Weekly Photo Challenge: Companionable | The Daily Post

Posted on 10 July 2013 by SJPONeill

The WordPress Cue (via Weekly Photo Challenge: Companionable | The Daily Post)

You might think “companion” refers to a person with whom you share experiences, but the definition is much broader:

A person who is frequently in the company of, associates with, or accompanies another.

A mate or match for something.

A handbook or guide.

A member of the lowest rank in an order of knighthood.

Hmmmm

Well, yes, I must admit that my first thought on seeing this challenge was to fall back on some tried and trusted cute-az pet pix but then, I went on to read the instructions. This, in its own right, was something of a novel experience because, as most modellers know, the instructions are only really there to mix filler on and generally ignore until fully committed to a irrevocable and erroneous construction path…at this point, the instruction become the targets of rage and frustration because they are clearly WRONG WRONG WRONG and written by IDIOTS IDIOTS IDIOTS.

Anyway, the thought of a handbook as companionable set me off on another train of thought, one which arrived at it destination without derailment or other misadventure…

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When I was in Vietnam in 1999, this Lonely Planet book was my constant companion. As a guide book it was off dubious value as I suspect that the author(s) had not actually visited many of the places that they wrote about. If they had, they must have hit Vietnam at its absolute worst as my experience was totally the opposite to the crime-rife doom-laden country that Lonely Planet described…

It was used however for its maps and its canned history (up to around WW2 – after that, lots of pinches of salt) of each region and major town and for providing a background to more contemporary current events i.e. since WW2. My experience then and I cannot speak for now, is that I had not problems finding interesting things to do and see the whole time I was there just by being polite and friendly and simply talking to people.

The LP book however was also useful in some instances where my natural charm was found lacking, for example, bashing bugs…

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Another of my constant companions on that trip was my trusty Minolta 7000i 35mm camera which I lugged around the world for fifteen years before it was replaced by a less trusty Fuji S602Z in 2002. I say ‘less trusty’ because its off/on switch suffered a catastrophic failure in 2009 (after only seven years) and it would have cost more to repair than to replace. Although I paid $NZ2k for the Fuji new in 2002 (and that was well under the RRP!), its more capable (and much smaller) replacement in 2009 was only NZ$120.

I always like to travel with a camera – the current Fuji A220 is great as it fits easily into a pocket and is not as obtrusive as the 602 – as you never know when something photo-worthy may cross your path…Murphy’s Corollary to this, of course, is that truly photo-worthy events only occur when you left the camera in your other trousers…

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And my third constant companion is a notebook and pen…the (a) pen not shown here but I think that I can safely leave this to your imagination; of course I suppose that I could have left the image of a notebook to your imagination as well but I’m not sure how far that would have flown in a photo challenge post…

As much as I would like to trust my memory, Murphy and cold hard experience have shown that if I do not write down cutting insightful thoughts as and when they occur, the original will be lost forever and anything reconstruction from threads of memory later will not be nearly as good as the original thought…so…I always carry a notebook wherever I can. Whether it is lined of blanked pages tends to vary, but looking back I think that this is more driven by availability than anything else – certainly I do not feel driven to stick to the lines on a lined page, although that may be more a comment on my handwriting style than anything else.

I also like to keep my old notebooks and this one dates from the turn of the last century (that will sound better and better as time goes on) and planning of the 1999 and last of the Cotillion Balls in Wellington. I used to write in pencil so that I could erase any errors, typos, or changes of minds (mainly the first two) but as propelling/mechanical pencils became more popular, I tended to ‘lose’ them more often and regressed back to using whatever pen I could acquire from the most convenient source. So, getting back to my notebooks, I have a largish, totally unorganised pile of notebooks and legals pads with all sorts of notes and ideas and mental sketchings scrawled across their pages. If you are looking for the key to world peace (watched Miss Congeniality the other night), it is very well captured somewhere on this pages…

So, there you have it, my three ‘companions’….

Daily Prompt: Tables Turned | The Daily Post

Posted on 9 July 2013 by SJPONeill

Daily Prompt: Tables Turned | The Daily Post.

Are you as comfortable in front of a camera as behind one? Being written about, as well as writing?

Just because, I usually tend to the the do-er than the do-ee when it comes to writing and taking pictures. I’m not sure because this might be because I have a strongly sense of history and the need to record more than those things that are not earth-shattering historic events (those are good too!). Maybe it’s juts because I like writing and taking pictures. I’m not really uncomfortable on the other side of things; it just doesn’t happen that often…

Photographers, artists, poets: show us DISCOMFORT.

Discomfort is when…

…when you are big enough and bad enough to jump up on the trailer but too wussy to jump down again…

…you realise that your new nephew’s happy gurgling means that he wants to bring something up – and it’s not a new subject for conversation…

…you realise that not only are you being watched but that you have been watched and it’s unlikely that you will ever see that bone again…

…you realise that you are the only one that wants to play balloon games…

Weekly Photo Challenge: Nostalgic | The Daily Post

Posted on 8 July 2013 by SJPONeill

Marcus on Rajah, Louise on Melanie and me with Claudia at Waikouaiiti

Family times

Bren, Dev, Paul Faid, Graeme Coffey and half of Tubby O'Connell at leadership camp

School daze

Shane Te Reo, Rongomai Hokianga, 'H' Huria, Mike Solomon, me, Andy Warren and Ken MacLeod, near Labis, Ex KIWI HARIMAU

Oh, for the life of a youngster again…

Weekly Photo Challenge: Nostalgic | The Daily Post.

A Warrior Passes

Posted on 7 July 2013 by SJPONeill

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Last weekend, Kereama Graham Hare Wirangitakina passed away at his home in Waiouru. Known to many as Graham Wi or just Wiina, Graham was a friend, colleague and mentor to many of us. He was laid to rest yesterday.

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One of the many tributes to Wiina, said that this video montage was one of his favourites – as it will be for many who passed through the gates of Dieppe Barracks in the 1980s although it might be entitled The Usual Suspects

I’ve taken the liberty of including some of the tributes to Wiina to illustrate the man and the effect that he had on so many…

Hey brothers. We carried our bro into the Wharenui at the Waiouru Marae and he looked so at peace after his years of silent suffering. For those of yous that haven’t seen him for some time, he progressively got worse over the years. Spoke to his brother and mum, as sad as it is, it was a blessing in disguise and he is now at peace back with his whanau in the sunny far north. He will have a catch-up with his long lost bro Andy Warren in heavenly peace. ONWARDS brothers.

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Kereama Graham Hare Wirangitakina, I have been thinking all week about how you have influenced my life, and finally I know what to say. Long before I became a father, you explained and showed me what fatherhood actually meant. Little did I know at the time, that conversation would shape my understanding of parenting. There were many other snippets of gold in my memories of you Cpl Wi (Cpl at the time), but to me, this was undoubtedly your greatest impact on my life. I will be forever indebted to the interest you took in helping mold who I am today.

I am sorry I cannot be there to say farewell, but I will certainly be charging a very full glass of Rum to you….many times. Take it easy Wi, thanks again and RIP.

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Chur whanau just arrived back from Wi’s tangi and I can report that things went really well. Soldiers, whanau and friends came together…we sang, we laughed, we remembered, we haka’d, we had orders, we had confirmitory orders, we rehearsed, we got cheeky, we got angry, we took a spiritual journey to Te Reinga, we had the meanest weather, and we comforted one another.

Although it was a collective effort lead by capable men and women, a big mihi goes out to the bro Soli! Nei ra te mihi atu ki a koe te kaihautu o te waka nei. The spirit of Ngati Tumatauenga is well and truly alive…mai nga piki me nga heke we will always stand tall in the face of adversity. If I can sum it up in one word “SPEECHLESS”!!

E Winar, okioki i te atawhai o te Atua bro…till we meet again dear friend.

Te taimana whero
Taimana ki runga
Taimana ki raro
Taimana i te kura takahi puni

Whakamua! ONWARD…

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Wiina’s generation shaped the New Zealand Army for the better part of three decades, and through that interface, they were also a formative influence on large parts of New Zealand society at all levels. If one word could sum up this generation it would be ‘standards’ – a closer runner-up for those who know them, might also be ‘mischiefs’…

Many of ‘the usual suspects’…

I don’t remember when I first met Graham Wi, as I knew him, it would have been as a very junior soldier in 2/1 RNZIR in Burnham or 1 RNZIR in Singapore some time in the mid-80s. But my most memorable recollection of him is from 1 RNZIR after it relocated from Singapore to the Manawatu in 1989. I think it was 1993 or ’94, and responsibility for conducting infantry corps training (infantry specialist training after recruit training) had passed to Alpha Company, 1 RNZIR. To regenerate the battalion’s numbers a lot of infantry soldiers had been recruited but the recruit depot in Waiouru was unable to handle the numbers and issued an ultimatum to the effect of ‘…you want them trained, you come and train them…’ As a result, 1 RNZIR sent a platoon commander, platoon sergeant, and some corporals to Waiouru to train a platoon’s worth of infantry recruits. Graham Wi was the that platoon sergeant.

When these young soldiers passed out of their recruit training and arrived in Linton, we were all struck by their professionalism, enthusiasm and standards – read between the lines, and you might gather that not all the products of the recruit depot at this time were as impressive. Then we started to to hear whispers from Waiouru that the 1 RNZIR training team that we had sent there might not have played by the PC rules and perhaps some of the recruits had been mistreated i.e. that their professionalism, enthusiasm and standards might be more due to fear than the infantry ethos and culture.

I asked Graham about it directly. His response was a disdainful glance north (towards Waiouru) “…Nah. All we did was introduce these young men to the concept of standards and the principle that those standards weren’t coming down to meet them…we set the bar and they all came up to it…it IS that simple…” In the months we worked with those young soldiers, that message came through again and again…they were there because they wanted to be there…they sought challenges for the satisfaction of overcoming them…

Kereama Graham Hare Wirangitakina’s generation taught an army to do the job right (regardless of your personal opinion on whether it needed to be be done or not), to be an example to yourself and those around, to fault-check and get the detail right, to push on that little bit further, over just one more false crest…

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Onward, old friend…

Pumpkin Kumara Curry Soup

Posted on 7 July 2013 by SJPONeill

Off to the freezer it goes…

It doesn’t get any easier than this…thanks to TV1’s Good Morning show 5 June 2012.

Prep Time: 15 (possibly a little longer – there’s a ton of veges to peel)
Cook time: 45-60
Cost: $18 (where do these guys shop? By my reckoning, $2.50 for the pumpkin, $2.00 for the kumara, and $1.00 for the spuds – everything else was minor consumables from the pantry.)
Serves: 6 (I guess it all comes down to your definition of large for the pumpkin and kumara – this made enough for three, maybe fours times as many people – I had trouble finding a pot big enough for all the ingredients – Gran’s jam making bowl comes in handy once again!)

Ingredients

1 large pumpkin, peeled and diced
3 large kumara, peeled and diced
3 potatoes, peeled and diced
1 large onion, diced
3 tablespoon dry chicken or vegetable stock
2 litres of water
1 tablespoon of curry powder (had to double this to get the curry flavour to come through – probably three tablespoons would be closer to useful)
Salt & pepper (at least a tablespoon of salt – no tads or smidgens for this recipe, all big kid’s quantities)

Method

Place all ingredients in a pot (apart from salt and pepper) and submerge the vegetables with water covering
them to the top.

Place on a low heat for 45-60 minutes until soft.

Use a potato masher or blender for a creamy effect.

Before serving, check the flavour add salt and pepper if needed.

Serve with garlic bread.

The pot on the left was heaped with the ingredients so I had to transfer everything to Gran’s jam pot on the right…

Daily Prompt: Mirror, Mirror | The Daily Post

Posted on 6 July 2013 by SJPONeill

DSCF6407 Daily Prompt: Mirror, Mirror | The Daily Post.

Fight Begins Over Navy’s Armed Drone Program

Posted on 2 July 2013 by SJPONeill

Fight Begins Over Navy’s Armed Drone Program.

© 2013 National Defense Industrial Association

This is a really good article. Not only is the title intended to tempt in readers in much the same way as ‘Navy UAV takes on mud-wrestling’ might do but it is effective in that intent… The touch and go flight that was recently successfully conducted aboard the USS George HW Bush is a real advance in unmanned aircraft (UA) technology. As I stated at the time, the earlier catapult launching of the X-47B was a bit of a non-event as a block of concrete can be successfully launched by an aircraft carrier catapult, after which it flies in accordance with its design specifications.

The touch and go was probably even more of a challenge than the arrested landing on a carrier that has yet to occur. This is because an arrested landing is exactly that – the aircraft will stop (arrest) whether it really wants to or not (unless it’s an F-35C where the hook may or may not engage or simply bounce over the wire). In a touch and go, the UA must land on the carrier, remained aligned with the flight deck and take off again until its own power – no catapult-assisted kick in the rear to help out.

Now we are starting to see some real operating concepts being rolled out for an unmanned combat aircraft (UCA??) that give us some idea of how such a capability may be employed to complement the manned component of an aircraft carrier’s air wing and, by inference, the manned component of other air combat forces. Unfortunately the fight mentioned in the title is not over how we will use UCAs but more over who might build them and does the builder of the concept development platform have an unfair advantage over other contenders for the production run. This resurrects shades of the USAF KC-X tanker and light attack aircraft trainer (LAAT) programmes where the bigger issue was not which was the best aircraft for the role but who was going to make to damn things…

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UCLASS will operate autonomously most of the time, but a pilot will control the aircraft during critical mission segments. Ultimately, Lockheed wants its design to allow one operator to fly as many as four aircraft at the same time, he said. “There’s going to be inherent systems aboard the aircraft and in the loop that will ensure safe separation” between the drones.

There are some interesting themes in this short paragraph…

“…will operate autonomously most of the time, but a pilot will control the aircraft during critical mission segments…” Please define ‘autonomously’: does this mean that the UCA will operate ‘most of the time’ thinking for itself, making its own decisions on how it will conduct tasks in the a similar manner to how the pilot/crew of a manned aircraft conduct themselves? Watch out, Skynet, here comes the competition!! Or, does it mean that the UCA will operate automatically for those portions of its mission where a human operator is not required, for example, during long transits through permissive (no credible bad guys) airspace or other ‘boring stuff’? One of the biggest problems facing the UA community is the misuse of UA-related terminology within the military and by the media and the public. We may not be able to do too much about the latter two but we can certainly get it right within our own communities…autonomous ≠ automatic!!

“…to allow one operator to fly as many as four aircraft at the same time…” Uh-huh…just how will this work when things get ‘busy’? I would say that this task would be a challenge akin to chainsaw-juggling (engines revving) and would question whether the human mind, even assisted by notional AI and the best situational awareness tools available will be severely challenged to keep track of multiple UCAs performing anything more than the most mundane of ‘bus-driving’ tasks…

“…between the drones…” OMG, see the point about getting the terminology right…a drone in nature and in technology is just that – why do you think it is not considered exactly complimentary to refer to someone as a ‘drone’? A drone is a semi-expendable minion, not noted for its ability for free thought or great displays of initiative. A military drone is something like the Teledyne Ryan ones flown over Vietnam et al in the 60s, or the good old CL-289 taught to glazed-eye tactics students during the Cold War.

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A ‘drone’ is not the interactive, responsive tool that most contemporary UA are, even those acquired from Toyword, Ebay, or Trademe. We really need to square away the semantics within the UAS community so that we can sing off the same sheet of music to the uninitiated and not simply muddy the waters further. If this doesn’t come from the UAS community, it will be inflicted upon it by those unaware and uninitiated who think a drone is something to be afraid of – not because it is so dumb but because it might (apparently) take over the world…

So let’s keen an eye on progress with the X-47B and the upcoming US UCA competition but let’s also not be so blinded by its coolness that we don’t forget our own responsibilities towards enlightenment and responsibility.

Too beautiful not to share

Image

A former RNZAF A-4 Skyhawk, now operated by Draken International…

More snow coming….

Posted on 19 June 2013 by SJPONeill

Stupid WordPress!! This should have popped out under the Chalet blog…

The Chalet sits around 650 metres above sea level so here’s hoping for a some more snow on the ground this weekend….

Friday – 21 June

Showers, some heavy, with snow above 600 metres. Strong southwesterlies, gale near the tops at first.

Free air freezing Level: 1000 metres.

Issued at 10:25am Wednesday 19 Jun 2013

Saturday – 22 June

A few showers, falling as snow above 700 metres. Strong southwesterlies easing.

Free air freezing Level: 1000 metres.

Issued at 10:25am Wednesday 19 Jun 2013

Sunday – 23 June

A few showers, falling as snow above 1000 metres. Strong southwesterlies.

Free air freezing Level: Rising to 1500 metres.

http://www.metservice.com/mountain/tongariro-national-park

Daily Prompt: Singin’ in the Rain | The Daily Post

Posted on 18 June 2013 by SJPONeill

Daily Prompt: Singin’ in the Rain | The Daily Post.

I normally don’t have time for the Daily Prompt but the rain in the last week or so, especially after the super-long and dry summer, has been phenomenal… Raurimu 020

We normally get quite high flow down the driveway which splits as it approaches the house and diverts off down the hill on either side…this morning I had a look out the back of the house when I feed the dogs and noticed that water was starting to flow up to the back of the house. I grabbed the spade and scraped out some encouragement for the water to go elsewhere…

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Tonight, I am rather glad that I did as this would be flowing under the house otherwise – sorry, already got internal running water!

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This is the water flowing the other way away from the house this evening, around the front of the spa and eventually into the pond next door – until *cunning plan* we build our own pond…

Meanwhile, on the mainland…this is the northern approach to Maheno, just south of Oamaru where I was brought up. ‘Normally’ this part of the main road would be some metres above the scraggly little creek that runs under the road…not so scraggly now…
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…the pub is behind the Clark’s Mill sign on the other side of the railway berm, fortunately only the basement is flooded but the beer is still cool…

…and slightly east on the coast, this is the Kakanui Bridge, normally well above the river level…apparently the bridge shakes every time a floating tree hits it…

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