The wind and tide were in our favour today, so the Round North Head swim was fast! Although I swam off course at one or two points and performed badly compared to others in my group, I still beat last year’s time by about 6 minutes so I’ll take that. Almost as fast as I’d been in a wetsuit.

And I most definitely wasn’t in a wetsuit, as this is the swim with the “freedom division”. You swim out to a boat, take off your togs, carry on in the buff, meet the boat at the end, and exit the water in perfect modesty. The water was clearer than last time, but even so the scenery wasn’t as stimulating as you might expect. I have a feeling that might be true of many au naturel events… most of us probably look at least as sexy in our clothes as out.

Our Bay2Bay swim club was well represented, particularly in the freedom division. As a mark of always being your true self, Jono on the far right (fresh off his epic Poor Knights swim a few weeks ago) told us he couldn’t stay for coffee after winning the nude division… because it’s his wedding day. There was much discussion as to what his fiancée really thought about him racing today… but we all agreed that she wouldn’t be with Jono if she had a problem with him wearing what he wants and swimming a lot.

Our local shopping centre is making a real effort all of a sudden, and that’s a good thing. We want our little piece of Auckland to stay busy and vibrant.

Their latest promotion went like this: spend $20 anywhere else in the mall and get a $10 voucher for the dollar store. We each got surprisingly good chair massages that we wouldn’t have gotten otherwise, and then trundled over to Chocka Bucket (saying something is “chocka” or “chocker” to mean full up is a common thing here). So, the promotion worked… the mall businesses got more money.

But what to buy? It’s not quite fair to say everything at Chocka Bucket is cheap Chinese crap… but almost. Their wares span the range of things you might find at a Wal-Mart, only less choice, poorer quality/condition. We ended up with a bunch of little things including those pictured above.

And then comes the political/ethical question. The Chinese juggernaut rolls slowly outward, recently engulfing the Solomon Islands with a new military agreement. Should I be taking some stand against Sino-hegemony?

And more nuanced: is there a difference between the box cutter, which is what it is, and the other items which blatantly rip off Western IP? If it hadn’t been “free” I wouldn’t have touched it… but of course it wasn’t actually free and I did touch. What allegiance do I owe to Gillette and Kiwi, and the specific flavour of capitalism they represent?

Now I may look better with my smooth chin and my shiny shoes… but how will I feel?

The Harbour Bridge all lit up poppy-colored this ANZAC Day weekend.

My friend and former colleague Joni brought me bags and bags of feijoas from his tree.

Yay!!

Mostly they are frozen awaiting reconstitution as smoothies.

That’s the Herne Bay Pétanque Club, site of the final round of the Interclub League a couple weeks ago.

I won 7 of my 9 matches, very happy with that. Overall we came in 2nd out of 4 in our division, also happy with that.

As autumn is upon us, the tournament season is about over. But I’ll be practicing over the winter…

That’s Lee all masked up and wearing her raincoat against the drizzle. Out for a walk, we came across this Costco membership tent right in our own neighborhood . The store doesn’t open till August but lines have been so long at the real signup office that they’re now doing signups out in the community.

New Zealand was already practically perfect in every way. With Costco arriving, it’s really hard to find any faults at all with the place. Maybe they tend to put too many things on their burgers. But otherwise perfect.

But wait… maybe Costco heralds the onset of the end times. Will the hypnotic lure of cheap gas, giant rotisserie chickens and American hot dogs lead inevitably to rampant gun violence, rabies, and medical bankruptcy? I hope not, but will be on the lookout for warning signs. If things really start to look bad I’ll head to Costco and buy enough toilet paper and granola to wait out the apocalypse.

This image was posted by my local MP. He’s crowing about how his Labour Party has moved the NZ minimum wage up faster than the National Party… showing off how the Red bars grow faster than the Blue ones.

But for me as an American, the astounding thing is that the minimum wage keeps growing year after year under both parties.

There is no question that running a small business is expensive and difficult in NZ, as many small business people will tell you. But the benefits — from my perspective — certainly seem to outweigh the costs. People with jobs can mostly afford to have lives here. You’d rather be making more, of course, and two of those incomes are needed to raise a family, but a minimum wage job makes a meaningful dent in paying for the stuff you need.

My first multi-day work trip of the COVID era. After getting a supervised RAT and uploading a bunch of extra paperwork, the actual travel experience was surprisingly normal. The airports weren’t crowded, no extra procedures except for wearing masks.

In between strategy sessions, I did a fair amount of walking around. Found a few interesting spots, like the Anthroposophical Society, which according to Wikipedia is just about what I’d expect. I have noticed several similar groups since moving down here. Are there more in this part of the world? Maybe.

I liked this building just for the wonderful AD 1900 lettering. So here’s a closeup …

There was a lot of old vs. new, massive sandstone next to sparkly glass.

It was nice to catch up with some colleagues I hadn’t seen in real life for a couple of years, eat and drink too much, and luxuriate in a Hyatt bed. But there are risks. So far, of the 18 people who shared a big dinner (outdoor dining, but still), eight have tested positive in the following week. I’m not one of them, and nobody so far seems seriously ill. But that’s a lot of sickness even so.

Jono Ridler, 0-dark-30, April 3, 2022, Matapouri Bay, NZ.

This haunting photo was taken yesterday by one of my swimming friends as she set out to spend ~14 hours in a boat, supporting Jono’s attempt to swim nonstop out to the Poor Knights Islands and back. From here, he turned around, fought through the waves breaking on shore, and swam off into the darkness.

Jono follows a set of rules originally designed to standardize the times logged by English Channel swimmers. No wetsuit, no touching the pilot boat, etc. You do get to put on a layer of grease which provides a mixture of sun and water protection… but I’m sure he was still pretty pruney at the end. In an out and back swim like this, you’re normally allowed 10 minutes on land at the midpoint. But landing on the Poor Knights is forbidden, and there’s no benefit in treading water for 10 minutes, so he just turned around and kept going.

As far as anybody knows, this is the first time that particular swim has been done, so he’s now the record-holder, 13 hours and change of effort that will be remembered. Objectively I know there are people who can swim farther and faster than Jono, but not very many. And having seen him cruise past me while I was swimming hard and he was doing a one-arm technique drill, he’s plenty fast enough for me to remain in a state of perpetual admiration. And although I’ve never heard him brag about it, I know he has done good work fundraising and inspiring others with these swims.

Congrats and well done Jono!

We were introduced to Big Trash Day when we moved to Salt Lake City… shockingly that’s almost 25 years ago… and we thought it was a brilliant concept.

The idea is that once a year you can put all the stuff that’s too big for the normal can into giant dumpsters the city drops off. Presto! Of course there are rules about hazardous materials and so on, but by and large the program lets you get rid of things you want to get rid of. Also against the rules is cruising those dumpsters for treasures, but there’s plenty of that, sharp-eyed men in pickup trucks driving slowly by. Your daughters are probably safe, but lock up your scrap metal.

Auckland also has a city service for picking up the big stuff. But I’ve heard it’s complicated, and it certainly seems like people use private alternatives instead. Half the houses on our block have one of these startlingly strong woven plastic bags around the place. They fill up with everything from renovation waste to grass clippings. You can just see the new staircase our neighbors built in the background. The old rickety stairs got broken up and put in the big bag. Then you make a phone call and a truck like the one above comes along and scoops it all up with a little crane. Magic!

Our weekend plans were somewhat disrupted by high winds. So instead of taking the charter boat out to the Poor Knights for snorkeling etc, Lee and I went into Whangarei to visit the new Hundertwasser Art Centre.

It took a lot of years to raise the funds and overcome the city planning obstacles, but the Art Centre now becomes one of Whangarei’s marquee attractions. It was cool to be there in its first month of operation.

Hundertwasser was already a well-established artist, architect, and eco-activist when he moved to northern NZ. I knew about the public toilets in Kawakawa, and had a vague inkling of his other work, but the Art Centre visit gave me a much fuller perspective on who he was and what he did.

The plantings on the forested roof (largest such thing in the Southern Hemisphere) were all donated by our friend Tom’s brother who runs a native plant nursery.

I want to use the word whimsical to describe Hundertwasser’s style… no straight lines, no uniform patterns, big bold colors. But I don’t know if I found much whimsy in the man after learning a bit about him. It was all brooding contemplation, leading to manifestos and idealistic rants and calls to unshackle oneself from the chains of conventionality. And there was an element of narcissism that struck me sharply. Lighten up man!

I liked the place even so, and certainly agree with what he seemed to stand for. I hope the Art Centre educates and delights and challenges visitors, and anchors that waterfront area, for generations to come.

The Bay 2 Bay swim club trekked up to Tutukaka this weekend for swimming and camaraderie. Fun times!

We started on Saturday morning with a swim from Glen’s house into town. Glen’s house is perched on a high cliff, so the first challenge was getting down his epic staircase. Our swim will take us across that open water, about 1km, through the gap in the rocks you can see at the top right of the picture. From there, we turn right and swim into town, landing at the little beach near the marina about an hour later.

We made it down to the water’s edge eventually, a victory worth celebrating.

And then, into the water. Do I look uncomfortable about plunging into the roiling crashing cauldron? Probably I was, but my primary concern about this part was scraping my ridiculously tender feet on those sharp rocks.

With everyone safely in, we headed off across the channel, spurred by the muffins and coffee waiting on the other side. It was a fun swim, conditions were better than expected, saw some fish…

Nice way to start the weekend!

We’re in the peak part of the omicron surge, maybe even past the peak. With hundreds of thousands of active cases, but relatively few people seriously ill, our much vaunted contact tracing system became overwhelmed and then irrelevant in a matter of days.

Now, if you have a positive test they ask you to stay home for 10 days or so, and you get a pack of rapid antigen tests to self-administer. The social compact is strong here, and lots of people seem to be following the rules.

It’s wreaked havoc on businesses, of course, many having to close their doors until the isolation period is done. There is still a lot of financial support available, but I don’t suppose it’s ever really enough.

Here’s hoping this is COVID’s last serious gasp.

But not yet.