Breast can't always be best

As a father, this whole Weepu bottle feeding thing gained my attention (as well as the breastfeeding on facebook thing, and the daycare is bad mmkay? thing).

Not sure if I should link the Herald since they kicked off the whole saga in the first place with a mix of accurate and not so accurate reporting, and the footage in question wasn't actually banned, just removed before the ad screened. As a father who bottle feeds a child, I thought the footage in question made Piri even more legendary, against guidelines or not. He is only doing what hundreds if not thousands of NZ fathers do every day, and positive male parenting images in advertising of this quality aren't that common. I think its undermining of breastfeeding promotion as arguable at best, since that undermining is based on assumptions about what the bottle actually contains, and the ad isn't about feeding at all; it is about being smoke-free (and some of the most odious responses to it I've seen have compared bottle feeding to smoking). It also makes significant assumptions about the intelligence of the viewer.

In all fairness to the groups consulted about the footage and reacting against it, they were bound to say what they did. "Breast is best" is the official Ministry of Health line, a catchy slogan and noble ideal, and granted breastfeeding rates in NZ need improvement, but of all the mothers amongst my peers I know, only one (that I know of) ever declared an intention never to breastfeed.

Breast feeding though does not work for all mums. Not because they are too lazy, are too busy, haven't tried hard enough, not persisted long enough, not had enough support, or not used the right technique. Sometimes it just doesn't work, for many reasons. You are not a bad mother if you can't breastfeed. Both Sophie and Charlotte were breastfed initially for some months. Charlotte was unintentionally weaned when Fi had to go back to work so we could keep a roof over our heads (not to live in frivolous luxury like the stay at home judgementalists would suggest), as expressing and teaching don't really mix, and Sophie was weaned when she simply began demanding more than Fi could provide. It isn't the way we planned or wanted it to be, it just is.

I'm pro-breastfeeding, but not at all costs, and there just doesn't seem to be any balance in promotion or support a la "Breast is best, but whatever keeps the baby thriving is good too". In our ante-natal group four years ago bottle feeding was the thing that shall not be named - I get the impression reading around that it still is. This is a noble ideal, but the flipside is that many that fail to sustain breastfeeding feel like parenting failures as a result, and are occasionally subjected to public judgement (as are breastfeeding mums - we have issues), or otherwise accused of not having their children's best interests at heart. Out of curiosity I had a look at one advocacy group's NZ facebook site. There are a lot of useful things on it, good advice, good support. And some not so useful opinions, like people openly advocating fathers not get involved in feeding their infant children at all if it involves a bottle, and not really being challenged in that by the faithful. As a father, this attitude I find alternately infuriating and depressing. Those quiet moments (often in the middle of the night) can be precious, as well as giving your partner a break. I don't have functioning breasts (short of hormone treatment at least); how else am I supposed to feed the babe?

The thing I find about parental criticism (and it is about the one absolute truism of parenting: no matter what you are doing with your child there will be someone to tell you you're doing it wrong), is that it most often comes from people who presume to know both your exact circumstances, and how they compare to their own equivalents, which then results in an attitude of whatever worked for them is the best way and will work for everyone else. It just isn't so, and if you are going to judge me or my partner (especially in public), just know I'm going to be judging you right back.

Mixed perceptions

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

"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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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".