| New toy |
[07 Oct 2009|01:25pm] |
I finally got myself a hog.
1983 Sporty XLX (ironhead/shovelhead, depending on your level of pickyness). Actually made a conscious decision to go with a old school engine, kinda feels like the real Harley experience (not that the Evo is a bad engine-in fact, for a ride hard and long bike that's what I'd choose, but this is gonna be a town cruiser for the most part).
Getting it shipped down from Whakatane, should be here early next week. Toy! :)
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| This WAS the last time... I DO know... |
[30 Sep 2009|05:29pm] |
Mad props to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) wickenden for posting yootoobs of the Dead doing Peggy-O. Besides being a stellar example of Jerry being Jerry, it has additional sentimental value here, as it was literally my last show before Jerry died(they played for about another year after that, but I moved to Texas in July of '94, and the closest the Dead came during that timeframe was Chicago, way too far for a guy on a student income to travel for shows).
Obviously a video feed is available somewhere, I'll have to hunt it down someday. I do miss my Jerry.
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| Snow Leopard |
[01 Sep 2009|05:18pm] |
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Initial impressions: definitely see a performance improvement. Also doesn't appear to have broken anything. Graphics seem a bit cleaner too. Even GNUCash from fink is still working. So far, win.
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| Ye olde small worlde |
[28 Aug 2009|12:26pm] |
'Twas before my time, but amongst the alumni of NZ Opera Chorus is Simon O'Neil. I'm not sure of the exact dates; his last chor show with us was Turandot, at a guess I'd say mid to late 90s. Prolly about the time I was singing with Austin Lyric actually. Anyway, he's working on a CD for EMI. And being a Kiwi and ex-NZO Chor, he wanted to use the NZSO and NZO Chor. So, tomorrow we're recording the death scene from Götterdämmerung. There's bugger all chor, just a couple of "WTF" sorta lines, so an easy gig. Should be interesting to observe the professional recording process. Dunno if we'll get individual credits or just NZO Chor on the cd, but either way it's cool. And our pay for it is Simon taking us all out for drinks (though we have been paid for the rehearsal time). Pretty mellow gig, and Simon seems a pretty cool bloke, so what the hell. Guess this technically makes me a recording artist now.
Downloading is stealing!!!
:P
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| Training boss |
[27 Aug 2009|05:01pm] |
Our primary brigade trainer has headed off for a 7 week jaunt around the world (Hong Kong, China, UK, US, Raratonga), so I just inherited 4 rookies with upcoming courses in 1-2 mos. It's kinda cool though, gives me a bit of a refresher on the core basic firefighter skills. Also a bit of a contrast for the rookies, as he's a real taskmaster, likes to run them hard, while I'm typically laid back. I'm more about conceptual understanding, how we do it is obviously important, but if you grok *why* we do it, I figure the how becomes easier to retain. And, really, it's more mental than physical anyway. When we go, we go hard, but it's for short bursts; we're sprinters, not marathon runners. Anyway, they're a good bunch of rookies, and it's a nice back-to-basics sorta scene for me.
Also, NZ Opera is working Eugene Onegin. At the first chorus entrance there's a couple of solo tenor 1 liners, they've tagged me as understudy for it. Prolly would have had the job under normal circumstances. The dude who's doing it is from the AKL chorus, and they normally maintain separate folks in each city. However, he has one key attribute that I lack; he's a Russian immigrant, so his command of the language is quite superior to mine(he is, in fact, coming down on several occasions to coach the rest of us on pronunciation). Though if he sick or whatever I'll get the main stage cameo, which would be fun.
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| Condom ads |
[25 Aug 2009|12:51pm] |
Bollywood meets dudes in condom costumes. For 7 mins. All kinds of awesome.
Taken from this page of ads, there's a few other funny ones in there, though nothing as awesome as the bollywood epic.
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| Why, yes, Mr. Williams Jr., |
[15 Aug 2009|03:39pm] |
I am indeed ready for some football.
Conveniently, all of the preseason games are either Fri or Sat games, so I get to watch them live down here in ehhn zed. I have even prepared a batch of guacamole, and stocked up on beer, for tomorrows game. Woot!
Maybe this year will be the one year out of the last 30 that my Chargers don't let me down. I know. Ever the optimist.
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| Updateyness |
[14 Aug 2009|10:29am] |
Been while, and a few big events, time to update...
25 July the brigade had an honors night, primarily for Anton Sutorius' insanely awesome 50 years of service. Anton didn't want it to be all about him though, so it was a general brigade honors night as well. The result is I can haz bling in the form of my shiny new 5yr service medal. Only one other photo from the night that I made it into... Because Sam's pain kicked in something fierce and I had to take her home and look after her. Which segues nicely into... The big laparoscopy.
That went down on the 29th of July (because the NZ death panels in our evil public system actually allowed her to get some care, what a concept!). Now, they'd said they were after Endometriosis, but at the end of it all they found none of that and a lot of adhesions. Which is precisely what we told them we thought it was like 3 yrs ago or whatever. *sigh* So it seems that while we do at least *get* the care, they still fumble a fair bit to figure out what it is (to NZs credit, the US system fumbled for 5 years and never even got close to figuring out the problem). So, took about 2 weeks for reasonable recovery, but it's looking pretty good now. Will be another few weeks before we know for sure, but initial indications are that 11 years of insane pain may be over.
Also back in Jul, we finally refi'd the mortgage. Locked in 5.6% short term, long term rates are retardedly inflated. Did some debt consolidation at the same time, so our cash flow has improved remarkably. All good.
Just now starting into rehearsals for NZO's Eugene Onegin, which looks as if it'll be a long slog, so a bit mixed about that one, though the income will be very helpful to pay off a last bit of debt. And I guess that's about it for now. Much updateyness.
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