Thanks, Goodbye.

Trinity College has some soundbites on this Interactive Irish Lessons page. While these are useful, I prefer to hear the words in a conversation.

One Minute Irish comes from www.radiolingua.com It seems to need iTunes on your computer and didn't find it on mine so I haven't taken it further.

Dennis Doyle, an Irish harpist and professor has a lot of links on his page.

Finally, for a bit of fun, here are some amusing clips on Youtube. These are not in Gaeilgh but I really like the Irish accent in English. How to Speak Norn Iron and Potatoes.

And for some good Irish music, I enjoy RadioLiveIreland with streaming music 24 hours a day. Most people will have heard and enjoyed Ronnie Drew who founded The Dubliners. He is very ill with cancer and this year a group of bands got together to make a tribute song for him that hit the tops in the Irish singles charts in March 08. You can see and hear it here on Kila's page. Also, there are a lot of free Irish and Celtic mp3 downloads available here from download.com.

In NZ here are a couple of handy sites: the Auckland Irish Society and Scéal (Irish News).

tóg go bog é! (take it easy!)

Slán!

All Blacks vs England - Eden Park

2008-06-15T10:06:00.004+12:00

I was fortunate enough to drive a busload of people from a courier company to Eden Park last night to watch the All Blacks in action and they gave me a free stand ticket. This was my first live All Blacks watching, all the other times have been on TV (delayed, as I am too stingy to have pay TV).

The seat was on the end of row X, at the top of the South Stand with only 2 rows behind. The view was pretty good, but the only screens were some 21" sized monitors hung up on the roof. They were too small to read the writing of who scored. The sound system was inaudible. All around the field are electronic advertising boards, flashing constantly annoying messages, especially when the action is on the far side of the field. These boards are in a continuous strip, an Air NZ ad has a jumbo jet flying around the field leaving the words spinning. I was really hoping the system would halt and show 'run-time-error'.

Now for being in the crowd: you would think they could sit down and watch the game. No, they are constantly getting up and squeezing past everyone with their view-blocking bodies. Need food, need drink, need toilet. Thanks to one man for spilling beer on me. A Mexican wave started up in the terraces and did about 5 laps, accompanied by bottle and debris throwing. At least all the beer bottles were plastic. A lot ended up on the field.

The traffic was the usual jam-up, with 35,000 people coming and going. Heavens knows what it will be like when the stand is extended to hold 60,000 people for the World Cup.

The game was good, but I will stick to delayed broadcasts on my couch, thanks.

Capri Car Club, Taupo Long Track Sprint Day

2008-06-02T13:57:00.006+12:00

This Capri Car Club sprint meeting is pretty much the last event of the year as winter sets in. Here's the foggy scene at 08:30 in the morning. The fog lifted by about 10:00 so the organisers could see the whole track, and we all got about 3 dry runs, although the track was cold, damp and slippery. The long track is great fun, almost nothing to hit if you do a spinner.

After lunch it rained, I did one run and found it was a better idea to photograph those that liked doing spinners. I managed to keep the car pointing the right way all day.

Here are a few random shots in the rain.

Kevin Hirst was going well in his Locost 7, he found the kitty litter a bit muddy in his last run.

Anton Jayasekera ran well in his Toyota Levin, with one particular corner causing a couple of 360s.

An enjoyable dinner with 10 from SCCNZ that evening.

Fairies in the Garden

2008-05-25T20:48:00.002+12:00

Some big red toadstools have sprung up in our front garden, so here is a picture of one. It was very dark, but look at who is in the picture! Perhaps we have leprechauns!

One day the truth might be revealed!

ADSL Telephone system

2008-05-22T11:19:00.004+12:00

With the deregulation of the telecoms market, several companies now offer 'naked ADSL' which is a broadband service through the copper wires already coming into your house for your phone. Previously you had to have a phone connected for $42-odd per month, and a broadband package added to that. Now you can have broadband only.

Once you have broadband, you can make phone calls with systems like Skype. You can also buy a telephone device that plugs into a spare Ethernet port on the broadband router and can have a phone number allocated to it.

This one is a Linksys PAP2T Phone adapter that comes pre-loaded with XNET VFX, which is operated by WorldXChange. It has two independent phone lines, so you could have one dedicated to a fax, although it's not recommended with this PAP2T. This one cost me $91.25 incl GST and freight from PCWise Ltd. Dick Smith sells them for $119.00.

Basically, plug in the PAP2T to a spare Ethernet connection, plug in a phone and get the I.P. number by dialling some numbers. Connect to that I.P. number using your browser and go through some setup screens. No information on how to do this is enclosed, you have to dig it out of www.xnet.co.nz/vfx and find the hardware setup video. Then write the instructions down while repeatedly pausing and rewinding the video.

Once you have done that, and gone through the online account setup with WorldXChange, they will ring you back and confirm all the details. Then, in a couple of days, they will allocate a local number, such as 09 9xx xxxx.

This will all cost $11.25 per month plus tolls at 5 cents a minute to NZ, Australia, UK, USA. The $11.25 is currently waived if you have WorldXChange broadband.

So we will try this out for a few months, and we may be able to ditch ihug/Vodafone, switch the broadband to WorldXChange and transfer our home phone number to this device. The call quality can't be much worse than we have already, some incoming calls are very hard to hear. We should be able to save about $40 per month if it works.

Linksys have other hardware to do the same job, including an ADSL 4-port wireless router with two phone ports, and another model with pass-through Ethernet, so if you have a one-port ADSL modem and one computer, you can hook up the phone device and plug your computer in as well.

To those who phone us, I will let you know our 09 995-8xxx number when it is working.

Update 25 may - it works! Call quality is 10/10 clear, no breaking up or hiss or crackle.

Springhill Part 2 - Vintage Car Club

2008-04-21T16:22:00.011+12:00

The Waitemata Vintage Car Club ran their annual speed event on the airstrip. A standing quarter mile, a flying quarter mile and a slalom around the cones, normally held on the grass but there had been too much rain recently so the tarmac was used. A big range of cars from historic race cars to old saloons and Austin 7 Specials. Thanks to photographer Julie, apart from the first three sent to me by Keith Humphries of the VCC.

The Orchid was going well. The silver car is a Lotus 6, the model before the widely copied 7.

Keith & Di Humpries had a 1928 Lancia. The GeeCeeEss Special was going well but needed a few push starts to get the flathead V8 fired up.

A Cooper historic racer and an early Buckler.

One of several Austin 7 Specials and a V8 Allard.

More Austin 7s.

Alan Woolf's historic race car that ran in Monaco in 2004.

Springhill weekend - Part 1

2008-04-21T08:23:00.008+12:00

The Waitemata branch of the Vintage Car Club held their annual meeting at Springhill, just South of Wellsford. What a stunning property, with a 3/4 mile sealed airstrip and hangers for various executive aircraft. Part 2 will have some shots of the vintage car speed events.

Saturday we had a look around Warkworth, Matakana and Tawharanui Regional Park.

It has a vermin-proof fence and 850 hectares of predator-free regional park with some rare native birds. As well as some stunning white-sand beaches, views and walks.

Watch the Model A in action

2008-04-15T12:34:00.004+12:00

The Sports Car Club have set up a new website that is not hosted on www.binary.co.nz as it has been for several years. Their new site is www.sccnz.co.n z and on their front page is a U-tube video of the February grasskhana, the last event that the Model-A ran in. You can watch the Model A at about the 4 minute mark on the video. The Model A times for the day were just a bit faster than the blue 300HP Fraser.

It was some fun, I must say, and I learnt a lot about what makes them go and how to fix them.

The first time I saw it, with Ken Williams driving in the Domain hillclimb and the day I bought it from Jim Baird.

Racing at Pukekohe in the Classic Trial before I got chased out and entry refunded for driving too slowly, and on its way to the shipping container to the UK last week.

New Davis Weather Station

2008-04-02T19:08:00.005+13:00

Our old Weather Monitor II has been taken out for sale on TradeMe and our roof now sports a cabled Davis Vantage Pro2 with WeatherlinkIP. I have been waiting for this WeatherlinkIP to become available and it has now, in 2008. It needs 'always-on' Internet, so you plug in the Ethernet cable into your router, and WeatherlinkIP immediately starts uploading data to its slot at www.weatherlink.com. Then you can immediately view the weather at Manurewa, Auckland.

All I had to do is login and alter some of the descriptions and set to metric. I am still working on getting knots displayed instead of feet and miles per hour, the Americans seem to think if you are metric, then you want km/h for wind, not knowing that that is just for cars.

Here is how it arrived, and the box contents.

Here is the display console and what went onto the TV aerial. The anemometer is supposed to be 4M above the roofline, but this installation is for convenience as the speed can't be accurate with the big trees close by. But think of the carbon credits!

There are some more details of the product here. The WeatherlinkIP can put all of its information on the Internet without a computer being connected to move the data. You can also install, if you wish, the included Weatherlink software and view and store the weather data on your computer at your leisure. The data is found though the LAN (Local Area Network), not through a plug-in USB or serial cable.

Waihi Vintage Car Hillclimb

2008-03-31T11:43:00.008+13:00

Click here if you are looking for the St Patricks day parade

The Bay of Plenty VCC held their second Waihi Hillclimb on Sunday. Here are some of the (about 40) cars.

The Orchid Special went well and came second overall, beaten by Steve Sharp's 1960 Lotus 7 by 5 seconds. The course is stated as 2.5 km, so my 1 minute 5 seconds makes an average speed of 138 km/h (86 mph) and certainly most of the course was in top gear, over 80 mph. I wasn't watching the speedo on the faster parts! I see my last year's best time was 1m 29 sec.

We stayed in a motel in Waihi, had a wander around town, and were amazed to find the Martha Mine about 50m from the main street. Just walk up from the main street by the old pump station building that was moved 385 metres in 2006, and weighed 1800 tons.

Do walk up and have a look if you are passing through Waihi, they still get $1 Million worth of gold and silver each month. Or is it each week?

St Patrick's Day - Part 2

2008-03-20T15:05:00.007+13:00

Here are some more shots that I didn't have time to put into Part 1 below.

Auckland Regional Drumlin

Auckland St Patrick's Day Parade

2008-03-15T15:54:00.021+13:00

St Patrick's Day falls on Monday, and as Easter is so early the Pope decreed that it should be held on Saturday and not in the Holy week before Easter. The Irish, of course, are celebrating both days. We went to the parade in Queen St and the 'Fleadh' by the Town Hall.

Spectators were dressed for the occasion. St Patrick himself handed out blessings, amongst the snakes.

The 'Fleadh' included three bands, The Blacksmiths, the Celtic Flyers and the Banned, doing traditional, popular and modern respectively.

Dancers presented Irish dancing, with quite an influence from Riverdance and Lord of the Dance.

The right hand picture above is of the troupe from the Doyle Academy of Irish dance, and from left they are: Ashleigh, Nicole, Chris, Corrina, Claire, Sophie, Shannon and Georgia.