Share Your World – 2016 Week 32

Here is the basic Share Your World format:

  • Answer three random questions each week.

  • Respond to a fourth item (I will randomly chose from this list)

  • Answer the bonus question which is always the same  “What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?”  Because we all need to be reminded that there are many things in our lives to be grateful about.

 

If you could have an endless supply of any food, what would you get?

Coconuts. They don’t grow here so it’s not like I can grow my own and they are still pretty pricey at the supermarket but with a guaranteed supply, I’d be making all my own coconut oil, flour, milk etc even more than I am now…of course, in a few months I’d be over it and want an endless supply of something else…

What is the worst thing you ate this last recently?

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Tough question as I eat pretty well, if I do say so myself…I’ve been working to perfect a good (great would be awesome but I’ll settle for good) dairy-free latte. Non-dairy milks won’t ‘pull’ the same way as real milk…this is due to to a lack of protein so adding a half- teaspoon or so of protein powder lets coconut or almond milk froth up nicely using a mechanical frother. Last week, during the trial phase, I made an error in assuming the frother would also serve as a mixer for the teaspoon of protein powder in the bottom of the cup. It didn’t and my coffee was spoiled by a sand-like grit (it was pea protein not dairy) in the dregs  – normally the best bit where the final swirls of coffee and coconut combine…

Are you are comfortable doing nothing? For long stretches of time?

Yes…years of practice…something called ‘hurry up and wait’…it’s easy to zen into a ‘park’ mode, still aware of what goes on but conserving effort and energy ’til whatever happens/arrives/departs/whatever…

List of Jobs You Think You Might Enjoy: Even if you aren’t thinking about a career change, it can be fun to think of other jobs you might enjoy.

Now that I’m back on the Mountain, I gaze longingly at the snow-covered slopes and wish I could ski or climb again…cold injuries are such a bitch and they never really go away…

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These are my favourites…Ruapehu’s too over=populated…

I’d like to have my own cafe…paleo-themed but not pedantically so…I drive past Ferguson’s Cafe in Whakapapa Village every day and the lost potential rubs me so badly…

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I’d love to fly but not for a living

Bonus question:  What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up? 

Last week, I’m grateful I finally took the plunge and applied for the next Pre-Hospital Emergency Care course. I’ve been avoiding getting back into this game for a while but the more I get drawn into the Park and the District, old flames rekindle. I enjoyed the debate during the Outdoor First Aid course last year and much as I’ve tried to steer away, I think now why not..? So a lot of study to get my head back in this…

I’m also grateful that I took the plunge to run for the National Park Community Board. Again, as a result of being drawn more and more into the District, I’m looking for ways to engage and contribute. Earlier this year I joined the Village Business Association and the Community Board seems like a logical next step…

Next week…I’m looking forward to my parent’s coming to visit for a week…the first time they’ve bee up here in quite some time…been a few changes to this place…DSCF9706.JPG

Also looking forward to some good outcomes from a tactical planning meeting with my lawyers on Monday…one way or another, the battle with the bank hasn’t got long to run…how it will go I don’t know but the new evidence we uncovered in the last week or so looks promising…

 

Muse | The Daily Post

My muse…

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt: muse

Source: Muse | The Daily Post

I saw this topic pop up in the morning mail and thought it would be a quick and easy post…

appollo and muses

The Muses/ˈmjzz/ (Ancient Greek: Μοῦσαι, Moũsai; perhaps from the Proto-Indo-European root *men- “think”) in Greek mythology are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the poetry, lyric songs, and myths that were related orally for centuries in these ancient cultures…In current English usage, “muse” can refer in general to a person who inspires an artist, writer, or musician.

I did a spot of googling, mainly in search of an image to fit my perception of ‘muse’ and to lesser degree, see what others might be thinking. At first I thought this quote was pretty apt:

 A writer’s muse

One day he will find you. He will touch you and you will feel a lifetime of indifference – of apathy melt away in a single moment. And you will ache for him. You will love him, in a way you walk a tightrope – in the way people learn to fall asleep in a war zone. You will bleed for him until the day they are gone. You will bleed for him every day after that. The time will pass and you will feel robbed – you will grow bitter. You will ask why but you won’t get an answer. And that is when the words will come.

~ Lang Leav

Who is Lang Leav? “…Leav is the international best-selling author of Love & Misadventure, Lullabies and Memories. She currently resides in New Zealand with her partner and fellow author Michael Faudet…”

What was wrong with this picture and many of the other memes, notes and articles that I found is that they all portray a muse as a dark thing, the bringer or the result of pain and tragedy. And that’s just wrong…

Yes, I am still riding my wave of Beatles nostalgia after watching Across the Universe last weekend…such great, so very clever words…if you haven’t seen Across the Universe, it is really worth the watch…if you like The Beatles…if you like the grassroots groundswell of change that swept the late 60s…if you just likely a feel good story put to great music…original takes on classic tunes…

It’s sad that so many people think that tragedy and pain is the only inspiration…my muse inspires through happiness and light…a mischief smile…a twinkling eye…examples well-set…

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That inspiration shouldn’t be this rare…

This is my muse…(look away from the screen and just hear the words)

My muse…changes the way I think…

My muses…changes the way I feel…

My muse…keeps me on the path of light…

Annika - SH47 Erua 22 Jul 16 2Even just relistening to all these tunes while drafting this post rekindles those memories and I’m writing again…the world might be a dark and scary place, there may be many things happening that we don’t like or that may frighten us but we shouldn’t be looking to the darkness for our inspiration: nothing good lies there…we should look to the light, look what’s good and let that inspire us…

My muse is my sun…

Share Your World – 2016 Week 30

Another template, I stole from Inspiring Max – not sure if it will become a regular or not…although I do miss Mama M‘s old Five Question Friday challenges…

With your answers, please remember we are in the SYW world which may not always match our reality.
Source: Share Your World – 2016 Week 30 – Cee’s Photography

Do you prefer a bath or shower?
Generally a shower because showers are quick and I am always in a hurry; also because it has been a long time since I actually had access to a working bath…I’d like to replace the bathroom external wall with a double-glazed slider or bifold, tile the interior and be able to lie in the bath (the same bath that has been sitting in the garage since the end of 2009) and gaze out into the native bush. Somewhere, I’d also like to spot a couple of external baths, preferably with solar heating, actually out in the bush for even more chilled chllin’…

Imagine…

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..this wall but…

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…with a view like this and…

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…this bath where the current shower is…
If you had an unlimited shopping spree at only one store, which one would you choose? Why?
ITM. I would stock up on unlimited building supplies and tools so that I can start and ultimately finish all the projects I want to do here: bathroom, kitchen, post and rail fencing down the driveway, around the boundary, and around the Lodge and the cottage, decks from the front door, dining area and bath room, and retaining walls against the banks. The only resource that I would need that would not be available from ITM would be time.

Imagine four bar post and rail fences….

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…running along both boundaries and…

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…closing the cottage in…

If you could be one age for the rest of your life, what age would that be?

My thirties were a lot of fun…I think I’d like to try them again but knowing what I do now…

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List at least five movies that cheer you up.

Love Actually. I don’t like all the plot lines in this but some I do and, combining a neat sound track with happy endings, this is my – for now – bestest feel good movie…

Brainstorm. I’m not sure why – this movie is set, in the real world, against the tragedy of Natalie Wood;s untimley death…the story itself is vaguely technobabbly…but it always leaves me with a good buzz…

The Quiet Man. A babe, a brawl and a bully. A John Wayne classic set in an Ireland of along ago…

John Carter. An epic that flows and that works – for me anyway – totally unchallenging, I can just let it flow over me…

Remember the Titans. I just like it…greta story…great soundtrack…

Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

DSCF0329I am actually grateful for the big fridge deciding to pop a fuse. I put the back-up fridge – it would be THE beer fridge if I ever got round to putting beer in it – in the kitchen as an interim measure…while I miss the capacity of the big Bosch – possibly because I have to think a little bit harder about what goes where – I really like the more open appearance of and access to the kitchen area…

With your answers, please remember we are in the SYW world which may not always match our reality. Do you prefer a bath or shower? If you had an unlimited shopping spree at only one store, which on… I think that I may keep the small fridge here as the ‘ready use’ fridge and relegate the Bosch to the back pantry for longer term storage…after three years, finally making changes that suit me…

Coffee Catch-Up #2

 

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Inspired by Inspiring Max’s Coffee Catch-Ups, in this case #12

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I am well over this series of mechanical mishaps: first the engine in the truck blows just before ANZAC Day – six weeks to get the sorted and a big dent in the savings; then the water heater in the kitchen floods under the wall into the back pantry – not expensive but days of mopping and cleaning til I was sure there was no permanent damage; and on the weekend, the big fridge just stopped being cold – lights still come on, just no cold. Found a failed fuse and thought that was it but the replacement popped as soon as the power went back on so now I have to wait til the service guy is out this way in a few weeks (it’s a mega-beast to move).

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that aside from the frustration of having a stand-in  fridge only a fraction of the capacity of the real one, I really like the more open access into the kitchen enabled by the reduced profile fridge: the big one came out to the edge of the lino in the picture above…I think it may be relegated to the back pantry with a smaller profile device going into that corner of the kitchen with just the most popular ready-use items…plus I’m already in love with being able to just grab fruit off the top like this…DSCF0334.JPG

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that my battle with the bank is making some headway and we are getting some wins but will they be enough to change the outcome before everything goes? I’m getting great support from my legal team and those Members of Parliament that are assisting me and also looking at the potential changes to legislation that might fall out of this. But will it be enough…?

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I was rapt today to be cleared by Michaela at PhysioDirect Ohakune to be able to return to a normal life after popping a disk in my back a month or so ago. One of the silver linings to come from that mishap – never dance with a big dog when it’s icy – is that I have had to return to a daily stretching regimen: something that I should never have stop doing…

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that this is being a drearily grey winter so far…yes, there’s snow on them thar hills but just not enough of it…DSCF0300.JPG…the dreary greyness can be quite depressing but apparently banana peels are rich in serotonin so we’re blending our bananas whole to see how that works…

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I bought yet another coffee toy, a capsule expresso machine only to find that I didn’t have a single expresso-sized cup that would fit the machine…I finally dug out an old tea cup that came with the house that is doing the trick for now…

DSCF0330I finally bought a frother too: the coconut milk doesn’t much like the heat of the steam frother.

DSCF0332Now my work towards world domination a perfectly frothed non-dairy milk can continue…
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Wrapping up a Coffee Catch Up with a coffee…

 

 

Empty | The Daily Post

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt.

Source: Empty | The Daily Post

When I’m working in the study at home, I use Plex to shuffle through the music library and send it down the stereo to play through the house. I often rewarded (and occasionally punished) with an eclectic blend of sounds throughout the day.

If You Only came on just as I was browsing the (long long long) list of unused prompts in my WordPress folder. The sentiment of the song seemed to fit the prompt ‘Empty‘…it’s sad to think that someone you know could be feeling like this, not realising what they have going for them, maybe wanting to reach out but ‘too’, too whatever to make that first move…

If you only knew
Just how we feel about you
You couldn’t hurt like you do

And if you only knew
How everybody loves you
You wouldn’t feel so alone

Well, everybody’s looking
Oh, what must they be thinking?
Oh, what must they be thinking?

And every glance, and every shrug and gesture
It has another meaning
Oh, what must they be thinking?
Well, I know what I think

That if you only knew
Just how we feel about you
You couldn’t hurt like you do

And if you only knew
How everybody loves you
You wouldn’t feel so alone

On every tongue a whisper
Oh, I know what they’re saying
Yeah, I know what they’re saying

Do you see that face, it says

“You have no right to be”
Oh, what must they be thinking?
Oh, what must they be thinking?
Well, I know what I think

If you only knew
Just how we feel about you
You couldn’t hurt like you do

And if you only knew
How good it is to see you
You wouldn’t feel so alone

And on one day
You may find that you’re no different
But ’til that day
We see you waste your days away

But if you only knew
Just how we feel about you
You couldn’t hurt like you do

And if you only knew
Just how good it feels to see you
You wouldn’t feel so alone

Don’t you feel so all alone

Don’t you feel so all alone” That’s not a question, it’s a direction…many people don’t see that, can not make that move to reach out…sometimes they just need that nudge, the random phone call, the casual coffee, the ‘was just passing by and thought I’d drop in‘…

Anyway that’s today’s totally random post…Plex has gone on to The Pogues now…

 

Tourist | The Daily Post

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt Tourist.

Source: Tourist | The Daily Post

I’m not really into the tourist thing…most places I go I like to slip away, wander around, and mix with the people…pix of me doing the tourist thing are thus few and far between…

Me in Hawaii

Mandatory posed pic, tourist luau, Oahu, 1988

Mark and Ricki's Wedding - Fiji 58

Doing the tourist thing, Fiji, 2003

Top Gun Day

topgun

May 13 was, apparently, Top Gun day…

Anyone who is anyone knows that Top Gun is Tom Cruise’s principal contribution to Western culture and that TOPGUN is the place where real aviators do way cooler stuff than was ever in the movie…

Everyone also knows that movies like Top Gun are all about the toys and not about the boys…

topgun256Top Gun was released in 1986 and screened in New Zealand later that same year. I’m pretty sure it was 1986 because it was my first year in the Army and I used to crash on many weekends at my mate’s flat in Picton Ave…handily the corner with Riccarton Road on which the KFC sat…

The good thing about going to the movies in the 80s was that we were spared the torrent of media releases, spoilers, making-of, etc, etc, etc and going to the movie was actually the first part of the experience not the last…

At that time in NZ, Ready to Roll was the weekly TV Top 40 show and that was where we might get an inkling of what a movie was like from the music video. But in 1986, TVNZ had a falling out with the music producers who demanded a royalty for the screening of said music videos. TVNZ’s position was that it was providing free advertising for their product so no way…as a result, we missed some of the better music videos from the mid-80s, of which Top Gun‘s Danger Zone was one…

That Saturday night Top Gun was our movie night pick – we didn’t have great expectations, modern aviation based movies to that point topping out with Blue Thunder and hitting rock bottom with Iron Eagle.  My mate Paul had other plans for the evening so I went with a chap named Dom Kelasih.

Now at the that time, our chosen mode of transport around Christchurch was motorbike. When I had come up from Invercargill in January for my infantry training, my first act, like very first, as soon as I rode into town, on arriving was to trade this…

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…in on this…

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I usually rode it with the side covers off as they were only thin ABS and used to keep cracking…this is it all packed for Christmas ’86…from memory, I was house-sitting for a friend in Christchurch and working over the holidays…this is probably just after the Top Gun incident…

Anyways…so Dom and I sent out in plenty of time from Picton Ave into the movies in the centre of town – from memory, it may have been the Embassy Theatre. The most direct route was through Hagley Park, and a road with some lovely gentle curves. Dom’s chariot of choice at the time was a 50cc ning-ning machine but he rode it like a maniac…right up to the point when the cop parked by the hospital waved him over – and then me,because we were obviously riding together…

We had been travelling a little over the 50kmh urban speed limit and this could have been expensive. I played the soldier card, good old country boy from the wilds from Burnham Military Camp just having a quiet weekend in the city but worried about getting lost and so my only concern was getting lost and keeping up with my guide. Many of these cops were ex-Army and/or Territorials and this was often a successful approach…as it was this time…for me…

Poor old Dom was not quite so lucky being somewhat deficit in some of the his critical documentation, like a license and maybe a warrant of fitness, and rode away a lot poorer…

As a result, we got to the theatre late, although this was the good old days of trailers and shorts so we still got to be seated before the main feature kicked off…seated right at the very front, in the veriest front row…so close to the screen that the action flew (literally for this movie!) beyond the extent of our vision…getting all that glorious ACM from  neck-crickin’ proximity…

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Top Gun is probably the only movie that I have seen that was a pain in the neck in a positive sense – have seen many others that have been pains in the neck – and elsewhere – in more negative contexts…

Of course, we had to revisit it the following night…at a more sedate pace…and from seats more in the viewing sweet spot…

Top Gun…probably one of the best recruiting movies ever made…one of the first blockbusters that introduced an element – in a  very Hollywood manner but who really wants to pay to see a military training movies..? – of what the military really does…

At the time it was also quite topical: earlier in 1986, there had been another misunderstanding between Libya and the US Navy over access to the Gulf of Sidra, one that had been resolved by naval aviation and ELDORADO CANYON was the follow on act to this later that year…As young soldiers, brought up in a Cold War environment  (as close to it as you got down under), we wondered what these events might lead to, especially before the Challenger disaster was found to be the result of a cheap washer and not some Middle Eastern nutjob…

While I’m not convinced that it deserves its own day, Top Gun (two words, only first letters capped!), the movie, the soundtrack, and the ripper quotes, did shape and define our 80s…

Object | The Daily Post

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt: object.

Source: Object | The Daily Post

Draw a picture of a chair by looking at a real chair not a photograph. ~Pre-instruction drawings; Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain; Betty Edwards

I had thought the original task was to draw a picture of any object by looking at it but it was 1999 that I started this so I may be excused for a minor memory lapse. This was the period that I was working closely with Wingnut Films and the Lord of the Rings crew and my uber-latent arty side was being nudged daily. Drawing and screen-writing were the two main areas in which I took an interest up to the day that people started flying planes into buildings…

Being much more comfortable with writing and story-telling, these became my comfort zone and while my interest in drawing remained, my discipline for the exercises waned. I unearthed my drawing pad recently during a clean-out and then, only a week or so, stumbled across the subject of one of those early exercises.

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Wow…seventeen years ago…so much water under the bridge since then…I’m quite keen on restarting this programme…it’s all based on the book so no enrolments or administration necessary just some willpower and motivation…

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Today…

This is the original on which the drawing is based. It has some history.

Until July 1989, this chair was occupied by the Officer Commanding, Charlie Company, the First Battalion, the Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment, or, in military shorthand, OC C Coy, 1 RNZIR. From this seat, that individual dispensed justice, ‘offered’ guidance to young officers, and oversaw with ruthless scrutiny, the development and training of a hundred or so lean and keen infantry soldiers.

Near the end of 1987, the New Zealand Government decided it was time for its own version of ‘nothing east of Suez’, announcing that the New Zealand force based in Singapore, aka NZFORSEA, would be withdrawn to New Zealand by the end of 1989. This was called OP(eration) KUPE.

The force in Singapore was a legacy of the Commonwealth intervention into Malaya in the 1950s, Borneo in the 1960s and, for Australia and New Zealand, Vietnam. For over three decades, in various incarnations, it had contributed to the secure and stable development of the states of Malaysia and Singapore: rightly or wrongly, the Government felt it was now time to for New Zealand to focus more closely on its immediate South Pacific neighbourhood. Perhaps lost in the political mix, were the second and third order effects of our presence in Singapore, particularly in providing access to prime jungle training areas in Malaysia, and opportunities for young New Zealanders to experience and mature in a foreign culture.

While we didn’t quite get to the stage of pushing helicopters off aircraft carriers – all our helicopters were safely repatriated to serve faithfully for another quarter century…

ABCA Executive Council visit to ATG 001

Still going strong in 2005…finally retired in 2015…

…many items deemed non-essential were fated to remain in Singapore, many destined for the ignominious end of the rubbish fires…

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Burning off pre-RTNZ rubbish

When a whisper on the rumour advised that the company office furniture was due to be hauled away to the tip, there was competition to secure anything worth securing for repatriation as personal effects. the only time I have moved faster was when Trevor Sexton chased me down the final leg of the Burnham fitness circuit threatening to do me an impropriety with his pacestick if I didn’t pick up the pace – that was the first and only time I ever broke nine minutes on the required fitness test 2.4km run.

I seized possession of the chair seconds before company clerk, Steve Carrick, burst into the office, much miffed at missing out. I should point out, in all fairness, that, as company clerk, he already had a pretty nice chair in his own office; as a private rifleman, my issued seating was a camouflaged foot-square piece of rubber thermal mat used in the field.

The OC’s chair served me well through various roles and homes in Palmerston North, Linton, Trentham and Wellington…

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The chair of power in front of the mighty Amiga 500

…but got misplaced in a house move over a decade ago. It has clearly seen better days but I was rapt to find it clearing out a storage unit last week…an object of days gone by history…

 

Green | The Daily Post

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt: Green.

Source: Green | The Daily Post

Green.

Green machine.

Burnham Training Depot TF Basic and Corps Training

Maj Graeme Vercoe, Maj Mark Howell - Ex LOTHLORIEN Nov 86 0029 Pl, C Coy, 1 RNZIR, Ex TAIAHA TOMBAK, me centre pic with glasses and C9
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ABCA Executive Council visit to ATG 012

 

Live to Eat | The Daily Post

Some people eat to live, while others live to eat. What about you? How far would you travel for the best meal of your life?

Source: Live to Eat | The Daily Post

I love good food but if I was travelling any distance for it, it would almost definitely be about the company, not the food…even if it was a gratis meal at a top restaurant or a weekend at one of the more exciting food fairs, the company would still be the key…

I had a great breakfast at Kokako when I was in Auckland recently…a brilliant vegetarian combination and only five minutes walk from my hotel…but the company made it…

Their photo...we were too busy eating and chatting to pic...

Their photo…we were too busy eating and chatting to pic…

Walking from Otaki Forks to Field Hut is the furthest I have walked for a meal – and through a blizzard to boot…

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…but it was still about the company…

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To consider the question, if you can make good food, you don’t have to travel far for good food; while one might enjoy one’s own company, that only goes so far…I would only go so far simply for a meal…I would go a long way for a meal in good company…

…the venue need not be that flash…

RNZIR Sect Comd Cse 1993 08

…so long as the company compensates…

RNZIR Sect Comd Cse 1993 19