Live to Eat | The Daily Post

Posted on 9 February 2016 by SJPONeill

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…

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…

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…so long as the company compensates…

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Time | The Daily Post

Posted on 7 February 2016 by SJPONeill

This week, think about time and portray it photographically. Perhaps you have a fascination with clocks. Or maybe contemplating time takes you somewhere else completely.

Source: Time | The Daily Post

My first thought on reading the title was “…time is fleeting…madness takes control…” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show’s all-time classic track, Time Warp…yes, I know the second phrase is “…madness takes its toll…” but I like my version better…

My second was the temporal irony of the Star Wars saga…the second time I saw Star Wars (the first I was just too blown away for any coherent thought) I just wanted it to go on and on and never end…the first (and ever subsequent) time I saw The Phantom Menace, I just wanted the pain to stop, for it to be over now, now, now…

I can talk about time, I can write about time, but photo time…? Hmmm…

Bed time

Time for a cold one…

Play time…

Breakfast time

The passage of time…

Alphabet | The Daily Post

Posted on 24 January 2016 by SJPONeill

This week, let the alphabet be your inspiration: find a string of letters. Try a multi-photo gallery to collect images of single characters. Find some beautiful typography, or look for letters hidden in natural forms.

Source: Alphabet | The Daily Post

Lockheed F-117 Stealth

North American F-86D

Mountain Air Cessna

De Havilland Sea Hawk

Hawker Hurricane

B-17 Flying Fortress

Circle | The Daily Post

Posted on 11 January 2016 by SJPONeill

Today, let a familiar shape inspire you…I wanted a broad theme that could be simple, fun, and festive, but also complex and introspective. And so, circle it is.

Source: Circle | The Daily Post

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Circles, circles, circles…circles everywhere, doing my head in…that’s how it felt when I got to the undercarriage stage of the large scale TSR.2 I was building in 2014. Being a paper model, every shape is transformed into 3D parts from a 2D printed sheet…wheel generally mean lots of circles…

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…painstakingly cut out with a circle cutter…

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…and laminated…

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…layer by layer…

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…until something approximating a wheel is formed.

Normally the next stage would be to mount each wheel on a drill and apply a sanding stick to the spinning tread surface to form the necessary tyre profile, colouring the final product with a deep grey. On this project, however, I decided that I had reached a point where I couldn’t continue and still produce a model that would be worthy, so this was deemed a test/recce build with the real thing to occur this year hopefully before the Scale Model Expo in Wellington on ANZAC Weekend…

This is the model’s home, here is the start of my build at the Unofficial Airfix Modellers Forum, followed by my continuation build.

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It’s a big build – 82cm long when complete – and generally well designed albeit with some areas for improvement and the scale begs for more detail to the added to the pilot’s cockpit – you can barely see into the WSO’s cockpit as the canopy is not designed to open…

Watch this space for construction to re-commence but I am not looking forward to all those circles again..!

Weight(less) | The Daily Post

Posted on 10 January 2016 by SJPONeill

This week, share a photo of something marked by its weight

Source: Weight(less) | The Daily Post

In 2011, I was working at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.

Just outside one set of the base gates, is the Air Force Armament Museum.

Just outside the Museum building, is (literally) the Mother OF All Bombs.

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The accompanying plaque really says it all…

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30 feet long…40.5 inches in diameter…21,600lbs…

Dear RNZAF, please note the second of the recommended delivery platforms…just open the door and tip it out…

Inside the Museum are many of its relatives, large and small, smart and not so smart…

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The Power of Touch | The Daily Post

Posted on 12 December 2015 by SJPONeill

The Power of Touch – Textures are everywhere: The rough edges of a stone wall. The smooth innocence of a baby’s cheek. The sense of touch brings back memories for us. What texture is particularly evocative to you?

Source: The Power of Touch | The Daily Post

Texture…more than meets the eye…

Juicing versus blending….

Juice is smooth and drinkable, like water….blended oozes with pips and bits…

Here’s where the texture goes…

Eye Spy | The Daily Post

Posted on 7 December 2015 by SJPONeill

We’ve got our eye on your photos this week. (See what we did there?) This week, take “eye” as your inspiration.

Source: Eye Spy | The Daily Post

Around home 004

Ridge Track, Whakapapa Village

Posted on 22 November 2015 by SJPONeill

The Ridge Track is a nice short – about twenty minutes/1.2km each way – walk right in Whakapapa Village…great for a quick leg stretch at lunchtime…

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It starts here at the public shelter, just up the road from the DOC Visitor Centre, and opposite the Whakapapa Holiday Park. The trail itself is just up from the shelter , where you can see the DOC sign on the right of the picture…

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The trail winds behind the shelter…

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…across the bridge and into the forest…

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…past a nice resting spot about halfway up (the forested part)…

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…before you break out into the open and continue up through the tussock.

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Not all of the trail is in tiptop condition and sections like this can be a little more challenging, especially after a good downpour…

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…and your’re there…

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No one is quite sure why there is a big table here but there is…be nice ofr a picnic, better if there were seats…

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Further up the ridge line, on a clearish day, you can often see the very top of Mount Ruapehu…

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…to the north, there are often great views of Mount Ngauruhoe and Mount Tongariro…

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…and below, The Chateau and Whakapapa Village, with SH48 winding back down towards SH47 and civilisation…

Trio | The Daily Post

Image

What comes in threes? Submit an image for this week’s photo theme, Trio.

Source: Trio | The Daily Post

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Three burgers = company’s here!!

Tea and Pikelets at Waihohonu

Posted on 19 November 2015 by SJPONeill

A change is as good as a holiday, so they say…and I leapt at the chance to get out of the office to check on internet connections in the huts on the Northern Circuit.

My day didn’t get off to the smoothest of starts…

Naughty Meindls

…my trusty Meindls tossing a lace…already running a tad late, I grabbed…

Good Meindls

…my spare never-before worn pair…the beauty of Meindls being that you really can wear them right out of the box…

Looking east towards Red Crater, Mount Ngauruhoe on the right

It doesn’t look like the cheeriest of days but it was actually a great day for walking, a nice westerly to take the edge off and keep us cool, and just enough sun to be pleasant without being scorching…

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First stop was Mangatepopo, only about twenty minutes walk in from the car park…a nice cuppa with the ranger there…

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…before some comparative performance testing on laptops, tablets and phones…

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Lured by the promise of pikelets for smoko, we headed off for the other side of Mount Ngauruhoe and Waihohonu Hut…Parking up at the Waihohonu Road End park we made good time into the hut. The surface is mostly sandy, firm enough to walk on but not so compacted as to be uncomfortable…

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While we did our techo-geeky stuff…

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…the chef started on smoko…

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Who says you can’t have the comforts of home in a back country hut..?

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As you can guess from the pix, Waihohonu is quite new and very comfortable…

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Seeing the cloud spilling over Ngauruhoe, we decided on a more cracking pace back to the park, completing the last klick or so at an enjoyable jog…

I’m regretting not filling the spa a couple of weeks ago as a nice soak would go down pretty well at the moment…I suspect that I may be a little stiff in the morning…a most excellent day and one I hope to repeat next week as Oturere still needs testing….