You can guess what he’s famous for…

I know there have been numerous times since my last post that I thought “Hmm, I should post on my blog about that before I forget”… Let’s see how I do. This may not come out in order and I will definitely forget stuff.

On Friday night, Emily and Merodie wanted to have a girls night, so politely asked me if I could have something else to do. I went and saw Stealth with Mark and Hobbs - David?, followed by a vanilla frappacino at Starbucks, which wasn’t very good. In fact it was kind of like vanilla and ice, which has led me to the conclusion that Vanilla Ice knew exactly what he was doing when he named himself that. (Calling himself crappy) The experience was somewhat improved by eating the cream off the top using a couple of straws as chopsticks. We then proceeded into town and played pool at iconic for an hour or so. I had some great shots and also some really bad shots. My consistency was not fantastic. Apparently I arrived home about 5 seconds after the girls had gone to bed, which was quite good timing. Stealth was better than I expected, although it will never be called an amazing movie.

Saturday morning we cranked out the singstar, which was probably painful for anybody listening when it was my turn. At one point in the proceedings I thought I was doing awesomely for about half the song, thrashing Emily completely, before realising that I had been looking at her bar and was in fact failing dismally. I think I did some washing too.

Watched Frida in the afternoon. I’m really not sure how it managed to pull off an R13 rating. That’s all I’m going to say about that.

Me and Craig watched Life on tv in the evening, which was interesting, although it did drag on a little. Emily’s Scottish friends came back again too. - Not sure if I’ve mentioned them previously, and we cranked out the Singstar again. There was a large range of talent…

On Sunday I went to church in the morning, and saw Debz which was cool. Merodie and me decided to go get some chelsea buns from the bakery for lunch and Mike wanted a custard scroll. We walked to KB’s which had crap stuff, but we bought some anyway, just in case we missed out at other bakeries. Then we went home got our bikes and biked to Couplands and got some much better chelsea buns. We then realised we were short one custard scroll and biked to bakers delight. We ended up with a lot of baked stuff…

We watched HHGTTG in the late afternoon and then Mike and me watched Walking Tall while we made tea, which was quite late, but that was fine because we’d eaten quite a lot in the afternoon - Pork roast with apple sauce and roast yams and roast kumara and roast potatoes and broccoli and beans. - Awesome!

Oh, I haven’t had any coffee for a week and a half and I feel great. I had a coke somewhere in the piece and I actually felt quite messed up afterwards…

Went to see Unleashed last night with Mark, David and Daniel. I thought it was great! It had some brutal realistic violence which I think justified it’s R18 rating (which we noticed once we bought the tickets), but the overall story was one of the redeeming power of love, which funnily enough made a brutal martial arts fightfest into a bit of a feelgood movie.

We went to the supermarket beforehand and got lollies. I got jaffas (Ojays) and “Tangy fruit sticks” which are tangy fruit sticks, not tangy fruit sticks, which was a little disappointing. I think I may have bought too many as I was all sugared out by the end of the movie and really didn’t feel like any more. I still have about half a bag left.

I had a pretty awesome weekend. It was made even better by the fact that I had Monday off, so it was longer.

On Friday night I went to a 21st birthday dinner for Craig with his family at the Beavon’s. Twas an awesome roast dinner, along with some delicious venison casserole and some yum dessert. Then lots of chatting and listening to music. Fred Dagg definitely brought back some childhood memories. I’m sure we must have almost worn out that tape when I was little.

Then on Saturday I dropped off all my flatmates somewhere at some point in the morning, due to the pouring rain. I thought I might play a bit of Final Fantasy X and see what all the fuss is about. I’m not quite seeing it yet. The game seems to mainly consist of cutscenes, but it is quite relaxing. Then in the evening I went to Katie’s 21st, which was great. Awesome atmosphere with people just hanging out and talking. Some great nibbles around as well and the cake was delicious. It was interesting to hear some stories about Katie in the speeches too. Also, Jo arrived at our place just before we went to the 21st too.

On Sunday we (Merodie, Jo, Mike, Craig and me) went tramping at Mt. Somers, after running around trying to find some gas for the cookers and buying food in the morning. It started of with quite a steep climb, but we still got to Pinnacles hut in just under 3 hours, which was a pretty good effort considering the sign at the start said 3 hours 30 minutes. Craig and me (Well, mainly Craig) then went looking for firewood in the wet snowy surroundings and ended up chopping up a log we found, which was quite hard work. For future reference, walking on hills through snow in jandals is not the easiest or warmest or smartest idea. We had rice risotto and steak for tea, followed by tim-tams and hot chocolate, followed by crackers and cheese with wine. Also talked lots and played cards.

Monday morning we awoke to rain, which was kind of expected, but still not that appealing. We had lots of toasted pita bread pockets with smoked chicken and brie for breakfast. - I think we were all completely full and then walked back. We were walking in rain for a while, but then it changed to snow, which was very cool. Despite what might be called inclement conditions, we were actually quite enjoying the weather. Mike charged off about half way down to have hot soup ready for us by the time we got to the carpark, which was great. We actually got down significantly faster than we got up, arriving back at the carpark in about 2 hours 15 minutes. I didn’t take many photos, but I might post some if I get them off the others. We had a lot of fun.

Monday evening me and Craig played Colin Mcrae rally 04 in my bedroom, because the girls wouldn’t let us watch movies with them in the lounge… I think they were scared that we’d laugh at them or something. Rallying was quite a lot of fun actually, with me grabbing the early upper hand and Craig taking some wins later on.

Last night was the last Navs night of the year. We all had dinner at the Beavon’s, with some awesome chicken and some great desserts too. We then farewelled all the people who were leaving, which was a bit sad. They also had a bit of a slideshow of photos from the year which was cool and had some very funny photos and at times had some very apt backing music…

Oh, I should probably mention that I’ve decided to become a mountain runner… The only obstacle in my way is the approximately 30kg Mike reckons I need to lose to have the right sort of frame. It could happen. Although, 30kg could be a bit extreme… I have put on 28 since I started uni though, so I must be able to lose something!

Well, this post seems to keep getting delayed. I’ve had a fairly busy week, so every morning at work I’d think that I would just churn it out, but then I realise that I want to put in photos which are at home. Anyway, last weekend was Mike and Jude’s wedding in Blenheim which was very cool. It was also Jason and Rachel’s wedding in Hamilton, which was a little disappointing as there is only one of me… Anyway, I went up on Friday night with Merodie and Jeremy in Jeremy’s car and he dropped me off at the campground I was staying at at about 10:30 pm. I then managed to set up my tent in the dark and went to bed. The campground was quite close to a railway track and state highway one which woke me up a few times…

On Saturday I got up and saw Mike as I was wandering up to the cabin section of the place where he was staying and we had a bit of a chat. He introduced me to his friends the Bugdens, who were nice enough to feed me breakfast and lunch and breakfast the next day as well! I also caught up with Dave and Gwyneth and a few of Mike’s friends that I’d met before.

Anyway, on to the wedding. It was very cool. I’ve put some photos here. The reception was awesome too, with great food and conversation and an awesome live band which played some good music for dancing. I even got to dance with one of the bridesmaids! Twas great catching up with Debz, because I hadn’t seen her for a while. I’m not going to describe the food, because apparently that’s cruel, but there is a photo of the menu, so you can go look if you like. It actually tasted even better than it sounds from the menu!

Then on Sunday I came back up with Gwyneth and Dave which gave us plenty of time to catch up as well. We stopped to see the seals at Kaikoura and had lunch there too, which was yum with brie and salami sandwiches. All-in-all a very cool weekend. Sunday night we decided to have a bbq which was yum. Monday - Wednesday I went to various bbqs and dinners as well, so it’s been quite a busy week really. I have been eating a lot less though in my ongoing quest to become a mountain runner, not having seconds at any of the occasions, which is pretty much unprecedented for me.

Well, it seems pretty onto it to be posting in the middle of my weekend rather than half a week later… Although this being Monday I may be stretching the term weekend somewhat. This weekend is going to have somewhat monumental significance for the next 4 months though, so I thought I should post.

Basically, Merodie and Me have decided to have a wee competition which ends on the 1st of March next year. We each have a target weight that we are attempting to achieve in this timeframe. The person who is the furthest away from their target weight (or least under it if we both get that far) has to pay for us both to go skydiving. Now this is monumental for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I am going skydiving in March! or when we book it. I do have a fear of heights, but as this usually causes me to think I’m going to fall off, jumping out of a plane shouldn’t be too much of a problem right? I’m actually really starting to look forward to it. Secondly, the last time that I weighed my target (80kg) was 5 years ago, so reaching it is going to be no small feat. As of Saturday, I have to lose 17kg in 18.5 weeks. There is a slight but very important caveat to the competition though. Fortnightly for the 2 months following the competition we get weighed again, and if we way more than 2kg more than our 1 March weight, then, if we won, we have to pay for our own skydive. However, if we both go over then the loser still has to pay for both. So not eating or drinking for the final week is really not an option!

So because of all this I have been quite psyched up on the exercise and eating less fronts. On Sunday I went for a run in the morning and biked around for a fair bit of the rest of the day and today I biked to the shop for an iceblock… The shop was in Sumner though which was pretty much a 40km round trip. I’ve also managed to find time in my weekend to do a fair bit of reading and play a good chunk of Beyond Good and Evil which is a fantastic game! I was up till 2:30 last night when I decided I should really go to bed…

The challenge is going to be to keep this level of exercise up during the week when I have work to contend with as well, but I’m sure I’ll manage. I already lost a few kgs in the couple of weeks before the competition just by eating less, without any extra exercise, so I’m confident that I can give this a good crack.

I have turned to the darkside a little though, changing from blue to green milk. My calculations are that this will reduce my fat intake by about 800g over the course of the competition. It did take the calculations to change my mind though, I wouldn’t have done it otherwise.

Anyway, you’re probably all sick of this by now so I’ll stop.

Well, today is pretty fantastic. First of all it’s awesome and sunny - with a temperature reading of 21 degrees on the sign on the way to work at 8:43. Secondly Mike made us an awesome cooked breakfast with bacon and hash browns and mushrooms and tomatoes and eggs, with juice and followed by some spicy fruit loaf. He went out at 7 to buy it all too. We ate it out in the sun at the picnic table. Thirdly it’s my birthday! (which may have had something to do with the secondly).

While I’m here I might as well update you on the rest of my week. On Tuesday Merodie and Me went for a bit of a walk… We started at the bottom of Hackthorne road and then walked up until we got to the sign of the Takahe, from whence we proceeded down the Harry Ell walkway which turned into the crater rim walkway, which took us all the way to Sumner. All in all about 6 hours. Then we went for a swim, had an iceblock and then biked back to the start where we had left the car. (We dropped the bikes off beforehand) Then we went to the Navs bbq, which was a good relaxing way to end the day. The views and the exercise and the weather were awesome!

Yesterday evening I went for a rollerblade from about 9pm till 10, which was great, as I hadn’t been for ages. I hadn’t realised how much I miss it and will definitely go again more regularly.