You can guess what he's famous for...

Well, home again. Going to parachute tomorrow. A smooth flight up, although it seemed to go on forever. I think the combination of it being a direct flight (no Wellington stop), having already read the January edition of the Air NZ magazine and having no other reading material made the flight seem to go on forever.

Thanks to Adam for dropping me off at the airport. I almost started worrying that I wasn’t going to get home from work in time when Mark and Greig’s 5 minute each chess game turned into an epic cliffhanger.

If you’re wondering what the title is talking about, that is where my family’s house is, in the larger area that is Te Pahu. Typing Kaniwhaniwha into google does yield a respectable 143 results.

I’m flying up to Hamilton for Parachute tomorrow, have to be at the airport at 5:30 after work. Cleaned out the garage at the old flat with Dave and shifted Megan’s bed to his place on the roof of my car. Typed up minutes of oversight meeting and bought and sold numerous blogshares. Still have to pack, but am scheduling that for lunchtime tomorrow (amongst other things).

Not much happened today. A reasonably productive day at work, recycled a pile of cardboard and engine oil from our old flat at the dump, cooked tea and had an Navs oversight team meeting which had yummy frozen chocolate covered banana slices and watermelon and after match mints. Looking forward to going to bed now. At some point in the future I will start thinking of interesting things to talk about when it’s a slow news day… but that day is not this day.

Got this from Mark just now, and just had to post it… Anyone that has ever had to deal with spyware will relate.

Lost a game of chess to Mark Rhodes at lunchtime in an epic battle, with a huge crowd of spectators at the end. He never quite made that fatal mistake… More takeaways for tea, Chinese this time, shouted by Emily’s amazing brother Shaun. The kitchen is unpacked now though, so no excuse for not cooking tomorrow. I may even volunteer. In other news, I own Baz’s blog.

I had a good day. Went to church this morning, and was quoted in the sermon… Not something that happens to me everyday, and I’m not quite sure the writing was up to quotable standard (you cant judge for yourself by clicking here)

After church, I couldn’t resist the urge of captain Ben’s, and picked up some chicken on rice on the way home. I had decided last night that I should build some shelves for my room, to go on top of my drawers, as my room isn’t the biggest in the world and was a little short on storage space. So I set out in my trusty Toyota and headed to the hagley kitchens bin opposite work and picked up everything that looked vaguely useful and could fit in my car. Then I went to Bunnings – my first visit, I finally see what all the fuss is about… and bought a $19.25 Jigsaw, some blades, some screws and a screwdriver bit for my drill. Then I went home grabbed a hammer, went back to the hagley kitchens bin and tore apart some pallets. Then, back home and proceeded to build myself a set of shelves for the rest of the afternoon out of 100% recycled materials (and some 100% new screws).

I am pleased with the result, although it wouldn’t win any awards. It looks a little rough, but it is solid and shouldn’t collapse under the weight of all my stuff. Ok, enough talking it up… Here’s a picture of it in place on top of drawers. You can see the doorway on the right to get a sense of scale. Note the wee lip going over the back of the drawers which will stop it from falling off. I’ve given it a few shakes, and it’s not budging!

I’ll post more photos of my room once it’s cleaned up and those shelves are full, currently there is kind of a mound of stuff on the floor, which gets shifted regularly to allow safe passage to my bed or desk.

After I finished it I gave in and went to the fish and chip shop again – like I said, it’s way too close. (It was about 20 to 8 when I finished the shelves and cleaning up, and the kitchen isn’t unpacked yet, so I don’t feel too bad about it)

That’s enough for today…

Well, obviously it isn’t actually my first post, but it is my first post from our new flat, and I only missed one post 🙂 We had our fish and chips on the beach yesterday, and then came back and I carried on shifting. Then today Adam and Caleb helped us shift all the big stuff – Thanks Adam and Caleb! Unfortunately, the post isn’t on our ADSL connection yet as it hasn’t been connected yet (I think – how do you tell?). On the plus side, We have 24 days left on our paradise dialup account, so we aren’t without internet. I missed yesterdays post because my computer was here and our phone connection was at our other flat. I will post some inside photos once I have finished loading my room. Currently it and Mike’s room are mostly full with my stuff, so it could be an interesting exercise shoe-horning it all in. Like I said, I’m going to have a garage sale in a couple of weeks. (I would have it next weekend, but I will be at parachute! I’m flying up on Thursday night and will be back on Monday night, so there may be a few missing posts then – unless I get really motivated and find some netcafe thing at parachute.

I’m trying to decide what I should do now. I’m currently trying to decide between unpacking and sleeping. For some reason I am very tired…