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I keep meaning to update my blog, but once I get there I just don’t feel like it. This will all be rectified now. Well partially anyway. Two weekends have passed, so I may gloss over earlier events due to fading memories.

The first of the two weekends, I went out to the navs camp that was at Lake Lyndon. Some good times were had, including some climbing on castle rock and a walk through cave stream. I then biked back to Christchurch from there with Merodie, the process of which had varying fun levels over the course of the trip. Down Porter’s pass was great, as was biking along the flat once the head wind went away. We stopped in Darfield for coffee and I stopped again in Kirwee for a banana and some chocolate. It then took a long time to catch back up to Merodie, but I did eventually manage it. Just as we were coming into town along Yaldhurst Road, cruising at a leisurely 29kph a guy on a road bike blitzed past us with a friendly I’m blitzing past you greeting. I decided I would quite like to catch up to him and was soon burning along at approximately 44kph right on his tail. Despite his efforts to lose me, he couldn’t. Eventually we had to stop at some lights where he found out that I had just biked all the way from Lake Lyndon (he asked how far we’d come) and then the lights changed and I left him in the dust. So I arrived back at the flat completely amped 🙂

I went to a flatwarming at Emily’s new flat on Thursday just been and then saw Lord of War at the movies on Friday which I enjoyed, but didn’t blow me away, which I guess you can’t expect from every movie.

Then on Saturday, we went whitewater rafting! Lots of fun. Started out with Macdonalds for breakfast on Colombo st. which meant that we got to see the Le Race riders go by, as we happened to be there at just the right/wrong time. Rafting was lots of fun. Despite it’s incriminating nature, I will link to Mark’s description, rather than repeating it, as it is very detailed. We had a bit of a competition to see who could do the most girly scream jumping off the 10m jump rock, which I was winning comfortably right until some actual girls actually screamed on the way down. There are some photos of before and after the rafting here. We are getting some photos of the actual rafting which does show us in the water as well after the raft flipped, which I may add when I get a hold of them.

Life keeps moving. I’ve been to work for another week and a couple of weekends have passed. It never actually seems like that long between updates. The first weekend out of the two was Rachel’s 21st which was spent up in the Porter’s/Arthur’s pass region at a lodge. Merodie, Mike and Me went for a walk up Temple Basin and did some scree running while we were up there. Lots of fun. I still don’t like heights and sharp ridges though. Fantastic bbq dinner and cooked breakfast too. My plans to bike back were scuttled by the weather forecast, which resulted in me leaving my bike in Christchurch. Turns out the weather would have been perfect. However, after the 3-4 hour walk on the Saturday I wasn’t too disappointed.

On Monday was my Mum’s birthday, Happy Birthday! Then on Wednesday we went out for tea to celebrate Anna’s birthday which was on Tuesday. It appears to be a birthday week. We also went out and played some pool afterwards, which was great once I found some form. On Friday night we went to see Walk the Line. I want to see it again! I thought it was great and came home and listened to Johnny Cash. Then on Saturday evening, a group of us went bowling and then watched Maverick. Then last night we watched Stickmen. I went to church in the morning and then church lunch, which I eventually returned from around 3pm.

Acquisitions since last post. There have been a few. New shoes! Finally. The old ones had almost fallen apart. More new shoes… with clips on the bottom and some pedals for my bike for them to attach to. So much more power! I tried them out on Wednesday before we went out for dinner. Average speed just under 30 for 21km with some crazy head winds and hail (and a bit of tailwind too). Also traded in a bunch of my PS2 games on Saturday because EB games had a promotion and ended up with Pro Evolution Soccer 5 and pre-orders for the next Buzz and the next Singstar.

Anecdote of the week. Was late for a meeting coming back to work on Friday, came round a corner a little fast in my car and watched my registration labels fly out of the pocket, across the dash and out the open drivers-side window. I went back, witnessed one being run over and picked them up. Then drove onto work. Went to put them back in the pocket a couple of days later… I still had the 2 expired ones which had been behind the current one, but I possibly should have checked that I had the current one when I was picking them up… Because I didn’t. Anyway, I went and got a new one printed today, so all is well. Except that I noticed that it expires in less than a month anyway. :p

I’ve probably missed stuff. I’ll leave you with this startling fact. Wait for it… I tidied my room this evening! So much floorspace. Here is a shot with my webcam that doesn’t show much except that webcams don’t like low light and that I look silly. The significant part is that you can see floor in this image.

Since last update: Had a poker night. I was one of three people to come away with winnings. Twas Mike’s birthday on Friday. There was a bbq and singstar. Also did a fair bit of exercise in the weekend just been. I won’t bore you with the details. Mainly because I’m a little tired and don’t feel like writing any. Current projects that have been fighting for attention are blender (3d modelling) tutorials, Swedish language course, A bit of programming, and exercise. With all of this the blog gets pushed into the background. The competition finished today. I ended up on 76.9kg, which I thought was quite a good effort.  I am considering posting before and after photos, but the before photos are possibly too disturbing and I don’t have a suitable after photo as yet.  To celebrate we went out to Drexels for breakfast and ate lots of delicious food. Somehow today became an eating day with cake day at 10:30 (baileys cheesecake) and a fantastic bbq dinner. I also had about 7 coffees over the course of the day (including 4 at breakfast). I did bike to the bbq and back which offset things a little, but I can’t see days like that being a regular occurence for the new Luuk. I’m not going to format this post into paragraphs.

So many things to write about. Realised after I went to bed that I still hadn’t written about everything! On Sunday evening I went to Rachael Whyte’s place for her farewell dessert evening. Great times, with some volleyball, great people, great desserts and more.

Also an amazing dinner last night, cooked by master chef Michael Rutledge. Perfectly cooked Pork Sirloin steak on a cheesy herb mashed potato base served with summer vegetables.

Today, apart from standard work, I  had lunch with Emily which was fun. Twas good to catch up.  Also went to new small group where we attempted to make up church history.  Well, we attempted to write a timeline of the history of the church without any references individually, followed by attempting to consolidate this into one slightly more accurate timeline, aided by actually referring to some references on the way.  More interesting than it sounds.

Well, it’s becoming kind of hard to muster enthusiasm to post about everything I did over the summer. The task just appears to keep getting bigger. I’m thinking I may have to cut my losses and just hit some of the high points in this post and refer you to other sources to avoid duplication of effort.

Well, In this post, I promised that I would post later about all the things I listed. Some of them don’t really appear to be worth posting more on, like going to the movies… Others merit a lot more attention than they are going to end up getting. I have already posted about my new surf here, but I’ll run through some of the others quickly.

The exponents concert was great although my ears were ringing for a long time afterwards. Definitely some anthems in there. We went to Sophie’s for tea beforehand. I had a Ned Kelly Steak Burger I think.

Rich and Lindsey’s wedding was also very cool. I’m sure I saw photos of it on the web somewhere, and after a little searching and some lucky autocompletion I have found the link for your viewing pleasure.

Our family holiday in Queenstown was also great. I feel kind of bad writing so little about it, but it was very memorable for everyone concerned. Highlights not visible in the well-captioned photos describing the rest of the trip would include kayaking in hail on Milford Sound and the reaction we got when my parents realised the 5-star hotel room Louise was showing them through was where they would be staying that night (25th Wedding anniversary).

Now we move on to events since that post, and there have been many. As mentioned, I flew up to Hamilton for a week. Merodie, Craig and me went tramping on the day after we arrived, through some of the heaviest rain that had fallen in the region for some time. (Not a small amount considering this is the Waikato we are talking about.) However, as the rain was very warm, we didn’t even don jackets. There was a break for about an hour or two in the middle of the tramp, during which we had our lunch and saw an aptly named widowmaker plant fall out of a tree about 20m from where we were sitting. The following day was amazingly fine though, resulting in a bit of sunburn, as I had decided that sunscreen was an unnecessary item to carry up the hill due to the previous days inclement weather. Here’s the link to the photos from the tramp again.

The following day we made our way to parachute which was also a great time in the sun with friends and great music and more. Captioned photos here. Twas great to catch up with people I hadn’t seen for ages and just hang out in the crazily hot weather.

On the Tuesday after Parachute I visited Hazel and Baby Jordan, followed by flying back to Christchurch where I met my new flatmate Emilee, after initially wondering who the visitor in our lounge was…

Camping at Mt. Cook the following weekend was great too.  A nice walk up the Hooker valley track, where I made stream where there was no stream before.  (Just to clarify, I did this by diverting water down a different course).  I named it Luuk stream.  Most original I know.  I actually got quite a decent flow going.  I think Andy took a video of the flow starting, so badger him if you know him and want to see that. 🙂 – I must remember to do that.  Apart from that, and what is shown in the photos, I’m going to weasel out of it by saying “What happens camping stays in the camping”.  I also know that makes no sense, but I can’t be bothered working out how to word it better and you know what I mean.

Then, this weekend just been I was away again at the Navs start of the year leaders camp at Glen Tui.  This was another great time, a bit of a renewal of focus, as well as some good adventures.  Bush bashing up a nearby hill was a lot of fun, although the long list of people who injured themselves on the way may take a different view.  A knee that required 5 stitches, 2 damaged wrists and about 4 wasp stings are the specific injuries I can remember people having, although I think everybody had at least a few scratches.  I may (note the lack of a promise) post more about some of the things the camp got me thinking about in a later post.

In closing, I’ll say that I can relate to Mark’s latest confusionism, especially with all the busyness of late.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll leave finding that out as your homework.

Bad things happened with my bottom bracket, but now all is well again.  It has been broken for about 3 weeks, which has been most frustrating.  Luckily I was on holiday for most of that.  However, now it is fixed and I can bike to work and get back into regular exercise.  I did substitute a swim yesterday, and walked to work.  Mainly because my car was there.

Despite my best intentions, there is still not going to be a blog update today.  Before you shoot me, I have provided something to occupy your time a little.  I’ve put up 170 photos of our family holiday in Queenstown and Milford Sound (I have ruthlessly cut them down from over 400 photos).  I have also put up photos of the tramp we did last week and also some photos of parachute.  I’ve even put captions on the parachute ones already!

Instead of updating my blog I went to see Domino with Mark and Andy.  I have to say that I agree with the IMDB rating.  I couldn’t really decide if it was a 5 or a 6.  I was surprised at the end that it was actually only 2 hours long.  There were some classic bits in it, but most of it wasn’t.  Tomorrow after work I’m going camping at Mt. Cook for the weekend, so I’ll be gone again, so posting will be delayed further.