AGM Over and no Lap Top as yet

Well the SeniorNet AGM has finished so I will now be able to get some personal matters more organised. On the computing front we still haven't received the Lap Top so will have to chase that up. A friend once won a fridge and it took 8 months to arrive. Incredibily the firm organising the competition hadn't purchased it beforehand then found that the specific model promised was in short supply !!

Nigeria is not a place anybody would want to visit or work in. With all the kidnappings - and the latest is a kid of 3 - the difficult question at a most stressful time is why would anybody want to go and work there. $$$$ of course must come into it.

Talking about $$$$ I see the Big Mac Index says we are 5% overvalued.

VC(Victoria Cross), AM (Americas Cup) and the bad weekend

THE NEW ZEALAND VICTORIA CROSS

Although a terrible weekend with losses across the Tasman (the All Blacks) and across the World (Spain) we had some good news to break the lousy wet weather with the award of the Victoria Cross. What a great representative Corporal Willy Apiata is for the NZ Army, himself and us - a truly humble hero.

I think the loss in Melbourne is a good reality check but Valencia is another story. I see that our yachting exports now total $600 million and will hit one billion by 2010.

Have not blogged for a few days as busy with the SeniorNet AGM coming up on Wednesday the 4 July - American Independence Day. Once that is over will concentrate on finally getting organised for our trip.

Stress City

Stress - worse than Rugby. What is - the America's Cup.

Race 3 was the most incredible ever although I have to agree with the Swiss that it probably should not have gone ahead as it was indeed just a lottery.

I woke at about 3.55 AM and thought well the race will be over so I will listen to the Radio NZ news at 4AM which I did and it said Team NZ had over a minute lead.

WOW!!

Never wanting to miss a great Kiwi win I turned on the TV. Althought I thought it odd that they were still racing (not knowing about the 2 hour delay to the start) I thought they must be on the last beat. I duly started to watch only to find of course they were only just around the first marker. I then had the stress of watching Alinghi catch up and then pass us.

Grrrr - I was too stressed out so went back to sleep.

But the next morning was the great victory news. Now back to 2 all so it is all on.

I won, NZ won and NZ lost

I won - an HP Notebook computer. I entered a competition - my motto is "You've got to be in to win " - and a friend rang to say he had seen my name in the newspaper as winning a HP Laptop PC as displayed here.

I am not that unlucky although I enter and those who don't win don't enter!!

The All Blacks also won. A good game but not a good performace as far too many errors.

Team NZ - LOST. Doesn't bode well for the races to come but we shall see. At least we made the finals.

Sarah, Joe and Kipp back safely from Vanuatu. Lucky for them that the weather today was reasonable as they left 27-30 degrees behind. When picking them up I updated them on all the past weeks happenings except the winning of the PC for which I held my tongue as Christine didn't think I could. It is funny that I enter a lot of competitions and we were saying only this past week that we hadn't won anything for the past 8-9 months then we won film tickets, 2 days in a motel and visit to a winery and now the laptop.

Its all go and the top film

It is all go indeed!! We have certainly had a lot on this week.

What with a couple of friends having big operations, in addition to all the usual goings on we had to go into Wellington four times (Sarah/Joe/Kipp twice, Federation AGM and Christine taking part in a Focus Group) , extra teaching at SeniorNet, having Reno with us, dog training, extra helping at school reading, lousy weather, plus the periphary (is there such a word - should it be "peripheral events" ??). Events such as the Bain decision, plus to come the Netball (Sting vs Force), AB's versus the Boks and the America's Cup - sport is important.

I see that the online vote for best film carried out locally gave it to The Shawshank Redemption. A good film - but the best ever - I don't think so. I see in the NZ vote we didn't go back more than 20 years for most films. As it happened the Yanks did the same thing although this was the Film Critics etc list and they are a much more discerning lot. So in their selection no really recent film made it into the top ten. And where did The Shawshank Redemption rate - 72nd.

And the American winner was (and I agree).


I think the most recent film selected in their top ten would have been Schindlers List.

Some predictions for the weekend - all with heart and not my head

444 Sting
444 All Blacks
444 Team NZ (but not overly confident of this one).

Federation Meeting

Went to the SeniorNet Federation's inaugaral meeting today at the airport conference rooms. A very ejoyable mrning and I was very impressed with the Exceutive Committee. A couple of interesting ideas came up which I will raise with our Committee.. The really great thing is that we took the "Flyer" bus into Wellington and, at $5-00 for a return trip, is a great deal.

Todays News

Todays News - Was looking for a banana republic picture from Google to describe Fiji and found this. Just another of the Pacific Isles degenerating again. Are they THICK - Yes !!

Further News was the killing of a 3 year old by its "parents" and their conviction for Manslaughter (Baby-slaughter) but not murder. How we can't seem to bring in a murder conviction is unbelievable. Even if it is overturned on appeal at least the politicians can then see what the people think as opposed to the legal pedantics. Like most, I can't understand how anybody can continually bash a child with a lump of wood and plead "I didn't think it would kill them".

Tomorrows News - Somebody will kill - murder - their child again soon and it will just carry on.

Looking on the sport side - several big Rugby matches this weekend with the Tri-Nations getting underway plus next weekend the yachting in Valencia will be underway. I find the word YACHT one of the most difficult to spell; should of course be YOT but then again that is English or in this case Arabic.

Having Sarah's Japanese student stay with us for a week which will be different.