The moons a birthday

Apollo and Armstrong: This week, the 20th of July, was the 40th Anniversary of when "A man named Armstrong, walked upon the moon" (the name of the John Stewart hit song). Also the week of my birthday so I remember it well as, hoping at the time, they might stuff it up and land on the 24th - but they didn't. So I celebrated 4 days later.

I am an admirer of Armstrong as unlike most American celebrities he is not a limelight seeker - they call him reclusive - I call him humble as all the heroes of my era appeared to be. I would guess he is more Scottish than modern American. He basically withdrew from public life and went into the academic world to return to his real love - engineering.

A real hero.

I see the second human on the moon, Buzz Aldrin, says his Blackberry (a Personal Digital Assistant) has 65,000 times the computing power of the moon mission and the entire floor of computers at Mission Control wasn't as powerful as one of today's laptop computers.

SeniorNet Hutt City also celebrated a birthday - its 10th.

The fabulous 10th Anniversary cake thanks to Raewyn.

SNHC 10th Anniversary: Haven't updated lately as very busy, mainly with SeniorNet as it was the 10th Anniversary and AGM time. Also we had a tutors morning tea and later in the week a briefing.
Here are some pictures of the event where Christine was invited to cut the cake. At the meeting where that was decided I abstained!!

Myself, Christine and Brian our Deputy Chair and the person who suggested at a Probus meeting that a SeniorNet be started in the Hutt.

Christine and the cake.

Making a point at the AGM.

Now moving onto the Rotary Balance Sheet/Audit. and still no progress with the Charitable Trust.
So never a dull moment.

The chocolate wars

Whittakers Vs Cadbury's: A war (on TV at least) for the chocaholics has started. Cadburys has made its blocks smaller (with a supposed equal drop in price), put them in cardboard, added more palm oil and dropped the cocoa content (to 1% above the minimum) and started making them in Tasmania. Meantime Whittakers carries on its product the same as always - a product I have always preferred.

Whittakers has started a TV campaign pointing out all the above and it will be interesting to see what effect it has on Cadbury's sales. With the short attention span of most people not much I suppose. My favourite is Coconut Rough and for a couple of years Cadburys seemed to stop making it and even now it is hard to find.

Rugby: The Tri Nations opener on Saturday and I lack confidence as usual.

Quiz: Called ourselves The Dish after the Oz film about the moon landing starring NZ's Sam Neill as Armstrong walked upon the moon 40 years ago on the 20 July. Like the Yanks we came first. A couple of the better teams were missing again but we heard later that one of them has disbanded. It seems they have had a falling out due to some internal ructions and a couple of people got upset and stormed off. Its a tough business.

Maori customary rights: A Court case is going on at the moment about the stealing of a dead body. The Maori believe their rights override the law. If they win it means anarchy rules.

Precedence: The Mayor has accepted our invitation to the SeniorNet AGM and in case the local MP's also accepted I have looked up the Order of Precedence.

The top few - Queen, Governor General, PM, Speaker I knew but was surprised how far up the list the Dean of the Diplomats comes - ahead of the Deputy PM - and I would have thought the local Mayor would come above the local MP's but on this I was wrong. However, on thinking it through I suppose MP's are above the Mayor being from the higher section of Government. Nevertheless if they do come I only intend to allow the Mayor to say something. Probably get the Guillotine.

In my letter to the MP's I thanked them for the funding help they give pointing out that as we are a 100% volunteer organisation they get more 'bangs for their buck'. The Government have cut back on the night schools, and I have some sympathy, but their Tutors are getting paid, at well above the minimum wage, while ours (SeniorNet) get nothing.

If the night classes Tutors are so passionate then why don't they work for say the minimum wage. Christine taught Macrame for a couple of years and it was a great lurk.

Still Busy

Still flatout with the end of the Rotary year, sadly another big funeral today, SeniorNet AGM due etc etc etc.

TVNZ: I was contacted to see if I could arrange a person to be interviewed for a SeniorNet publicity piece on TV1 and also arrange for them to film a class in action. As it happens we are having a morning tea for the tutors on Friday so they are going to come after that has finished. We will need to tidy up the rooms first. We are also going to have a morning tea for the other tenants but we have run out of time so will probably have to have it some time after the Term has started .

Boy Racers: More killed in Invercargill and the parents appeared on TV defending them. They claimed the dead driver never sped - although quotes of friends in the DomPost disputed this - and that he bought a high performance car because that was available. He could have bought something else - its not compulsory. I am pleased the Police spoke out and pointed out that in most cases the family and more likely the friends always place the blame elsewhere - never with the speedsters.

Dinosaurs: I had never thought of it before but on 'The Panel" on Radio NZ - broadcast about 4.15 each afternoon - one brought up a point. He wondered if some of these films of the stone age featuring dinosaurs with people may be an insidious ploy by the American Evangelicals who don't believe in evolution and claim humans and dinosaurs existed side by side.

Jet Star: I see that they avoid a $2-00 per person levy because they are registered in Australia. With a couple of million passengers a year that is some saving. They defended it by saying what they were doing was legal - but again the tough question - is it ethical - wasn't asked. It seems the Government will have to change the law.

Bad paper: Bought the usual Tuesday DomPost for the TV Guide last week. On getting it home there was no TV Guide. Sudenly reading it the news seemed old - they had sold me Monday's paper.

Birthday month

Leo the Lion: My birthday this month. I am a Leo although I don't believe or take any notice of that rubbish.

Quiz: Update on the great quizzers. Another first to the team last week although I must mention that a couple of the better teams were missing. Friends from Upper Hutt were down on Saturday night and we discussed going with them to the Tuesday Quiz at Upper Hutt.

Singing the anthem: I have probably said it before but it annoys me that people go on about the AB's not singing the anthem. They are rugby players not singers. As Anton Oliver has said the Welsh singing better than us hasn't helped them beat us since 1953 - over 60 years. They can win the singing I will take winning the match.

Majority decision: The law has now been changed to a majority of 11-1 in juries. And the next day the very first majority result was required. About time as it is crazy that one idiot can defeat the course of justice. As it happened it was 10-1 as one juror had been discharged on health grounds. From the news it seemed a starightforward case of fraud on Trade Me where he was selling stamps that differed from the promised and photographed articles. Pretty obvioius he was guilty as a lot of complaints even from Australia and evidence was produced showing what he promised and what he sold.

SeniorNet: The move went well and the larger space is great.

Whacko Jacko: Can't even watch the morning TV news as all channels are showing the Jackson funeral. This is whacko - was he that important??

Spock, a little irritated at the commotion over a death, summed it up when he said 'you humans find it harder to understand the death of one than the death of millions'."