Orange is not a colour, it's a state of mind

Caught up with my brother-in-law at the Nikau drinks tonight – small world, he’s great friends of the owner and has been for many years. Anyway, he took clients there for breakfast this morning and conversation, as it was bound to today, turned to the closing of a great cafe, a huge part of so many people’s lives. And apparently one of his clients had witnessed it first hand …

She told him that she’d been in to have lunch on and off on Sunday’s over the years and every time (yes Every. Single. Time.) she came in she noticed this couple at the bar. She noted that every week they sat at the bar in the same seats and seemed to always have the same thing. She thought to herself that they must have a very sad life, to be so habitual and to have nowhere better to be than the same bar stool with the same scone. She was almost dismissive of their existence.

He told her that he knew them – “That’s my brother and sister-in-law you’re talking about.” I’m not sure if he assured her that we don’t in fact have a sad life. Hmmmm, you never know who knows who around here! I think she was a bit embarrassed!

Just had a fabulous dinner out with our New York friend (2nd dinner so think we can move to friend status) Brian – Capitol of course (turns out it’s a favourite of his family’s whenever they’re in Wellington!) I tried the pasta this time, can’t believe I passed on the pumpkin risotto, strozzapreti with herbs and zucchini which was delicious.

We very much enjoy Brian’s stories and getting to know him and his family. He’s very inspiring and it’s incredible to hear some of the things people that he’s met in his life and work have done, what they have achieved from humble, New Zealand beginnings. It’s good to meet some different people too, people outside of work mates, family and those we come into contact with each day. Important for becoming ‘grown ups’!

Work is so full on at the moment – I’m at that stage where I feel like I can’t breathe because I don’t feel like I’m making any headway and that there’s so much to do by the next deadline – so I was a bit anxious about taking a night off but it was a welcome break into a different part of our lives. Will have to start early tomorrow!

Can’t remember where I read this but I was surprised to learn that 67% of people called to do jury service get excused – I assume this isn’t because they’re calling a load of ‘duds’ (I don’t mean this as derogatory, I mean people automatically excused because of mental, physical or proximity reasons) but that people are actually writing in to get excused.

Long time readers of my blog will know my history with jury service … how can the same person get called 3 times in 18 months?… hence my interest in the behaviour of others when it comes to the summons.

So, looking at it in reverse, this means that peoples’ futures that are decided at the hand of a jury are in the hands of 33% of potential jurors. Does this mean that the jury is actually pretty skewed/screwed because with such a low percentage of people that go on jury service that they must all be a certain type of people? Perhaps people who can’t get out of it – majority of these would probably be public servants and by in large they are certain type of people; perhaps people who want to do jury service – likely people who are particularly staunch about their civic responsibilities or; people from the list of people who haven’t tried to get excused hence me being called 3 times in 18 months! Not really a point here, just a ramble.

Went to Nikau for the last date scone in a while. They’ll be reopening in 2009 but not sure when. Actual last day trading is this Friday and we’re going to drinks after closing. It’s been great having Nikau and the staff as part of our lives the last 4 years (and all the date scones, kedgeree and ham and salad) – as much as we love life in the city, this neighbourhood aspect is very cool.

The pohutakawa are coming out and are amazingly red this year. Ahhhh, the colour of New Zealand summer.

Marigold is now totally recognisable as a marigold, with several flowers! Still none of the other seeds in the pot have come through but this plant has practically taken over the whole pot anyway! It’s a lovely burst of orange every time I look out onto the deck.

It’s my 2nd Xero birthday today.

Highlights are:

• Help Centre is now a standalone website – a hub for a user guide, how do I’s, video demonstrations and other guidance material over 270 html files, several now on their 4th or 5th iteration – as the application changes, the help does too.
• Started tracking the visitor stats mid-March – since then it’s had 44 and a half thousand visitors! Very exciting, and when I first saw all the countries that were visiting the website I was blown away.
• And, 6 weeks ago the Help Centre team expanded – I got an assistant. My first ever and it’s great. Nice to have someone else on the same wavelength with the same interests and priorities – will make some of the mountains easier to manage.

Next year’s plans are:

• To be working in the New York office (yes, that was rather wishful thinking when I said it a year ago – will try again for the upcoming year!)

Well, we’ve gone from seedling to tiny plant … still only 1 though! And look at it this morning – it wants to have a flower already!!! Must be very advanced for it’s age because it doesn’t have others to compete with!

It’s not that I’m a political fanatic, nor particularly interested in the election results rolling out of the booths tonight … I’m just stuck here at work in front of my computer for the OHMYGOD 6th night running – YIKES. We’ve got a big release tomorrow and having given up the first part of the 15 days I needed to do my work for it to help out my new staff member I was left with 8 days in which to get it done. I couldn’t just leave her sitting there could I? And I couldn’t NOT do the fully effort like I normally do. And I had to get her up to speed enough to help me out this week, which she has done which is FANTASTIC but I still have lots of loose ends to finish. I think I’ve been surviving on about 6 hours sleep a night, and fitful sleeps at that, but have been getting quite a bit done from 8pm – 11 or 12pm after going home for a couple of hours each everning for some dinner. Sometimes I get a bit scared that I won’t be able to go back to concentrating in an office full of people during the day after treating myself to quiet nights. My eyes are beginning to develop quite large bags under them so I can’t wait for tomorrow to be over. So, polling booths have been closed for an hour 40 and we’re at National 48.7% and Labour 31.2% with what looks like (on the bar graph on stuff.co.nz) about a quarter counted.

Whoa! Just had massive lightening strike that spiked the power in the office then a really lound crash of thunder right above our building that set off all the girls screaming (and the Mister a little bit) and lots of mad Ctrl+S’ing! Now it’s freezing and pouring down.