Entries Tagged 'What I've been doing' ↓

So, this is what band practice is all about – Rocktober on 1 October. There’s an invite-only launch party at 7.30pm, then the main event at 10.30pm. Launch party features The Mister’s band, main event features DJ’s. All loud banging crashing rock music!

Check out the Rocktober websiste for ticket details. If you want to go:

• Get a ticket
• Get your name on the invite-only guest list either by emailing the organiser dave@rocktober.co.nz (tell him I sent you) or adding your name to their guest list in Facebook.
• Get a black t-shirt and some ear plugs.

So we have to fit band practice into our weekly schedules for a while! The Mister has been cajoled into joining a band of other hopeful wanna-be-rockstars, to play at an event called ‘Rocktober’ in October – an evening of 80’s rock from this band and a rock DJ to raise money for The Cancer Society.

Lucky for me it’s a borrowed kit. For now …

OK – I’m absolutely convinced selection for Jury Service is NOT random. Just got my 4th summons today – it is 3 years since I was last summoned but in the 3 years prior to that I was summoned 3 times, so that’s 4 times in 6 years which really is ridiculous.

So I’m off to do it again in September. As you’ll see from previous ramblings on Jury Service on my blog, I don’t know why I feel it’s not right to get excused for the sake of it and why I feel reasonably ambivalent about going.

Wonder if they have wi-fi by now? Ha!

Well, this is belated … got so caught up in the real 4th of July that I forgot to acknowledge another year of blogging – 6 years since my first tentative (smaller) posts in July 2006. Last year I’d done 1230 posts, this year it’s up to 1514 so as I say every year, can’t believe how much I ramble on! Mind you 4 months of this year I’ve had plenty to ramble about – my ‘travel’ category is full of New York!

Many of you will have seen me wearing, or my photos of my range of Tweet4yourtee shirts – a company started in Wellington recently by friends-of-Xero who are building their business using social media alone, mostly Twitter (twitter.com/Tweet4yourtee / www.tweet4yourtee.com). Hence ‘tweet 4 your tee’ – you visit their site to see what your Twitter name would look like on a range of tweet-themed shirts and then order online. I have 3 (one of them super super special and a 1-off because it has orange on it):

Hi, my name is @orangegirlnz

I heart @TeamXero

I tweet @Xero

Recently the company made a promo video and asked Tweet4yourtee wearers to join them in Wellington to take part – of course I couldn’t be there and was so disappointed, but have always sent them photos of me wearing my t-shirts (from both sides of the globe it turns out!) and if I could’ve joined them I would’ve!

However, I got a really nice surprise today when the promo video promo was released as a teaser …

Then the real video was released a few hours later

Famous me! Am getting a spot up the front when they do it in a year – I wonder how many tweeting t-shirts will be around by then?

Have spent the last 4 months commuting downtown on the subway – the sights and sounds and stops have become second nature. Thought I’d immortalise our view of the stops in a photo series.

We get on at 33rd Street

Then stop at 28th Street

23rd Street

14th Street – Union Square

Astor Place

Bleecker Street

Spring Street

And get off at Canal Street

Ommigod I’m a killer – a huge MASSIVE cockroach came in the window last night about midnight when I was home alone and I had to deal with it! It was late, I was trying to bore myself to sleep with work (actually I think I was emailing my boss at the time) when something flicked in my hair and bounced away – I looked around to see the massive roach sitting waving it’s feelers at me from the headboard.  I grabbed my phone and jumped off the bed, it jumped onto the light and made little tapping sounds as it walked around the metal lampshade.

I stood there in, paralysed, not quite sure what I thought I’d do with my phone, in my nightee with no shoes on so I couldn’t stamp on it – except I didn’t want to stamp on it because of the crunch and the egg thing. Then it got onto the floor and began darting here and there, man it was fast, and I had to do something – there was no way I was going to sleep with it on the loose. WAAAAAA. I grabbed The Mister’s magazine from beside the bed, but still had the squashing dilemma and it was onto me every time I moved and disappeared under the bed.

I made the decision to leave it alone while I went to the cupboard under the sink to see if there was some fly spray deciding that I could spray the bedroom, shut the door, block the gap under it and sleep on the couch. But no, it was back on the light by the time I returned with a can of spray  (so old that it was made of metal and had an actual lid). I put on rubber gloves and gummies and I was good for attack. Except that every time I stepped my boots did a silent little pfffft and a puff of air shot up the back of my leg giving me a hell of a fright thinking the roach had gone up the back of my leg!!

So on with the spray, well there was no spray, it was a stream and after a couple of false starts I managed to get a good jetting mini fire hose going and in a crouching slo-mo interpretive dance type move I guided the stream with one hand, magazine held at the ready in the other hand as I guided the squirting stream around the bedroom, out into the hall and into the spare bathroom where it finally started to show signs of weakness behind the door. Suffice to say I finally got my chance with magazine and boot, and yes there was a crunch – don’t want to think about it.

With the escaped eggs playing on my mind I mopped up the whole kill area with paper towel and disinfectant then had to set about washing the floor in the bedroom, hall and bathroom to get rid of the fly spray – then everything went down the rubbish chute to the basement 30 floors below where any rebirth could be someone else’s problem.

By this time I was roasting: adrenalin and still 30 degrees out and muggy and had to try and sleep without worrying about another one flying in the window to take revenge! Next day I went out and got a new tin of spray, one that actually sprays and is for use around window frames to stop them coming in in the first place. Fingers crossed.

We’re so glad to have found this in a shop yesterday! Even though we’re good at the stand on bathroom scales without suitcase, get off, pick up suitcase, stand on scales with suitcase, difference in weights is the suitcase – it feels better to have this little weighing thing designed for just this purpose.

The Mister tried it out today for his flight to SFO and we’ll be giving it a workout as we push our luggage limits to the limit in 3 weeks on the journey home. And his has pounds and kilos which is very useful!

FINALLY we got to go to a Yankees game when it wasn’t rained out or wasn’t raining and finished early. We went to the Friday night game that started the second Subway Series (between the 2 New York teams) and it was totally different to the last game we went to.

We were up one level this time looking straight down to the game and quite near the ‘cheap seats’ where the fans have matching ‘bleacher screechers’ t-shirts, chant, sing, heckle the opposition, get sun burned, fight and drink a lot.

It was stinking hot when we arrived with the setting sun blasting straight at our seats but once it set it was a gorgeous evening. The Mister had sliders again but he got me a slice of good old New York cheeeeese pizza and it was delicious, followed up by ice cream in a little plastic bowl in the shape of a Yankees cap.

It’s still amazing to me the extent fans go to, and when there’s 49,200 of them in a 55,000-seat stadium it’s truly awesome to see most of them decked out in Yankees gear. There were a few Mets fans in the crowd, a couple in our row and some further up including some that started a fight when the Mets scored and started goading the Yankees fans – there was blood and cops and hand cuffs!

Another great night but such a shame the Yankees lost. And thank god there were none of those FIFA world cup vuvuzelas drowning everything out – so good to hear the crowd cheering and oooo’ing and ahhhh’ing and calling out to the players to get them to give the crowd a wave.

Can’t believe I got to really meet my Orange Friend from Chicago after all these years of being blog/email friends! The date we set last month to meet in Chicago came around and we met at a great cafe (Intelligentsia) and sat outside talking for a couple of hours. I was fascinated by her accent and I’m sure she had trouble understanding us at times. I knew she was mad on the All Blacks so took her an All Blacks scarf – so look out for that with a splash of orange around Chicago.

Until we meet again Jo (and tell your Mister that all that orange is not so bad, mine said he could’ve carried on chatting for hours)!!