Back in the saddle. . . again

Back in the saddle in a couple of ways, first time posting in over a month, and first time back on my bike for a couple of months. The last ride was back in autumn, and my leg injury had a slight relapse and the weather was ugly, and I'd had a bad day and I wound up walking the bike all the way up the hill  to get home. After that, for various reasons, I just didn't manage to get back riding until a nice weekend amble with wife and kids a couple of weeks ago, then back to proper commute riding this week. I got two rides in this week, and both were great. The leg was a little sore after the first one, but settled down for the second. And the second ride was awesome. The sky was threatening, but calm and settled, and the surface of the river I ride beside like a mirror.

A couple of moments stand out. Approaching the rail bridge I got to see two trains cross at once, the real one and it's reflection in the water. As I was moving and the perspective was constantly changing it was like an awesome steadicam shot in the darkening twilight. On the bridge the still water was reflecting the streetlights and the troubled sky so perfectly I wished I had a camera.

A few minutes later riding up the valley toward home a heavy rain shower broke over the hills in front of me. In the still air with this giant slate grey mass filling the sky in front of me, and the columns of rain falling down, combined with the track I'm linking below on the mp3 player, it was just cool.

Nothing much else to say, I just wanted to write those moments down before I forgot them.

A good track for a good ride:

Thoughts from the saddle

The hip problem that dogged my autumn has mostly gone away now, enough for me to carefully resume regular riding*. Just in time for winter.

Here is my gear drying out after riding home in the rain last night.

It has occurred to me that I must be turning into a 'true' cyclist or something, in that weather becomes less and less of a concern. As long as I have somewhere at the end of my ride to get changed and/or dry out as required I'm not bothered by the elements. Last evening was forecast for gale force winds and heavy rain and I didn't bat an eye before heading into the fray. I missed the wind but got the rain. Once you're acclimatised it can be kind of pleasant. Only my hands and legs wind up getting really wet, and at times I quite like being out in the rain.

After overnight heavy rain and thunderstorms, by dawn this morning local weather picture looked like this for my ride to work. This was about as warm as it got all day.

My stream of thought on this morning's ride went something like this (not untypically):

Wow it’s a bit bitter this morning. Lucky I’m riding a bike to keep me warm. Apart from my hands and feet.

The waterproofing I put on my jacket the other day seems to be holding up well.

Go on clouds, hail, I dare you.

Why is this song stuck in my head? Worst song they ever released.

Some more thunder and lightning would be fun right now.

Polypro's keep you warm even when they are wet. I’m not getting as wet as I thought I would be though.

Weather like this is great for thinning out traffic on the trails (unless you're an earthworm, in which case it seems to encourage you to rise from the depths and see if the grass is greener on the other side of the trail).

I must be getting fitter, since I’m not working as hard as I thought I would be.

Two lane roundabouts utterly do not work for bikes

You can sit in your cars and laugh but I’m having more fun than you are.

Why is it every time I ride over this narrow two lane bridge with no shoulder it coincides with a truck going the same direction?

Gas heated mains-pressure showers at work are ace

* as well as my other physical activities. Not quite back to normal yet ability wise but getting there. I seem to have lost a little bit of speed and power, but the fitness is coming back steadily.

Back in the saddle

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.

Hospi Bike Ride

Just a quick aside: Our friend in Japan has checked in, house destroyed but staying at a shelter with his family. Relieved :)

The Bike the Trail ride last week was fun, but being 99.9% flat, and generally downhill, not particularly strenuous. The annual Hospi Bike Ride fundraiser for Wellington Children's Hospital (and this year Canterbury earthquake relief as well) is something of a different beast. Twice as long at 50 kilometres, uphills totalling about 700m of climbing, and not a lot of flat bits anywhere. On Bike the Trail my experience of riding into the wind was to come in handy, on this one my hill climbing experience was exploited.

My goals were not to come last, and not be forced to get off and walk at any point, both of which I managed. It was about as hard as I expected in terms of hills, and none of the climbs encountered were harder than what I have learned to cope with when I ride to and from my house (having an ambulance momentarily shadow me climbing up Makara hill was slightly disturbing though), even if they were completed not particularly quickly. Also every climb was rewarded with an immensely fun downhill, the best of which was a couple of K's worth from Brooklyn to Owhiro Bay, without pedalling. Not out of laziness, but because my mountain bike gearing makes pedalling ineffective above 40 or so KPH.

This being a road oriented event, and us riding on mountain and commuter bikes rather than road bikes meant it took us around three hours to do the 50K. The hard-core road cyclists on the other hand (including my nephew) started finishing after less than an hour and a half on the route. My nephew placed 10th. I placed 263rd (out of 277 finishers), so will happily bask in his reflected glory. He did it in almost exactly half the time we did. To be fair though, he is exactly half my age, his road rather than mountain bike probably weighs half as much as mine (definitely way less), is geared and rigged for way higher speed than mine and he is probably twice as fit :). That's my excuse anyway and I am sticking to it.

On to the pics. Fi acted as support crew, photographer and cheerer-oner, but couldn't follow us out onto the rural part of the route (we didn't think it would be smart to add to the bikes/cars/narrow windy road combo) so there aren't any pics from there. Speaking of cheerer-oners, all the marshals marking the course were really nice and encouraging at every turn, especially since we were slow and responsible for keeping them out on the course longer. I really enjoyed it. It struck me later on in the day that at no point on the ride did I think "this sucks, I want a break". I had fun the whole time.

Who can resist a cuddly furry mascot? Not us.
Getting ready to go. We thought about attaching the seat and having Charlotte ride with me, but not having ridden the route before, and a lot of it being a long way from anywhere by bike, thought better of it. Charlotte wasn't entirely convinced she wasn't going riding with Dad this morning though. We sort of planned to put her on the back once we were back in the suburbs, but she was napping in the car by then.

Our intrepid trio of me, Rich and Maria, wearing possibly famous last smiles before the start. Snoopy along for the ride because I figured for something like this event a mascot was in order. It isn't like his drag was going to slow me down or anything. I'm built more for endurance than speed. I also happened to wear appropriate for the charity Canterbury colours, by accident rather than design. I was more focussed on the Greatest American Hero T being a good ironic thing to wear for a potentially tough physical activity than anything else :)

The front part of the pack assembling for the start, including the cycling advocate Mayor (Mayoress?) of Wellington ("So what did you get up to this morning?" "Oh nothing much, just went cycling with the mayor. Oh and 300 other people..").

Setting off, 50 K's to go, and about to be blitzed left, right and centre by passing road cyclists going a lot faster than us.

The first gentle climb of the route, warming up for the first hard climb literally around the corner. Was gratified to pass people on the climb (since I haven't often ridden hill climbs with others, I have little idea what my relative ability at this is).

Close to the rear of the pack, but progressing steadily through Karori having just climbed and descended Makara hill. Smiles from knowing that theoretically the hardest bit is now done, even if there are still 20 odd K to go.

Hooning down from Karori at something close to the legal speed limit. Another hard climb from Aro Valley to Brooklyn still to go (but still not as steep as part of my regular run home. Just longer).

We three tired but happy at the end, after three hours of cycling. I got a cramp in one of my legs with about five K to go, but managed to stave it off by quickly chopping about half a bottle of Powerade (thought process: "Ow, is that cramp? I think it is. Trying to massage it out isn't working, what fixes cramp? Hydration, and that electrolyte stuff all the advertising mentions might help. Wait I still have Powerade in the rack!" Gulp! Cramp abates). Nice to know that sports drinks are more than just fancy advertising and can be useful rather than just looking good. Also a reminder to keep my fluids up next time regardless of feeling thirsty or not.

On completion every rider was rewarded with a bottle of Powerade, and a little lion mascot. Charlotte quickly requisitioned the latter.

There is a write up from a cycling website with nice pics here (it makes me feel better about my ride that they describe the hill climbs as 'tough'). The pics are from the top of the first hard climb of the route in Johnsonville. My pic is in the red helmet group, while my nephew is the fourth picture in the blue helmet group. I take a bit of solace in the fact that while a heap faster, he looks like he is working a lot harder than I am :).

So much to say

Listening to Led Zeppelin IV/symbols/untitled - Led Zeppelin (1971). This album is way too good and unaged to be 40 years old (and only five years older than me).

Noted an interesting comment from an 'anonymous' on someone else's blog last night:

"My, my, Off-Black has a lot to say for her/him self."

Not sure if it is a compliment or criticism, (or if it was made after reading the comments I made on that blog, or reading this one) but to be fair, there are now 600+ posts of variable quality blather on this site, so it is true in a sense. It did elicit a quiet laugh though; they probably haven't met me in real life, since the off-line me is pretty much the opposite. I surprised people with my wedding speech, both for delivering it reasonably competently and eloquently, and because they had never heard me say so much at once :).

As a seems-appropriate-at-this-point aside I don't like totally anonymous commenting on general principle. The absence of an identifier makes conversation unnecessarily difficult, besides opening the door for consequence free trolling. You can still use the non-id'd 'anonymous' label, but at least put a pseudonym, initial or other handle on the comment text itself.

In other news, we three did the Bike The Trail ride on Sunday morning, in weather nothing like as nice as the pics from last year on the official site. It might be early autumn, but winter sent us a postcard in the form of an unseasonably wet and cold southerly.


As rides around here go, it is pretty easy for anyone who rides a reasonable distance regularly. Kudos though to the woman who completed it on a ten-speed on a mostly unsealed trail. Fi decided discretion was the better part of valour, (and being 7 and a half months pregnant doesn't really need an excuse anyway, I am impressed she did it at all) and opted to finish at the halfway station, so I took Charlotte the remaining distance to the river mouth. It was mostly sheltered if occasionally damp for most of the way, but the last couple of k's were straight into the strong and strengthening wind. It was interesting to note that while I wasn't racing, just trying to ride at my comfortable pace, I was still passing people even with Charlotte on the back, even into the wind. It got some fun occasional surprised looks from people realising they had just been passed by a guy carrying a passenger.

Clipped

After getting clipless pedals fitted to my bike a couple of months ago, I now have clipless shoes to go with them after dropping the right suggestions in the right directions before Christmas. Oxymoronically, this combination now results in my feet being firmly clipped to the pedals for better pedalling (the 'clipless' refers to an earlier attachment method before these things were invented). For now my cycling accessory world is complete. After a couple of rides the noob look is already worn off:
I find the action of clipping in oddly reassuring. After a couple of rides with them I am not quite used to the sensation, but have yet to fall over due to forgetting to unclip before coming to a halt. (This is a rite of passage for clipless initiates apparently).

Cycling Illustration

Close Up is normally pretty drivelous, but this piece is actually a pretty good illustration of what road cycling is like in Wellington and the Hutt;

http://tvnz.co.nz/close-up/aggressive-new-zealand-drivers-3949050/video?vid=3949073

Interesting in that the road footage focuses on areas I know very well, some of which I ride frequently and others I wouldn't dare to. This is my local cycling turf for lack of a better term. I realised lately that one of the reasons why I like using a mountain bike instead of a road bike is that not only can I take the unpaved river trails on the way home at will, on the road the tougher tyres let me ride that much closer to the kerb without worrying about damage, and keep me an extra inch or few away from the traffic.

Sucks to be a cyclist in NZ right now

5 cyclists doing nothing wrong taken down by careless, thoughtless, and reckless motorists in as many days, all dead, with another touch and go today.

Story link

As a cyclist and a motorist, I refuse to call these accidents. Accidents are genuinely unexpected and unavoidable in foresight. All of these deaths are neither.

At last count there are 470 comments attached to the above story following the usual antagonistic divide of motorist vs cyclist, with far more blinkered examples of the former, and few voices of reason. One should be wary of seeing this as a representative sample of population since it is self selecting, but an astonishing number seem to subscribe to the belief that cyclists have no right to be on the road, no right to any expectation of safe passage; whatever happens is their fault for being there. Dedicated cycling infrastructure in the form of designated lanes and safe areas and the like is slowly appearing, but is still rare, and nowhere near the norm, so bikes and other traffic are forced together. To be fair, while a lot of drivers (either maliciously or ignorantly) don't react to cyclists well, there are many stupid cyclists who give the rest of us a bad name by thinking the road rules don't apply to them because they aren't in a car, or worse translate the at times palpable antagonism on the roads into deliberate provocation. I could rant about my own experiences as a regular commuter cyclist, but that would take an entire other post.

While as cycling becomes more popular there is something of a quiet culture war going on around it at the moment, the bigger point being missed as the heads bang on the comment threads is just why these incidents keep happening. It should be a scandal that a young driver thought there was nothing wrong in navigating a blind corner at speed on the wrong side of the road (a practice that killed three cyclists in one incident). It isn't, because it is accepted that as a nation we suck at driving. Across all road users (cyclists included) there is a certain element with a huge attitude problem, mostly centred around 'me first, screw everybody else', and a total lack of consideration for other road users, and a lack of awareness of potential consequences.

It's everywhere, constantly. Just in one ten minute drive home tonight on quiet suburban streets I counted three separate incidents of the type of driving that causes crashes. On a long drive on the open road dangerous driving is a typically regular sight, people risking lives to get where they are going a minute or two earlier. Local readers can try a challenge if they want. Next time you drive, if it is safe, try sticking exactly to the posted speed limit, and see how long it takes to pick up a tailgater, then a queue. It won't take long.

Driver training and licensing in this country is a joke (again to be fair, there is no formal licensing or training for cyclists at all, despite a formal road code being drawn up for them. Bicycles are also not subject to vehicle related road user charges or levies, although most cyclists are car owners, and pay levies accordingly anyway). No formal education or training required, essentially just a multichoice test and practical assessment and you are good to go. Enforcement of driving laws is similarly laid back, no matter how much those drivers for whom speed limits are only a guideline bleat about speeding tickets being an easy means of revenue gathering (hint: if you don't want a ticket, obey the bloody LAW! ). We are very good at licensing car operators rather than drivers. Formal and defensive driver training should be mandatory because the fact that you are in control of a big piece of metal that has mass, inertia and momentum, which you only need to screw up handling once to kill yourself, or worse somebody else, seems to be lost on people. I won't claim to be a perfect wheel, but on observation most drivers are nowhere near as good and safe as they think they are. They think it won't happen to them, if they think of it at all. I've survived both serious bike and car crashes, so I know it can and will if you let it.

Have bike and camera will travel

The only real issue I have with riding my mountain bike to work, is that I live roughly hereish:

Since that picture was taken somewhere near where I work, I'm sure you can all realise the con when it comes to negotiating the journey on a vehicle powered solely by me (as well as marvelling at my ability to free draw arrows in microsoft paint).

The average gradient to get there is something like this, for about a kilometre and a half.

I've had a couple of people say how impressed they are that I do this, but it really isn't that terrible once you have done it a few times. It doesn't get easy, but it does get less difficult. I have noticed I am getting better at it in that the willpower element is now focused on being bothered to ride in the the first place, rather than keeping going. Another measure of fitness on this is I don't notice the climb so much anymore. I have the energy to think about things over than 'just keep pedalling', and my legs aren't so rubbery when I dismount.

I had a play last week with using the video mode on our little point and shoot camera while cycling to and from work. While it's not exactly C'etait un Rendevous, I like the results anyway.

Reading around various traps inspired little confidence in blogger's video hosting abilities, so I herded a couple of clips on to Youtube instead. These were made with a camera held against the handlebar, so the image stability isn't so great.

The first is going through the poky little subway that takes you under the main highway at the bottom of the hill. It's a cheap thrill, but I like the rush of riding through such an enclosed space. Feel free to make any Star Wars/Dambusters/633 Squadron comparisons you feel appropriate:

The second is the full 2 minute downhill from the crest of the road below my place. If I ride, this is how my commute begins, which is good for waking you up if nothing else. I live in a dip on the ridge, so perversely I have to go uphill before I can go down. I pedal to the crest, then let gravity take over and coast (the bike can't be pedalled faster than 35kph or so anyway. not enough gears). The first 15 seconds or so are a bit shaky as I figure out how I am holding the camera but bear with it (the shakiness halfway through is due to the rough road surface at that section. I love front fork suspension). I have the brakes on for most of the way, from about the first bus stop at 00:27, to stay at the 50kph speed limit, which makes for very hot discs at the bottom. I followed another cyclist with rim brakes down once and all I could smell was burning rubber. I could easily go faster, but since it is both illegal and terrifying, I don't. An off at 50 kph will be bad enough, although overtaking cars would be fun. Rain, early morning flying insects, or ice, particularly on the long corner near the bottom which doesn't see any sun in winter can make this descent muuuchhh more interesting.



I quite like the bit where my shadow stretches out on the road in front of me :)

I could add some clips of the ascent, but it takes ten times as long (literally), and is accompanied by liberal amounts of 0900 line style heavy breathing.

Mild inconvenience

Listening to: Twilight Singers - A Stitch In Time

I've been ruthlessly exploiting both the nice autumn weather and Fi being on break lately to ride to work as much as I can, managing to use the bike for every commute last week.

This went like a box of swimming fluffy ducks until Friday morning, when I encountered The Shard (so named because it reminded me of The Dark Crystal). I had my camera on me, so here it is recorded for posterity.

I must have picked it up crossing the gutter to get onto Melling Bridge, since I didn't get a few metres across the span before the tire was completely flat. It didn't pop (which I have done to a bike tyre before), or instantly deflate at speed (which I have also done after running over a nail. Entry and exit hole in the tube, plus stress induced cracks either side), but it fell off quickly enough that I carried the bike the rest of the way across the bridge to somewhere I could safely investigate.

The offending piece of glass turned out to be pretty gnarly on removal, enough to pierce the thickest part of the tread and go straight through the tube. Probably part of a beer bottle. I don't know what the story is, but it is hard not to notice the sheer amount of shattered glass around the edges of the road that cyclists inhabit.

Luckily (or self fulfillingly, depending on your outlook), I had bought a spare tube to carry around for this exact eventuality only a couple of weeks ago. I figure it was either just as well, or tempting fate. A few minutes of wayside surgery later and it was sorted.

I patched the incumbent tube over the weekend and put it back on the bike, so retaining the perfect tube as a spare.

So there you have it, an exemplary blog of the mundane :)

I wasn't even annoyed. It was only a minor inconvenience. Reminding me of the relative cosmic scale of things on the other hand, someone I know got refused entry to the US and deported back here last week, which goes somewhat beyond inconvenient, beyond ruining your whole day even, especially as she was going to rejoin her partner who has been working there for the last few years. That sucks on all kinds of levels.

Twaaaaang! #2

Well, more of a crack than a twang if I am honest. After this recent misadventure with a gear cable, on Friday I managed to do this to my rear derailleur gear cassette (click to biggify):

Yup, pretty sure its not supposed to look like that.......

This was incurred after I stopped and u-turned on my way to work to help a motorist with a flat tyre. I felt the bang as the cog was dismembered, but wrote it off as mere a mere chain crunch/slip. I suspected something might be awry when I couldn't keep it in top gear for the rest of the way to work, and confirmed that suspicion shortly after. Ironically, the previous day we had a free cycling maintenance workshop at work (as part of Bikewise month (link) ) where it was noted that my chain was worn and at risk of damaging a gear...

This weeks handy cycling hint: Don't get out of the saddle from a standing start and stand on the pedals with all of the power your mighty legs can put through the chain with your gears at extreme opposition. I had the gears set on the smallest and innermost front chain ring (low) and smallest and outermost rear cog (high). This puts the maximum sideways load on the rear cog, in this case enough to tear a piece of it clean off.

Funnily enough (now that I have belatedly looked it up), setting your gears like this is not recommended by the guru's :)

Twaaaaang!

I'll confess I'm not an expert when it comes to correctly rigging mountain bikes, but I am pretty sure the cables aren't supposed to look like this:
That's the control cable for the front chain ring shifter, and it snapped about halfway through my ride into town on boxing day, far enough from anywhere worthwhile that there was no point doing anything other than pushing on.

Unfortunately (except if you are hill climbing) in failure mode the shifter shifts to the lowest ring, thus limiting me to my lowest 8 (of 24) gears for the next fifteen or so kilometres to my destination.

It took a while. I got passed by a guy on a BMX. Which was kind of appropriate, since I was riding BMX style (pedal pedal pedal coast, pedal pedal pedal coast), although I reasoned it was only fair since the one gear available to him was higher than any of the eight available to me.

I blame the harbour cycleway. I think it hates me, since this is the second techinical fail I have incurred on it is the last half a dozen times or so I have ridden it.

Monday Monday

So after the alarm went off at 7 this morning, I had a look out the window above the bed, saw it was a nice morning, then spent a groggy few seconds figuring out what day it was.

Then realised it was Monday.

Meh.

Still, the morning was made a bit easier by the fact I have started cycling to work again (when I can). A couple of times in the early morning sun, with the wind behind me and the tyres singing on the asphalt by the river, and the MP3 (well, WMA to be honest) player shuffling some nice tunes, I even forgot I was riding to work....

First time

Listening to: Pearl Jam-Live in Verona. A few years ago Pearl Jam decided to get one up on the bootleggers and released heaps of concerts as no frills CDs. As well as meaning in all likelyhood you could pick up a recording of a concert you were at, you can also flick through them until you find a setlist you want. I bought this one because it features a cover of Split Enz' 'I Got You'. Not a great cover as Eddie can't remember all the words, but cool by the sheer fact of its existence.

Couple of firsts today:

First proper mountain biking since I bought my bike, and first foray into Makara Mountain Bike Park.

I managed to summit Makara Peak and not die in the process, which I'm quite pleased with for a first attempt.

I found the 'easy' graded entry track a lot harder than I anticipated, but I attribute this to the cold I had last week, and the fact that I am a newbie at this kind of riding. Once in the park proper I nearly took a short route back to the carpark as I had some doubts about, well everything (where I was, what I was doing, was I exceeding my ability etc).

But an easy looking road wended off into the distance......

It didn't stay easy, and I confess to stopping a few times, but eventually I reached the top, 412 metres above sea level:

I felt like grabbing my bike and triumphantly raising it above my head, victory styles, but settled for crashing on the grass for a few minutes instead.

Cellphone reception was unusually good for a hilly area. Can't imagine why.

The views were choice, made choicer by the effort expended to obtain them. Those are the Inland Kaikoura's, in the South Island by the way.

Looking north east across Karori to the harbour and Hutt Valley.

Was going down a lot easier? Yes it was, even though I made it more exciting by taking a wrong turning and ending up on a more technical track I didn't quite have the skills for.

'Twas fun.

What no pictures?

Listening to: Maroon five-Songs about Jane.......

Hah, you wish! actually listening to The Mockers-Woke up today, the definitive collection.

In a break from form, I am not posting any pictures tonight.

Although I am linking to something on youtube.

not much to say, just a random collection of things

-How come as soon as the door locks you out you know your keys are inside, and why doesn't this mechanism stop you from locking yourself out in the first place? Similarly, how come you remember you have left something important behind about 30 seconds after you have driven off?

-Back riding to work again, after pimping my ride with cool flashy flashy gizmos, and pimping me with some neoprene gloves. I have come up with a new term for the initial descent; 'Fierce Cold'. Giving yourself a 50 kph headwind a minute after walking out the door sure wakes you up in a hurry. Fastest recorded speed on the downhill so far is 64kph, at which point I start running out of straight. I've only done that once mind you, since a: it is technically speeding, and b: any off at that velocity would be spectacular and painful. Staying at 50 is enough, it means I can ride in the middle of the lane and not slow down the cars. I am trying to ride a minimum of three times a week, but post work activities often necessitate the powered transport.

Since the recent high profile cycling deaths in the valley I have redoubled my vigilance and defensiveness. On my route I am more at risk from path gazing pedestrians unfortunately. I am still waiting for my first accident since resuming the way of the cycle.......

-Been reading a potted history of the British SAS lately (because I am interested in that sort of thing), with particular interest in their activities during the quaintly named 'troubles' in Northern Ireland. The more I learn about that conflict, the less I understand it.

-The baby is kicking now, palpably and visibly. Cool. The small amount of paragraph space on this topic is not indicative of its relative importance.

-I start a new job in three weeks, in an area I tried to get into at my old old job. Someone else made me an offer I couldn't refuse, and my deadline of getting a new job was fulfilled quite nicely.
I have 7 working days left at the soon to be old job, and am looking forward to leaving. All the things I really don't like about it are prominent, although for my final days I seem to have been given a donkey-work task and put in the corner. Which I am fine with, although a bit more communication would have been nice. Its tedious sure, but at least I am being left alone to get on with it without supervisors second guessing every move I make, which is even more tedious.

-I'm not so bothered by the winter thing as others are, although I do resent the wierd ethic that saw fit to install an architectural culture of poorly insulated houses in this country. We may be in the south pacific, but we are in the temperate part, not the subtropical part, and nearly in the subantarctic part. I hate that our houses are cold. Its embarrassing when you are hosting guests from overseas for one.

-I will make it to Malty Media at least once.

-I am looking forwards to Rumpus

-and now the promised video link, or links

Link 1: In the early 1990's, legendary underground/alternative/post metal/whatever New Zealand band Headless Chickens were invited to contribute a track to an ABBA tribute album.

This is the result: Headless Chickens covering 'Super trouper'.

I have no idea why they filmed the video at Whenuapai, but it lends a certain odd aesthetic.

Link 2: Flying through a mountain. Because you can of course.

And Link 3: The sort of shock wave thing you often see in cartoons or movies. But much cooler because it is real.