Entries Tagged 'Random thoughts' ↓

Just when central Wellington is struggling to keep pedestrians and motorists focussed on where they should be walking or driving to avoid yet another person being run over on Willis Street …

… we now have a huge TV at that very intersection.

All bright and flashing like being in Hong Kong or Vegas. Even while they were setting it up today showing nothing much but the Windows restart screen and hour-glass cursor people were slower to cross the road and motorists slowing for the lights were gazing up.

I wonder how long it will be until the first nose-to-tail. I’m not a pessimist, just ‘practical’ 😉

This is getting ridiculous – random selection indeed! This time only 5 months since I was last summonsed.

Have been hearing and experiencing some new stuff at yoga over the last couple of weeks as the regular instructor is away and other instructors are taking it in turns to cover his classes.

One phrase that was used to describe how hard we should try when contorting ourselves into a pose has stuck with me – maybe useful for life outside yoga:

Don’t try to be somewhere where you think you should be. Just be where you are.

It’s perhaps the opposite of how one should conduct oneself in this fast-paced gotta-be-noticed world which is probably why it causes pause for thought.

Obfuscate – one of those words that people use in sentences that I’ve never gotten around to looking up and just guess at the general meaning. But now I know for sure:

ob·fus·cate
1. to confuse, bewilder, or stupefy. 
2. to make obscure or unclear: to obfuscate a problem with extraneous information. 
3. to darken.

Coffee people are a special kind of people. And those who take it seriously in their own homes are a breed unto themselves, and all over the world it seems, exhibit the same behaviour. I was just surfin’ around from a friend’s flickr site and found a guy with a flickr site that has a ‘Coffee Related’ section.

I see so many commonalities in my own behaviour:

1. Blog and/or take photos of exceptional cups of coffee at cafes.
   
2. Only go to the same one or two cafes for the daily fix(es).
   
3. Get a really shiny machine for home.
   
4. Get all the equipment to go with the home machine.
   
5. Name the machine and grinder (this guy’s are called Miss Silvia & Rocky; mine are Vibby & Mazzer).
   
6. Take photos and/or video the first couple of attempts (his, mine).
   
7. Never stop attempting latte art and never get the hang of it.

Man the internet makes the world a small place. I feel kinda special knowing I’m not alone in my sometimes obsessive behaviour when it comes to coffee.

Summer 2007 in Wellington occurred in February. Almost every day was blue and fine with the temperature pretty much stuck at 21 degrees. In the last week of daylight savings on Wednesday 14 March the temperature plummeted to 16 degrees and southerlies and rain and thunder came through. I came to work in a coat and scarf instead of the normal t-shirt.

… 2 days later …

We’re back to summer except daylight savings ends on this day.

Sigh. Found it. First grey hair – sticking right out of the middle of my fringe. Took several photos of it, it’s a real beauty, but no matter which way you looked at the photos and cropped out the freckles and little holes where each hair goes into your head, it did look like a dodgey pubic shot 🙁 So the Mister and I decided that posting it would be just too awful.

I’m not pulling the hair out. And I think it’s got some friends over on the left of my fringe. Oh well. I’m not freaking. Yet.

I’m not sure whether I’m working too hard, or the most passionate employee one could hope for. It’s gotten to the point now where thoughts of work occupy my head at all times. Last night I dreamed (nightmared in some cases) about work: about a screen that had a pop-up on it that was there yesterday and behaving properly yet in my dream it kept sliding off the bottom of the screen before my eyes. And this morning over breakfast we discussed bank balances and reconciliation. Later in the shower instead of daydreaming about standing under a waterfall on a tropical island (is that what ’empty-headed’ people think about in the shower?) it struck me how in my user guide I can explain 2 different scenarios for doing the same thing.

I just wonder what other people’s heads are filled with … I suppose it’s a welcome break from thinking about household domestics or using up those airpoints before they expire, or making an appointment with the dental hygienist, mole mapper, insurance company, hairdresser, mother-in-law or something to make for dinner … I just hope all the help associated with our product reflects the 24/7 effort!

Our dishwasher is on the fritz. Beeps incessantly and flashes F1 Flood. It’s happened before and being a good housewife I knew exactly where the manual was so retrieved it only to find in the trouble-shooting section at the back it said “Call registered Fisher & Paykel service agent”. So we just switched it off at the wall overnight and hoped for the best. Bingo, it came right.

But not this time. And boy is the Mister dark about it. 3 nights in a row now (while we waited for the weekend to pass and then a registered Fisher & Paykel service agent to be available) he has had to wash the dishes. We’ve been using this dishes time to bond as a married couple like in the olden days, before dishwashers, when the family talked while doing the dishes. (I remember my grandad making the same comment every single dishes time … “why does your mother use these bally triangle pots every meal? They’re a bloody pain to dry.“ (See? Not my fault I could use the swear version of ‘bloody’ correctly in a sentence at 18 months old!)) Except in the olden days, misters probably read the paper leaving the missus to wash AND dry. Our bonding sessions don’t last long – the Mister has instigated a one-pot dinner rule and we have been eating chippies directly from the packet and no pudding (!!) in order to minimise on the washing up!

Not wanting to wait a moment too long the Mister turned to the internet, where now that F&P Dishdrawers are exported there is a wealth of blogging, use-grouping, wikipedia’ing people residing in America all too keen to disseminate any knowledge, that you can easily find fix-it instructions for F1 Flood. After a skim read of the most thorough of such instructions we decided on going with the last sentence …

… turn the power off, remove the bottom drawer by pushing in the clips on side of the drawer … put the drawer on its r.h.side …  mop up the all water … expose the mains/flood switch board … push in the clip in the middle front edge of the cover with a flat blade screwdriver … hair dryer … mop up any remaining water … refit drawer … Remember, if you get to a point where you don’t feel confident with what you doing or you think you might break something, leave it and call a professional to do the job,  you may save money in the long run and if you going to expose wires or connections always switch off and unplug before removing the cover, you dont know whats underneath …

Very detailed instructions, I was going to put my gumboots on and get into it, but after visions of the dishdrawers, racks, runners and spray arms on the floor and piles of wet towels from mopping up water, we decided to wait for the registered Fisher & Paykel service agent – booked for tomorrow. Only one more night of bonding over the dishes. Unless of course a part is needed. And the part is not in the truck (which one would expect if they guy is a bona fide registered Fisher & Paykel service agent) and has to be ordered. Crikey – how will I stop the Mister rushing out and buying a new dishwasher if that happens?

Went for a walk around the waterfront yesterday and back through town. Our route took us passed the new Holiday Inn hotel on the corner of Featherston & Whitmore streets. There was a lovely, completely deserted, outdoor eating area which should have been crowded like all the other eateries en route to the Stadium where hungry 7’s-goers were filling up on bacon and pancakes ready for an afternoon of drinking and yelling.

So, SO obvious why no-one was using the outdoor area. So obvious. Whitmore Street and particularly it’s intersection with Featherston has got to be one of the windiest streets in Wellington. It’s the street where they send TV news crews on a windy day for those clips during the weather where the nice lady with the boofy hair says in a voice-over to the clip ‘… and it was a windy one in Wellington again today.’ Who architected the hotel? Why would they put an outdoor area there? Actually why didn’t they do a roof top restaurant? That would have been so cool – great view of the harbour and Oriental Parade. Maybe the building rocks on a windy day and people would get seasick during their dinner but that’s what happens atop the Sky Tower in Auckland and people still go there.