Author Archives: SJPONeill

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About SJPONeill

Retired(ish) and living on the side of a mountain. I love reading and writing, pottering around with DIY in the garden and the kitchen, watching movies and building models from plastic and paper...I have two awesome daughters, two awesome grand-daughters and two awesome big dogs...lots of awesomeness around me...

Weekly Photo Challenge: Foreign

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I like to think of myself as just a little cosmopolitan and not too prone to considering things ‘foreign‘ or otherwise, when some place different from home, I am very much of a “…when in Rome…” philosophy. Thus, once again, I found myself challenged for a picture to represent my take on ‘foreign’…

After scouring through my Picasa libraries, the issue was resolved when Carmen got home from work – she works away during the week so, even though I too work on Saturdays, I usually take care of dinner so that it about done as she comes done the driveway. Last Saturday dinner was roast chicken because I have figured out that I can throw some sort of meat and assorted veges into a roasting bag, toss it into the oven and Voila! a few hours later, dinner is served…

So all was good, right up until she asked “We got any beer?” Oh, uh-oh…the cupboard (fridge actually) was bare of such beverages…but…she remembered that I had brought a bottle of foreign beer home from my recent work trip…and that it was nicely chillin’ in the fridge door…in short order, we had the cork out (no cheap Charley screw-tops here!), had found two long beer glasses chilled behind some leftovers and Kazam!! beer with dinner…

Unfortunately, I did not think to take any pictures of the glasses full although you may get some small idea of the colour from the smidgen left in the glass on the left…it does as the label on the bottle implies has a very ruby-ish shade, and like most of the Leffes, is very smooth. It’s taste is interesting almost like Turkish Delight if you can imagine Turkish Delight beer, very subtle though and while I might not want to do a whole night on Leffe Ruby, it was certainly a fine choice to go with dinner.

This is the window display of a typical dairy in Brussels…you can probably only get one flavour of potato crisps here but can choose from 400 types of beer…

And just before anyone makes anyone makes any comments about what sort of guy brings back a bottle of beer for this wife after an overseas trip…it was a target of opportunity as the hotel where we were staying had an offer of a free large bottle of Leffe Ruby for every seven pints consumed. So we did at least seven pints between each happy hour (only EU$2.50 ea) and each night claimed a trophy…I did however bring a number of kilograms of good Belgian chocolate back with me in the interests of domestic peace and harmony…

Weekly Photo Challenge: Silhouette

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I am looking after the girls this long weekend so will bang this out before I get overrun…it’ll be all on after breakfast so some quick thoughts on ‘silhouette‘…

I was visiting the USAF Armament Museum last year when these things kept banging out of Eglin AFB next door – or maybe it was the same one doing touch and goes…

MQ-1 Predator (pointy-down tail) at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington…

This Warbird DC-3 was doing joy rides out of Taumarunui in 2010 – snapped it as it flew overhead on a circuit of the Mountain…

This isn’t a silhouette…just Lulu in the snow last year…last time we had real snow at home…call the last few months a winter?!?!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Big

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As soon as I saw the word ‘big‘ as last week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge, this monster sprang to mind…it is an aircraft wheel on display at the Imperial War Museum at Duxford. At the time, I didn’t take that much notice of it hence the rather casual off-hand nature of the photos…but it is big…

Someone’s else pic of the accompanying placard in the museum (off the Net)

…and the mind boggles at how big the actual aircraft might have been if it was ever completed…

…when you extrapolate the size of the aircraft from the known size of the wheel…

 

…it says something for German engineering that it was trying to construct aircraft like this less than 20 years after Richard Pearse’s epic first flight…go the mighty Poll Giant Triplane…!!!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Happy

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Happy is the word…

Getting happy at Fag Ash Lil’s…our Brussels’ centre of operations…from here it was off in a series of ever-decreasing circles in search of the puppet \bar (Toone Bar but took it off the bucket list because the manager – but not the cute bar staff – was rude to us); we are still in search of the mythical ‘record’ bar which I think is the Delerium bar but not the same one in which we knocked back four Kwaks last night….our explorations continue…

A man and his dog

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REID, Piers Martin. CBE, DLitt(Hon), MDefStud, Reg.No.U30723, Major General, of Palmerston North.

Some sad news in the inbox last night as Massey University’s Centre for Defence and Security Studies announced…

It is with sadness that we advise that a friend, colleague and mentor to staff and to many students over the years, Major General Piers Reid, passed away at 21:00 (9.00pm) on 2 October 2012.

A graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon, Piers served a double-tour in Vietnam, and then proceeded to advance to Chief of Army. He was with our Centre for more than a decade, including Director in the first half of the 2000s, after which he continued to lecture in defence studies and military history until this semester.

Some weeks ago, Piers was diagnosed with a serious illness (cancer). At his and his family’s request, this information was not distributed widely, and so we were not in a position to use Stream to advise people of his illness. Piers remained independent until the end, and his death was dignified and peaceful.

Friends are invited to attend a service for Piers at the Beauchamp Crematorium Chapel, 167 John F Kennedy Drive, Palmerston North on Monday October 8th 2012 at 2pm.

Piers Reid succeeded Tony Birks as Chief of General Staff just after I was commissioned. Almost his first act in the job was to scrub the previously approved  proposed new service dress for the Army which a. made my life as the new SO3 Clothing really interesting and b. was probably quite a good idea as I am not sure how how long the Zoot Suit Riot look would have remained in vogue before it just looked silly…the service dress that the Army wears today, more traditional in both style and colours, is the result of that decision.

Noting that nowhere in a general’s job description does it say anything about making a young lieutenant’s life easy, seeing the clothing projects through to completion  in his administration was not too burdensome and never dull nor boring.  Before anyone starts bleating about ‘loggie generals’ let’s not forget that this ‘loggie general’ signed off on an awful lot of good kit for soldiers including:

  • Decent combat boots
  • DPM combat clothing that didn’t change colour between batches or like like it was an end run from some third world banana republic army.
  • Mustang knee-length Goretex socks.
  • Running shoes  as an entitlement for all soldiers putting an end to the need for soldiers units with a higher requirement for physical fitness having to buy their own.
  • Reflex wet weather clothing designed by Kathmandu (apologies to all the self-appointed experts out there but at the time this was a better performer than Goretex.
  • Windproof Ventile smocks.
  • Nomex fleece fleece jackets that wouldn’t burst into flame as soon as a lit cigarette or Hexi cooker looked at them.

Not a bad legacy for just a ‘loggie general’….

He also brought back the classic peaked cap for officers – for a whole six months until his successor killed it off again…

In the course of these projects, I got to know Piers Reid quite well, learned of his time in Vietnam, a story not well known but probably not mine to tell…it turned out that we both loved military music and I recall one afternoon  chatting with him at the rehearsal for the Remembrance Day Service in Wellington Cathedral – the band struck up Scipio, the traditional slow march and , as the introductory drum roll ended we both smiled sheepishly as our right legs reflexively shot forward for the first step of the slow march – Scipio for those not in the know starts with two drum roles, the ned of the second being the cue for soldiers to commence marching, using just the beat of the drum to stay in step…

Even those I was never any drill maestro, we did have drill down to an art form in those days, often just working off cues in the music as commands and that memory from that day in the Cathedral is always the one that springs to mind first when I think of Piers.

I would see Piers from time to time when I was working at Massey and it always struck me how fit and well he looked and so it is all the more a shock to hear that he has passed away so quickly…

Weekly Travel theme: Foliage

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The WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge was late again this week so Angel Ailsa came to my creative rescue with an invitation to contribute to here Weekly Travel Theme, this week being ‘Foliage’…

I’m on the road at the moment and so don’t have access to the home image library – although, to be brutally honest about ti, my travelling net book has more than enough capacity to carry all those with me anywhere – so a photo challenge is somethinmes a little more challenging than usual…I’m in Brussels at the moment and it is trying really hard to be autmn or early winter but every is still really green and there are even still lots of flowers about…

But, then, last night, traipsing back through the puddles from the bus stop I spied this dry brown  leaf on the footpath – by the time I got to my camera and came back it’d been stepped on a few times but I still think it’s an OK example of some more distinct foliage on the Brussels scene this week…

 

FX Stolen from Auckland NZ

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Posted on behalf of a friend…

Stolen from Birkdale on the North Shore area of Auckland, New Zealand, this weekend.

Please contact Auckland Police on 09 839 0741 .

Only one of this colour and layout in the area so if you see it, its the stolen one.

Last time an FX was stolen it was spotted outside San Francisco Hospital emergency department with 12 hours…let’s see if karma and keen eyes can do the same this time!

This is a little more than just the “…Only one of this colour and layout in the area…”: it is actually a very rare and unusual preproduction prototype…what really narks me is that the lowlife scumhead that has stolen it will have no idea of what it is…I am actually quite proud of my very minor contributions to the FX’s development in the last few years and so am just a little protective of it…

You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry…

Humph!! Puny God!!

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For the first time in a long time, I have done the NZ-Europe trip in one hit instead of stopping over for a night en route – definitely something that I do not intend making a habit of as I am not feeling like the Energiser Bunny at this moment. Still as always, international air travel offers a great opportunity for this rural dweller to catch up with recently released movies…so here we go…

MIB III. Loved this – the first two movies haven’t, in my ever so humble opinion, quite got ‘it’ – no such worries with this third crack at the franchise: I found it thoroughly enjoyable and much more complete and consistent than the previous two iterations. Definitely one for the permanent library.

A few people whined that Thor and Captain America were somewhat unfulfilling and incomplete…while I am not one of those whinynanas, The Avengers certainly grips up and draws together all the strands from Ironman, Hulk (who keeps changing lead actors), Captain America and Thor into a thoroughly entertaining and satisfying action roller-coast. As above, another for the permanent library. The classic line that titles this post comes from The Avengers after Loki attempts to assert his godliness upon the Hulk – short conversation…!

I really enjoyed the Toby Maguire Spiderman trilogy but sorry, dude, this new kid, The Amazing Spiderman, in town knocks you off your perch as the consumate ‘Spidey’ – the best Spiderman movie by far and I’m really pleased to see the hints that there will be sequels to carry on the character development.

I always suspected that there was more to than ‘Honest Abe’ story that met the eye and now the truth all comes out out in a perhaps timely manner in Abe Lincoln: Vampire Killer as the White House is again threatened by the undead (although that’s zombies from eith r the left or the right). Personally I think that this is a story that deserved to be told sooner, if only to add to the genral popular awareness of the vampire threat…

This was a bit of a slow burner that I was prepared to kill if it looked like bollocks – instead I found a gripping thriller with an alternate taken on the last days of Edgar Allen Poe. Very well done and very much recommended. On a personal note I was intrigued to see Richard Sharkey‘s name in the credits as co-producer: I worked with Richard for a period when he was the lead location manager for the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the consummate problem-solver for any and all of the practical logistic and support issues that arose everyday during filming. If I had not decided to stick with what I was doing at the time, he would have been my inspiration to jump ship into a similar career…

This was another sleeper that I took a bit of a punt on and found myself thoroughly enjoying…nothing stellar so far as story-lines or plots are concerned but just a good solid action movie…

So there you go, watched six movies and scored all six quite highly…in fact there was only one major disappointment and that was #7…

Prometheus. What a load of old bollocks and a blatant attempt to try to screw some more money from the Alien franchise….it was boring and nothing more than a remake of Alien without the terror, suspense or gripping storyline. It starts badly with a scene where an alien Engineer drinks what looks like passion-fruit seeds and flies all to bits – an action and scene totally irrelevant to the rest of the movie; it is never clear where all these civilisations across human history would note down in cave drawings the location of an obscure planet was not (SPOILER ALERT!!) the home world but just a cast-off wasteland world, and what was really happening on that planet. Even a little time spent on character development would not have gone astray: take out the standard Alien ploys like the facehuggers, acid for blood, etc, etc…and you could not have a movie that is more hohum…

Five Question Friday! 9/28/12

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OK, here we go for 5QF this week – have just arrived in Brussels after 36 hours on the go via Changi and Heathrow – couldn’t check in for a couple of hours so put our feet up at Blues Corner bar and acclimatised with three or four Leffe Blonds…don’t have access to my image library while on the road so probably no pics this week unless I see something relevant from my window as I type…

1. Do you prefer to drive to your vacation spot or fly?

If it’s in New Zealand, and in the North Island, then almost certainly drive – we are heading way up into Northland for Christmas and driving up in Lil Red and I am so much looking forward to it. A holiday in the South Island, we would probaly fly down and get a hire car from the APOD…anything overseas would be fly in-country and then see what we see vis-a-vis further mobility…

2. If you could live any where in the world, where would you go and why?

Well, having been all around the world a few rtime, I am actually pretty happy just where we are – if I had the money we’d dam up the valley a tad so that we could have a bit of a lake front but that’s about the only thing we miss where we are up on the Mountain i.e. the lack of significant swimmable/boatable water…

3. Should grown women wear leggings?

Well, from a purely superficial male perspective, only if they’ve got the legs for them; if not, we ll, somethings just don’t go together, y’know…

4. If you could change your name to any other name, would you? And what would it be?

Dunno, Luke Skywalker is already taken and nothing else really appeals – guess I’m happy enough as is…

5. What magazines to you have subscriptions to?

Right now I am subscribing to the Fighter Aircraft series because I liked the little 1/72 scale Spitfire than came with Issue 1 last year; I am getting a bit cool on it now because they seem to be sliding towards more and more 1/100 models which don’t go with my collection and which I think are a lazy way of cost-cutting, and b. because the companies quality assurance is the worst and many of the models are damaged within their protective packaging i.e. they were already damaged when they were put in the packaging…am just getting over it as we live too far from town to easily take back damaged items.

I am hoping for official approval to get a two year subscription to the new Airfix magazine, Airfix Modelworld as I really enjoy its articles, the articles are across the spectrum of modelling, it is a worthy successor to the old Airfix Magazine, and it comes with a free model…