Tornado warning

After we got to my niece’s house, everybody’s cell phone made the startling emergency warning noise… tornado warning!

In their snug home it didn’t seem that bad, so instead of taking shelter in an interior room, I stood by the window and took video of the wind. In hindsight, perhaps not the best idea.

A million people lost power, including us, but luckily we had a generator that kicks on automatically and runs off natural gas.

Once the storm passed we drove through the neighborhood and saw plenty of downed branches and water on the road. I stayed over with brother Frank, and there was less damage in his part of town.

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At least it’s cooled off

I’m en route to Dallas for a week of standards development. That allows me a quick stopover in Houston to see the in-laws, including the bun in the oven that is very close to popping out and turning into my grand-nephew.

The flight was fine, and the Customs and baggage claim experience was amazingly fast. In fact the longest delay of the whole arrival was the 90 seconds or so that Mr. Customs Man spent staring intently at screens with my passport in hand. As far as I know, there are few people with less to worry about coming into the United States than me. So what was he looking at so carefully? No idea… At the end of this surprisingly nerve-wracking time, he just said thank you and waved his hand for the next person.

And so out to the curb while my ride navigates the traffic. It’s gray and the humidity softly slaps you like a sauna towel. There was a guy on the flight with a black cowboy hat and camouflage luggage, 6’4” and heavy, with a big bushy beard. I expected more like that, but here as we wait for our families and Ubers it’s mostly the same mix you’d see in Auckland, except with more Black people.

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Aurora australis

The current solar storm is all over the news and our social media feeds today. It’s caused the northern and southern lights to flicker in places they don’t very often.

In musing about hopes and dreams for the new house, we wondered whether our new vista would have been dark enough to see anything last night.

Shortly after that conversation, the current owners sent us this picture. YES! Amazing, even though we didn’t see it ourselves.

Now to find out if we’ll be lucky enough to catch the next time this supposedly once-in-a-century show comes on.

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Oops, we did it again

For the 11th, and hopefully final, time, we just bought a house.

It’s about 40 minutes north of our current place. Still technically Auckland, but you gotta drive through some sheep farms to get there.

As much as we like our current house, this new one seems even better for us… the views, walk down to the beach, a garage, fewer stairs. It has the potential for a tenant or Airbnb on the lower level. There’s even a butler’s pantry! The upstairs was renovated a couple years ago by… wait for it… one of my swimming buddies! When I called him to ask for advice, he said hang on what’s the exact address? And sure enough, what a wonderful coincidence.

We’ll be able to walk to all the shops we need in two directions and, with some adjustments, continue all our current activities (pétanque, swimming, Lee’s volunteering) up in the new community. The gym has a location close by.

Altogether, it feels like it was meant to be. It was sold at auction, quite common here, but as it turned out we were the only bidders. We probably paid a few thousand too much, but we weren’t off by much I don’t think.

Now comes a few furious weeks of moving and prepping our house for sale. But that will pass quickly, and from that point forward it’s (virgin) margaritas on the deck, listening to the birds and watching the sailboats in the bay.

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Feijoa time!

My former colleague Joni always shared the bounty of his feijoas with me at the office. I was thrilled when he called me up last week and offered me a batch.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, feijoas are a NZ national thing. In our house we have one “love ‘em” and one “hate ‘em”.

We had a nice lunch at a Balinese restaurant and he gave me two big grocery bags full. Here they are laid out to dry off a bit on our NZ silhouette beach towel. After leaving them closed up in the spare bedroom for a day or two the smell of feijoas was wonderful.

Now it’s smoothies for a while…

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Sydney quick quick

I had a 48-hour trip to Sydney earlier this week, a follow-up to the recent Melbourne jaunt. I stayed in a neighborhood I didn’t really know, although not all that far away from places I’ve been before. I got out for a couple of early morning walks… here’s some pics.

I saw a lot of architectural old-meets-new juxtaposition. I bet an architectural walking tour of Sydney would have really good examples of every style building from the 1880s to now.

The ibises are one of the most obvious reminders that you’re not in, e.g., Chicago.

Dead umbrellas.

This photo only works if you can zoom in to read the small sign on the door.

Street furniture. Someday I’ll look up why cities used these glass blocks, always now turning violet, in their sidewalks. Is it just to let in light to the basement?

This little plaque was part of a series on The Goods Line, which is a very cool space I walked along.

And finally… me helping one of the students in my class. Here’s what I look like in my usual habitat.

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Drivetime Variety

I recently heard a too-long joke about two guys trying to one-up each other about all the features in their respective cars. Finally Rolls-Royce guy knocks on the window of his rival’s car, noticing that it’s all fogged up. He brags about whatever amenity, and the rival just shakes his head and says “you got me out of the shower for that???”

But neither of them mentioned having a turntable in the car. So I don’t know how popular the 12” vinyl edition of Drivetime Variety I really was. But it did have the Hill Street Blues theme, so that’s something I guess.

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ANZAC Day

ANZAC Day, which is basically a counterpart of US Veterans Day, always starts with a Dawn Service. This year I attended a different kind of morning ritual… but we certainly counted our blessings that the war stories we told over breakfast were about big fish we saw or jellyfish we narrowly avoided instead of something more somber.

Later in the day I went out for a bit of metal detecting. Here’s what I posted to the Facebook group dedicated to that hobby…

“Went to the beach for an ANZAC Day hunt. Found a few items with a military theme as the Warbirds flew overhead: .22 shell casing, a lead soldier, and a Ukrainian 5 hryvnia coin. Among the crusty coins I did get three silver thruppence, so that’s a win.

“The gold ring rang up as a 34 on my Deus 2, which is normally the foil liner from a milk or juice bottle. But it was a strong tone, so I figured it would be shallow and I could get it off the beach. I went through the whole spectrum of detectorist emotions and reactions when the ring came out… excitement of course, followed by suspicion because of that low VDI number, then furtively looking around to see if I need to hide my treasure from marauders (luckily none were spotted), then hopefully but oh so casually looking for a hallmark, then sadly concluding that it rang up like a piece of foil because it sure ain’t gold!”

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NPC AGM

The Northcote Pétanque Club had its annual general meeting last week. Lee (L) is Treasurer, Richard is President and Heather is Secretary, for another year anyway.

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7 More Days

We again scored tickets to see a taping of 7 Days a couple weeks ago.

Still a fun time, although they’ve made some tweaks to the format and maybe it’s not quite as good as it was a few years ago.

This guy was part of the crew, and the shirt was great and topical. Our new Prime Minister made some dumbass comment about how we should be more like Estonia as a justification for his government’s reduction in public sector jobs. And that was fodder for a long bit in the show. For example, NZ could definitely beat all of Estonia’s nearby neighbors at cricket.

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That’s not real

Somehow lately I’ve been struck by how often the sky turns amazing colors. This one was subtle… Hudson River School, southern edition.

The classic sci fi and fantasy illustrations of my youth often featured impossible skies — too many colors, too many moons, spaceships, dragons — but lately I’ve been thinking a lot of the colors at least weren’t so unrealistic as all that. (I guess it also shows what a nerdy kid I was that I even noticed the sky, given the picture almost certainly featured a very hot girl in a very exotic space-bikini)

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Melbourne Mix

I visited Melbourne last week for work. What a vibrant and bustling city! Had a great time, plenty of good food, and the work thing went well. In the it’s-a-small-world category, I got to catch up with an Utah classmate from 25+ years ago with whom I will be working over the next year or so on a project.

I didn’t take a lot of pictures despite some nice walks and sunny days, but here’s a few.

This mural caught my eye as I stood in line to buy another Moonswatch for my friend Paul. There’s a good article about its history.

There’s tonnes of art on the streets, some more academic, some less so.

“Commit no nuisance” in this alleyway.

A couple shots from the Queen Victoria market. I bought a hat from this shop on our first trip to Melbourne in 2017. I still like the idea of wearing a hat, even more so now that my scalp is mostly exposed to the sun’s evil rays. I think I look fine in a hat. But that said, I still look at an array of zillions of styles like this and walk away with nothing quite working.

In a place with so much nice early 20th century architecture, I expected more exciting access covers than I found. The design of this little water meter cover is workmanlike if not exactly snazzy.

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Fresh summer fruits

It’s been a really good year for fruit in NZ, or at least that’s how it’s felt to us. Abundant, tasty, cheap (or at least cheap’ish).

Produce in the supermarket is much more seasonal than in the US… while we do get imported fruit and veg from around the world, the supply chain isn’t as robust as in the States. So prices skyrocket in the off-season, or things just aren’t available.

But we got a couple of thoroughly unremarkable peaches recently. Luckily, we had golden syrup and sprinkles on hand. Et voilà! Delightful. Sometimes I have all the culinary sophistication of an 8-year-old.

PS — The title of this post refers to a jingle I’ve been carrying around in my head since forever.

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A perfect fit

We are now a 2-Honda family. We got this 2006 Fit this weekend and so far so good… easy and fun to drive.

Although I have been holding out for an electric car once the van gives up the ghost, now that Lee has started driving we occasionally need a second car. Plus, this one gets nearly twice the mileage as the van and costs way less than a driveable electric or hybrid. It’s not as good for the environment, but it’s a better financial deal for us.

Older used cars in good condition can be gotten quite cheaply here. Many of them are imported from Japan, as this one was. It seems the Japanese take good care of their cars… both of ours have looked great for their age.

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