| Ahh, the joys of kids |
[16 Jul 2009|04:32pm] |
Something like 2 weeks ago the kids Samantha watches had chicken pox. Some years ago when a similar situation developed, I asked Mom, she said she remembered me having it, but it wasn't too bad of a case. So I've generally thought I was fairly safe, though I tried to keep my distance all the same. And since I didn't get it that time, I figured I'm prolly good.
Seems I figured wrong. So, I get to play quarantine like all the swinies. Ah well, at least we don't have anything on other than a few potential social meets this weekend. Would have sucked if this hit next weekend when we have the big do honoring our station officer with 50 years service[1]. With any luck I'll no longer be a virus vector by Mon or so, plenty of time for the big do.
This is kind of annoying. I've rather grown accustomed to virtually never being sick.
[1] Yeah, seriously, the dude's done 50 yrs as a FF, 35 of them as paid staff, after which he retired and came back to our volly station where he did the first 14 years. That's all kinds of awesome(and he's also the dad of another officer in the brigade, who's a damn good personal friend of mine, tres awesome). Plus, since he's a pretty regular Joe sorta guy and didn't even want the fuss in the first place, he wanted us to at least make it a combined honors night, so I'll be getting my 5yr service medal in front of serious bigwigs like the mayor, National Commander, Regional Commander, FS commission chair Dame Bazley, legions of bigtime FS folks (paid and volly), etc. Metal.
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| Kiwi-ized |
[06 Jul 2009|11:34am] |
Sat night we got an invite from another FF family to do dinner at Denny's. On arrival, they pointed out that Denny's seemed appropriately American for the 4th of July.
Whereupon Sam, Hunter, and myself all went "oh, wow, right, it's the 4th..."
All good. We'll get our fireworks fix on Guy Fawkes... :)
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| A Black encounter |
[21 Jun 2009|09:05am] |
Iveco makes the chassis that the fire service is converting into fire trucks for vollys. We're in the process of a massive refit, where nearly every brigade is getting a nice new truck. Iveco is also a major corporate sponsor of rugby. So Iveco decided to give a handful of tickets away to vollys, and I happened to win a pair.
So, last night Hunter and I went to see the All Blacks playing France. 'Twas good fun. I won't claim to have much comprehension of rugby, but I understand enough to watch the game and grok it. Interestingly, I've come away with the observation that (for me anyway) rugby is easier to watch in person from up in the stands, while American Football is just the opposite. A lot of the finesse of football is lost when you're a gazillion miles up in the stands, and you have to rely on the jubmotron for it, but rugby was fairly comprehensible without the bigscreen.
Since NZ actually won the thing (unlike last week in DUD), I naturally felt it my god given duty to log in to the company chat server and crow about our victory. :) Speaking of crow, however... I must say, the FR fans pulled off a rather nice prank at the beginning of the match. Somebody smuggled in a white chicken/rooster (couldn't tell which from up in the stands). They'd dyed it blue up front, and red at the back. Nice touch. And they let it loose onto the pitch. The resulting incident, wherein the security staff hopelessly chased said fowl about trying to detain it, was comedy gold. Extra points for mostly disrupting the NZ national anthem (credit where credit is due). They finally nabbed it at "God Defend New Zealand", the very end of the anthem. The rest of the anthem, lost in cheering for the bird on the lamb...
So, probably a forlorn hope, but a guy can dream... Next goal, try to catch a San Diego Charger home game with Hunter this year (yeah, I said forlorn).
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| All kinds of win |
[16 Jun 2009|04:34pm] |
Coworker was in Virgina for about a mo on a custy install. Stopped by WalMart and grabbed himself a copy of Rockband 2. Got home, found out it doesn't work on his NZ xbox. Ooops. Then he remembered me going on about buying a US xbox for just this reason... We now have Rockband 2. Win.
Epic win: just logged in, new song pack was released about a week ago. Iron Maiden.
I shall have this. Oh yes, I shall have this.
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| Oh, and on roleplaying... |
[18 May 2009|01:57pm] |
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We setup a MVA scenario for the arriving pumps. The gas prop car (gutted car with LPG fittings to squirt fire) was fitted with DC license plates. That makes it a diplomatic vehicle, and therefore sovereign territory. The usual rules don't apply, the occupant has to give us permission to help, and if they say no, that's that. We have no legal authority (if they're unable to give consent, i.e. unconscious, then we can proceed based on the concept of applied consent). So that's the obvious prob the arriving OIC has to deal with. But to make things more fun... The other vehicle was mine, and I had a meth lab in the back. They put some powder on the back bumper, and I got to play doper. That was awesomely fun. I put some powder under my nose for good effect, clutched a beer bottle, and bounced around inside like a whirling dervish, occasionally popping out the window all wide-eyed and yelling things like "fuck off fire pigs". When they tried to remove me I scrambled into the back and kept getting paranoid at them. Total comedy. Role playing is so much more fun than being the officer in charge. :)
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| This is the end, my only friend, the end |
[18 May 2009|01:30pm] |
The insanity of the first part of the year has finally come to an end. Closed Italian Girl on Sat night, and finished off the occifer course Sun afternoon. That's put paid to fire service training for the foreseeable future; at this point there are only 2 courses left that I've not completed, fire investigation, and executive officer. Since I'm not even a station officer yet, EO is years away. And they just ran the investigation course this weekend (conflicting with my SO course) so that prolly won't happen for as much as a year. As for operas, production starts on Onegin in August. I'm rather looking forward to doing a whole lot of puttering about the house and doing stuff with the fam.
SO course went pretty well. We managed to kill 2 FFs, 1 punter, and an SO, but I wasn't involved in any of those drills(well, I was observer for one, and role player for the other 2, but the point is *I* didn't kill anybody (not even punters). Interestingly, 3 of the 4 fatalities were under the control of the same SO student. Buggah. All my incidents went reasonably well given my relative inexperience, and I generally recognized all my faults on my own and called myself on them during the debriefs before the observers had their say. Overall I managed to avoid the majority of the typical traps, which was gratifying.
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| Stabat Mater |
[14 May 2009|02:28pm] |
Right, back on 28 Mar you may recall my going on about singing Stabat Mater. The concert was recorded, so here's me...
http://www.hintz.org/media/stabatmater/
I'd suggest listening in order of: 02, 06, 01, 09. 02 is my big aria, and the others are listed in what I figure is descending order of quality.
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| Pimpin' large |
[13 May 2009|12:41pm] |
Well, we got us a pimp ride.
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-Me-Motors/Cars/Mitsubishi/auction-217347487.htm
Not that we care about pimping, but it seems like a pretty good value, much lower ks than anything else in the price range, and it's via a brigade member so we have short term credit. Smooth little ride, and lots of power to spare. Prolly gonna be a bit thirsty, but that's fine, I'm trying to cut down on driving anyway, so good incentive there.
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