Bye Sis

I just dropped Tess off at the airport. She's been hanging with me up here the past week.
We went out for brekky on Saturday at Season Cafe in Ponsonby - my cuz works there, so he sorted us a good deal ;) - Thanks Lindz. This is my sister waiting for me to finish taking the photo so she can eat her banana hotcakes - with a side of bacon

As well as mucking around with her awesome big bro, both of us hung out with 4 middle aged Irishmen on Saturday night (with 40,000 or so others).

And cheers to you too, Bono. That was awesome!!

We turned up around 4:45 (gates opened at 5pm). We didn't quite make the first 3000 (in the next-to-the-stage-zone), but I guestimate we made the first 3500, so were near the front of everyone else - and right in the middle, so it was a sweet spot anyhow.

Last week I also had my first taste of dragonboating. Here's a pic of us admiring the boat from the safety of the dock...

Unfortunately, I never actually made it into the water because the session ran over time. Was a shame too because Howie and I were gonna be up the front (cross the line first, hehe :) Oh well something to look forward to next time - and I might even get wet!

Also, I got sent this link today:

http://cjcphoto.com/can/

Make sure you watch the video at the end. It's really quite inspiring, and you might need to get out some tissues too...

U2 coming up!

Not long to go now. Sis and I will be at U2 this Saturday. Will definitely do a proper update after that. Last couple weeks have been insanely busy...

Work has been mad but is currently interrupted by a 3 day course in town. The course is basically on how to do my job - so quite handy!
Tess arrived on Friday so I've been showing her the sites the past few days. She cooked us dinner today - yum diddly scrumptious too :)

Horsing Around

This is the view from the top of a horse.

I went horse trekking in the weekend. Great fun. And that's Kate I'm sitting on (she was obviously just borrowing Jack's head strap thingee).

The ride seemed to get smoother the faster the horse was going - trotting feels like dozens of judder bars! whereas a canter is so smooth! Unless you fall off, as one of our group can attest - although she did hit a tree prior to the ground.

Fortunately, I had no unplanned dismounts.

And here is me with Kate, my trusty mount:

And speaking of horses, I saw two Japanese horses won the Melbourne Cup - Go Asia!!!

Work has been getting busy, which is a nice change. But I can't tell you what I'm working on.

Touch this week was better - we drew, 3 all. I likened it to a classic sports movie. The underdogs have staged a spirited comeback and with seconds to go, one point is needed to level the scores. With the last play of the game, the defence is broken and... they score. Only problem is, it wasn't us who scored the final point :(

Next week we are playing probably the best team in the league so will be aiming to keep the score respectable...

Down Welly

I went for a lightning trip down to Wellington earlier this week for work. Oh look, here's a photo...

For the flight down I was in business class! (and that's a first for me) I figured there must have been some kind of mixup, but it was a welcome surprise. For once I was one of those tossers sitting up the front in one of those big fat chairs with excess legroom - muwahahahahaa!!

Anyway, later on I got a text from my buddy's sister, "I hope you enjoyed business class". Took me a while to click actually, but eventually I figured it out. In her role at Air NZ she wields Upgrade power - which makes her a handy person to know indeed ;) I spoke to her the night before at her birthday dinner (her big three-zero actually) and mentioned my flight details in passing. Evidently, she remembered and somehow moved me to business class :)

While I was down there I caught up with my friend/relly Camellia, did some work stuff and also visited some of my Wellington based team-mates.

Also took a pretty pic from the plane on the flight back to AKL...

Also, touch season started yesterday. Nothing noteworthy to report on... yet