Quite Profound

Certainly worth the 30 mins of my life... Thanks Mich!

STEPHEN FRY: WHAT I WISH I'D KNOWN WHEN I WAS 18 from Peter Samuelson on Vimeo.

I also watched the movie, "Man on Wire" a few days ago. It was an intriguing movie but the main thing that stood out for me was... just how extremely self obsessed that guy was :| Not surprising though. Oh well. Onwards.

Yes, it's a book!

It's been a while since I read anything of note, but as a bit of a punt, I ended up picking up a book while I was shop browsing in Oz. This one :)

When I checked my watch I realised over an hour had passed, so I thought it best that I buy the damn thing instead :)

And I'm grateful I did. Possibly the most engrossed I've ever been to a clump of paper - I even found myself getting emo at times (!)... books like, hardly ever (never??) do that to me.

Randy Pausch, one amazing fellow.

Work!?

Well.... back in to it. I've had 3 weeks off which I've thoroughly enjoyed (would've been a challenge not to, have done so much!) but I suppose I needed to start my job at some point. Loving Welly so far, been biking all over the city to try and learn the layout, but saving the hills for another weekend. Loving it here so far, the place definity has a funky vibe about it, wonder what works gonna be like!?

Anyway, more updates coming as I find myself lonely and bored after work... but hopefully not! (to the lonely and bored i mean :)

Pack, pack, pack....

Man this is boring!

And the other problem is, that while you are going through everything that you own... you are so easily distracted!!!

I am officially UNEMPLOYED!!!

... temporarily ;)

Hard Night...

So... the ever dreaded suicide call....

Got one on my shift last night.... awww man....

From the start of the call to around 15 minutes in, I didn’t feel like it was going anywhere - so I was about to close. However she then mentioned it probably being her ‘last call’, which forced me to ask the question. At that point she admitted to having taken some pills, but refused to tell me what they were, or how many. Thankfully the supervisor was on to it - performed a trace and notified the police. I wasn’t able to keep her on the phone for the whole time (she’d figured out the process) so from this point I likely won’t know how it ended.

To make things interesting, this was also a ‘listening shift’, which meant that I had 4 counsellor trainees listening in on the call :S Good and a bad points to that. Good to provide the trainees with a pertinent example of intervention, and also giving me the chance to talk it through with them afterwards. But on the other hand it was a tad unsettling knowing there is a group of people focussed entirely on listening everything you do/ say!

I suppose it’s good to have one of those calls under my belt now, the one everyone dreads. And I’m feeling ok with it, I did my best, and there’s just nothing more I could do.

I also have some nice welts from some mean games of paintball earlier on. So a rather memorable day all up!

At least one of my mates is coming down to Welly with me ;)

 

Gulp....

Well, this package arrived on Saturday, and it represents some big changes afoot...

Inside, is my job offer to work in Wellington, for the NZ Defence Force!

(didn't think my flatties would appreciate the world seeing the full address :)

I've been muddling around for a while, but this is a truly great chance to shake my life up a bit with some new challenges... certainly a great opportunity. I'm really looking forward to a new environment, something to get passionate about :)

It will be sad to leave Auckland, my home for the past 6 years, I guess there's a real mixed bag of emotions really - but I've always known deep down I wouldn't be settling here. So the time has come to move on. To me its always been about the people though - and of course, I will miss them dearly. Hopefully, I'll be given chances to catchup, either through cheap flights :P, or perhaps some job postings to the Naval base at Devonport, or Air force base at Whenuapai :) Will have to see what the future brings. I've always thought Wellington is a funky city though. And I'm now looking forward to acquainting myself :)

I think I know how celebrities feel now... So many forms to sign/ security clearances etc. :)

Life is going in slow motion right now....

 

Brrrrrr

Whirinaki is MTB heaven!

Tagged along with the MTB club for a trip to ride the Moerangi and Whirinaki Tracks. People say the 42 Traverse is the best ride in the North island, but those people are so wrong. I have done both now and the Moerangi is more challenging (both physically and technically), dedicated singletrack and has so many wow moments its unbelievable. You can do it as a 3 day tramp too, but if you have a bike – get it over and done with in a day heheh. Man it was awesome. Here’s a link to the photos taken by Edd, one of my new mates from the club: 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eddthedrummer/sets/72157623570166202/

Easily the best weekend of riding I’ve ever done, fantastic scenery and challenging tracks. Did 70kms of riding on the first day and 16km (plus burger king J) on the second day.

You can check me out at the very start, and end, of this video clip :)

I have also got my hands on a brand new camera!!! YAY. It’s sexy orange, shockproof, waterproof and takes really nice photos. Got it for a steal too thanks to my jet setting flatmates (duty free). Life is pretty good.

Its Tuesday

Good little trick that one... When you can’t think of a subject -just use the date. (Got that off Mum – Thanks Mum :)

It’s always relevant because well, that what day it is, and it means you don’t have an empty subject, which is a bit annoying.

Well just today, I spent a few hundred dollars on two tops (!). And they were even on special too...

Guess that’s what happens when you decide you like Icebreaker. Gosh they make damn nice gear though. Apparently it doesn’t pong like synthetics when you sweat in it. I’m really counting on that feature... less washing ;)

Went on an awesome trip over the weekend to Te Maika, which is a little village on a peninsular near Kawhia, which is a little town on the West Coast... Waitomo(ish) direction.

Anyway, you need a boat to get there (no roads). Pretty cool. All thanks to my flattie’s mate, who has a bach there. Stunning spot - 360 views... up the top of the hill – which you have to lug your gear up. Luckily I packed light.

Ah yes, and I will re-attempt some more photos, any day now.

I’d also just like to say, that the XT network... is not my doing :)

Rockmelon flavoured soymilk...

YUM!!

A game of tennis and a swim in your lunchbreak!!

Talk about an awesome way to break up the work day.

The swim was kinda spontaneous though.

I keep meaning to....

post up some photos, but I have been having a very strange issue recently where my internet connection dies whenever I attempt it. Seriously. I think my router is getting old and dodgy.

Most of the good pics end up on Facebook anyway (and yay for tagging), but I suppose putting them here gives me a bit more space to write and reflect... ? when I’m in the mood anyway.

Saw The Hurt Locker last night. WOW! Can’t believe it was directed by a woman. That’s not because I don’t rate women, but more because it’s about a Super elite bomb squad and their adventures in Iraq. Pretty Manly stuff. Anyway - awesome film.

Had a MTB race at Puhoi on Saturday – came 23^rd in a field of 100(ish) for the 40km event - in a time of 2h 50m 30s . I ended up wussing out of the 70km race - I think I could make it, but I have a tendency to nearly kill myself in races so picking the slightly shorter one should decrease the chances of that a bit. As usual, cramp kicked in around 3/4 of the way through. But for me, that’s just part of racing. Good (relatively safe) test of my pain threshold I suppose :P. I can think of much worse.

Anyway, if I was a woman I would have been 3^rd!

Just saying.

I certainly do not want that. Apologies to any women who have been offended by this post – not intended.

Till next time...  :)

41BPM

... is my resting heart rate apparently. WOW. Seems kinda abnormally low. I didn’t realise I was superhuman or anything, well I suspected it but... no seriously, thats pretty cool. Although as expected my blood pressure was a bit on the high side. Why thank you so much Dad for giving me hereditary high blood pressure :P

Anyway, just had these tests at work because I signed up for this boot camp thing. Man it looks like so much fun – starting next week.

In other news, I just bought myself a little 2 man tent for tramping/ camping. Pretty wicked – trialling it out this weekend on the Coromandel. Hoping to actually do a bit more relaxing this weekend though.

I’m also on the hunt for a new camera, friend is hopefully picking one up for me duty free. My current one the screen has died!!! It still takes photos but you have to guess what is in the frame. And you cant navigate the menus to change settings etc. (unless you’ve memorised them!). So yeah, pretty annoying.

Oh yeah and did a LL (lifeline) shift last night. Definitely feel im getting into the groove, the best thing about last night was somehow I didn’t get any regular psychiatric callers, those ones can get quite frustrating - especially when they try and manipulate you. 

So yeah, just your standard run of the mill (:P) people in crisis who want someone to listen and genuinely want to better their situation – I'm only too happy to help :)

Catch you later

...Ick!

Sorry! No updates in a while. Believe me, not because nothing’s been happening. Just been quite busy and any spare hours tend to get allocated to sleep recently. I have tried reducing the sleeping hours but it gets to a point where you don’t tend to function that well during the day. Shame that... why can’t I blog while I’m sleeping???? :)

Anyway.... Life - overall, pretty damn good, but still, lots to sort out too!!! Hmmm, maybe that's just the way I roll ;)

Seeya 2009

Bit lazy today, but here's some selected photos of final '09 adventures...

OK need to get packing again for the first adventure of 2010...