Friday, May 26, 2006
It's been a long time...
It's been a long road to attaining the joys of broadband and in my case wireless (courtesy of my laptop's wireless capability). We've moved into a flat in Mt Vic and therefore been able to break away from the bonds of dial-up and liberate ourselves with broadband provided by Ihug. Talking of liberation, it's good to see that there will be a day when we are freed from the bonds of Telecom.
This blog post is long overdue so it will probably be a marathon effort. The topics are listed below so you can pick and choose what interests you or just scroll on down and read the whole damn lot!:
If nothing on the list interests you here are some pics :)
My time starts now......(9.30am)
Surfing pleasure
Saturday mornings are turning into 'my special time on the internet' as Joseph is generally still in bed recovering from Friday night :) At this time I can send emails to friends and family and do some pleasure surfing and this morning I'm able to update the blog. I'm also trying to keep up with general, cultural and info tech news via my RSS feeds in Bloglines (we'll see how long that lasts.....I can imagine info overload will hit be very quickly....maybe it's better to be blissfully ignorant!). Also loving listening to Kim Hill's dulcit tones on RadioNZ although am not really taking it in...perhaps I should download the podcast so that I can listen to it on my i-River on the way to work.
>>Back to topic list
Culture vulture
In February we went a bit mad at the NZ International Arts Festival. Big J had kindly pre-booked all our tickets late 2005 so we had already coughed up the dough and could focus on enjoying the shows.
The highlights were The History Boys and The War Zone. It's such a pleasure to witness such assuredness and depth in a production. Through out The History Boys I felt in safe hands and totally engaged. I haven't seen a play in NZ for a while but have a feeling that we can never quite reach the quality that the UK and US attain. Of couse it's a population and resourcing issue. I'm sure I'm not making any friends in the theatre circles of NZ by saying this! Assuredness and depth were qualities also found in each speaker in the NZ Writers & Readers Week panel session The War Zone. Robert Fisk is a marvel (interesting though that he is not into the Web at all) and I was so intrigued with Joe Sacco I bought one of his graphic novels, had a chat with him and got his autograph.
More info on the stuff we saw:
I had satisfied my culture cravings for a while plus have spent a lot on new flat stuff so didn't book for anything in the Comedy festival. Would have loved to have seen Danny Bhoy though. Will definately check out the NZ Film Festival
>>Back to topic list
Mangakino
For the long weekend in April we hired a car and drove up to Mangakino. We went up to stay in Joy's holiday house and chill out. It was nice getting out of town and doing a bit of driving. The little Toyota Corolla we hired was a dream to drive. The weather was greyish but we still enjoyed walking down to and along the lakeside, cooking delicious meals and relaxing. We also went to visit Waitomo Caves and took the tour that ends on a small boat where you can experience the glow worms in their full glory. Magical! The cave's cathedral was very impressive as well. Unfortunately we missed seeing the giant Pouakani Totara Tree nearby. My Dad actually spent a year in Mangakino in the late 50s (I think) working on building one of the dams when he worked for the Ministry of Works. It was his first civil engineering job. Our photos from the trip are now on the photo gallery.
Here's a great quote on Mangakino from Auckland writer Kate Edwards:
"Mangakino is a town in a 1950s time warp; a remnant of the pressure-cooker expansion of post-war New Zealand as well preserved as if it were ladled into an Agee jar in mother's kitchen." View the full article.
>>Back to topic list
New flat
Yes we are now settled into our new flat. It's nice to have our own space and the location is very handy. We've been walking to and from work. Hope this helps my waistline....haven't seen any results yet though...maybe that's got to do with the ice cream in my freezer and chippies in the pantry :) As part of the move we've gone Briscoes mad! You're not very on the ball if you buy something that's not on sale at that place. Their slightly dodgy strategy of having discounts on products every weekend makes you feel like you've saved heaps....but maybe the markup was huge in the first place! Anyway, we've got pretty much everything we need now. Whew, what an effort. Photos of the lounge and our new couch (see below for details) are now up on the photo gallery.
>>Back to topic list
Discovering TradeMe
I've kept clear of online auctions ever since I had a bad eBay experience in the UK (bought some tickets to a Kaiser Chiefs gig but they didn't turn up!). However, after looking around at both second-hand and new couches I was shocked at how much they cost so was advised that buying on TradeMe was a better way to go. Now I think I'm hooked......so far we have bought a couch and chair plus I have my eye on a nice floor lamp. I think I'll stop at that though :) All of them fit the 70s retro style of our flat. Fab!
>>Back to topic list
Webstock
And finally, after months of anticipation Webstock finally arrived. We both thoroughly enjoyed the speakers, the vibe and the chance to meet up with old and new friends. I must admit that after the first day I was depressed. This was because I was surrounded by so much talk of best practice and could not see a way to getting there where I work. The next day I was much more positive determined to takeaway the principles promoted and to find ways to implement them at work in small, low-tech ways. Highlights were Joel Spolsky (funny in a smart way), Russell Brown (love the exploration of the effect technology has on culture) and Heather Hesketh's (Progressive enhancement would be a great approach for my employers) presentations. Did feel a little divide between the 'cool web agency people' and the 'govt strugglers' :) Or was I just paranoid :) Kind of wish I could say I was some hotshot programmer but alas Content is my baby....and even then I don't get enough time to really refine it as much as I could. I guess that's why I related to Russell Brown more. All this talk of user interfaces and design patterns got a bit too much. But it was a conference in web standards. These enable the effective dissemination of content. Also got sick of hearing about Flickr, MySpace, YouTube and del.icio.us and Australian accents....US ones didn't seem to bother me so much. Oh dear, I'm getting blog fatigue I think, hence the negativity :)
The conference finished off with OdESSA playing their funky tunes. Joseph and I can take the credit for their appearance as we suggested it to Tash and Ben (members of the organising team). I'm not sure if I'm a big fan yet. Their songs are great to boogy too but lack musical depth at the moment. Each song sounds very similar. The lead dude has some great dance moves though!
I'll finish off with some Webstock buzzwords:
takeaways
mash-ups
taxamonies
folksonomies
progressive enhancement
extreme programming
design patterns
micro formats
Don't ask me what they mean! :)
(Completion time = 3.24pm. This blog post only took 6 hours to complete!)
>>Back to topic list
(2) comments
This blog post is long overdue so it will probably be a marathon effort. The topics are listed below so you can pick and choose what interests you or just scroll on down and read the whole damn lot!:
If nothing on the list interests you here are some pics :)
My time starts now......(9.30am)
Surfing pleasure
Saturday mornings are turning into 'my special time on the internet' as Joseph is generally still in bed recovering from Friday night :) At this time I can send emails to friends and family and do some pleasure surfing and this morning I'm able to update the blog. I'm also trying to keep up with general, cultural and info tech news via my RSS feeds in Bloglines (we'll see how long that lasts.....I can imagine info overload will hit be very quickly....maybe it's better to be blissfully ignorant!). Also loving listening to Kim Hill's dulcit tones on RadioNZ although am not really taking it in...perhaps I should download the podcast so that I can listen to it on my i-River on the way to work.
>>Back to topic list
Culture vulture
In February we went a bit mad at the NZ International Arts Festival. Big J had kindly pre-booked all our tickets late 2005 so we had already coughed up the dough and could focus on enjoying the shows.
The highlights were The History Boys and The War Zone. It's such a pleasure to witness such assuredness and depth in a production. Through out The History Boys I felt in safe hands and totally engaged. I haven't seen a play in NZ for a while but have a feeling that we can never quite reach the quality that the UK and US attain. Of couse it's a population and resourcing issue. I'm sure I'm not making any friends in the theatre circles of NZ by saying this! Assuredness and depth were qualities also found in each speaker in the NZ Writers & Readers Week panel session The War Zone. Robert Fisk is a marvel (interesting though that he is not into the Web at all) and I was so intrigued with Joe Sacco I bought one of his graphic novels, had a chat with him and got his autograph.
More info on the stuff we saw:
- The History Boys - currently on broadway and movie version due out this year
- Supervision
- Tristan & Yseult
- Les Arts Saut
- NZ Writers and Readers Week - The War Zone
I had satisfied my culture cravings for a while plus have spent a lot on new flat stuff so didn't book for anything in the Comedy festival. Would have loved to have seen Danny Bhoy though. Will definately check out the NZ Film Festival
>>Back to topic list
Mangakino
For the long weekend in April we hired a car and drove up to Mangakino. We went up to stay in Joy's holiday house and chill out. It was nice getting out of town and doing a bit of driving. The little Toyota Corolla we hired was a dream to drive. The weather was greyish but we still enjoyed walking down to and along the lakeside, cooking delicious meals and relaxing. We also went to visit Waitomo Caves and took the tour that ends on a small boat where you can experience the glow worms in their full glory. Magical! The cave's cathedral was very impressive as well. Unfortunately we missed seeing the giant Pouakani Totara Tree nearby. My Dad actually spent a year in Mangakino in the late 50s (I think) working on building one of the dams when he worked for the Ministry of Works. It was his first civil engineering job. Our photos from the trip are now on the photo gallery.
Here's a great quote on Mangakino from Auckland writer Kate Edwards:
"Mangakino is a town in a 1950s time warp; a remnant of the pressure-cooker expansion of post-war New Zealand as well preserved as if it were ladled into an Agee jar in mother's kitchen." View the full article.
>>Back to topic list
New flat
Yes we are now settled into our new flat. It's nice to have our own space and the location is very handy. We've been walking to and from work. Hope this helps my waistline....haven't seen any results yet though...maybe that's got to do with the ice cream in my freezer and chippies in the pantry :) As part of the move we've gone Briscoes mad! You're not very on the ball if you buy something that's not on sale at that place. Their slightly dodgy strategy of having discounts on products every weekend makes you feel like you've saved heaps....but maybe the markup was huge in the first place! Anyway, we've got pretty much everything we need now. Whew, what an effort. Photos of the lounge and our new couch (see below for details) are now up on the photo gallery.
>>Back to topic list
Discovering TradeMe
I've kept clear of online auctions ever since I had a bad eBay experience in the UK (bought some tickets to a Kaiser Chiefs gig but they didn't turn up!). However, after looking around at both second-hand and new couches I was shocked at how much they cost so was advised that buying on TradeMe was a better way to go. Now I think I'm hooked......so far we have bought a couch and chair plus I have my eye on a nice floor lamp. I think I'll stop at that though :) All of them fit the 70s retro style of our flat. Fab!
>>Back to topic list
Webstock
And finally, after months of anticipation Webstock finally arrived. We both thoroughly enjoyed the speakers, the vibe and the chance to meet up with old and new friends. I must admit that after the first day I was depressed. This was because I was surrounded by so much talk of best practice and could not see a way to getting there where I work. The next day I was much more positive determined to takeaway the principles promoted and to find ways to implement them at work in small, low-tech ways. Highlights were Joel Spolsky (funny in a smart way), Russell Brown (love the exploration of the effect technology has on culture) and Heather Hesketh's (Progressive enhancement would be a great approach for my employers) presentations. Did feel a little divide between the 'cool web agency people' and the 'govt strugglers' :) Or was I just paranoid :) Kind of wish I could say I was some hotshot programmer but alas Content is my baby....and even then I don't get enough time to really refine it as much as I could. I guess that's why I related to Russell Brown more. All this talk of user interfaces and design patterns got a bit too much. But it was a conference in web standards. These enable the effective dissemination of content. Also got sick of hearing about Flickr, MySpace, YouTube and del.icio.us and Australian accents....US ones didn't seem to bother me so much. Oh dear, I'm getting blog fatigue I think, hence the negativity :)
The conference finished off with OdESSA playing their funky tunes. Joseph and I can take the credit for their appearance as we suggested it to Tash and Ben (members of the organising team). I'm not sure if I'm a big fan yet. Their songs are great to boogy too but lack musical depth at the moment. Each song sounds very similar. The lead dude has some great dance moves though!
I'll finish off with some Webstock buzzwords:
takeaways
mash-ups
taxamonies
folksonomies
progressive enhancement
extreme programming
design patterns
micro formats
Don't ask me what they mean! :)
(Completion time = 3.24pm. This blog post only took 6 hours to complete!)
>>Back to topic list
(2) comments
