Friday, November 16, 2012
Trip to Australia
Sunday, August 14, 2011
I'm 65
Oh well, it had to happen sometime! It seems far more significant to me because I am now able to receive the "NZ Super". Which if you are working, gets trimmed back. Which is fine as far as I'm concerned. Like every other country in the world it seems that NZ is spending more than it is earning, so any savings made by the government must be looked on as a good thing.
Seems to me that this idea that countries are able to borrow money is a dangerous idea. If I were in the business of writing a constitution for a country, I would make it mandatory that no borrowing of money was to be done.
What we are seeing now in the world is the sad results of this policy.
I have just checked http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt
and the New Zealand debt is $219,589,000,000, which is $50, 260 each person. Which seems high compared to other countries. For instance, expressed as a % of GDP, ours is 127%!
Which is strange, because in the USA they are wringing their hands, and saying the end of the world is nigh at only 99%.
There are a lot of ifs and buts though-this is external debt, somewhere like the USA, only about a third of United States public debt is external.
Seems a bit strange- our unemployment rate is 6%, USA it is supposedly 9%.
Seems to me that this idea that countries are able to borrow money is a dangerous idea. If I were in the business of writing a constitution for a country, I would make it mandatory that no borrowing of money was to be done.
What we are seeing now in the world is the sad results of this policy.
I have just checked http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt
and the New Zealand debt is $219,589,000,000, which is $50, 260 each person. Which seems high compared to other countries. For instance, expressed as a % of GDP, ours is 127%!
Which is strange, because in the USA they are wringing their hands, and saying the end of the world is nigh at only 99%.
There are a lot of ifs and buts though-this is external debt, somewhere like the USA, only about a third of United States public debt is external.
Seems a bit strange- our unemployment rate is 6%, USA it is supposedly 9%.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
What a day!
Every so often I get to do something that afterwards I just know I will remember.
Today was one of those. Not the work part though!
I had taken my running gear to work with the idea of doing a 6km run at lunchtime, by myself or maybe with one of my workmates who seems to be getting more obsessed with this fitness stuff.
(Me obsessed with fitness??Maybe.)
Last week I had done the run from work (NZ Sugar Ltd) to a place called Kendall bay. I had taken my swimming gear and a towel. That was a good day, except for a little incident that "messed it up" . When I got to the beach, while I saw nobody there, I thought to go behind some bushes to get changed. Following a beaten path into the bullrushes I thought to stop and think to myself that this is the sort of place people use for a toilet and backed out a bit, and got changed. After a very nice swim I returned and when I went to put my running shoes on I realised I had stood in something nasty. It had to get washed off, but it still lingered to I had to wash them thoroughly when I got home.
Which took the gloss off that particular day.
Anyway, today, my workmate suggested we go there. Then he said he would try and rustle up some more people, and he managed to get two more.
It is a really nice walk (we did not run much) along the tops of the cliffs in the bush as you can see from the photo above. When we got there we had a nice swim in our running gear.
After winter in Auckland where it did rain every day, this is surely paradise.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Badminton trip away
This is the view from the deck:
Recently, I had to play tow Veteran's ties in Whangerei, which is a city about 160km north of Auckland, which is where I live.
It involves a day's playing of badminton with other silly old folks. We won one and lost one. Oh well, cie la vie.
To grab the opportunity, we decided on a four day weekend, staying at a place called Tutukaka, which is about 30 minutes from Whangerei. We stayed at Pacific Rendesvous Motel.
On the Sunday we did the trip to Russel and back, which seemed a lot longer and windier than it did on the map!
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Big deal:I moved my computer.
Yay! Moved my computer from the garage (freezing cold and drafty!) to Rose's "sewing room"
I have moved her one too, so we are now sitting in the same room when computing. That is, me doing this sort of thing and her doing Runescape. I'm not sure if Runescape is a good or bad thing. On the plus side, it allows contact with other people and a certain amount of brain exercised might be involved! On the negative side I cannot see where you actually accomplish anything.
Running: does not seem to be getting easier-in fact it seems just as hard as ever.
Where I work has just been bought out by a Singaporean firm- It should be fairly interesting in about 3weeks time to see what changes this might bring.
I have moved her one too, so we are now sitting in the same room when computing. That is, me doing this sort of thing and her doing Runescape. I'm not sure if Runescape is a good or bad thing. On the plus side, it allows contact with other people and a certain amount of brain exercised might be involved! On the negative side I cannot see where you actually accomplish anything.
Running: does not seem to be getting easier-in fact it seems just as hard as ever.
Where I work has just been bought out by a Singaporean firm- It should be fairly interesting in about 3weeks time to see what changes this might bring.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Body Revolution
Here it is: at the end of a 6 week course of exercise and diet called "Body Revolution", I have just celebrated by having 2 glasses of wine and an icecream!
This program was put on by the company I'm working for - even me as a lowly contractor! All that was involved was 2 gym sessions per week and advice on diet. I started out at about 100.7kg and now I am 97.7kg (with shoes and shorts and tee shirt!). That makes a 3kg loss.
I suppose I should be happy with that, but one of the other guys did 5kg. The sessions were quite high intensity-I'm still yet to do more than 4 pressups so I maybe I should continue the torture. The diet was essentially, eat more vege, eat more at the beginning of the day, less at the end. He recommended no alcohol, or tea or coffee. I attempted to follow that plan but occasionally fell off the rails.
You got a diary to record what you ate, how much you exercised and what your weight was at a weekly weigh in.
I have in the past considered going on some sort of diet, but this time I think I have really made an effort, and have some good results. I think that more fatties should try this technique: all you have to do is go to the green grocers and buy a bag of carrots and a bag of tomatoes at the beginning of the week. Chuck in some bananas, mandarins or whatever and you are set for morning teas. The plan is to keep yourself fed so that when lunch rolls round you are not too hungry and will not need to pig out.
Lunch might be buying 1/4 chicken and having this with a tomato.
Normally I used to have porridge every morning, but now I'm trying the following for two people:
1 carrot grated
2 sticks of celery
1 pear
1 tomato
1 orange
yogurt
pumpkin seeds/pine nuts and whatever
The sweetness of the orange lifts the whole mix and it just tastes great.
Have this for breakfast (with just warm water-no coffee), and you will start the day feeling terrific.
This program was put on by the company I'm working for - even me as a lowly contractor! All that was involved was 2 gym sessions per week and advice on diet. I started out at about 100.7kg and now I am 97.7kg (with shoes and shorts and tee shirt!). That makes a 3kg loss.
I suppose I should be happy with that, but one of the other guys did 5kg. The sessions were quite high intensity-I'm still yet to do more than 4 pressups so I maybe I should continue the torture. The diet was essentially, eat more vege, eat more at the beginning of the day, less at the end. He recommended no alcohol, or tea or coffee. I attempted to follow that plan but occasionally fell off the rails.
You got a diary to record what you ate, how much you exercised and what your weight was at a weekly weigh in.
I have in the past considered going on some sort of diet, but this time I think I have really made an effort, and have some good results. I think that more fatties should try this technique: all you have to do is go to the green grocers and buy a bag of carrots and a bag of tomatoes at the beginning of the week. Chuck in some bananas, mandarins or whatever and you are set for morning teas. The plan is to keep yourself fed so that when lunch rolls round you are not too hungry and will not need to pig out.
Lunch might be buying 1/4 chicken and having this with a tomato.
Normally I used to have porridge every morning, but now I'm trying the following for two people:
1 carrot grated
2 sticks of celery
1 pear
1 tomato
1 orange
yogurt
pumpkin seeds/pine nuts and whatever
The sweetness of the orange lifts the whole mix and it just tastes great.
Have this for breakfast (with just warm water-no coffee), and you will start the day feeling terrific.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Running and all that
Well it's over. The Adidas Half Marathon that is.
I had been training for that event since June. I believe that I had adopted a sensible graduated approach to my training, but strange things happen. For instance, when I started, I had a really sore right ankle joint and the left knee was a bit dodgy. You would have thought running would have made these things worse. In fact, the opposite appears to have happened, they are ok and other things have come to take their place.
About a month ago I managed to run 21k more or less continuously. Just to prove I could do it twice, I tried again the following weekend. I only managed 13K-due to some ligament that runs from the knee to the top of the leg complaining bitterly.
Just to be clever (?) I decided to buy a new pair of running shoes the day before the race. I checked them out by running around the block in them. Great! Like running on air compared to the old ones, which were just sneakers.
Race day. Up at 3.45am to get the ferry across to Devenport, for a 6.45am start. Met up with the other NZSugar runners Steve, Anthony, Kevin, Lynn and Graeme. This is a seven thousand person event, and I was sanwiched somewhere in the middle. The first K was good, great pace, then whatever kicked in and hordes of people started passing me.
At about 8k I realised the obvious:you should not wear new running shoes on a long run. The muscles in my feet started complaining, and did not finish till the finish line. It was a process of run/walk/run.
I made my goal, which was to get to the start of the harbour bridge before 8.45am-that's when they were going to close it and any slow ones would get put on a bus.
It was walking fron there on. It was quite worrying:being passed by older and sometimes heavier persons than myself, who seemed to have a tremendous walking speed. Just after the bridge I was passed by Patrick, who had walked the whole race. Still, he is 6'3" and weighs in around 76kg and has long legs.
At the finish, I threw down a hot dog and beer and sat down in the kids playing area to wait for Rose, my wife to come and pick me up. She did wait, but at the children's kindergarten 100m up the road. In the end, tired of her not showing up, I got a taxi, but just as we went past the Franklin Rd supermarket, I spied Rose just driving out. A frantic stop and much arm waving sorted us all out.
The rest of the day was spent in recovery on the couch. Maybe I can have my life back now, please?
I had been training for that event since June. I believe that I had adopted a sensible graduated approach to my training, but strange things happen. For instance, when I started, I had a really sore right ankle joint and the left knee was a bit dodgy. You would have thought running would have made these things worse. In fact, the opposite appears to have happened, they are ok and other things have come to take their place.
About a month ago I managed to run 21k more or less continuously. Just to prove I could do it twice, I tried again the following weekend. I only managed 13K-due to some ligament that runs from the knee to the top of the leg complaining bitterly.
Just to be clever (?) I decided to buy a new pair of running shoes the day before the race. I checked them out by running around the block in them. Great! Like running on air compared to the old ones, which were just sneakers.
Race day. Up at 3.45am to get the ferry across to Devenport, for a 6.45am start. Met up with the other NZSugar runners Steve, Anthony, Kevin, Lynn and Graeme. This is a seven thousand person event, and I was sanwiched somewhere in the middle. The first K was good, great pace, then whatever kicked in and hordes of people started passing me.
At about 8k I realised the obvious:you should not wear new running shoes on a long run. The muscles in my feet started complaining, and did not finish till the finish line. It was a process of run/walk/run.
I made my goal, which was to get to the start of the harbour bridge before 8.45am-that's when they were going to close it and any slow ones would get put on a bus.
It was walking fron there on. It was quite worrying:being passed by older and sometimes heavier persons than myself, who seemed to have a tremendous walking speed. Just after the bridge I was passed by Patrick, who had walked the whole race. Still, he is 6'3" and weighs in around 76kg and has long legs.
At the finish, I threw down a hot dog and beer and sat down in the kids playing area to wait for Rose, my wife to come and pick me up. She did wait, but at the children's kindergarten 100m up the road. In the end, tired of her not showing up, I got a taxi, but just as we went past the Franklin Rd supermarket, I spied Rose just driving out. A frantic stop and much arm waving sorted us all out.
The rest of the day was spent in recovery on the couch. Maybe I can have my life back now, please?
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