Inspirational and interesting stuff

Here is a video by Michael Wesch, a social anthropology lecturer. It's just so interesting. He has eight videos on YouTube. There are two others of his I really like, but this is the first one I ever saw and it still remains my favourite.

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Time for the skiing update

About time I got around to this… my skiing holiday! I’ve been updating Twitter and Twitxr, but neglecting my blogs.

 

So… I got back from Whangarei (visiting my parents) on Tuesday of the second week of the holidays, ran around like a lunatic Tuesday afternoon trying to get ready, because a change of plans had us leaving for Ohakune on Tuesday evening. We got there at just after 11pm. The guy who ran the place we stayed at the first night left the key for us in the letterbox, but when we got to our room we found that someone was already in there. WTF? We called the manager, who came and told her to leave, but found her another room to stay in, and we moved in. Didn’t get much sleep that first night.

 

Wednesday – we hit the slopes! Went to the Turoa side, because that’s what we’d planned and it turned out there was more snow there than at the Whakapapa side (yes, that’s the place that’s said the rude way, for those overseas folks). Spent the whole day skiing. Oh my, so much fun! I probably spent half the day on the beginners’ slopes before finally braving Clarry’s Track after lunch. But once I’d done Clarry’s Track once, I just wanted to keep doing it! Yeah, baby!

 

Thursday – we were skiing for half a day. Rachel and Elizabeth joined me on Clarry’s Track, and Elizabeth finally saw what was so great about skiing and why I was having so much damn fun on Wednesday. At some point during the morning she completely took me out from behind while going down the steep slope in Clarry’s Track. I didn’t know what had hit me! We went down in a tangle of limbs and skis, but neither of us got hurt. We were laughing so hard that it took a while to get back up again. The afternoon turned horrid. High winds and rain. This wouldn’t have been so bad, except that I had no way (apart from my rather ineffective goggles) to protect my face, and one trip on the ski lift left the exposed parts completely numb. Not just the numb that you say is numb because it’s really cold. Oh, no, real numb. The sort of numb you usually only feel after the dentist has given you several injections. So, yeah, I only did the one trip on the ski lift, then managed to get back down in time to get a refund on half a day.

 

Friday – weather just as bad, but because we knew Saturday was only going to get worse, we were going skiing no matter what. We all armed ourselves with neck warmers, that we could pull up to cover our faces on the ski lifts, and managed to get in a full day of skiing. After about two or three runs down Clarry’s Track, I stopped in at the store and bought myself a proper pair of double-lens goggles (non fogging, you see). Visibility much better after that. We took some photos and videos of our skiing, but that was quite dangerous. You see, when you’re holding the camera and standing at the side of a track with a drop behind you, and the wind is blasting at you, and you’re standing on two planks of fibre glass, there’s not a lot you can do to stop yourself from blowing off the side of the mountain. But, we managed. A few hairy moments where I had to grab for my ski poles to stop myself sliding away, but I got the videos and photos I needed. Will post at some point. Or not, if I forget. I still haven’t even transferred them off the camera onto my computer yet. Damelza joined us on Friday, too, but left after only a few runs. Still, it was good to see her.

 

Oh, on Thursday night I went to the shop that Damelza works at and bought my own skis, poles and boots. All for a lovely $400. The skis are ex-rental, but the poles and boots are new. Yay. So Friday I was skiing with my own gear. The skis I bought are somewhat faster than the hire ones I had, which was great! I often came to a grinding halt on the last corner on Clarry’s Track, because the skis just didn’t keep my momentum. No problem now with my own skis!

 

Friday night we went out for dinner, which turned out to be a bad move. Jase and Elizabeth ended up with food poisoning and both spent the second half of the night either feeling queasy or throwing up. They were like clockwork. Elizabeth rushed out of our room, then a minute later Jase came rushing out of his room. So, even if the slopes hadn’t been closed on Saturday because of strong winds, we wouldn’t have been skiing anyway. We made our leisurely way home.

 

Oh my, what a wordy update! Well done those people who read all the way to the end. I’ll put today’s activities in another update. Maybe tomorrow. It’s cold in here and I want to get back to the fire in the living room.

 

Picture is Jase in the foreground, looking out over the bottom beginner’s slopes at Turoa, Mt Ruapehu. Taken Wednesday, our first day.

Testing something

Hmm playing around with Flock's blog editor. Which blog does this end up going to?

Visit to parents

I've been keeping my twitter and twitxr updated, but haven't actually done a blog update, I just realised. I arrived at mum and dad's place on Thursday and immediately went out to help mum moving some wood. On Friday we went into town in the morning and I got a T-shirt that says "Warning: I have an attitude and I know how to use it!" Hehe. Then in the afternoon mum and I chopped wood until Steph and Robert arrived. I don't recall what we did on Saturday, except that we were all here (including Nicola, my other sister). On Sunday afternoon I went and visited Janey, and saw Chloe again. Picture attached. She's just so damn cute! Today (Monday), dad took a turn for the worse and mum and I couldn't go out and continue with the wood chopping as someone had to stay with him. But mum went into town and got some more stuff to help dad deal with the side-effects of his medication, and he was much perkier this afternoon. I also caught up with an old school friend who lives just down the road. It's the first time I've seen her in years, it was so cool to catch up. Her name is Tania and I used to go to primary school with her, but she moved away and I think I only saw her once or twice since. I got to meet her husband and her lovely, energetic little boy (who is oh-so-welcoming, such a sweetie!). You know how some kids are shy around strangers - not him! He started chatting away to me immediately and climbed on my lap the moment I sat down, hahaha.

 

Hmmmm time for a new paragraph. Past time, but I'm not going back to figure out where one was meant to start. There have also been a change of plans for our ski trip. Because the weather is meant to be good on Wednesday but pack in on Thursday, we decided to drive down on Tuesday (tomorrow!) evening so we can get a full day of skiing in on Wednesday. That way, if the weather does pack in on Thursday and we can't go skiing, at least we'll have had a day, and we can make snow men and snow angels instead. Hehehe... I wouldn't mind a snow fight! SQUEE! SNOW!

 

Oh, and mum and I went shopping online using FlyBuys, and we purchased an external harddrive and some iPod / computer speakers for me. I can finally back up my laptop! I've been busy transferring data 8GB at a time (because that's the largest memory stick I have - thanks Steph for lending it to me!), and it's such a painfully slow process. With that and bluetooth going full blast, I still haven't backed up half of what I need to the entire time I've been here. And it's not really backing up, just moving it from my personal laptop to my work one until I can sort it all out. But I can stop that now and just wait for my voucher to arrive, so I can get my harddrive from Noel Leeming. W00t!

 

How's that for an update?

Going to visit the parents

I’m just about to head up to Whangarei (once I’ve packed up my computer and finished packing a few last minute things). I’ll be up there for six days with limited Internet access. You’ll hear from me, but not regularly (probably… who knows, maybe I’ll get the modem working on my laptop after all?). I still have to pass by school and pick up loads of stuff.

 

I had fun painting at B’s place yesterday and got lots done (including harassing B into stopping procrastinating!). Yes, B, I know you can read this. Hehe. I had a ball, and I’m taking my paintings up to Whangarei where I might just have some time to carry on with them. I’m also taking a load of marking, my knitting, and screeds of books (of course). We’ll be helping out on the farm, so don’t know how much time I’ll have to do everything. Good to be busy!

 

66% downloaded… might go finish packing while this download for my parents finishes.

Bird pictures

I’ve just gotten out of the aviary this morning and here are the pictures of my new birds. The cockatiels: Doralto (Yellow) and Bismarck (Grey). The brown quails (as yet unnamed) and the silver quails (also unnamed). The brown quail photo is a little blurry because they wouldn’t come out of the dark corner of the aviary. The male was still trying to sleep. In fact, he was still so sleepy he let me pat him before he realised what was happening and made a dash for it. Then he let me pat him again. So cute!! The silvers were a little more active, I couldn’t get within touching distance of them.

Last test

Posting from email again. Seeing what happens with the image now. Is the writing to the right of the picture, or still under it? Isn’t it funny that LJ puts the picture at the END of the post, whereas Blogger puts it at the start?

More testing stuff

Ok, just uploading this because I've set it to always put the picture like this. So hopefully, from now on, it will just put any pictures inserted from emails in the top left corner with the writing to the side. *cross fingers*

What do you think the chances are of this happening?

Testing something

Testing what happens when I attach the picture instead of insert it into the email body. Blogger didn’t upload my picture, just left a broken picture where I inserted it (but the right shape), and LJ moved the picture to the end of the post when I inserted it.

 

So… attached picture. Where will it end up?

Birds

So, after ice skating this morning, Claire and I went to the Bird Barn in Henderson to get some more cockatiel seed for my birds. We were looking around and I noticed that the quails were going at a good price. So I ended up coming home with a pair of brown quails and a pair of silver quails. They’ll need names. I’ll get some photos tomorrow. Now, time to try out what happens when I insert a photo when posting by email…

 

 

These are the lovely cockatiels that I acquired from a family. Like I said, a little rough-looking, but they’ll look better soon. They’re renamed now. Yellow (guess which one that was) is now called Doralto and Grey is now Bismarck. The colours on this photo aren’t very true to the real thing, as they’re taken at dusk through the wire mesh of the aviary. Doralto is actually a bright canary yellow, and Bismarck is a very dark grey bordering on black. I described them in a previous post. Hopefully I’ll get better pictures of them tomorrow, when I’m in the aviary taking pictures of the quails. (So cute!!)

What a mission!

I’ve just spent the last two hours cleaning my car. And you know what? I’ve only managed the inside of it. But it is clean! I took everything out (and it filled half the carport, what a lot of crap I had in the car), threw away all the rubbish, vacuumed, wiped down the surfaces, and cleaned the inside of the windows. The outside of the car is still filthy, but I’ve got to get some lunch, do some of the other things on my list, and then go ice skating. Hmmmm, maybe as payment, I can get Claire to help me wash my car? Hehehe.

To do list

• Cash cheque
• Clean out car
• Take box to school
• Sort paper war in classroom
• Organise marking to go to Whangarei
• Charge cameras
• Source ink

I think that’s all…

At school

Posting from school here. Haha. I hope I’ve remembered my posting email addresses correctly. We’ve just had our meeting and I’m feeling a bit more prepared for the term. I’m going to head home, pick up some stuff and do some of the stuff I have to do (get bird food!), then head off to my sister’s place. I might actually dance at dancing tonight. My other dancing is on break right now. Oh, I can’t get to twitter from school, it’s blocked. Came up with a Watchdog notice “We believe you have been accidentally blocked from this site. Please contact your system administrator…”

 

Anywho, time to head on off.

Testing this post by email thing

Hiya folks, I’m procrastinating. Testing my post by email feature, since then I can keep both blogs up to date at the same time and I don’t have to log in anywhere. Woot. Why do I need two blogs? I’m not entirely sure. I’ve got a meeting at 10am today, it’s 8.50am, and I still have a towel wrapped around my head. Oh well. I had intended to be all good and get out of bed early so I could go to the gym before my meeting, but depending on how long the meeting takes I might be good and go to the gym before I go visit my sister, because I can’t arrive at her place before 3pm anyway.

 

Hmmm, things I need to make sure to sort out:

-        get some more of those clear sleeves for ringbinders

-        get my sister a birthday present and card

-        buy more bird food

 

Oh, speaking of bird food… I have acquired two more cockatiels. They’re so cute, I’ll have to put pictures up sometime. Maybe in my next post I’ll try inserting a picture. I believe I can do that via email. But they’re so cute. One’s bright yellow all over, and the other is a colour mutation I’ve not come across before. He’s grey, but a very very dark grey, and his head is bright yellow, with no trace of orange cheek patches, and the white stripe on his wing isn’t white – it’s yellow! I’ll put pictures, and if anyone knows what sort of colour that’s called, let me know! I have to rename them, though. The previous owners had called them Yellow and Grey (rolleyes). They’re getting cocktail names, like my other two (Daiquiri and Pina Colada). They’re also currently not looking their best. Their feathers are a bit ragged and they can’t fly. Hopefully life in my large aviary will agree with them and they’ll soon look glossy and healthy.

Yeah, a new blog

See old (and possibly will still update occasionally) blog at this address. I've got the Formula 1 going on behind me (on TV, not literally), and I've signed up for Twitter and Twitxr and all that jazz. New things to play with. It's late at night. My ramblings are often disjointed, just warning you now.

Things I'm looking forward to: ice skating on Wednesday (twice!), art on Wednesday, visiting my family on Thursday, going skiing next week.

Things I'm not looking forward to: Meeting at school tomorrow at 10am, having to organise my classroom for the new term, catching up on shitloads of paperwork.

Haha, had to come back to edit this post. Had forgotten to insert the link to my old blog. Go figure.

GIVE YOUR GIRL A BEAUTIFUL PRESENT .

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