I don’t feel like it’s very often that a store goes to the trouble of printing up an apology when they run out of something. And I think it’s even less common when there’s a whole pile of the thing sitting right there.

But it happened today in regards the Fluffy Unicorn Pencil Case at the Warehouse.

The only thing I can figure is that you DO NOT WANT TO DISAPPOINT little Loretta once she has her heart set on a Fluffy Unicorn Pencil Case For Only $10. Do not go there, because she will cut you and then she will cry and so if you are in retail you go ahead and write up the apology in advance.

Here’s the moon that everyone was mooning over this week. In this dramatic live action shot, I captured the super blood blue moon setting behind the house across from us that is owned by the Moonies. And the Sky Tower, and, I think, a seagull!

We had a nice tour of HMNZS Wellington last weekend as part of the Seeport festival down at the Port of Auckland. The Kiwi sailors looked pretty shipshape, but the full beards sported by some of them were jarring to my eyes.

They let us right up onto the bridge, where Lee got to drive…

Back on shore, I got to try out the locomotive training simulator, which was actually pretty fun… I was a little sad about having to push that 10-year-old kid out of the way to get a turn, but he cut in line! (Kidding…)

We also got to see the tugboat race…

and the vintage yacht race…

It was hot hot hot for here, high 80s, part of the hottest January ever, but they had sunscreen stations all over and we survived just fine.

The frigate HMNZS Te Kaha is a fine modern military vessel. But she’s perhaps a little less intimidating with the boy racer effects lighting and decidedly unthreatening kiwi cutout on the stack.

Or at least there you are to within a centimeter or so.

A lot of the Anniversary Day stuff was sponsored by the Port, for whatever reason. And a lot of the festivities actually took place inside the normally fenced-off commercial port.

Being up close and personal with the big straddle cranes was cool.

In conjunction with Auckland Anniversary Day last weekend (sort of 4th of July but just for this area of the country), they flew in a bunch of performers. Robot dancers, jugglers, acrobats, and… this guy who was a bit of all that. He’s either actually swallowing that balloon or (much more likely) pretending to. Kinda obscene.

We were in the right place to see the nighttime sampler show, all the acts doing a short sample. Then, later in the weekend we saw the Red Trousers do their complete routine, which was great. They got their start in Vermont’s own Circus Smirkus.

We were fortunate to be in the

In New Zealand, your ordinary suburban front yard tree is actually just one aggravation away from waking up and tearing everything to bits.

These OnzO bikes turned up a couple months ago. Auckland was relatively late to hop on the municipal bike share concept, but OK, better late than never.

The OnzO idea is interesting in that you don’t have to return the bike to a docking station… you just park it, lock it’s self-contained lock, and walk away.

I signed up for the app.

It seemed like there weren’t enough bikes to be really useful in my daily life, and so I hadn’t actually rented one yet.

Then over the New Years break, they added a whole shipment more bikes. I was so impressed on January 2 that I took a screenshot of my route to and from work…

Every yellow dot is a bike… there was one every fifty meters!

But a week later, where did they all go???

Neat idea, but more work needed.