off-black

Mixed perceptions

2012-02-01T22:49:00.002+13:00

One thing I've noticed about parenting, is that often people only see the bad stuff or comment on the negative aspects of having children.

The downsides do exist, but they go with the territory though; to borrow a phrase from the military, "if you can't take a joke you shouldn't have signed up".

And while the downsides can and do suck, they are generally outweighed by the upsides by about a million to one, which makes things worthwhile :)

Permanent Marker

2012-01-29T10:43:00.007+13:00

"Well said, what people forget when they get these tattoos is that the skin gets old and then they just look trashy."

"I tell my kids to treat tattoos as useful warning signs that the wearer isn't all there."

"Tats are disgusting and I'll never marry a girl with them. It just spells uneducated and being a bogan."

"Tattoos are tacky. They make the wearer look grubby. They pigeon-hole the wearer as of a lower class and/or intelligence."

"Graffitti. Tattoos are nothing more than body graffitti and are as much of an eyesore."

"Tatts are suitable for fools, losers, common criminals, the deeply insecure and those who reject Christian values."

"I think of them as an IQ test and everyone gets to see the score"

If you agree with any of the above then you don't get it. They are a sampling of typical comments from people agreeing with this opinion piece published last week: Are tattoos a tragic mistake? (Stuff via the Sydney Morning Herald).

There were many other comments disagreeing with it (including one or two from myself), but the fact it attracted 500+ for and against comments from readers illustrates that tattooing clearly isn't as mainstream accepted as the author suggests. I know it's just morons on the internet, and I shouldn't get worked up about it, but when people are making judgements without basis on my morals and intelligence (not to mention my wife's, since she has a couple too), simply based on whether or not I'm baring my arms that day, it gets annoying.

The author makes a single good point in that tattoos are permanent, and you should think long and hard before getting one, but the rest of the piece is presumptuous garbage, from someone who doesn't like tattoos, and has only the barest insight into why people get them (like many tattoo critics). The peak of hilarity is the bit where she claims to be not preaching or judging, despite spending the whole piece doing exactly that.

I have two tattoos. I can bare or hide them as I choose. I'll probably get more before I'm done. I didn't get mine as a doe eyed teenager, on a whim, or on a wild night out (not that I'm criticising anyone who has done that. If you did, and are still happy with the results, cool). I spent years deciding what they were going to look like, and involved collaborators with them before taking them to the needle. I didn't get them to be cool, to copy anyone else or to fit in to some crowd. I got them because I like tattoos, have been interested in them for years and wanted some for myself (and have no concerns about how they will look when I am old by the way). While there are indeed some tragic examples out there, there are also some breathtakingly exquisite and beautiful ones too. I like the idea of permanence and I laugh at the notion that only the insecure or extroverted get them. Baring tattoos in public is a sign of self confidence if anything, and anyone who knows me personally will tell you just how extroverted I'm not.

While both of mine are generic types of tattoo, the specific designs are unique to me. There may be many tattoos like them, but these ones are mine. Both have obvious meanings, and not so obvious ones as well. "You're just doing it to be different, like everyone else" tattoo critics don't get that; it isn't the act of tattooing that is individualistic, it is the design, and what it means to the wearer. And while I've heard the odd disparaging comment directed my way when people thought I couldn't hear them, I have also had complete strangers come up to me and complement me on the designs.

I get that not everyone should get tattoos, not all tattoos are good ideas, and not everyone likes them. But here's the thing; I have no opinion on you getting tattoos or not, unless you ask me directly for advice. It's none of my business and they aren't compulsory. There are some design types I don't like and would never get, but that's me. If you don't have them, don't ever want one that's cool. Your skin, your business. By the same token I don't care if you don't like mine; they aren't on your skin, so it isn't your problem. I didn't get tattooed to impress anyone, or prove anything, or rebel against anyone. If you think I did, you don't get it.

My body is a temple-I just got the decorators in.

I don't hate The Feelers

2012-01-19T20:31:00.004+13:00

Before hitting the road to come home from Taupo we had lunch in a park on the lakefront.
To the surprise musical accompaniment of The Feelers (well half of them anyway: The Feel?) playing an acoustic set. That in itself was slightly surreal, but it got even weirder when they started playing covers ("Save Tonight" and "Where do the children play" were the ones we heard).
Now apparently if you are a "Real (NZ) Music Fan"TM you are supposed to hate them. Pouring scorn on them and everything they do is de-rigeur in certain circles. And to be honest, moving in some of those circles, it gets boring.

I don't hate The Feelers (heresy I know). I don't love them either, and will happily damn them with faint praise, but they are what they are, which is harmless. They produce to my ears bland, somewhat calculatedly mainstream cookie cutter rock (which I think they admitted once might have always been the plan: their first big single initially sounded to me like a simple Bush rip-off, who themselves had been busy ripping off Nirvana but I digress), sold their musical soul to both the National Party and the RWC, and somehow still qualify for NZonAir funding thus depriving more deserving artists (more a problem with the funding model than the band though), so there are reasons to hate on them but I just can't be arsed. There are more important things to worry about.

The Feelers are successful, do what they do, do it well, and that suits the fans. I don't get why this is such a problem for the sneerers. There is this elitist aspect to criticism of this band and others that really pisses me off. The Feelers might be your favourite band ever. They aren't mine. Such is life.

I have the first album from 1998 (and no interest in any others: they have spent the last 14 years remaking it, so you only really need one of their albums), and even got it signed way back when it was new (screw whatever street cred I may have acquired...). I still listen to it from time to time and still like most of it, this track in particular. Screw the haters.

Back in the saddle

2012-01-15T23:42:00.004+13:00

So after not having ridden since sometime in October/November (long enough for cobwebs to appear on the front forks), and feeling the effects of no exercise whatsoever over the Christmas break, I decided to use the return to work as an excuse to get back on the bike.

I cycled to work every day last week, and rode back 4 times, which is a new record for number of hill climbs in a week for me (a climb of around 450 feet I have figured out thanks to this little tool). Part of the motivation was the prospect of the upcoming Hospi ride in March, in not wanting to embarrass myself, and better my time from last year.

It feels good to be back on the bike, especially in this still holidayish period when traffic is still light. While some fitness has been lost (I'm a couple of gears lower on the climb than when I am properly conditioned), the muscle memory is still there, and long summer days make for great riding. And I seem to have a new zen with wind at the moment. Some days I'll sit in my office listening to the wind hitting the skylight and dread the ride home. Yet on Friday when the wind was actually proper stormy, I couldn't wait to get amongst it. I got home about ten minutes before a series of rain squalls hit, having had a slow but memorable ride.

That said, I'm not that zen with the wind. I was supposed to go riding with a couple of friends today, but it had been blowing a gale all weekend. Solo riding when it is breezy is one thing, but it sucks the fun out of a group ride.

Sharing the Lovejoy

2012-01-13T22:19:00.004+13:00

Somewhat appropriate for posting on Friday the 13th since they were once seen as portents of doom, a surprise pre-Christmas visitor was Comet Lovejoy. Surprising for two reasons: it wasn't even discovered until late November, and then it wasn't expected to survive it's closest approach to the sun.

But survive it did and as it sped away from the sun it turned into a spectacular Christmas gift for stargazers in the southern hemisphere. It was breathtaking, and well worth getting up at 4am to see.

I was worried I would have trouble spotting it in the sky. Instead I walked around a street corner on the way to my viewing spot and just about stopped in my tracks. It was unmissable, the tail measuring easily three hand-spans in the pre-dawn sky, like a searchlight beaming from below the horizon as it rose.

Some with more capable cameras than me got stunning images of it, but here is mine from a field behind my backyard on Christmas eve:
While not the most spectacular image, it does approximate well how the comet looked to the naked eye from my place. I've seen a handful of comets in my life; Halley's, Hale-Bopp, Mcnaught, and this one, which was easily the most awe-inspiring. The tail is millions of kilometers long. Charlotte got to see it too, from her bedroom window. I hope she remembers it.

As for the spectacular images, The Bad Astronomer did a good job of collating them. Check out this timelapse: The Spectacle of Comet Lovejoy

Or the Insanely Cool observatory shot

Or the one I find most wow (for a few reasons), timelapse video of cometrise from the International Space Station

I love this stuff.

Abandoned

2012-01-12T23:36:00.004+13:00

Another old abandoned house for my collection, spotted on the way home fom Taupo near Marton. I've driven past it dozens of times before but never photographed it:

Meanwhile the one near Taihape I photographed a few years ago is still hanging on:

Sunny Taupo

2012-01-08T14:35:00.006+13:00

Last year our camping week in Taupo was drenched in glorious sunshine. This year not so much. Despite the forecast, we went ahead with our camping trip anyway. It was dry when we put the tent up, but pretty soon looked like this:
After a day and a half of constant driving rain, the waterproofing on the fly gave up the ghost, and it started dripping inside the tent. Bailing out was briefly discussed, but instead we put the tent into stealth mode by way of a passive waterproofing augmentation device obtained from a local hardware store:
Just after we put the tarp up the sun came out for a couple of hours (long enough to dry out the tent and sunburn my feet), resulting in scenes like this all over the camp.
And as they do, despite the frustration of their parents not being able to do all the cool outdoorsy things they had planned (apart from occupy the pool), the kids made their own fun in the wet anyway.

Near road death experience

2012-01-04T16:25:00.008+13:00

Listening to: Barking - Underworld (2010). Seems an apt title to describe the way many people drive in this country :)

We nearly killed someone driving home from out camping holiday in Taupo yesterday. There was a fatal crash on the main highway, and we were diverted down a narrow back-road. When I say narrow, I mean barely wide enough to merit lane markings in the middle, and occasionally losing those too. While technically open road limited to 100kph, it is the kind of road you'd be dumb to go much faster than 80 on, and made me slow and pull over a little whenever I met any oncoming traffic (of which there was plenty since it was diverting from the other side of the crash site as well). So we are on a narrow unfamiliar road, which I'm driving at about 60-70 for comfort and safety. We get to this blind right hand corner when it happens.

A motorbike appears, coming the other way at speed, heeled over in the turn and on my side of the road. He's stuck in his turning arc and will hit us in about two seconds. Aside from the thought of "WTF are you doing on my side of the road you freaking idiot!", time briefly stopped at that point, before reflexes took over.

We had been driving along a section of road with a grass bank to our left with no verge, but luckily right then there was a gravel patch a couple of metres wide on the outside of the bend.
I pulled hard into it, braking heavily to the point where the car nosed down so much the skirt under the front bumper scraped the edge of the tarmac (resulting in the marks in the pics) as we came to a halt, hoping the ute behind us was paying attention and didn't hit us. The rider missed us by a couple of metres and sailed on, seemingly oblivious to just how close he came to being a hood ornament. After muttering a few things I hope Charlotte doesn't repeat we gathered ourselves and moved on, scared and more than a little angry at being endangered in such a stupid way.

There are a few aspects about it that piss me off. Detouring was fine, but travelling at a reasonably quick but safe speed (not crawling by any means) on the back road still caused traffic to pile up and tailgate me, since they obviously thought they should be going faster. If I had been going only a few k's faster we would have been wearing the guy on the bike. No ifs or buts, it was that close. The girls in the back would probably have been okay, but Fi and I in the front might have been in trouble.

The merchant banker on the bike annoys me most. To get on the road he has already been diverted by the flashing lights, police cars, and 'Crash Ahead' sign. Yet this reminder of consequences doesn't phase him (probably because he thinks it's somebody else's problem, and it won't happen to him anyway because he is a good rider) and so he just piles on like there is no-one else on the road, and nearly has a head-on with a family minding their own business as a result. This is how people die on the roads. I hope he got the shakes after our near miss. I hope he still has them.

The other thing that annoys was after regaining the main road we came across all the grinning idiots flashing their lights at oncoming traffic to warn of a police car up ahead. I don't know if this happens in other countries, but it seems to be a 'damn the man' tradition here. I see this all the time, and it is idiotic. There is a well rehearsed and tired argument that speed cameras are more about revenue gathering than safety, but it is a self selecting tax; if you don't want to contribute don't speed. I wonder what they thought when they got to the diversion, or if they heard about what happened up the road. Speed alone doesn't kill, but the attitudes behind speeding do.

I've said it before, but the attitude behind a lot of NZ driving habits is seriously warped. 18 people were killed in crashes over the Christmas/New Year period this season, practically all of them due to utterly avoidable stupid driving. I've also mentioned before that I survived a high speed crash (caused by my own stupid driving) when I was much younger. I wonder if more people had an insight into just how swift and violent an experience like that is whether it would make the behaviours safer or not.

After spending a week in a tourist town, we were expecting some hair-raising driving from the tourists, but while the overseas tourists in Taupo could be tricky drivers at times, the locals were worse. There were numerous episodes of craziness, but the most shining example was a guy in a farm ute we met in a Taupo carpark. Since there seems to be a bylaw that all carparks in Taupo must be illogically laid out (seriously, they are weird), we wound up reversing into a park from a long way out. Held up by us for all of 10 seconds, our ute driver smugly smiled and shook his head at us obvious noobs, before driving away. All the while he had an unrestrained Jack Russell terrier sitting in his lap. Can't see how that could go wrong. You're laughing at us mate but who is the bigger fool?

Christmas Day Cruise

2011-12-29T00:05:00.004+13:00

Something I used to do when I first learned to drive was go for a cruise around the eastern bays of Wellington Harbour at the end of Christmas day. It was a nice way to wind down after a usually busy afternoon, and it was a nice vibe to see people still out and about doing the same.

Gradually though, Christmas got busier, and my little tradition fell by the wayside for a few years, not least because I a: started being allowed to drink at the family Christmas bash, and b: I married into a family that has Christmas dinners rather than the lunches that mine does.

This year though, we found ourselves with time on our hands at the end of the day, and everyone still awake, so the girls and I piled into the car and resurrected the cruise, starting with a lazy meal of chinese takeaways at Petone Beach.

The evening was warm, still, and perfect.

Charlotte on the sea wall at Petone:
Sunset from near the harbour entrance at Eastbourne:
Wellington Harbour from Eastbourne as the lights come on:
Including a big Christmas tree across the harbour entrance:
Days Bay wharf at dusk.

Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T23:01:00.004+13:00

It's Christmas Eve, and on a nice summer's day and night the Christmas trees are blooming.
Be they plastic, pine, or pohutukawa:
Happy Christmas everyone, wherever you may be :)

Nativity Subjects

2011-12-23T15:27:00.003+13:00

Charlotte re-arranged the nativity scene so everyone could watch The Lion King* with her.
By the looks of it just in time for them to be subjected to Simba's deranged REIGN OF TERROR...
*We are in a "Lion King" phase, after a long "Bambi" phase. I thought Bambi was bad, but this is worse. The "Finding Nemo" phase on the other hand wasn't so bad. That movie I actually enjoy :)

The Sophie can't fly...

2011-12-22T21:53:00.007+13:00

she only wriggles about!

Been kind of crawling for the last few weeks now, and improving every day.

Apologies if you aren't one of the half dozen or so people in the world who get the above joke by the way :)

3 year old vision

2011-12-17T22:05:00.005+13:00

Conversation earlier today in the Kathmandu carpark:

Charlotte: "Where are we now?"

Us: "Kathmandu"

Charlotte: "Katmandarin?"

Her worldview is slightly different from ours...

At the age of three Charlotte has also been learning how to use the pocket digicam. It is never boring looking at the images she produces of what interests her after we let her loose with the thing.

The insights into how she is thinking can be quite fun. As Mia Wallace would say, warm:
Warmer:
Disco!:
I love that the image sequence shows her learning and adapting until she gets the image she wants.

Skyhawk Mythbusting

2011-12-13T23:20:00.008+13:00

Picture credit me.

Today marks the tenth anniversary of the disbandment of the combat element of the RNZAF, namely 75 and 2 Squadrons (A-4K Skyhawk), and 14 Squadron (Macchi MB-339). I was there as a guest, took the photo above, and it doesn’t seem that long ago.

In the decade that has passed, the Air Combat Force comes up from time to time again either in the media or other conversation (not least due to the debacle that was the sales process for the redundant airframes). The thing I noticed both while the force was still active and latterly is the amount of myth and misunderstanding out there on the topic, usually as not-that-funny-if-you-know-any-of-the-true-background kind of humour. The force was seen by many as at best a token, at worst as a “Dad’s Army” style joke; incompetent operators with ancient broken-down flying jalopies, just as threatening to their users as to any potential enemy.

The truth is as usual kinda different.

Growing up as a plane obsessed kid, the Skyhawk in particular was ‘our’ fast jet so I wound up focussing on it and wound up knowing possibly more than the average layperson about it (but much less than many others I know). Ten years on seems an appropriate time to kill some of the myths.

And to those readers who say this is long and boring and aren't going to read it, it's my blog so :P.

First some history.

New Zealand bought 14 brand new Skyhawks in 1970. Back then they were still very much a first line piece of equipment. It was originally conceived in the 1950’s as the smallest and cheapest way to get a nuclear bomb from an aircraft carrier to a target. It evolved into a capable light attack aircraft, and by the time we bought them, had established a reputation as a reliable and rugged little jet popular with its operators. While not a true fighter in the air to air sense, the qualities that made it a good attack aircraft also made it a useful dogfighter, hence it’s starring role in “Top Gun” in the 80’s (the USN used the Skyhawk in an adversary combat trainer role right up until the mid 2000’s). In the right hands a Skyhawk could humble a supposedly much superior aircraft. It might have been an old design, but it was a very good one.

Now on to the myths

Clapped out

This was probably most untrue thing said about them at the time of the disbandment, (one of a number of flat out untrue government public statements used to justify the decision-whether that was malice or ignorance is hard to determine), and caused a bit of offence among those whose job it was to maintain and fly the things. They were getting old and harder to maintain, but were still mission capable, i.e. able to do what they were tasked. No aircraft has an infinite life, and the end of the Skyhawk’s RNZAF career was certainly on the horizon, but clapped out they were not. Replacement by the F-16 from 2000 or so would have made it a moot point if the already signed and pending delivery deal had not been cancelled after a change of government in 1999 (the same deal would have also on-sold the Skyhawks and avoided the last decade of not selling them).

Old and Useless, always crashing

Closely allied to the ‘old’ argument is the implication that mission capability is solely determined by age. Age is a relative thing though, especially in combat aircraft. 20, 30 or more year lifespans for individual airframes aren’t uncommon these days. They might have been getting older, but they certainly weren’t useless, not least because from the 1990’s they weren’t quite the same beasts we started with in 1970.

By the early 80’s the basic 60’s avionics and systems in the jet were showing their age, and options for replacement were looked at. Since the funds weren’t around to buy new aircraft like the F-16 or F-18, the next best thing was done. We doubled the fleet size by buying ten surplus Skyhawks from the Royal Australian Navy, and rebuilt the lot by renewing parts of the airframe and replacing all the avionics with those equivalent to an F-16, optimized for our needs. The new systems also meant more modern and effective weapons could be carried. Known as the 'Kahu' upgrade, it was completed in 1991.

In terms of capability the upgrade meant effectively a brand new aircraft. In some respects the on-board systems were superior to both the FA-18’s operated by our neighbours in Australia, and the actual F-16s we scheduled to replace them. So while technically by 2001 they were 30+ year old aircraft, in other ways they were still in their prime, and still capable in the roles we used them for. It is worth noting that upgraded Skyhawks similar to ours are still in service with a couple of other countries as a front line aircraft. The US military only retired their last from true combat roles in the 1990’s, and kept a few on until a few years after we retired ours. It was certainly not in the same league performance wise as more modern types, but it was a reasonable compromise for our needs and means.

Along with the aircraft, the people maintaining and flying them were as good as anyone. It might be a joke for many Kiwi’s, but our small military is usually pretty good at what it does. Rather than always crashing, of the total of 24 operated only 7 were destroyed from any cause over 31 years. For a combat aircraft it is a very good record, and the RNZAF was very good at using the Skyhawk. It may be a small Air Force, but an incompetent one it is not and once out of a job here, the Australian and British Air forces in particular were more than happy to take on some of our pilots and technicians on reputation.

Never deployed anywhere

Unless you count the annual deployments around Southeast Asia and the Pacific for exercises, or the permanent basing of a squadron in Australia for a decade up until 2001.

Never used in combat.

The only time an RNZAF A-4 used weapons ‘in anger’ was to stop an illegally fishing trawler that was refusing to stop for the naval vessels pursuing it in 1976. While often seen as a bit of a joke, this is a pretty legitimate use of an aircraft like this in peacetime, and certainly delivered the message that we were serious about enforcing our EEZ.

What doesn’t seem to be well known is that preparations were made for deploying them for use in the first Gulf War in 1991 (we sent a couple of Hercules instead). They were also coincidentally deployed near the East Timor region in 1999 when that crisis arose, and were prepared for the possibility of being employed there also if the situation demanded it. As it was RAAF reconnaissance missions in the area at the time were counted as operational sorties rather than training ones.

Not enough of them and no-one is going to attack NZ anyway.

On the face of it it seems like a fair point, but it is actually a oversimplification that misses the real question by a wide margin, and taken to its logical conclusion brings into question the existence to the New Zealand Defence Force in general.

The thing is, the NZDF has never been capable of repelling a determined attack of New Zealand territory on its own. The intention has always been to operate with allied forces, and defending NZ’s interests is not necessarily the same as literally defending NZ soil. The question to be asked is not ‘who is going to attack us?’, but ‘what benefits do the various elements of the NZDF provide to each other and the country for the cost?’

While disbanding the ACF freed up funds for the rest of the NZDF (even if it wasn’t always used wisely, like buying twice as many new armoured vehicles as we needed), having it also provided many training and skills benefits (most of them not obvious to the layperson) both to the other elements of the NZDF making it more effective as a whole, and the country at large. Overseas they were a very visible contribution to regional security amongst our allies and trading partners. Along with the ‘clapped out’ argument, these benefits were either ignored, downplayed or completely misrepresented to the public by the government at the time.

Myths aside, by now the last RNZAF Skyhawks would have been grounded for a few years anyway. They are history. While the justification for having modern fighter aircraft in NZ is certainly arguable (despite the above I can see it both ways, although at the moment it is a moot point, since there aren’t going to be any flying with Kiwi markings anytime soon), by getting rid of them a statement is being made that not only are they not needed now, they never will be. The ‘benign strategic environment’ status suggested in mid 2001 was arguable at best then, and remains so now.

What is certain is that once gone, it is the kind of capability and skill base that takes years to re-establish if needed (waiting until you actually for-real need it is far too late) and only history will tell if it was the right call or not.

Jetblack

2011-12-10T09:38:00.004+13:00

Just a little something some people at my workplace* are involved in. Not the part I work in unfortunately. My involvement was limited to helping load the full-size mockup into its shipping container when it was on-site a couple of months ago:

I wonder how many people will notice the error in the animation of the supersonic run (it's supersonic-by definition you won't hear the car until it has passed you)

Didn't feel a thing

2011-12-09T21:29:00.004+13:00

So after the pronounced earth related jiggery pokery and fuss on Saturday, I didn't feel this one at all yesterday (screengrabs from Geonet.org.nz):
And the rock beneath our house probably added to me not feeling this one later that day:
Probably good I didn't feel the first one, since when it hit I was in the site acid store, a small enclosed space with shelves full of big bottles of acids of various kinds. There are certain places I definitely don't want to be in an earthquake and that one is high on the list. Since I happened to be on my feet and moving around I didn't notice the motion, and since I had my mp3 on, I didn't hear any rattling either. My office got a good rattling though according to the people I share it with.

Thing from the past

2011-12-06T21:55:00.002+13:00

Listening to: Pearl Jam - Live at the Gorge 05/06 (2007)

Occured to me the other day I hadn't heard this in a long, long time:

I was kind of shocked to realise just how old it is now (it was recorded in 1993). A friend of mine who remains very knowledgable about such things (D3vo) introduced me to it circa 1994, and many a great time was had with it as a background throughout the 90's. Lots of good memories :)

I wonder what that baby is up to now.

Why was the house wiggling?

2011-12-04T12:17:00.004+13:00

The above was my three-year-old's response to this, which we experienced at my friend's third floor apartment in central Wellington last night (screengrabs from the awesome Geonet, click to enlarge):

Here is what it looked like on the local quake drum:
After living here for a while you tend to brush off the small ones. A few seconds of shaking and it's back to whatever you were doing, having spent at least the first one or two seconds deciding if you needed to take shelter in a doorway or under furniture (the bigger shakes tend to make that decision an instant one I have noticed). This one got worse after a few seconds, and when they do that is when you really take notice, usually by wondering "Is this IT, the big one?" in my case.

And then when it stops there is always the period where you are wondering if things are still moving or is it just the adrenalin making you think they are. This was the biggest shake for a while around here.

I like spiders generally

2011-12-01T22:10:00.003+13:00

I really do, but when they are an inch long white-tail running across my kitchen floor like one was ten minutes ago (when I usually pad around my erm, pad barefoot) my usual spider preservation policy of "catch and release to the yard" goes out the window in favour of "squash with something unyielding".

Just like the ones I make. But bigger.

2011-11-29T20:59:00.004+13:00

One sign that we were getting close to an election in NZ was the announcement a couple of weeks ago that the RNZAF's retired Skyhawks have been sold (link). Again.

Since they were retired without replacement in 2001, announcing a deal has been struck to off-load them has become something of a pre-election tradition, with this being the fourth time it has been made, and the third in the run up to polling day. Here is the 2003 version, the 2005 version, and the 2008 version :)

I'm optimistically thinking this time it looks like the deal might actually fly. That they haven't sold yet isn't because they are rubbish or no-one wanted them. There have been other erm, issues at play.

In the meantime back in April the government decided enough was enough and started dispersing some Skyhawks to museums (link). In addition some of the also redundant Aermacchi jet trainers will be going to museums, as well as the now twice retired Strikemasters the Macchis replaced (after retirement from flying some Strikemasters were retained to train ground personnel).

The Museum Of Transport And Technology in Auckland got their Skyhawk about a month ago, and reassembling it for display looked something like this:

At least it isn't "Wellywood"

2011-11-22T19:58:00.006+13:00

(image sourced from Stuff.co.nz)

So the people have spoken (sort of, since "No Sign" wasn't an option in the public vote), and "Blown away" will soon be adorning the hill at the northern end of the airport. The crowd isn't exactly going wild.

It isn't the option I voted for, and I don't really like it. It plays to and reinforces an outsider's and negative stereotype of the city (tellingly it was designed by people based in Auckland), and just seems a bit meh. It does tie in to the nearby collection of kinetic sculptures, and isn't the godawful cringe that "Wellywood" would have been, but that is about all the good things I can say about it. Uninspiring.

The second alternative option "Eye of the Taniwha", I thought was much better, not only being more creative and actually designed by a Wellingtonian, but also specific to its exact location.

(image sourced from Stuff.co.nz)

In explaining it you could have told a great story, how Ngake the Taniwha escaped to the sea, while poor Whataitai got stuck (link). I would have loved relating that to visitors.

With "Blown Away" pretty much all you get to say is "Yeah, it gets a bit windy sometimes".

Who knows, it might grow on me and be affectionately regarded one day.

Meanwhile, in another part of town, the Ian Curtis graffiti I've blogged about here and ther e is doing a good cheshire cat impersonation (link).

Things annoying me about the election

2011-11-20T10:52:00.004+13:00

The first general election I voted in was in 1996. I've voted in every one since then, seldom for the same people twice, and mindful that democracy is a privilege, will be voting again next week.

But while the ability to vote is a precious one, gee the weeks leading up to an election can make it hard to appreciate.

Things annoying me about this election in particular:

-"Vote for me/us" billboards everywhere.

-Vandalising of said billboards by people who think they are being funny or making a point. Really they are doing neither; they are just being a dick. When such vandalism is by a well organised activist element of a political party it is even more dickish (and disappointing too), endorsed by the party itself or not. Covering up someone else's free speech with your own is not free speech.

-Media manufactured scandals that distract from the real issues, and give anyone not involved the chance to display hypocritically righteous faux outrage, all the while being grateful it wasn't them being recorded.

-People on social media and other public forums saying "I'm voting for X because I love NZ/democracy/kittens etc" or "If you vote for X you hate NZ/democracy/kittens etc". I don't care who you vote for, just as who I vote for is none of your business.

-The idea that a giant walking ego in a suit might for the third time have the power as an individual to determine the make-up of the next government. Winston Peters is a one-man indictment of the flaws of MMP voting.

-The fact that while I like some policy elements of most parties, they all have policies I don't like enough to make me not want to vote for them, meaning I don't feel particularly represented, and thus cynical about the whole thing. Also while I might not be a particular fan of the incumbents, the opposition don't exactly fill me with confidence either (NZ politics has been lacking in genuinely inspiring individuals and policy for a couple of decades now).

Hopefully I will have made my mind up by next week.

Rememberance Day Airshow

2011-11-17T21:28:00.006+13:00

Some shots from The Vintage Aviator Ltd's rememberance day show at Masterton on Saturday. Despite it being spring the weather put a dampener on both flying and photography, with low cloud, cool winds and passing showers.

Airfield Rabbit Control Manager
The low cloudbase meant the resident Corsair stayed on the ground, which was a pity since the damp air could have made for some great vapour effects like these.
I see things like this and think, "this really is the future". I like the technology contrast between the 1910's and the 2010's:

Triplane vs Triplane (Sopwith and Fokker):

Gotta have the right gear...

2011-11-15T19:58:00.001+13:00

Charlotte takes her BabySmash very seriously.....

Look what I made!

2011-11-14T23:29:00.004+13:00

Listening to: Chemical Brothers - Surrender (1999)

I don't know if it is just me, but every time I see diggers parked up for the night like this atop a pile of spoil they have just created, I think of a kid on a beach proudly displaying their work :)

Elevens

2011-11-13T11:19:00.002+13:00

Forgot to post this the other day. Would have looked really good if posted at 11:11pm on the 11th :)

Guy Fawkes

2011-11-08T19:27:00.006+13:00

Shots from the crowd on the waterfront of the annual November 5th public fireworks display last Saturday night:

Letterbox malfunction

2011-11-07T21:54:00.005+13:00

Awoke on Saturday morning to find we were having some trouble with our ~~droid~~ letterbox. The "Where the feck is it?" kind:
It was definitely there on Friday evening when we came home. Surmising that "some p***k has nicked it!" (pretty much a direct quote), we resigned ourselves to searching the neighbourhood for our beloved sentinel. We didn't have to go far. It was on the doorstep, somewhat worse for wear:
We can only surmise that some passing enthusiastic young ruffian/scallywag took a shine to it (and who wouldn't, it is a damn pragmatically sexy letterbox) in the middle of the night and decided to have their vandalous way with it. Presumably it then got tossed aside before some kind neighbour found and returned it. It wouldn't have been hard to figure out where it came from, being now the only house on the street sans postal device.

Naturally in the way of these things, it required complete disassembly before we could rebuild better and stronger six-million-dollar-letterbox style. Fixing the loose flap in particular was something we had been meaning to do for a while anyway.
The glass of sav isn't a compulsory piece of DIY carpentry repair equipment, but does make the job more enjoyable on a nice spring evening.

And a bit of hammering, screwing, levering, drilling and nailing later we had it back at it's post.
I tempted to line it with sheet steel to make it a bit more vandal proof (and maybe some electrification, but that might annoy the posties a bit, and posties aren't people you want to annoy), but Fi and I opted for the logistically easier option of bigger nails instead.

Big Bangs

2011-11-04T20:31:00.007+13:00

One of the more arcane things I am mildly interested in is The Bomb, most likely due to being an impressionable pre-teen in an era when it's use was considered a strong possibility (how I never learned to stop worrying and love The Bomb is another post in itself). While not a lay expert by any means (probably a good thing), I do know a public-domain bit about how they work, how they might be used, and their history.

Which is why it was nice to see a story last week (link) about a quietly ongoing long-term process to get rid of a few of them, with the dismantling of the last B-53 gravity bomb in the US stockpile. While I am interested in them, I am not in love with them either. They are too scary, and stockpiles being ever reduced in the post-cold war era is a good thing for all of us. The active warhead numbers quoted in the article are still too high, but are now only moderately insane, in comparison to the full-tilt barking levels they attained at the height of the arms race a few decades ago.
While missiles are arguably flashier and higher tech, old fashioned free fall bombs still remain in service (and will be for the foreseeable future), not least because a bomber carrying one can be recalled; once a missile is on its way, you had better be sure you made the right decision to send it :).

The B-53 from what I can tell was intended to be used as a bunker buster, delivered in what is called a laydown attack by an aircraft flying directly over the target, with a descent slowed by parachute to give the aircraft time to escape. Detonating on the ground, the 9 megaton warhead would generate shockwaves or dig a big enough crater to destroy whatever was below it. An identical size warhead probably intended for the same purpose used to be mounted on some US ICBMs.

Contrary to some popular beliefs, while the strategic weapons deployed today are many times as powerful as those used against Japan in 1945, the trend for some time has been for warhead yields to decrease, as delivery systems got more and more accurate and reliable. The two atomic bombs used in anger are estimated to have yielded roughly between 12 and 20 Kilotons, while modern warheads seem to range between around 100 Kilotons to around 1 Megaton (Kiloton = 1000 tons of TNT, Megaton 1,000,000).

At 9 Mt, some sources have been referring to the B-53 as a 'Monster' size weapon, but in a historical context it isn't really. While it does represent a certain class (big) of weapon and for some time it was the most powerful weapon in the US arsenal, it isn't the biggest they ever fielded. That was another long retired gravity bomb, the B-41, rated at a theoretical 25 Mt (theoretical because it was never live tested at that size). In addition from what I can gather the Russians had a few 20 Mts warheads deployed on ICBMs until as recently as a couple of years ago, and fielded a few 25 Mts back in the bad old days. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bad enough, but the sheer power of larger weapons like these is hard to comprehend, especially when it is reasonably likely that had they ever been used there would likely have been more than one arriving at a target to ensure its destruction.

In all the reportage about the B-53 dismantling, the significance of the particular date seems to have been missed. Fifty years ago, in late October 1961, the largest bomb of them all was exploded. Too large in every respect to be a usable weapon, the Tsar Bomba was created as a propaganda stunt by the Soviet regime, pretty much because they could. The weapon was capable of a mind-bendingly Strangeloveian 100 Mt, but was scaled down to a merely surreal 50 Mt for safety reasons (allowing the aircrew on the delivery aircraft to survive, and not causing blast damage to or irradiating nearby countries mostly.

Here is what the fireball looked like to a heavily filtered camera just after detonation (you would be blinded using the naked eye, in addition to being exposed to potential 3rd degree burns on exposed skin up to 100km away from it according to some sources):

(image from Wikipedia, originally copyright to the government of the USSR I expect)

Doesn't look like much, until you remember the diameter of that fireball is measured in kilometers (about 8 according to most sources).

Ads not like they used to be

2011-10-27T20:22:00.005+13:00

I've been revisiting the world famous in NZ mid 80's Hilux ads after randomly discovering them on youtube.

This one was apparently banned, although I clearly remember seeing it screen at around the time it would have come out.

I like how Scotty's tunnel 'shortcut' getting from Kent Terrace to Thorndon via the Mt Vic Bus Tunnel is in completely the opposite direction they need to go :)

Bringing the fine dynasty of Hilux ads up to date is the brand new 2011 version:

While it is light years ahead in concept and execution, I think I prefer the 80's ones in that they make me want to buy the truck more. And just how is that chimp managing to use an airbrush in the slipstream like that?

I know. Rambo'd up pig driving a tooled up motorcycle with a talking chimp in the sidecar, and it is the airbrushing I call out for being unconvincing...

Smugly Blissful

2011-10-26T22:28:00.004+13:00

Saw this the other day, and am in a grumpy mood anyway, so am taking it out on the internet:

Makes as least as much sense as an invisible omniscient omnipresent being creating everything out of nothing on a whim. No, in fact it makes more, since it even though the statement is a profoundly over simplistic generalisation the theory it mocks is backed up by repeatable observation and experimentation. Y'know, freaking actual science, something I bet the authors and propagators of this piece have little useful understanding of. Anyone who argues "Evolution is just a theory anyway" usually needs to brush up on the scientific definition of "theory". It is a bit more strict than the common one.

I have no general issue with religion, I really don't, but when it gets all "scientists, what do they know?" anti-science like this (aside from the literally holier-than-thou "my sect is better than your sect" BS that screws up everything it touches), it really pisses me off. Science and religion can co-exist, if only the fundies will let them.

Officially best in the world again

2011-10-25T20:14:00.005+13:00

While my relationship with rugby can be love-hate at times, after a very hard fought and too-close-to-call-until-it-was-over final on Sunday night, this was a pretty sweet moment to savour:

This is my favourite press pic from the night, Corey Jane and Israel Dagg making confetti angels (source NZ Herald), and summing up the mixture of joy and relief felt by All Black fans everywhere after hanging on to win a low scoring game by a single point.
While it wasn't the prettiest game to watch, it is nice to be able to say we are World Champions again, especially if like me you are old enough to remember the last time we won it, at the same ground on a winter afternoon in 1987:
And this, for anyone interested, including the muppets at the IRB who are discussing fining the French team for technically breaking the rules by crossing the half-way line, is a perfectly acceptable, nay encouraged, response to the challenge of the haka.

And to their credit, the French took some beating, despite most pre-game predictions, making the game anyone's to lose right up until full time.

Do you have a flag? *

2011-10-23T10:43:00.004+13:00

Spotted in the stupormarket carpark this morning:
One of the things I have liked about the RWC is the car flags, from little window ones to full size national flags stretched across bonnets. They haven't usually been as nth level as this one though.

* gag reference

Lights over Wellington

2011-10-20T20:13:00.005+13:00

More or less coincident with the World Cup, bright lights have been piercing the skies above our fair city. I thought it was something to do with the event itself, but after a bit of digging I found it sort of is and isn't.

It is a promotion for Victoria University (press blurb here), with a light shining from each of their campuses around the city.

With the right cloud base the effect can be quite striking:

No reports of Bat-signals have been noted, although something similar in Christchurch last month prompted someone in a Batman costume to turn up at the local copshop and ask to see 'the Commissioner'.

On a vaguely related note, while the Stadium is still helpfully labelled as such, last night while driving past it I noticed the the 'T' in the lettering wasn't lighting up. This turned the title into "SADIUM", which made me wonder if there was hopefully a "HAPPIUM" out there somewhere.

Prodigal Bella

2011-10-19T23:50:00.003+13:00

A few days after the prodigal piglet episode last week, another wandering companion serendipititiously (I have no idea if that is even a word, but I'm using it) returned to the household after a much longer absence. Pussycat Bella has been on an extended holiday at the gym creche, after last being in our possession over a year ago. The stories she could tell...(or he, as Charlotte calls him/her. We think it is a her since it is named after my parents real female housecat)

She fit right back in.

Final finally

2011-10-17T21:17:00.007+13:00

Our house yesterday evening:
I didn't even know we had this until Fi discovered it while rummaging around for something else. Seemed only natural to join the rest of the flags up around the neighbourhood.

I'm not the hugest rugby fan in the world, but I do like watching my team, and like it even more when they win. My cynicism around the World Cup mostly sprang from the way it was promoted, but also a little bit from being wary of committing to the idea that this time we might actually win the thing. After last night's semi final win ruthlessly brushing aside our closest rival and biggest threat 20-6, a whole lot of people are daring to hope, and swinging from very (very) quiet confidence to well placed belief that this time next week we will be World Champions for the first time in 24 years (could be worse, we could be English football fans; their national side hasn't won the Soccer World Cup since 1966). The tension before the game was the most I have felt for any AB's match I have ever seen. Interesting though, throughout the game the AB's themselves were the most pumped and psyched I have ever seen as well, which was borne out in the result. Australia didn't play that terribly; we were just a lot better.

For the country renowned as generally being the best in the game historically (with the All Blacks being one of the most winning teams in any code worldwide), the lack of World Cup success has been mystifying and frustrating, and ultimately monkey on the back building. After winning the inaugural event in 1987, we only reached the final again in 1995, and have fallen at the quarters and semi's every other time (1991, 1999, 2003, 2007, the last mentioned here).

A few other hoodoos around the tournament:

-Prior to last night, the All Blacks had never beaten Australia at a world cup. Hoodoo broken.

-Conversely Australia haven't won a match at last night's venue since 1986. Hoodoo stands.

-In prior world cups, the team that beat the reigning champions went on to win it. Australia did that this time, eliminating our other biggest rival South Africa in last weeks quarter final, but that trend is now broken.

Also in prior world cups, no team that has been defeated in pool play has gone on to win the tournament. Since Australia got knocked over by Ireland a few weeks ago, that trend still stands. The AB's are the only undefeated team in this years tournament.

-Our final opponent, France has eliminated NZ from a world cup twice and have been regarded as a bogey team for NZ, mostly because they are so unpredictable even the French themselves don't know which team (the rubbish one or the awesome one) will turn up on the day. We thumped France in pool play this time, so that monkey if not dead, is seriously wounded. Plus France lost not once in pool play, but twice (see above), and were lucky at best to win their quarter final. They are not to be underestimated, but if the AB's play the final with the intensity and clinicality they displayed last night, no team in the world right now can beat them.

Still it isn't over until it's over. The final matchup is the same as it was in 1987; all going well the result will be too.

And kind of apropos of nothing, but I liked the sky at dusk last night, so here it is:

Reading Nature's signs

2011-10-17T21:06:00.004+13:00

Mowed the lawns for the first time in a while on the weekend. If things on the lawn start disappearing into the grass, it probably means it is a good time to get the lawnmower out:

That's better:

Due to a combination of factors I hadn't been able to get out and get the lawns done over the last little bit. Combined with the spring growth spurt we had been watching Charlotte's Dora ball slowly disappear...

PS lest the amount of debris leads anyone to think I was mowing with a chainsaw or something, we don't collect our grass clippings, since we have nowhere to dispose of / no use for them. In this instance there just happened to be a lot of clippings, hence the mess.

Bumpity bumpity bump

2011-10-12T23:02:00.005+13:00

So just as history repeats itself with Charlotte needing another dilatation, it also repeated itself with the op to perform said dilatation being bumped. Last time it was because she had a cold, this time it was because there were more acute cases needing the surgeons attention (Charlotte herself being one of those acute cases).

I don't begrudge them that. I'm grateful she isn't worse off, and it isn't anyones fault the schedule got busy today (we've been told she will be rebooked for a couple of weeks from now, which will in theory be an unbumpable fixture).

It's just frustrating to be there ready to go, having gotten up early (so early Charlotte needed to be wakened, and she is usually Early McEarlyson when it comes to getting up in the morning), been in the ward for a couple of hours, seen the anaesthetist and signed his consent form, meeting the surgical team and having the risks and conditions explained and signing that consent form, then settling down to wait for the call to theatre, only to be told it's all off and you can come back in a couple of weeks provided she is okay right now. Which she was, need for the op aside, the blockage at the root of this weeks adventures having resolved itself in the two nights between when it happened and this morning. Buildup and let down. It has been a tiring couple of days.

Still, while waiting she got to play around with some new toys, taking her friends along for the ride (along with Tigger is also shoehorned in there with her along with Piglet ).
She liked the toy room so much she didn't want to go home. Piglet would go on to have his own solo adventure this afternoon after being left in the play area at the mall. We had given him up for lost (just like her original Thomas engine, which is having a long holiday at the new Kilbirnie sports centre), when the mall rang to say someone had handed him in. Which is good, since I am probably just as attached to the little guy as my daughter is.

This and that

2011-10-11T22:24:00.004+13:00

Wellington from my upstairs window this morning:

And this evening:
I love this place when it is like this.

More than a little fecked off with the master and navigator of the Rena at the moment. I'm not normally one to prejudge investigations, but for pete's sake, this is the 21st century. The reef they hit was first charted in 1827. There was a hint of a story today that their charts might have been out of date, but I'm betting they are less than 184 years old. I haven't spent a lot of time in Tauranga, but the times I have been there have been good. This is just a shame. I'm getting annoyed as usual with all the "somebody must DO something, why aren't they doing this?" speculation from the armchair experts and the media which are usually in ignorance of what is actually involved. I'm not an expert, but at least I usually know enough to know what I don't know.

Another long night in A&E last night with another bit of food stuckage, ending at 2:00am with a check in to the Children's ward for Charlotte. Since this is the second incidence in a month, we had prediscussed going to Wellington hospital with the surgeon so thats where we wound up. Charlotte was well enough to come home today, but is going back tomorrow for a second dilatation. Her last was back in 2009 and went without too much drama, so hopefully this one will be the same.

Still Fi and I were watching TV earlier and a promo for 24 Hours in A&E came on. Quick as a flash she joked that was just a reference to the waiting time for those triaged as non-urgent :)

Communistical sculpture

2011-10-07T20:40:00.003+13:00

Listening to: the sound of my children sleeping. Or occasionally grizzling.

So a couple of months ago I blogged about the Wellington Odd Shaped Ball tournament commemorative statue, and how I thought it was a bit communist-y.

Turns out I'm not the only one who thought that as noted by The Wellingtonista here, and the style even has a name, although to be fair in a post eerily similar at times to mine, Wellingtonista's scribe did note a few things I didn't, most notably a certain feminine aspect to the piece. I won't be able to look at it the same way again, although the observation does remind me of this scene from The Big Lebowski, which works just as well in Italian as it did in English.

The hopes of one of the sculptors that people might climb on it being summarily vetoed by an anonymous council operative fits nicely with the totalitarian imagery too.

The Sophie Show

2011-10-06T20:46:00.003+13:00

It occurred to me the other day that we were getting close to falling into the classic parental trap of not documenting our second child nearly as much as the first. So given I haven't said much at all about Sophie so far on this blog, here is a post just for her.

We were at a friends place the other morning and the sun was prisming in the window glass just so :)
On a blanket made for her by her Auntie, which immediately made it look like she was hosting her own talkshow. I'm not sure what five month olds would necessarily talk about, but that's probably over-extending the idea...
At five months she is now old enough to grasp and hold her own bottle (sometimes at least, when she isn't too distracted by pretty much anything).
And practice for being the really annoying little sister who is always messing up her big sister's stuff. She can't quite reach out and grab those trains yet, but you know she is thinking about it:

In The Navy....

2011-10-04T22:04:00.008+13:00

No disrespect intended to the Royal New Zealand Navy, but that song always comes to mind when the subject comes up. Not so much due to The Village People as it is to these guys:

The whole idea of Vikings singing this song in their longboats cracks me up.

Anyway, back to the actual Navy, the Navy was in Wellington over the weekend to mark their 70th anniversary. And when I say "the Navy", I mean literally the entire fleet bar one ship. Not often you can get almost the entire navy in one shot. There are nine RNZN ships out of twelve in this pic, with another couple berthed around the corner to the right:
The aforementioned couple, Fleet Replenishment Tanker HMNZS Endeavour and Survey and Research ship HMNZS Resolution, along with the just returned from being upgraded Interisland Ferry Aratere.
Sealift and Amphibious Support Vessel HMNZS Canterbury at Queen's Wharf (middle), with Inshore Patrol Vessels HMNZS Taupo and Rotoiti (left) and Hawea and Pukaki (right):
Offshore Patrol Vessel HMNZS Wellington:
ANZAC/Meko 200 class Frigate HMNZS Te Mana, and OPV HMNZS Otago:
The other half of the combat element, HMNZS Te Kaha. That we only have two instead of four of these was one of the bigger NZ public spending controversies of the early 90's.
Te Kaha with Canterbury behind. Charlotte was concerned that the big gun might frighten people:
Te Kaha from astern:
Te Kaha's Phalanx Close In Weapons System for self defense. A bit like R2D2, but less cute:
The girls and I went for a wander amongst the crowds and ships around the waterfront on Saturday morning. Charlotte liked the helicopters (both Naval and Civilian) best. Combined with the World Cup games at the nearby stadium (we ran into the All Blacks leaving a signing session just as we got there) it was a busy weekend in the city. With all the overseas visitors here for the tournament, there has been a nice buzzier than usual atmosphere around town.

Reports that much of the buzz was from excited singles reacting to the sudden appearance of hundreds of sailors wandering around in uniform are unconfirmed :).

Along with most of the ships being open to visitors, Helipro was conducting operations as normal from it's Queens Wharf base. Small helicopter (Robinson R44), big ship (Canterbury):
Slightly bigger helicopter (Eurocopter Twin Squirrel), still a big ship:
While the crowds waited to board the Canterbury, they could check out Helipro's BK-117 which was opened up for inspection (and which can be seen hard at work in this post ). It made an interesting contrast with the Navy SH-2G Seasprite embarked aboard the Canterbury.
Three helicopters in one shot. R44, Jetranger, and Te Kaha's Seasprite
The Navy has since left Wellington to go back to their usual ports and duties. Before they sailed the stood out into the harbour yesterday so they could be inspected by the Governor General. I happened to drive into town in the evening and they made for a moody and impressive sight looming out of the heavy rain in the gathering twilight.

It would have made a great photo, but I didn't have my camera with me (plus I was driving along the motorway at the time, which is probably more critical).

Google Apollo 11

2011-09-29T21:10:00.003+13:00

Courtesy of The Bad Astronomer, this is todays piece of wow. The approach and landing of Apollo 11 reconstructed and visualised using Google Moon synched with the original landing footage and time-stamps. This is way cool:

Record Store Brain Fade

2011-09-29T00:13:00.004+13:00

Listening to: Random MP3 again. Right now it is this (not the proper video, because that is on youtube Vevo, and I hate Vevo).

I think at 35 I can reserve the right to be old fashioned about some things. One of those is continuing to buy albums on CD. I like the physical experience of browsing the record store, finding the thing you want, that you might have been looking for for ages, and checking out the artwork and inlay while you listen to it. In the age of everything being available on MP3, I feel we are diminishing one of the essential parts of the music experience: listening to a track in context of the album it came from. Sometimes albums are a collection of otherwise unrelated tracks, but other times they flow and feed off each other.

I tend to be handicapped in the record store process though, in that while not shopping I know exactly which albums I'm interested in, once in the store I often forget which they are. In this way, albums I have meant to buy for years slip through the cracks.

A couple I have rediscovered recently.

One of them is this one, solely on the basis of this track:

I quite like what the poster has done with the video too. It works very very well.

Another one is this, which always reminds me of a rainy day in the summer of 2005/6, when we would listening to the radio in the lounge with the door to our deck open, the relaxing sight and sound mixing easily with the music. I never picked this one up at the time mainly because I could never figure out what the song was actually called.

Bloggus Interruptus

2011-09-27T20:15:00.004+13:00

Listening to: MP3 on random. Just played this track which might be a bit of a Cure rip but I like a lot anyway. Now it has moved on to this.

Been a slight slowdown in blogging lately, for a few reasons. I've got a bunch of upcoming posts that I ruminate on and draft bits of in my head when away from the computer, but then I get home and just meh out, unable to summon the mental energy or remember with clarity what I had composed so clearly a few hours before. Even when the thing is perfectly mentally composed, often translating that into writing doesn't quite work. It isn't like I'm stuck for inspiration or anything, but focusing up to write this thing coherently can be a bit challenging of late.

One big reason for bloggus interruptus a couple of weeks ago was Charlotte needing to be hospitalised overnight with a food blockage in her throat, then a few unsettled nights after that while she took on an ear infection. The blockage we can't clear has happened once or twice before, but only once has she needed medical intervention to resolve it. The hospital visit highlighted one of the complete pain-in-the-arse things we have found about having a child with a slightly rare physiological layout (I don't like calling it a 'condition', makes it sound like a disease). You have to explain it again, and again, and AGAIN, to people, including health professionals and even they don't quite get it sometimes. Over the course of the evening Fi had to tell the story and background at triage, then to the attending nurse, then to the attending doctor, then again in the morning to the ward doctor. Another thing that is sometimes troublesome is convincing the professionals we do know what we are talking about and aren't mistaken/panicky, exaggerating etc.

Her visit to the surgeon yesterday to see if her throat needed another widening as a result of the blockage (it doesn't quite yet) was one of the few times that everyone in the hospital room was on the same page. Sometimes we feel like we need to write everything down on a business card, so we can hand it to people:

"She was born with TOF, had corrective surgery at 1 day old, no she isn't vomiting, no she isn't choking, she is just coughing up the food that won't get past the stricture in her throat, this is just something she does occasionally, not all the time, any questions?".

I especially want to throw one of those at the people who give us judgemental disapproving looks when she has a cough in a public place.

Meh, things could be worse. Other parents have to deal with a lot more, and even for what she has she is very lucky in comparison to others. If she had been born with the same thing only sixty years ago before the surgical fix was developed she would have died.

That's not very cheery. So to end on a nicer note here is a cool jet video. The Buccaneer was a British strike/attack design from the 50's built to fly from the Royal Navy's aircraft carriers. It was well designed and strong, and very good at what it did, so good that it outlasted at least three different design proposals for something similar for the land based Royal Air Force before being adopted for that service as well. Retired in 1994, one of the things Buccaneers were known for was flying very low, very fast to evade interception (something the RNZAF also excelled at while they still had the means incidentally). Most of this video was shot out of Gibraltar in the early 90's, and while being on the boat at 1:09 would be cool, the bit from about 2:20 is just mesmerising; it isn't often that ships look down on passing aircraft :).

Now we are three

2011-09-26T21:57:00.005+13:00

Yiddle Charlotte (she doesn't really do 'L's yet, but that was something her dad took five years to master) is three as of last weekend. We had a follow up visit with her surgeon today, and that was a reminder of how far she has come.

Here she is on her actual birthday (Saturday), being her inquisitive self:
And with yiddle Sophie, sleeping off a hard day of excitement:

And with her equally amazing mum, unintentionally (I swear) rocking the same T-shirt a few weeks ago.
She had a fairy birthday party yesterday, and Sophie who is closing in on five months old now made sure she dressed theme appropriate:
Before busting out a few moves on the Jolly Jumper

2011-09-18T23:01:00.001+12:00

Some shots from the Petone Winter Carnival and Fireshow last weekend (which was confusingly held in spring this year, the same day in fact as another nearby local spring carnival. Someone said it was something to do with a certain tournament involving an oval ball).

One of those unplanned shots that kinda works. I was taking a pic of all the lights on the beachfront when Charlotte decided she wanted to be in it too.

Petone Wharf

One of those carnival ride spinny nausea generator things.

Burning the fire sculptures

Boats waiting for the fireworks

This Old House

2011-09-14T22:46:00.001+12:00

Maybe "Burning Down The House" would have been a better song to nick a post title from:

(Pic credit Stuff.co.nz)

The old house in Allenby Terrace has burned again, this time probably terminally. The fact of a house fire isn't particularly significant, but this house in particular seems to have been some kind of hub amongst my circle of friends. Fi and I know at least half a dozen or more people who have flatted within its walls in the last decade or so, not always in the same flat, and not always known to each other even. I never lived there but remember it well from many visits and the occasional crash.

The building was over a hundred years old; for one flat the toilet and bathroom was outside across the yard in the old servants quarters. Originally one elegant house, by the time we got to know it there were separate flats across it's three floors, and the building was utterly dilapidated in true low-rent student accommodation tradition. I recall a particularly memorable pyjama party in one flat in mid 1999. At the end of the year we gathered there to use it as a launch pad for heading into town to see in the new millennium.

In the mid-2000's I helped repaint a room in another part of the building; there were pieces of cardboard blocking holes in the floor and ceiling. A fire in 2009 (link) saw the place condemned, and a friend of mine living in the redecorated room below the fire forced to relocate (which I blogged about here ).

I have fond memories of this place, and even though it's demise was inevitable, it is still a bit sad to see it go. That said, and the danger to neighbouring properties notwithstanding, maybe a Viking Funeral was a fitting end for a multi-storeyed and multi-storied abode.

Haka-off

2011-09-13T20:46:00.000+12:00

There is one part of Rugby Inc. I haven't got bored of yet, and that is the Haka. "Ka Mate" is the most famous, but I'm not sure it is well known outside NZ and the Pacific Islands that there are dozens if not hundreds of haka. I can still remember the moves to my high school haka, even if I haven't actually performed it for close to eighteen years. Part challenge, and part psyche-up when it is done right it sets the atmosphere up perfectly, and the opposition response is always interesting to watch. The best opposition response of all though is another haka, like at the RWC opener last Friday. Our Ka Mate versus Tonga's Sipi Tau:

There was some discussion before the game about if the performances would be separated (probably a slow news day). They did them together at RWC 2003, and it was awesome:

At the risk of being disloyal, having seen Ka Mate a squillion times in my life, I think I prefer Sipi Tau, just because it is much more dynamic in it's movements. I'm also liking the 'official' AB Kapa O Pango haka introduced a few years ago:

Manu Samoa's Siva Tau is pretty cool too:

And better not forget Fiji while I'm at it:

Despite my cynical earlier posts about the RWC, now that the thing has actually started and there are games to watch it is slightly more engaging.

Ten years on

2011-09-12T23:06:00.006+12:00

Front page of the Dominion, 12 September 2001 (yes, I kept the papers. I do that when I think the event warrants it).
Front page of the Evening Post (remember when Wellington had two dailies?), 12 September 2001.
The post date would suggest that this should have been written yesterday, but for us in New Zealand it was already the twelfth by the time what would become known as September Eleventh happened. Ten years removed it is still something that defies simple comprehension. The reasons for it go back many years, and it will be resonating for years to come.

The first airliner impact occurred at 12:46am NZST. Back then I was living with my girlfriend (now wife) Fi, and three other friends in the Kings Crescent flat we had occupied a couple of months previously. Fi's brother-in-law was touring the US, and the first thing we knew of anything unusual occurring was being awakened at dawn by a somewhat garbled phonecall from Fi's mum to say he was okay, but stuck in Denver since all flights had been grounded. Apparently a plane had crashed into the Pentagon or something. At the time I thought it was a Cessna or something, unusual, significant, but ultimately not a huge deal. I would check it out when I got up at the usual time an hour or so later.

September 12th was a beautiful spring morning in Wellington, the sun shining in clear blue skies. Wandering into the kitchen for breakfast I flicked on the TV for the morning news. The first thing I saw was a replay of this shot:
Naively I quickly thought "Wow I didn't realise the approach for JFK was so close to Manhattan". Then the jet didn't emerge from the other side of the towers, and the vivid orange yellow fireball manifested, accompanied by the twinkling of thousands of pieces of shattered glass.

Oh.

Unlike many, I didn't think for a second this was a movie. Having been a plane spotter all my life, I knew the real thing when I saw it. I was mistaken in one respect though. Initially I thought it was a Boeing 737 that had crashed, and thought, well it could be worse. Only a few minutes later I realised it was a much larger 767.

Oh again. In the next few minutes the whole picture as it was unfolded. This being about 7am, the Towers themselves were long down by the time I was aware of it, and the seemingly endless replaying of the events there and at the Pentagon had begun. At about that time, one of the other flatmates walked in, a mix of horror and awe on his face. He had been watching things unfold in his room, and had been to the towers themselves only a couple of years before. I don't recall much being said. I had prepared breakfast, but suddenly found I didn't have any appetite.

At work we technicians and engineers gathered around a TV, with the only conversation being educated comment on the structure of the buildings. No-one was surprised they fell. History in the making or not, there was still work to do, and gradually we drifted away. Later I would hear on the radio about carriers being deployed off the east coast, and fighters flying patrols over major US cities. These were things I had read about in speculative fiction, but hearing them in reality was surreal, and unsettling.

Getting home we watched the wall to wall coverage for a while, then just had to turn it off. The jumpers in particular choosing one final act of control over their destiny haunted me the most, and still do. A still image of one group who must have decided to go together reminded me of skydivers exiting a plane, except these people had no parachutes. Another memory is of a replay of the second WTC impact being cued up on air. The jet hit the building, then reversed out of it, then hit it again, then reversed back. For hundreds it was alive, dead, alive, dead.

Another thought that crystallised that night, was that even though they were still counting the dead, I also realised many more were going to be killed as a result of this day. Looking back, the feeling is mostly of sadness, of missed opportunities, of some justified responses, and other regrettable ones. What has truly been accomplished, what we have gained or lost in the War on Terror is uncertain. Occasionally I hear expressed a longing to return to the 'Good Old Days' of the Cold War in preference to how things are now. While I don't really agree with it (the bits of the Cold War I remember were a really, really scary time), I can understand it; there was much more perceived certainty of the challenges the world faced then.

Two weeks later my father and I hopped on a plane for a weekend in Sydney. We had been planning to go to Brisbane for an airshow, but it had been cancelled, the various militaries involved (including the USAF) suddenly having more pressing things to do, besides the airshow itself being seen as a possible target. The signs of the new world we were in were already emerging. I couldn't regard the Boeing 767's at Sydney airport the way I used to, as simple aircraft to enjoy. On ascending Sydney Tower I enjoyed the view, but suddenly got very uncomfortable. Every few seconds or so there was a small shudder on the viewing deck, I think from the revolving restaurant. Combined with the height, suddenly it was a place I was happy to leave. On leaving we noted that all the eateries at the airport had given up their metal cutlery, with apologetic notes of explanation. When breakfast was served after takeoff though, we were presented with stainless steel knives (with serrated edges) and forks to eat with. Clearly there was still some figuring out to do.

In every life there are points when things change, and the way things were before get hard to remember. Usually they are good, like me meeting my wife-to-be, or the birth of my children. Sometimes they are a bit more complicated. My daughters will grow up in a world where the events and ramifications of 9/11 are history, with no knowledge of when the Twin Towers were just a pair of very tall buildings.

Lunar awesomeness

2011-09-08T21:57:00.004+12:00

In the past few weeks as an offshoot of it's Lunar mapping mission, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been taking detailed images of the Apollo landing sites of 1969-72. There is a backgrounder from stuff here, with a really nice summary at Bad Astronomy here.

Here is the LRO shot of the second landing site (Apollo 12, November 1969). You can see the footprints left by astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean as they conducted their explorations (picture credit NASA, click to enlarge):
And here is Pete Conrad making some of those footprints as he investigates the unmanned Surveyor 3 probe that preceded the astronauts by a couple of years (picture credit NASA, click to enlarge):
They are awesome because they are the most basic of human calling cards, and they on another world. And since there is no weather on the moon, they will be there essentially forever if left undisturbed (Transformers and Independence Day Aliens notwithstanding).

Born on Mother's Day, Christened on Father's Day

2011-09-06T21:34:00.004+12:00

Sophie was born on Mother's Day this year, so christening her on Father's Day on Sunday was a nice coincidence. She was christened wearing the same baptismal gown worn by her mother, aunt, and two cousins, and no bottles of champagne were broken over anything in the process :)

Eerie

2011-09-04T23:23:00.004+12:00

Its a year ago today since the first earthquake in Christchurch, and 'normal' got redefined. A resident blogger looks back here. A year ago "liquefaction" was introduced to the national vocabulary. A little over six months later we would get "Red Zone".

I found these videos on Friday taken by a contractor working in Christchurch's cordoned off central city.

I've only been to Christchurch half a dozen times or so, never for more than a week, so can't claim to be intimately familiar with the place. I am quite familiar with some of the places in the videos though. Having seen them alive and full of energy as the central part of New Zealand's second largest city, seeing them covered in dust, empty, still and broken, knowing what happened there and that they have been that way for six months is more than a little sad and unsettling. They just look wrong.

P.S. This is post 666 of this blog. Seems mildly appropriate.

2011 Model Expo and Nats

2011-09-02T21:14:00.009+12:00

So a couple of weekends ago it was showtime for the 2011 IPMS National competition and Model Expo held in Lower Hutt, basically the biggest model show in the country. Being a member of the hosting club I volunteered at the show both days, helping setup and packdown, and minding a table to answer questions and make sure nothing got broken. Some find table minding can be a bit tedious but I kind of enjoy it. I like seeing people react and talk to each other about what's on the table, and I enjoy asking questions about it. And seeing people take a particular interest in one of my models has a certain buzz to it.

Also creating a slight buzz this year was having someone-who-is-kind-of-a-big-deal in the hobby attending (having a standard setting kit producer based here helps). He did a show report on his site here, which was a buzz for me since he showcased two of my models (taking better pics of them than I did). I also know both the guys in the cheesy-for-effect "be spontaneously wowed at this awesome new release" shot.

He also did a video report which you can see here, which is a bit, um, interesting to watch. I'm glimpsed in the ticket booth near the start, but am stuck in the background from about 4:24, knowing he's filming, trying to look anywhere but at the camera, but unable to move due to the guys judging to my left blocking me in behind the table.

The show itself was in two parts, the annual IPMS New Zealand National competition for IPMS members, and the Model Expo for the general public and club members who didn't want to enter the national comp.

My best result this time was getting third in the national competition for a box-stock (no added bits or modifications) Stuka. It's a minor category, but any result at this level is cool. In terms of skill it really is playing with the big kids stuff. It might not be the biggest show in the world, but the quality of the workmanship is second to none anywhere.
My B-58 also picked up a second in one of the Expo classes, having placed second in the National equivalent two years ago (a model that has placed at a previous nationals can't be entered into the nationals again).
Rounding out my placings was a first in class for my Skyhawk group, but that doesn't really count since they were the only thing in the class :).
In terms of other stuff I took but didn't place, my tiny 1/100 Zero and 1/106 Shinden made the show.
And my 1/72 Thunderbolt:
And my 1/72 F-111, here in company with another build of the same kit by a friend.
And my 1/72 Canberra.
I quite like how the Zero turned out, even if I didn't notice I missed painting a spot before getting it to the show.
Not mine, but something I will be doing soon is a "what-if" RNZAF F-16. More of a "what was planned" in our case, since they were actually signed and sealed before the delivered bit was cancelled by a change of government.
There was stuff other than aircraft at the show, but I was only taking pics of the things I was particularly interested in. One of my favourite models at the show was this 1/48 Buccaneer:
The junior section of the local club did this cool RNZAF Pacific WWII diorama.
Cool Air America UH-1. Air America was the CIA front airline in southeast Asia during the Vietnam war era, and the model depicts one of the last helicopters flown out at the fall of Saigon in 1975.
This awesome 1/72 Harvard was built by a father and son. The picture doesn't really show how tidy a build it is, practically flawless.
Not the usual ship in a bottle
Dominating their table were these two radio controlled flying models, a Spitfire IX, and F-15 Eagle.
The F-15 is jet powered, has a full set of lights, and coolest of all, LED afterburners.

Bubbles!

2011-08-30T20:18:00.005+12:00

I was out on the waterfront a couple of weekends ago on a nice calm day, and came across this guy using a couple of wands to make bubbles in the still air:

Really big bubbles:

It was slightly surreal, but very peaceful and serene.

Bubbles details:

Corporate Knowledge

2011-08-27T00:04:00.004+12:00

The corporate sponsorship requirements of the upcoming Rugby World Cup are making for some interesting observations at the moment. To protect profits, any sponsor or business not involved in the tournament funds is being ruthlessy shoved out of the way, sometimes gently, but other times absurdly, like making charity ambulances cover up the sponsors that keep them operating.

Most noticably so far in Wellington, with it's naming rights sponsor not being involved in the RWC, Westpac Stadium has lost part of it's external signage:
This fits with the 'clean' requirement, but does make the stadium look like someone has been busy with a giant label maker lest anyone was wondering what the big round thing was (although it now reflects what most locals call the thing anyway). It still lights up at night, making the incongruity even more special.

Another sponsorship curiosity has been highlighted by this TV ad:

I quite like it. It is sweet and nostalgic, and neatly sums up the disappointment for fans resulting from the arguably best team in the game not winning its premier tournament for a generation. Steinlager have sponsored the All Blacks since the mid 80's, and are re-introducing the old style white cans for the duration of tournament, which I also like.

The first thing though is, if security is halfway competent, there is no way our loyal fan is going to get his talisman through the gate at the game venue. The second thing of note is that while Steinlager might sponsor the AB's, the official beer of the tournament is Heineken, so the latter will be the only beer available at any game :).

35 today

2011-08-25T20:30:00.004+12:00

As of this afternoon I'm 35 years old.

I'm reminded of the lyric at 3:41:

(with apologies to The Boss) "I'm 35, we got ~~a boy~~ two girls of our own now".

It is one of those lyrics that Springsteen has a habit of penning that in context just nails a theme dead on. I was about 8 the first time I heard this song, and at 35, can identify with it's protagonist more than ever, not in terms of the economic disarray the song relates (thankfully), but in the introspective looking back sense, seeing what is new and what has changed, and sometimes wondering just where the time has gone, which in turn reminds me of this:

35 feels like a milestone year. Halfway between 20 and 50, and halfway to seventy (crikey!). I have seen a few constants, but a lot of change, and try not to take things for granted. My favourite era of music and movies that I most identify with happened half my lifetime ago. I firmly believe in the cliche that one is only as old as one feels, but somedays I feel younger than others :).

I have a few grey hairs now, but also have an amazing wife, two beautiful and equally amazing daughters, and family and friends I am privileged and grateful to have in my life. They have provided me memories and experiences to treasure (and on the odd occasion a few to forget to be fair :) ), and hopefully will provide many more. So unlike Bruce's everyman above, at 35 I can look around and say, you know what things are pretty good right now. Happy Birthday to me!

The Big Chill

2011-08-24T21:19:00.008+12:00

Running out of chill related title puns...

So with the snow all gone and the Model Expo last weekend done and dusted, I can kind of get back to regular service with this thing. Not before going back a week for some more recap of what was a slightly epic weather event for us (apologies for those who have seen some of this on facebook already).

Monday morning I got to take one of my 'It's like this right now' backyard thermometer pics with PROPER SNOW ON MY LAWN:
After it stopped snowing on Monday evening the hail and sleet started. I've never seen so much. Not so much the size as the volume and duration. It hailed for hours, and started piling up on our south facing windows like so:
Before dark though and between hailstorms Charlotte woke from her afternoon nap to find a snowman had been busy on the back lawn with something to see from her bedroom window:
She then got to go out and properly play in the stuff for only the second time ever (the first being the night before), describing the funny white stuff as 'squishy'. I love the bit where she figures out she is making footprints:

The best was still to come. Tuesday afternoon saw late afternoon snow forecast to about 100 metres above sea level (with our house at about 200 metres), but when snow started falling like this at my work at sea level and settling, I figured it was time to get out of dodge and go home while I still could:
All the way home I caught glimpses of people on the street and leaning out of doors in fascination, snowfall at this level in this locale being at best a once in a generation event if not totally unheard of.

Waiting at the intersection to turn up the hill road to home and seeing this bus having just come down the same road didn't fill me with confidence about getting up in my underpowered, understeering, non snow tyre or chain equipped car. I'm a confident driver, and have driven in snow a couple of times before, but that was in much more suitable vehicles. Driving our wagon in snow wasn't something we ever thought we would have to do :).
After a nervous few minutes I made it home, where things looked like this out the window:
The road was closed to traffic not long after. Since we had nothing else to do, a bit of snowman making was in order. Sophie was tucked up warm in her afternoon nap, so missed out (something she will no doubt grump at us for when she is older):

For those who don't know me in person, yeah that is my voice on both videos, and me at the end. I loved the quiet. I had heard about the way snowfall deadens sound, but never experienced it until now. With the road closed the only noise was the soft hiss of the snow falling, the 'shuff' of it falling off trees, distant trains and planes, and the voices of family and neighbours carrying much much further than they ever normally would. It was serene and verging on magical.

Venturing down the hill on foot to have a look around it was apparent the serenity wasn't universal. Most of these vehicles are parked where their drivers realised they had run out of grip/talent.
Not before at least one found the limits of their vehicle the hard way though:
Moving further down the hill revealed the valley floor snowbound (something I have never experienced in my lifetime, or even heard of), and people climbing the hill on foot having abandoned their vehicles below. It isn't much snow, but when no-one is used to it things get surreal pretty quickly:
The drive to work the next day, as even though the snow was melted, there were still cars littered all over the place at wierd angles and odd places.

Despite the disruption, there were some pretty sights to be seen on the walk back home:
Our road later that night after a grader had cleared it:
And our birdbath/skating rink:
As if to underline how unusual snow like this is here, by morning overnight rain had mostly melted it away, leaving our front-lawn snowmen looking a little forlorn:
Although at work there was a large snowball that managed to persist for a couple of days:
The cold weather lasted until the weekend, but we didn't get any more snow, no matter how many times Charlotte asked for it. This will probably go down in local history as one of those things that get talked about in a "remember when" way, like the floods of 1976, or the Wahine Storm of 1968. I'm glad we got to experience it (myself having only seen snow at close hand maybe half a dozen times in my entire life, and never at my home).

A lot of people have linked this next video, and I'm going to because I love the way it sums up people's reactions to snow in a city where many will have never seen it there before. This was shot in Cuba Mall in central Wellington on the Monday afternoon, and it is cool.

It might be normal for a lot of people, but it was pretty special for us :).

More Chillier

2011-08-15T20:32:00.003+12:00

The current snowstorm is now being referred to as a once in a lifetime event. I can vouch for that; I have never seen conditions like this in thirty years of living in the area :).

My street about 4pm today after a couple of hours of snow and hail:
Earlier in the afternoon:
Tonight during a lull:
Weather info for around 4pm. It is a funny kind of cold, in that I go outside and don't realise just how cold it is at first like on a frosty morning. It takes a minute or two to get chilled.
I came home early from work today because I was concerned if I left it too late I might not be able to get up the hill. Now I am wondering if I will be stuck up here tomorrow. Unlike yesterday, most of the stuff that fell today (snow, then hail, then snow, then more hail) isn't melting yet.

Chillier

2011-08-14T21:53:00.006+12:00

I thought the weather a few weeks ago was memorable, but this evening it has been just surreal.

Here is what it feels like right now and is forecast to do for the next few days in Wellington. We are in one of the hill suburbs expected to get more snow tomorrow (source Metservice, click to enlarge):
And here is what the street outside my house looks like. I have never seen it like this before, and have never heard of snow falling lower in the valley like it has today:
It might not look like a lot to those who are used to it, but this really doesn't happen here very often. We happened to have the house re-insulated earlier this week, and I picked up a nice comfy down jacket today, both of which have paid off handsomely already. Cool :)

Just like Uncle Joe used to make

2011-08-13T20:44:00.004+12:00

Out and about today I noticed the new sculpture commemorating Wellington's involvement in the ~~GLOЯIOUS PATЯIOTIC PEOPLE’S COLLECTIVE SPOЯTING EVENT~~ Rugby World Cup has been emplaced (future patriots/revolutionaries for scale).
I know the all praiseworthy Weta designed it, and I like public sculpture, and I'm not even against some being created for this event, but the first thing I think of when I look at that is 'Communist Bloc', since to me it looks just like the sort of thing those regimes would have commissioned to keep the people thinking proper :).

London Calling

2011-08-10T10:26:00.003+12:00

I was wondering how some of the people I know in London were getting on. Thanks to TVNZ I now know how at least one of them has fared:

Kiwis in London Lie Low (video link)

Danielle and I used to hang out in the same group of friends in the 90's. This being New Zealand, I used to work with the sister-in-law of the reporter as well.

Still haven't seen or heard from the other people I know in the areas affected, including a friend in Croydon. I still don't really know what to make of the riots in general. They have happened before, and that they happen at all is indicative of serious things that are awry. So much though of what is being seen and told now is removed from protest, and looks like simple opportunistic criminality. Crime is crime. I get that people are hopeless, disenfranchised, angry. What I don't get is how destroying homes, property, locally owned businesses and employers in your own community is supposed to make things better.

Cute. I think.

2011-08-08T19:31:00.003+12:00

This could either be the cutest or the nails-on-a-blackboardest thing you see today.

My three year old daughter trying to calm my three month old daughter by singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to her sister in her own unique style...

High Score

2011-08-07T20:05:00.002+12:00

Listening to: Big Boi and Dre Present Outkast - Outkast (2001).

One of our players failed to show at our indoor netball game tonight, so we had to take the court a person down and play the game 5 vs 6. After a few minutes of shambles as we looked despairingly off court for our missing person, and adjusted to having one less pair of hands to move the ball, we settled down and tried to play a little harder and smarter than our opposition.
Sometimes (the minority of the time in fact) playing one down can be easier. There are tactics and techniques that can be used to make up for the absence, and teams with inferior nous can get their patterns upset by having one less person to defend. At any rate, whatever we did worked and we wound up winning though, 30 -27.
That's kinda cool (having been beaten on occasion by teams that did the 5 player thing so well I didn't even notice they only had five), but I was too busy shooting the longer range 2-points shots from the edge of the circle to notice that I scored all of those 30 points. We figured out after the game that I was the only one in our team to land any shots (apart from a couple of singles that were disallowed).

So that's cool, I've never done that before, and it is probably a personal best score for me. My game stats were at best 70-80% of shots landed vs those attempted, but it was one of those games where I got a nice groove going with the shooting early on, got the confidence up and just kept on going (not having any defenders able to trouble the shots helped). Having been in a general shooting slump recently I like it when that happens.

Pigging Out

2011-08-04T20:39:00.005+12:00

Listening to: Riot Act - Pearl Jam (2002). Like a lot of their latter work, this album is a grower for me, that gets better every time I listen to it. Especially songs like this one. I haven't listened to it for a while but have had it on high rotate for the last few days.

Not much time for regular type blogging at the moment, due to the big model expo and national competition being two weeks away, and spending a lot of evening time that isn't sport or family working on the stuff I want to put on a table there.

Like turning this:
into this:
Via a bit of this:

And a bit of that:

I am the blu-tack sausage king.

First and the Last

2011-07-28T20:50:00.004+12:00

The thirty year shuttle era has ended, with the last glide to touchdown happening last week:

Before it did though, I snapped my own personal memento of the era, as Atlantis passed over my house a few orbits before re-entry:
I remember the very first landing in 1981. It was shown on TV late at night here, and I remember my sisters and I being got out of bed to watch. While not yet five, and having only just attended the first airshow I would remember a few weeks before, I recall saying how steep the final approach looked, and wondering why it took so long for the nose to come down after the mainwheels touched (the concept of aerodynamic braking being a few years ahead of me).

I guess my parents thought it would be a historic thing for us to watch and remember, and I'm glad they made the effort. Atlantis' pass last week was just before bedtime for Charlotte, so I got her outside and she saw it too. She described it as 'the star that was hitting the other stars' and 'Oh yes a spaceship' if prompted further. Being not quite 3 she probably won't remember it, but at least I'll be able to tell her she saw the last Space Shuttle fly.

I found this on another site and quite like it (photo credit Chris Bray):
I can relate. My generation grew up with the shuttle, and love it or hate it, for all it's costs and compromises and never quite living up to it's promise it was iconic. It had failures, but had many more moments of greatness. The aerospace world will be slightly less interesting without it.

Chilly

2011-07-25T21:32:00.004+12:00

So here's what it feels like in Wellington right now (click on any pic to enlarge):
Screengrab from the excellent Metservice.com.

My backyard thermometer is showing about 4 deg as well, and combined with the lazy wind (Lazy because it goes right through you rather than around you) straight from the Southern Ocean and humidity it is bitterly cold tonight *.

It has been all day, and last night too, as part of a cold snap affecting the whole country, resulting in a rare dusting of snow around Wellington, and my patch in the Lower Hutt Valley in particular. Not a lot of snow, but snow on the ground around here just doesn't happen that often. Maybe a tiny bit once or twice a winter on the higher hilltops, but snow like we had this morning is more like a once a decade or so event. I'll even go as far to say I have never seen snow so low on the Eastern hills in thirty years or so living here. So cold, but cool :)

Boulder Hill (442m) behind Kelson. The last time I saw snow like that up there was in the 1990's.
Eastern Hills behind Naenae. Never seen more than the odd tiny patch of snow up there.
Mt Fitzherbert (377m) in the Eastern Hills.
Mt Towai (348m) behind Waterloo.
Towai firebreak. Never seen white firebreaks before either.

There is an outdoor walk-in fridge unit at my work set at 5 degrees. I went in there about midday and it felt warmer inside than out While it is still sleeting now, it is supposed to clear overnight, meaning likely frost and ice in the morning.

*While the absolute temp might not seem that cold to those used to more serious winters, I have been assured by visitors from places like Saskatchewan that due to the humidity the temperature felt is quite chilling. We are just used to it because we live here.

ISS Tryptych

2011-07-19T22:01:00.005+12:00

ISS earlier this evening from the Hutt Valley, with Shuttle Atlantis presumably somewhere nearby after undocking on the previous orbit (which was also near NZ according to the blurb). Slightly more successful this time, but not as dark a location as I would have liked (note lens flares...).

The final shot has the ISS trail fading out as it passes into the Earth's shadow. Here is where it was geographically at the time I took the photographs (image source Heavens-Above.com ) :
I tried to catch it again on it's next orbit about 90 minutes later, but it was too low on the horizon and too long after sunset to photograph. Since I had the tripod out I took a couple of constellation photos instead. I'm still figuring out astrophotography. It is a bit tricky.

Scorpius:
The Southern Cross (top of frame)with the Milky Way trailing below it:

Neat

2011-07-17T23:38:00.006+12:00

Listening to: The Enemy Within - Concord Dawn (2010).

Take a manually operable D-SLR camera, a remote release switch, a tripod, a compass, a dark space near the house, clear skies, some patience, and the marvel that is Heavens-Above and you get this:
The pale streak is the International Space Station and Space Shuttle Atlantis currently docked to it, passing over the Pacific ocean north-east of the North Island, but just visible from Wellington.

Not the greatest shot ever, but it is the first time I have ever tried photographing something in orbit, and the ISS/SS combo was so low on the horizon I was surprised I even saw it, flat 0 deg azimuth horizons being something of a novelty around here. In the event I was happy just to see it exactly as predicted (the horse in the paddock next to me wasn't quite so buzzed), knowing I was looking at two docked spacecraft in orbit, with people in them . Getting a pic was just a bonus. Weather permitting there might be a couple more chances to get better pics of them both over the next few days.

Pig Bop*

2011-07-14T21:35:00.006+12:00

*Possibly obscure reference to this possibly obscure song that I quite like.

Revisiting the F-111 post because I think I got some okay pics of the jet that day. I say 'okay', because given the same opportunity now I would get better ones. Since the last F-111's (said "F-one-eleven" for the record) were retired at the end of last year never to fly again I'll just have to be happy with these.

Unusually the F-111 was never given a formal name (like 'Tomcat' or 'Raptor') while it was in service. It was officially christened the 'Aardvark' (the hitherto unofficial nickname) only on the day it was retired from the USAF in 1996. The only country outside the US to use the F-111 was Australia, and they universally referred to theirs as 'Pigs', affectionately rather than insultingly.

The Pig may not have been the prettiest or the most agile airshow performer, but it made up for it by simply being spectacular, particularly toward the end of it's career as the crews tried to make the final displays of a 37 year operational life the most memorable ones. I got to see a high speed pass and dump and burn one night in 2003. During the day these were memorable enough, but at night they were something else. With all lights off, the jet sped in at around 200ft altitude, and only became visible when the pilot lit the afterburners, two bright yellow/purple spearheads speeding across the sky in front of us, just ahead of the noise they produced. It was awesome.

The Pig on the brain at the moment isn't entirely without reason, as I have one on the workbench at the moment.

NZ Army scrounges its own Air Cover

2011-07-12T20:28:00.003+12:00

"Honest, we just sort of found it out on patrol and decided to bring it back. Finders keepers?"
Picture credit NZDF

Slightly more truthful account of why an NZ Army LAV is towing a US Army Apache around Afghanistan here: NZ Army rescues helicopter.

All Good Things II

2011-07-11T21:56:00.002+12:00

This is kinda cool. In cabin view of the final launch. I like how the guy in the middle starts grinning at lift-off (I mean really, why wouldn't you), and keeps it up even as the G loads up. Must be a hell of a ride.

Also cool is when the main engines cut off at about 9:00 and they all float forward as the G disappears. From then on it gets increasingly obvious they are in a microgravity environment. About the first thing the grinning mission specialist does is have a bite to eat :).

All Good Things

2011-07-09T20:47:00.002+12:00

Footage of the last Space Shuttle launch ever, at about 0330 NZT this morning.

Gales

2011-07-09T13:47:00.002+12:00

Say what you like about the not infrequent gales around here, but at least they are good for getting the washing dry:

At least until you glance northwest and see something like this charging across the horizon prompting you to bring it all inside again:
Often about ten minutes after you have finished putting it out...

Weather

2011-07-08T22:20:00.001+12:00

Listening to: Friction Baby - Better than Ezra (1996).

So after a wild night of squalls and rain, the weather cleared tonight to give us a beautiful sunset. Now you can't photograph every good sunset, and not all of them that look good to the eye necessarily look good to the camera, but the laws of irony will often dictate that when a great sunset occurs that is worth photographing, the proper camera won't be available.

So instead tonight's effort comes to you via my cellphone:

Taken at about ten past five on the grass outside my work office in Gracefield.

The front served up a doozy of a thunderstorm at about 1am this morning. Lots of reasonably close thunder and lightning, and for a brief period what sounded like unusually large hail. It was going 'clunk' as it hit the roof instead of the more usual 'tick-tick-tick'. I would have gone out to have a look but I had a great view of proceedings through the window above our bed and opted to stay comfy. The rain and hail were so noisy you could hear it approaching across neighbouring rooftops after lulls.

Good thunderstorms aren't a regular occurrence around here so I was quite enjoying this one, until a quiet whimpering from the room next door became audible. This was Charlotte's first proper thunderstorm, and she didn't appreciate being woken up by the combination of loud rain/hail, loud thunder, gale wind gusts and bright flashes in the sky. I remember feeling the same once upon a time, before I figured out that weather could be fun.

It was a reminder that for all the growing up we feel she is doing in a relative sense, she is after all still not quite 3 years old. She was calmed with a daddy cuddle and some quiet words of explanation/comfort, but couldn't quite remember who put her back to bed when asked about it this afternoon :)

Sophie on the other hand didn't stir at all. At 9 weeks old, it is interesting figuring out just what she will and won't sleep through. Charlotte is providing ample opportunities for experimentation in this regard...

Plane Favourites

2011-07-07T23:19:00.007+12:00

Listening to: Mark Kermode movie reviews on Youtube

Another favourite shot of one of my favourite aircraft. An RAAF F-111C on a hot late summer afternoon, starting a display by steaming in at low level and high speed (albeit not even close to as fast as it could go), approaching near silently but about to surprise the hell out of anyone who didn't see it coming:
Taken at RNZAF Ohakea in March 2008. I have other more spectacular shots of this display in particular, but I like this one because it was an aspect of the thing I really enjoyed (this would be the last time I would see an F-111 fly). Knowing it was out there somewhere trying to sneak up on the crowd, and usually noticing it before most other people, then watching and waiting for the reaction of those caught unawares. It is a bit like being in on a practical joke, especially if the commentators deliberately prime the crowd to look in the opposite direction (they can be wacky like that. If you are ever at an airshow and someone on a loudspeaker tells you to look in a particular direction for the very noisy aircraft arriving any moment, do yourself a favour and look the other way first).

Thanks to the magic of youtube, here is what the pass looked and sounded like a few seconds after I took the picture:

Penguin Cam!

2011-07-04T21:59:00.004+12:00

Listening to: Congregation - The Afghan Whigs (1992).

Happy Feet live webcam.

I love that he has his own webcam now. I want to see the fresh snow being brought in!

Explanation for those not up with their lost penguin escapades here: Stuff linky

Hardcore Photography

2011-06-30T20:50:00.004+12:00

Found this the other day, some awesome in cockpit video from the back seat of a Blue Angels FA-18:

Video Linky

It's in two halves; the first focuses mainly on the external shots, while the second focuses mainly on the very hard working photographer in the back. The bits where he looks like he is grunting and straining are where he is fighting the G-forces to stay conscious (he is actually performing a specific physical exercise to try and reduce the blood flow away from his brain). At about the 6:30 mark he manages to both stay conscious and still keep shooting, which isn't bad considering everything in his world including the camera will be weighing several times more than normal.

Aside from the "How close?!" sequences at around 0:30 and 1:50, my favourite part is the inverted run from about 5:20. Photog calmly goes about his business hanging upside down in the seat straps, with three other aircraft within a dozen metres or less of his, before being slammed from negative to positive G in about the space of a second at the end of the pass. I haven't done anything like as extreme G in the video, but the rare occasions when I have done similar +/- transitions I know they can be uncomfortable to say the least (my personal experience is about -ve 1 to +ve 3G on an aerobatic joyride).

I'd love to have an opportunity to take photos like that, but I would need to be doped to the eyeballs on anti motion sickness pills beforehand to keep my breakfast where it should be :).

Kids

2011-06-27T22:55:00.002+12:00

Realised I haven't posted anything about the offspring for a while, so here is a beautiful pic my wife took of Sophie and Charlotte a couple of weeks ago:
She really should pick up a camera more often. Sophie is now seven weeks old and thriving, a brush with bronchiolitis last week (not as bad as her sister a couple of years ago luckily) notwithstanding. She seems to have shaken that off though, and just given the rest of us a cold :).

5 year (plus a month or so) Blogiversay

2011-06-22T19:52:00.004+12:00

Passing almost unnoticed last month was the 5th anniversary of me starting this blog. Not entirely unnoticed to be fair: I noticed, but didn't get around to blogging about it for it's own sake until now.

I never had any longevity expectations starting this thing and still don't. It will be active as long as I'm interested. And while my little part of the blogosphere isn't quite the same as it was five years ago, it is still interesting enough and fun enough to participate in. I've seen a few bloggers come and go, and discovered for myself more than a few bloggers that keep me interested, from here, there, and everywhere.

So yeah, I still enjoy the process. Thanks for reading, and giving me stuff to post about.

Build your own stealth helicopter!

2011-06-21T20:09:00.004+12:00

Listening to: The Crossing - Big Country (1983).

Found the other day. Less than 8 weeks after it's unplanned revelation, Hong Kong based model company Dragon is releasing a kit of the Stealth Black Hawk (probably) variant used on the Bin Laden raid (link).

Although since all they reliably have to base it on is the one piece of intact wreckage (posted about here), and a few educated but speculative drawings (the people who really do know what it looks like aren't telling) it's accuracy is hopeful at best and possibly why it is only being released in the teeny 1/144 scale so far rather than anything bigger which would require more investment.

If it is anything like what happened when the first model kits of the F-117 were produced in the late 80's, it will make for amusing comparisons if/when the real thing is revealed some time in the future. And the guys that designed those kits had an actual image of the entire aircraft to work from:

That was the first officially released image of the original 'Stealth Fighter' back in 1988 (I posted about it a few years ago here). And probably deliberately, the image both obscures in plain sight some details, and exaggerates a couple of others. This caused a bunch of errors in interpretation, usually tending toward making the aircraft look shorter and fatter than it really was, resulting in a brief generation of weirdness as publishers and kit makers rushed to get definitive versions of something that had been rumoured for years into the marketplace without realising their mistakes. It took a few years for accurately shaped drawings and models to emerge.

Only time will tell what Dragon has got right :).

Just can't catch a break

2011-06-14T21:54:00.005+12:00

About two weeks ago GNS announced some preliminary results (link) from their investigations into faulting in Canterbury responsible for the September and February earthquake events. A key finding was that there was roughly a 23% chance of another temblor in the Richter 6-7 range occuring in the next 12 months.

The media predictably blew up the 1 in 4 chance of it happening, while ignoring the 3 in 4 chance it wouldn't. There is some good extended discussion of what that means and the media reaction at Sciblogs here (including the interesting observation that the risk is no more than Wellington's, although we have always been told Wellington is high risk so I'm not sure how reassuring that is to Christchurch residents).

Unfortunately though, as events yesterday proved, 1 in 4 is still not zero. One blogger's account of yesterdays event is quite telling, not only for what it describes, but also what it implies, and for how routine some things are getting for the residents.

It is strange at the moment to hear people openly discussing on-line whether a major NZ city should be abandoned, or whether it is appropriate to suggest people leave. While hard to take seriously in a wider sense of totally abandoning the city, the fact such a thing is being discussed at all is slightly weird and surreal, and would have been unimaginable still less than a year ago. It will be interesting to see what Christchurch looks like twenty years from now.

Edit: This morning (wed 15th) GNS has revised their estimation to 30%.

Chile Powder*

2011-06-13T23:56:00.003+12:00

The sunset tonight enhanced by the ash from Puyehue-Cordon-Caulle, having arrived in NZ airspace after taking the long way round by heading east from Chile, and disrupting local air travel to a seldom seen degree. During the day the suspended ash is surprisingly noticeable as a very lightly tan coloured haze. Shot from the Kennedy Good Bridge at about 1730, definitely winter at the moment.

*I wish I had come up with that description/title, but credit belongs to a regular on one of the aviation forums I inhabit :)

Exquisite noise

2011-06-12T20:22:00.006+12:00

Uploading a couple of clips from local post rock noise practitioners Jakob, because I went to their gig in Wellington last night. And it was excellent. I quite like music like this; not having a lead singer, or usually any vocals at all means more focus on the music speaking for itself rather than conforming to an image or expectation. Apart from thanking the crowd and support acts, about the only thing anyone said on stage was "Hi, we're Jakob from Napier."

And what music. A lot of their tracks build from quiet melodies up to layered walls of sound full of intensity and atmosphere, often slowly and steadily to the point where you suddenly notice it has gotten very loud. Some might just call it noise but I like it. A more musically learned friend of mine pointed out once when discussing radio edits of songs that some people just don't handle instrumentals; a song must have lyrics before they can relate to it. Their loss.

Nice day for an earthquake. An older track, but a great video. Honestly, who hasn't wanted to do this to a TV at least once? Sorry about the quality, but it is the only one I found that was embeddable.

I got to violently destroy a TV once; it involved boots (the old screens are surprisingly hard to kick in), metal chair legs, bricks and a half round fence post and was very cathartic.

Safety in Numbers. Should be obvious why I like this one :) It is a really nice match of sound and visual though.

My favourite track of theirs is the low-key (by their standards) I Was Hidden. I'm not even sure why I like this track so much: I just do.

Still Lake

2011-06-09T23:15:00.005+12:00

Whakamoenga Point, Lake Taupo on a very warm, still and muggy day back in January

Black and white

Colour

Whaddarya?*

2011-06-08T22:20:00.006+12:00

Listening to: The Crossing - Big Country (1983).

So last week it was announced that we are 100 days out from the biggest event this country has ever seen since the last really big event we held (probably something to do with yachts). The hype is present and building, along with various exhortations to 'support our boys' like they are going off to war or something. Never mind that those boys are already being paid handsome sums to do their jobs, are representing the unofficial state religion and have lets see, 20 years of failing to win this tournament to motivate them (oh and while you are 'supporting the boys', make sure you buy the merch they are endorsing). The erstwhile judge has already expounded on this here, and he is a better writer than me so I'll leave him to it.

Call me cynical, and perhaps even not a real New Zealander (mate), but a lot of the time I am just over Rugby. I never played it (apart from Touch), never wanted to, and don't really follow any teams below the International and National level. I just don't really care. I like getting together with friends and watching big games, but my engagement ends there. I'm not the guy to talk to about rugby as small talk in the pub. Aside from it's omnipresence, it also produces more than a few ugly attitudes and behaviours I don't want to be associated with ("Rugbyhead" isn't a term of praise for a lot of people).

My apathy toward the game is rooted in over exposure (as well as going to a rugby dominated school and playing soccer, but that is another story). There is far too much of it. Professional rugby is everywhere, in advertising, endorsements, talking heads news spots and player interviews that say the same thing every week, a season that lasts from February to November for a supposed winter sport. It used to be something other than a simple commodity (and for me as a non-player, and non huge fan, that is what it is). I particularly miss afternoon internationals. They had real atmosphere in the late afternoon sun (or not on one memorable occasion), and were a good set up for a Saturday afternoon and night. There is more money to be made in playing them at night though, so that is how they are now.

I am in truth looking forward to the actual World Cup games a bit, and hoping we win the damn thing again so we can stop hearing about it, but I can only admit to liking rugby on a sometime basis rather than loving it. And as a liker rather than a lover, I found it a bit irritating to be exhorted at by the head-man-what's-in-charge to get in behind the World Cup by basically spending money on it as something resembling patriotic duty. Liking it is one thing, unconditionally loving it with my wallet is something else entirely. And the whole 'Stadium of Four Million' concept is bogus. Lots of people aren't interested, especially as the tickets to the big matches are being priced for the tourists rather than the locals. For many they are just unaffordable. The comments thread attached to the story is more than a little revealing about how this event is being seen by some.

Particularly fun though was utterly-antithetical-to-traditional-rugbyhead-ideals comment #69, reproduced here in glorious full:

"Hmmm...tickets too expensive...concerns about anti-social behaviour from boof-heads...I've got it! Lets turn the 2011 RWC into a gay event! It's makes perfect sense: muscle-bound, fit young men grappling their sweaty selves in their tight outfits, and "Get in behind!" would be a perfect logo, too! The GLBT community are well-heeled (and what heels, too - fabulous!), so the high prices won't be a problem. The beer could be replaced with cocktails. And just imagine what a party Party Central would be! The RWC is the perfect gay event - I'm surprised no-one has thought of this before! I'm sure Martin Snedden would be more than happy to 'Get in Behind!' making RWC 2011 the GLBT event of the decade!"

That would be hi-freaking-larious. They could even combine it with usual rugby provider Sky TV's current "Make Sky your happy place!" ad campaign. Instead of beer or cocktails, they could just hand out Ecstacy and bottles of water**- "Welcome to the game; make Rugby your happy place!"

*For non NZ readers, refer this play .
**Not seriously advocating drug use, although it would be a hell of an interesting experiment to watch if applied to the traditional fan-base...

Lords of Lightning

2011-05-31T21:45:00.003+12:00

More of an addendum to the previous post than anything, but that video reminded me of seeing these guys (link, i didn't actually know until I read this article that they were from NZ) live at a Big Day Out a few years ago. It was very cool. If you are wondering, they are wearing a kind of chain mail, and they get very hot during the performance :)

*sorry about the sound, but the visuals are the main thing.

Too awesome not to share

2011-05-30T20:42:00.003+12:00

Mythbusters host Adam Savage dances in a faraday cage while two tesla coils throw lightning at him to the tune of the "Doctor Who" theme. Need I say more?

Blue Photo Contest / Plane Favourites

2011-05-28T22:28:00.004+12:00

Listening to: Dynamite Steps - The Twilight Singers (2011).

I've been meaning for a while now to post some of the favourite aircraft photographs I have taken over the last twenty years or so, and talk about the background behind them and why I like them. It was originally going to be a top 10, but I couldn't decide on 10, so it will more likely be an occasional thing.

A post at Adventures in the Underground about another blogger's blue theme photo contest seems a good way to kick the series off.

When I thought of images I had taken that could fit the theme, one in particular came to mind. Now taking pictures of aircraft as a hobby will mean there is a lot of blue sky I can choose from, but this one stood out. It would have been in the top 10 (click to enlarge):
It is an Australian FA/18 showing off at the RNZAF Whenuapai Open Day in 2009, launching into the sky just after take off, undercarriage still retracting, tail-planes well deflected for the climb, full afterburner (and full noise) and moodily underlit due to the patchy cloud that day.

To get an idea of what the aircraft is doing, here is video from further down the crowdline of the take off. I took the picture somewhere around the 0:05 mark, and yes it was loud, the kind of loud that makes your insides vibrate, activates car alarms, frightens small children, and makes me smile for some reason:

I like it because it evokes the power and agility of aircraft like this, and the way they can seem to bludgeon gravity into submission by sheer performance. I also like it because it is a decent snap of an aircraft not seen in NZ too often, and because it was the start of one of the best combat aircraft displays I have ever seen. It was a cool moment.

Spirit, signing off

2011-05-26T22:01:00.005+12:00

Since 2004 there have been a couple of little robots that could exploring the surface of Mars. Robots built by people on Earth, roaming another planet (I like that I can write that and not have it be science fiction), producing images like this (courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/ASU, click to enlarge):
XKCD poignantly had this to say about the Mars Rover 'Spirit' in January 2010 when contact with it was lost. Further attempts to contact it have been unsuccessful (as described here by Stuff, and here by Bad Astronomy), and 6 years beyond it's original 90 day mission it has been officially declared dead. It is sitting there right now in martian sand, lifeless and inert, having exceeded every expectation. If there is a real-life WALL-E equivalent the rovers are probably it, and elsewhere on Mars Spirit's twin 'Opportunity' is still going strong.

Admittedly it is anthropomorphising a completely inanimate object, but Spirit's passing should be noted nonetheless. Hopefully sometime in the future someone might get the chance to go and get it.

You're spelling "Wellywood" wrong

2011-05-22T00:12:00.004+12:00

It should be spelt "C-r-e-a-t-i-v-e P-r-o-c-e-s-s F-a-i-l".

So after a furore last year that I blogged about here, here and here, and a 'putting on hold' and 'consideration of other ideas', imbecilicly Wellington International Airport Limited has returned and announced it will go ahead with exactly the same freaking idea that caused the re-think in the first place.

The stupid. It burns.

CS-Ire

2011-05-19T21:48:00.003+12:00

My indifference for the various CSI franchises is not only based on the fact that what happens on screen bears about as much relation to actual scientific investigation as hard-core porn does to childbirth, but also that they reduce great rock music to the status of mere theme tunes. The only upside is that it might get more people to discover and appreciate the genre bedrock that was The Who.

This has probably been done a thousand times before elsewhere on the interwebs, but to set things right a bit here are the three Who songs from the 70's in question, properly, not as thirty second sample mixes :)

Who Are You? (CSI Las vegas)

Won't get Fooled again (CSI Miami, the 'YAAAAAAARRRGGGHHHH!' is at about 7:50, right after Keith Moon starts demonstrating that apart from the debaucherous legend, in rock drumming there is him, John Bonham, and everybody else in their shadow.)

Baba O-Riley (CSI New York, sometimes mis-referred to as 'Teenage Wasteland')

You're welcome

One week old already

2011-05-15T22:16:00.004+12:00

Soph and Fi came home on Tuesday, after only a couple of days in the ward. She is a week old as of today, and gets a little more alert each day, even if she still sleeps most of the time.

Sophie so far is perfectly normal and healthy and providing us with a few novel experiences, in that her sister was three weeks old when she came home, so in some ways Sophie is giving us insight into what regular first time parents deal with, things we never had to deal with before.

In addition Fi and I both have a slight sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop and something to go wrong (realising in hindsight that our previous experience might just have affected us a little more than we thought). That said though we feel fortunate just to have them both and Charlotte has been a very good big sister so far :) Others we know and have seen aren't as lucky.

The WALL-E Effect

2011-05-09T21:34:00.002+12:00

So in late September 2008, we went to an early evening screening of "WALL-E". Later that night our first daughter Charlotte was born.

Move forward to early May 2011, and Charlotte's sibling was becoming increasingly overdue. Having tried all the usual old wive's tales, on a whim we watched "WALL-E" again.

The next day (yesterday), our second daughter Sophie was born.
Welcome to your world new daughter of mine :)
In relieved contrast to her sister's arrival, Sophie is happy, healthy and awesome. As are her mother and sister. Although I am wondering if the labelling on "WALL-E" DVD's might need amending for viewers in a delicate condition...

Not your average Black Hawk

2011-05-04T23:50:00.010+12:00

I get my plane geek on in this post. Be warned.

In amongst the wall to wall coverage of Osama Bin Laden's death, there is an intriguing little element of the story that doesn't seem to be getting a lot of play outside of specialist media, and it is to do with just why Pakistan in addition to not being in the loop anyway, didn't seem to notice the airborne part of the operation.

One of the helicopters used in the raid crashed on arrival (and it genuinely seems to be crashed rather than shot down. It happens), and apart from making me wonder if that was deliberate as it is a tactic that has been used before, the surviving wreckage that wasn't destroyed by the SEALs seems to have it's own suggestive story to tell.

The damaged helicopter was in theory destroyed so classified bits of it didn't circulate into the wrong hands, which isn't that unusual, even in supposedly friendly territory. The footage of the surviving wreckage from this angle that surfaced on Tuesday had me a little confused though when it came to figuring out what type it was:
The closest match I could come up with was the tail of a Black Hawk, but some of the details didn't match up. The image above is looking down on the wreckage in plan view; the rest of the helicopter would normally be at the top of the picture. For comparison, here is a representative what a Black Hawk family tail looks like (usually minus the serviceman):
The main thing that stands out is the horizontal stabiliser (the little 'wing'). On the regular Black Hawk it is unswept, but on the one above it is clearly swept forward. In hindsight a few other anomalies from the regular are obvious, but I don't really know the Black Hawk that well, so put it down to crash damage and moved on.

This morning though some more images came to my attention, and as an aviation enthusiast, got my attention:

Now without making any grandiose claims, I am pretty good with my casual aircraft recognition, but if this was genuine, it didn't look like anything I had ever seen. I had no idea what it was, which is unusual for me. More unusual though was that after having a look around a few aviation forums, mostly populated by people in a position to know more than me, nobody else seemed to know what it was either. Highly irregular. It looked like a Black Hawk tail, but not a version anyone without a need-to-know was familiar with.

The official story at the moment seems to be that a pair of MH-60 Black Hawks inserted the SEALs into the compound, with a pair of MH-47 Chinooks carrying more SEALs as an airborne reserve. Now the proportions and configuration of this thing match an MH-60, but the details are way different. It appears to have a five-bladed tail rotor compared to the usual four, but the main thing that sticks out is that it is stealthy. The normal MH-60 is not a stealthy design-this thing is. The shrouding and shielding of moving parts around the tail rotor, the fairing around the top and base of the fin, the silver-grey paint (yes, you can have stealthy paint), and possibly the non standard forward swept stabiliser are all stealth increasing features. You can't completely stealthify a non stealthy design (low observability is most effective when designed in from the start), and helicopters are harder to make stealthy than fixed wing aircraft, but on the face of it this looks like stealth modification. Not only was the helicopter destroyed to conceal classified material and equipment, it seems the helicopter itself was classified. If the tail looks this different, I wonder what the rest of it looks like (and also if the MH-47's were similarly modified). There is some reasonably informed speculation about exactly what it probably is here and here.

So if this is genuine (and there is no real reason to suspect it isn't), it is the inadvertent disclosure of a previously completely secret technology application. This doesn't happen very often. Stealth modified Special Operations helicopters have been rumoured apparently, but that was as far as knowledge went outside the operators.

That this previously secret technology was used in this context suggests the mission was considered important enough by it's planners that it was worth risking compromising secret assets for, when in theory at least other less secret assets could have been employed (by contrast there were at least two occasions in the 1980's when the then still secret F-117 was considered for live use, but not used for fear of compromising the technology secrets).

Another reason this kind of extreme high profile op isn't considered lightly, is that the fallout and political cost of failure is massive and far reaching, as witnessed by the Battle of Mogadishu and Eagle Claw debacles. No way did Obama authorise this to get a bump in the polls; the stakes are too high (ironically, in the run-up to the 1980 election, President Carter suffered in the polls not only for the Eagle Claw failure, but for not revealing the existence of then new stealth technology after he cancelled the first incarnation of the non-stealthy B-1 bomber in favour of the secret B-2).

The conspiracy theories started swirling about a minute after this operation was announced, but for my money the nature of the operation is pretty compelling evidence that it really was Bin Laden who was identified and killed there.

Zeroes and Magnificent Lightning

2011-05-03T20:53:00.010+12:00

Listening to: Foo Fighters - Wasting Light (2011).

Apparently this blog needs to be a bit more manly. So in an effort to up the manly-ness, here is a picture of Manly Beach, Sydney for y'all.
Bebe still not here yet. Will be a week overdue by this time tomorrow. Have now been in "anytime now" quick-reaction mode for long enough that any nervousness will be overshadowed by "Finally!" when things start happening. Fi is naturally a bit over it. Charlotte is ever more aware that something is up, but still hasn't figured out she will shortly be sharing her world.

In the meantime I have been getting some modelling done. To get back into the groove, I'm revisiting a couple of kits from my childhood, the little known (if web presence is anything to go by) small scale Hasegawa Shinden ('Magnificent Lightning') and Zero (erm, 'Zero'). These were part of a range of small snap-together kits Hasegawa produced in the early 80's (at least, I have no idea when they were originally created), aimed at the young beginner market. They were cheap (hence the 'buy by coin' logo on the box) and didn't need any glue to be assembled.

I got one of each back in 1984 or so, and they were assembled and re-fighting the Pacific War in no time. In this hobby revisiting models you built as a kid can be fun, so on a whim a while ago I found some online from a secondhand retailer in the UK, at a cost of slightly more than 75p.
As can be seen by the parts layout, they are somewhat more basic than what I usually build these days, although nicely moulded for what they are (kits intended to be built in the space of an afternoon or less). The Zero is 1/100 scale which is reasonably common standard scale, but the Shinden is an oddball at the uncommon 1/106. Wierd scales like this are often known as 'Box Scale', in that the size of the model was determined by the size of the box it was going to be sold in.
The original Zero I built in the 80's is still mostly intact, complete with inappropriate French Air Force roundels that were applied in the mid 80's after the original Japanese decals had worn off, and experimental camouflage prompted by trying to hide where the brush slipped when I was painting the undersides and got grey on the top instead of the bottom.
It is interesting from a modeller's viewpoint comparing two examples of the same kit from slightly different production runs. I have no idea of the relative ages of the two (other than 'old') but there are definite differences, even though they are in theory identical. The newer one had sink marks in spots where the plastic hadn't filled out the mould properly, while the original one has a warped wing (and always has).

The original Shinden on the other hand has aged so well. It survived into the late 80's at least reasonably intact, but theses are the only parts a recent search turned up.
I might re-use the spinner that covers the propeller hub on the new Shinden (actually it is the only piece intact enough to be able to re-use), to incorporate some old with the new.

Now being that I am not 7 anymore, and not going from in the box to flying around the room in an hour or so, I thought it only proper that I build these retreads properly.

Given the cockpit and pilot in both models was represented only by a ball of plastic in a stick, and almost any change would be an improvement, I cut open both cockpits and built my own out of plastic sheet and rod. They are best described as 'representative' rather than accurate, but still better than not doing anything.
I'm guessing there are thousands of these things that have been built, but I'm betting not many with this amount of effort.

Did I mention how small these models are? If you embiggen the image you can see the seat belts I made up from tape. I have no idea how visible they will be on the finished item.
Since these two are taking approximately a thousand times longer to build than their predecessors, having been carefully glued, filled and sanded, they are only now getting painted.

Only two real Shindens were ever built, and never actually got into service, so the Shinden paint is fairly neat and tidy and straightforward and not needing to be weathered. Zeroes on the other hand were ubiquitous, and in common with other Japanese aircraft notorious for shedding paint in the late war period this model depicts. So to try and simulate that it has been undercoated with aluminum paint topped under the camouflage green, the idea being when the topcoat is done you can remove bits of it to look like chipping.
I still haven't quite figured out how that is going to work out on something this small, or which way to do it is best. Watch this space.

Royal Wedding Diary

2011-04-30T13:32:00.012+12:00

So after listening to the Breakers win the ANBL for the first time (and their coach drop the F-bomb in a live to two countries interview post match. Hilarious), out of historical curiosity I flicked on the TV watch the live broadcast of the Royal Wedding. TVNZ's feed was the first I came to, and since they looked to have ditched their own flown in at taxpayer expense hosting talent in favour of the actually-know-what-they-are-talking-about sounding people on the local feed, I stuck with them.

About 2145 (times are NZ local, this is 1045 in the UK):
Almost perfect time to start watching, just as the soon to be princess leaves Goring Hotel to go to Westminster Abbey. This signifies that shit's about to get real yo, and I have missed the "oooh, famous people" talking head blather that will have made up the coverage for the previous couple of hours.

About 2155
Timing not looking so good as the commentators start wildly squeeeing and verbally waving their elbows (actually, probably not-verbally as well) about the dress as the bride walks into Westminster Abbey. Find something else to do away from the TV while they take deep breaths and calm down. It's a dress, white with veil, not showing underwear, or too much cleavage so probably suitable for the occasion. The massive train provokes a "never mind the bride, who is the hottie walking behind her?" question. Turns out it is the bride's younger sister. The bride herself is a class act.

About 2200
The bridal party proceeds up the aisle to "Guide me thou o Great Redeemer" (I'm not even going to try and pronounce it in it's native Welsh). Since I had this at my own wedding, I conclude from the Royal use that I must have exceptional taste. Also note the trees that have been placed inside Westminster Abbey, and the general abundance of greenery amid the wood and stonework. Slightly trippy and quite cool.

The actual wedding starts. Stripping away the ritual and surroundings and the couple look seriously into each other, which is always a good thing at this kind of occasion. Also note that not only does Prince Harry look like he is having a great time, he is also seems quite a big guy in a buff sense, giant uniform epaulettes not withstanding. Figuring out exactly which uniform any given male member of the royal family is wearing is a fun exercise to pass the time.

2220 ish.
The deed is done. Now the speeches start. Boring and platitudinous. Even the Married Couple look like they have itchy feet. Leave the room.

2230 ish.
More speeches/readings. The bride's brother has a very crooked tie, which I would rue if it were me given the approximately bajillion people watching. Go back to what I was doing elsewhere.

2245.
Yup, still talking or hymning. The feed keeps cutting to shots of the congregation, prominent members of which I am probably supposed to recognise. Elton John turns up repeatedly in this segment. Also note that while "God save the Queen" is sung the Queen herself doesn't sing, which is entirely logical when you think about it, and also carries the bonus of if you happen to be Queen of the United Kingdom, you are permanently excused from ever having to sing your national anthem in public.

2315ish.
Finally they get to walk down the aisle and leave the Abbey. Crowd goes wild. The bride and groom set off in their carriage to Buckingham Palace while thousands line the route and squee. Prince Phillip is looking old these days, and initially looks to have trouble getting into his own carriage. The Queen as ever is totally dignified. A lot of drive-by saluting is done by Prince William, accompanied by hearing a band start playing 'God Save the Queen' on what seems like every corner. Wonder if they stop playing once the carriage has passed.

2320ish.
Idly wonder how many of the weapons seen on the procession route are loaded. Have doubts about the rifles held by the honour guards, no doubts about the sub-machine guns being held by prominently placed police. The deliberately obvious security causes more idle wondering about how much non obvious security is around. Like that horses are still fashionable for Royal occasions.

2330ish.
The procession starts disembarking at Buckingham Palace. Prince William is greeted by a RAF Air Vice Marshal, some light-years in rank above William's current day-job rank of Flight Lieutenant. Wonder in this context just who calls who 'Sir'. The Queen has a smile and a nice word for her palace greeters, while Prince Andrew ignores everyone and practically runs inside. Princess Beatrice appears to be wearing an octopus sculpture on her head.

2335.
The Royals have disappeared into the bowels of the palace, so the TV people start interviewing the crowd. Some remind me of the great British talent of being dryly hilarious without even trying, but mostly interviewing the crowd (while impressively sized at hundreds of thousands) is about as interesting as expected, somewhere above watching grass grow, but below watching paint dry.

Nothing remotely interesting is supposed to happen in the next forty minutes or so, so I find other things to do.

0005.
Return to find lots of anticipation about the upcoming balcony appearance by the Royal Family and accompanying fly-past by the Royal Air Force. The balcony windows having net curtains becomes a source of obsession for the commentators as they zoom the cameras in to try and see through them.

0025.
Party emerges onto balcony, couple snogs. Crowd goes wild. The network providing the feed has managed to shoe-horn a reporter into the cockpit of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Lancaster for a live commentary on the flypast from one of the aircraft in it. The fish-eye lens distorts the view so much at first I don't even recognise it as a Lancaster. Another camera though in one of the gun turrets provides a great shot of a Hurricane in close formation, nicely framed by a pair of .303 gun muzzles. The reporter doesn't appear to be able to hear the studio, so the producer disappointingly drops his feed.

0030ish.
The Hurricane-Lancaster-Spitfire formation flies down The Mall and over the Palace, the combined 72 cylinders of 5 Rolls Royce Merlin and 1 Griffon engines combining for a bit of aural goodness that is definitely a sound rather than a noise. The non historic formation of 2 Tornadoes and 2 Typhoons doesn't sound anything like as good. That's it as far as the flypast goes. A bit underwhelming until I remember that the RAF is busy elsewhere with a couple of wars at the moment. Still surprised that the Red Arrows didn't feature though.

Flypast done, the couple snog again and everyone goes back inside. TVNZ ditching the local commentators to re-introduce the Walrus and Petri-Dish is conclusive evidence there is nothing more to see here so I go to bed. Awake in the morning to find the photoshoppers have already been busy:
Addendum: This occured later on in the day. Also something I did at my wedding (the taking my new bride for a spin in a convertible bit, not the driving through the palace gates bit), albeit without the accompanying Range Rover full of bodyguards.

ANZAC Day

2011-04-25T12:14:00.005+12:00

While it has often been necessary, and produced both glorious acts and individual heroes, one look at the don't-mess-with-me gameface of this particular well known in NZ soldier just after a firefight in Afghanistan should be enough to remind us that at heart, warfare has always been essentially a dirty and ugly business, not to be undertaken lightly, and almost never without consequences.

And it is for that reason we should take a day to remember those we send to do that work in our name (rightness or wrongness of any particular historical cause aside), those who fell, and those who served alongside, in either war or peacetime (and the sideshows of history where that distinction gets blurred).