Tag Archives: New Zealand

An interview with me

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Best Friends

One of the suggestions in the WordPress Daily/Weekly Post challenge is to Conduct an interview for your blog, with some tips and a suggested question list on SuccessBlogNet. I have a short but slowly evolving list of potential interviewees and I’m thinking of maybe making this a periodic feature…first up, though, I thought I’d interview me to see what it feels like…

Can you tell us a little about yourself?

Brought up in a small town in South Island of New Zealand; long time military career…really…most of its in the ‘about me’ tab just up there ^…

Why is there a picture of two dogs at the top of the post?

I always like to have at least one picture in every post, usually at the top. That’s Lulu and Kirk, my two helpers when I work from home…

How you first got involved in with blogging?

Just bumbled into it…have spent a lot of time over the years since the internet became really accessible here around 96 or 97 on discussion boards but hadn’t really spent much time in the blogosphere until 2009…my biggest inspirations were the blog used by the COIN Center at Fort Leavenworth, Travels with Shiloh (link just over there on the right), and Peter Hodge’s much-missed The Strategist (sadly Peter pulled the pin on this when he went overseas last year). Since I found WordPress, it’s really just been a trial and error fumbling-in-the-dark process…

What do you find most challenging about blogging about your topic?

Having the time to write…it was OK late 09 and early 10 when I took a sabbatical from full-time work and could devote 2-3 hours a day to researching and writing mini-essays but once I returned to work mid-10, I have had to work really hard to maintain an output. Of course, to a certain extent that is self-inflicted as I am still a bit of a blog fuddy-duddy and keep forgetting that I can draft and pre-schedule posts instead of writing them live…the ability of Windows Live Writer to draft posts offline is slowly getting me more organised in this area…

Tell me about some of the people you’ve met while working on your blog?

I’ve ‘met’ a bunch of people through the blog as brief contacts…I’m not much good at keeping in touch unless I have something to say…Dean and Peter mentioned above would be the two main long-term connections I have maintained since starting to blog – until Peter broke up the team by putting real world before blog! Just kidding! But of those I have ‘met’ briefly most have only added to my positive experiences of the blogosphere – the exceptions really being a few minor acolytes of Mike Yon who break out the torches and pitchforks every time someone offers a differing opinion to his…

How would (someone) describe your blogging style?

Structured…I probably think too much about what I’m writing instead of just emoting directly into the blog and that does really slow me down (not always a bad thing!) – I still feel like I should be writing as for an essay or formal paper and that’s NOT what this form of communicating is really about…

What do you do when you aren’t working on your blog?

What my wife tells me to do!!! As above, the blog takes a back seat to work although there are some logical cross-overs in the COIN/Irregular Activity area. When I work more from home in the summer, there is a ton of (mostly self-inflicted) work to do around the house and when the weather’s nice, blogging also takes a back seat to that – I’d love to do more after dark but after a day’s working (work work) online AND some solid hours working outside, I’m pretty shagged…last night I didn’t even make it through Bones and work up on the couch around 1pm…fortunately it’s a very comfortable and large couch so no back pains or anything…

Are you a full time blogger? How did you get into blogging and why?

Define ‘fulltime’…does blogging rule my life or is it my number one activity…nope. I’m aiming at one decent (yeah, define ‘decent’) post a week (the WordPress post a week challenge is a great catalyst) and normally make that. Decent = a substantial proportion of my own thoughts/work not just a bunch of pictures or borrowed material. If I could, I like to write a 1500-2000 word post twice a week…

What networking do you do that you feel helps your blogging business?

Hmmm…trick question? For me, blogging’s not a business although I occasionally use it to promote business’ that I think are worthy of attention, and those I am connected with like Hawkeye UAV and FX Bikes…am a bit of a sucker for cool Kiwi entrepreneurs…to promote the blog, I have the url in my signature in places as diverse as Paper Modelers and Small Wars Journal, in my email signature block, and also most places where I might offer up some comment from time to time. I don’t actively promote the blog other than through those means and being aware of key words that the searchbots like…my biggest ‘hits’ days have been through searches for Masterchef, quadding my hit rate for over a week when Masterchef 2011 kicked off here…

How do you keep coming up with material/content for your blog? Many people struggle with coming up with different articles/posts and they only have one blog.

I subscribe to enough feeds from around the place to get more than enough stimuli to write…although we ding-dong occasionally, I find a get a lot of good cues off Mike Yon’s Facebook page; next after this would probably be items posted for discussion at the Small Wars Council…

What’s your strategy with your blog in general?

Ummm…you think I should have one…? Will give that some thought…it’s more a tool or a means than an end in its own right so I’ve never really thought about in that light…it’s not like I’m planning on using it to take over the world or anything…plus Dean (aka Dr Karma) already promised me a good job when he makes his bid for world domination…although, your Karma-ness, overlord of Australia…? I was expecting something a little more up-market, you know…longest serving minion (after Shiloh) at all that…in-humour, I’m sorry to any not signed up to Dean’s FB page and all of that will mean nothing and he probably meant for it to be a surprise…

What would you prioritize? Content? SEO? Traffic? Readers?

Content because it’s my soapbox and it’s all about me; then readers – one always likes to feel if not needed then at least not totally ignored; then the rest of that stuff…

What’s the best thing a blogger can give to his readers?

A. Entertainment. and/or b. something that might in some small way be useful to them…

A lot of people are interested in blogging for the money earning potential. What are some tips for people interesting in making money from blogging? What are some realistic expectations in regards to what can be made?

Don’t know…not really that interested…the big turn-off for me are those sites that are so dominated by ads, that it is difficult to determine what is content and what is mere marketing spam…

Do you think Pagerank plays a vital role in a blog’s life?

Honest answer…don’t really care; an even more honest answer would be I have no idea what you just said…

What has been your strategy for creating visibility to yourself and your blog?

Are you listening to me…really…? See what I said about re networking – that applies here as well – so does the strategy bit…please pay attention…I notice you’re not taking any notes – do you have a super-memory or am I just boring you…?

What was the most challenging moment in your blog content development process and why?

When I disagreed with a paper that Adam Elkus wrote and he came to my blog to discuss it…a real crisis of confidence: if that hadn’t gone well, I probably would have binned the blog and gone back into my hole. he was really good though and just wanted to put his POV…second would be when they added me to the blogroll at Snall Wars Council and that was like, wow, big leagues…I really need to up my game now…or just run away…so far game-upping seems to be working…

Everyone has a favorite/least favorite post. Name yours and why?

My favourite, because of the picture and not some much my content would be The Big Gun – Michael Yon’s up close and personal shot with the cannon on the A-10 is brilliant…least favourite? There are a few that I was less than satisfied with for one reason or another but no specific ‘un-favourites’…

What’s your take on sponsored reviews?

Paid advertising – I hate them…

Name some of the bloggers whom you look up to and why?

It’d be those in the blogroll – I’m not interested in a blogroll four miles long so I keep it pretty short and think long and hard before adding another one to the list…all of those bloggers are people who in one way or another inspire me…

If someone was interested in blogging, what would be a few things you would suggest?

Shop around the blog hosts before you commit – if you want a good soapbox, WordPress is tops; if you want to try to blogging for money, try elsewhere unless to want to self-host right from the start – NOT RECOMMENDED for noobs…

Start small and slow…don’t unload all your best ideas in the first week.

Stick with it and don’t given up because your daily hits seem stuck in single figures.

Write about the things that you are passionate about…eventually, if you write it, they will come…usually, so long as your passion is not so obscure that you’re the sole member of the groupie club…

A Bath?

Yep…like to finish with a photo too…this was in a house we looked at buying over Napier way a couple of years ago when we wanted to get a bit closer to civilisation. Decided that civilisation was over-rated so stayed where are near the Spiral…a good bath really makes a house though…

First Pics – RNZAF’s NH-90

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These are taken in the last couple of weeks during test flying in Europe…

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Classy… but THESE old girls have got SOUL!!!

 

 

 

 

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Be a sad day when the last of the Whok-Whoks go…

Dicks

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The two minute silence at 1251 this afternoon was pretty chilling…I’m at home alone so who was to know if I didn’t observe it but when the sound on the TV went off exactly at 1251 and they just screened the pictures of Christchurch, it was just stunning…being somewhat rural, there was no sound at all for two minutes…really a moment to reflect…

Unfortunately not everyone’s getting into the national, indeed global, spirit of things for Christchurch, as seen on today’s updates on the NZ Herald site:

Dick #1

Council of Trade Unions secretary Peter Conway says the Government’s initial earthquake assistance package does not go far enough as it doesn’t seem to cover people who can’t work because of the personal impact of the earthquake.
He says children are off school, people’s homes are in a terrible state in some circumstances and there are transport problems preventing people from getting to work.

You think the Government isn’t well aware of that? How about coughing up some dosh from the union funds

Dick #2

Labour Leader Phil Goff says the Christchurch earthquake should not be used “as an excuse to sell off our valuable assets”.
He says cutting financial assistance to families and students in other parts of New Zealand would slow the economy.
“All New Zealanders are prepared to stand together and shoulder the financial burden of the recovery.”

OK, Phil, off the soapbox! How dare you use this disaster to push party political broadcasts!! We’ll all do what we need to do to rebuild and if that’s means so other areas of the economy need to take a back seat for a while, so be it…

Dick #3

More power to you guys...!!!!

An Auckland T-shirt company trying to raise money for earthquake-affected Christchurch charities has been ordered to stop using the phrase “Kia Kaha Christchurch” because it breaches a trademark held by another clothing label.
Wellington-based label Kia Kaha issued the cease and desist notice to Mr Vintage today.
Mr Vintage notified potential customers of the situation on its Facebook page, which prompted a storm of condemnation from followers.
Mr Vintage founder Robert Ewan told NZPA it was a disappointing situation but he did not want to make it a big issue.
“I think it’s more about Christchurch and helping them, rather than getting into a battle with Kia Kaha.”
Mr Vintage had already raised $11,000 from two other T-shirt designs and Mr Vintage would produce another T-shirt, not using the Kia Kaha phrase, for Christchurch, he said.
Kia Kaha is also producing Christchurch T-shirts, with proceeds going to the Red Cross Earthquake Appeal.
Managing director Dan Love could not be contacted for comment.
Kia Kaha, which was established in 1994, gained international attention when it teamed up with golfer Michael Campbell, who went on to win the 2005 US Open Golf Tournament, wearing his design on the company’s gear.

Saving the best til last – who do these people think they are – for those not in the know, Kia Kaha is a common New Zealand phrase that means forever strong…it is used in various mottos and sayings, by groups with far more history and mana than this bunch of loosers, Kia Kaha Clothing in Wellington…feel free to click the link and let them know what you think of this petty selfishness – conversely, there’s a link in the quote to the Mr Vintage Facebook page – pop in and give them some moral support…they make you embarrassed to be a New Zealander, more so when they are doing it to other New Zealanders…so just for them:

…and effu, Kia Kaha clothing…

Defence At Work

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40 Squadron B757 at Christchurch Airport

As at Saturday 26 February 2011, more than 1400 New Zealand Defence Force personnel are now committed to the earthquake response efforts in Christchurch City.

NZ Army personnel and their Singapore Armed Forces counterparts are continuing to provide the 24/7 cordon around the central city, with security patrols also in place in the suburbs of Bexley and Waltham.

  • Engineers are still producing clean water for the public in the New Brighton area, and are manning a water distribution point in Lyttelton.
  • Two Environmental Health teams are working with the Ministry of Health, while the catering teams are producing 1900 breakfasts, 2000 lunches and dinners and 350 midnight meals per day.
  • HMNZS OTAGO, HMNZS PUKAKI and HMNZS CANTERBURY remain in port at Lyttelton.
  • HMNZS CANTERBURY provided a further 500 meals into the Lyttelton centre last night, and 50 packaged meals for the NZ Fire Service.  CANTERBURY will provide one further meal service tonight before she sails to Wellington tomorrow.
  • Navy personnel are providing security patrols in the Lyttelton town centre.
  • The Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) has now moved 1542 passengers in and out of Christchurch, and 121,000 tonnes of freight has been facilitated by the RNZAF into Christchurch in the last 24 hours.  Many thousands more tonnes of freight from international military aircraft have also been unloaded and moved into the city.

"Hey, you fellas want to swap patrol cars for the night? Ours has got flashing lights..." "Nah, bro, sorry, ours has got a jug and a cooker..."

HMNZS Canterbury in Lyttleton Harbour

Good old Canterbury…despite all the bad things the uninformed said about her, she’s certainly proved her worth this week…at the beginning of the week she was only named for a patch of ground between some lines on a map; at the end of the week, she now carries a name synonymous with the spirit of a people…

Christchurch Earthquake: A Montage Of Footage Set To The National Anthem

Christchurch

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Despite all the pain and sadness in Christchurch, I couldn’t help a smile when I came across this sponsored link while researching last night:

Discover Christchurch Get 50-90% Off Restaurants, Spas, & Events In Christchurch. Sign-Up! www.LivingSocial.com

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This picture is from the September earthquake but is the only one I could find that shows together, the two men who have been exhibiting great leadership since 1250 yesterday afternoon…on the left, Mayor Bob Parker, and beside him, Prime Minister, John Key. I don’t follow Christchurch politics that closely and my main experience pre-quakes of Bob Parker is of many years ago when he was a top game show host. Certainly in the last six months, he has displayed that he definitely has other attributes as well…

In John Key, New Zealand is lucky to have a leader (in all senses of the word) fit to fill Helen Clark’s shoes, after a long line of rather lack-lustre prime ministers dating back into the early 80s…Rob Muldoon and before him, Norman Kirk were the last real leaders we had from back then. The PM addressed the nation at 1130 and, as I commented at the time, I don’t know if John Key writes his own material or not, but these are great words very well delivered…

Today I want Christchurch to hear this message:

You will get through this.

This proud country is right behind you and we are backing you with all our might.

The world is with us.

Our Australian neighbours, our British and American friends, the great countries of this world, all are putting their shoulder to your wheel. They are sending their support, their expertise, their people to help us.

Christchurch, today is the day your great comeback begins.

Though your buildings are broken, your streets awash, and your hearts are aching, your great spirit will overcome.

While nature has taken much from you, it can not take your survivor’s spirit.

This devastating event marks the beginning of a long journey for your city.

It will be a journey that leads us from ruins and despair to hope and new opportunities. From great hardship will come great strength.

It will be a difficult journey, but progress is certain, things will get better, Christchurch will rise again.

Full text [PDF: John Key Chch speech 23 Feb 2011 ]

On leadership at the other end of the scale, my old mate, Dusty from Signals Platoon days in Burnham (from which I have many many fond memories of Christchurch, less of Aylsebury Road though…more of those perhaps in a night or two) was in the Square when the quake hit yesterday and his first-hand account is on his blog today…Another day another disaster [PDF: SecurityNZ_ Another day another disaster! ]…I don’t necessarily agree with his thoughts on Civil Defence screw-ups but we’re sorta at opposite ends of the scale on that one, Dusty’s always been the ‘dive in, boots’n’all’ sort and I’ve been more concerned with trying to blend all sorts of disparate and often conflicting information into a coherent picture…I dare say I’ll hear from him soon if I got that wrong but as I commented on his Facebook page, yesterday he did the old ONWARDs proud…

The NZ Herald has a page on which it publishes regular updates on Christchurch…it reads like a tragic diary…this is one of the best ways to keep tabs on what happening down there… [PDF: Christchurch quake timeline 23 Feb 2011  ]

Last night I chatted to a friend who commented that it was good to see the good press for the much (but unfairly) maligned HMNZS Canterbury which had been in Lyttleton during the earthquake and which was able to provide immediate assistance to the people of Lyttleton while offloading its cargo of soldiers and LAVs to assist Police efforts. A number of civilians also over-nighted in Canterbury’s medical facility while being treated for injuries from the quake. A comment was made that at least our amphibious vessel was able to assist our civil defence efforts unlike the three RAN vessels which are tied up with rust.

Thus it was interesting to read this commentary on the Australia-New Zealand relationship when it popped into the inbox this morning…The Kiwi as puny predator – the author does so well right up to his last two paragraphs…

Whenever the talk turns to taking trans-Tasman integration further, such symbols are placed on the table. On the economic front, Wellington confronts the free rider dilemma – the ride is never really free. It’s a matter of what you’re prepared to sacrifice. In a column for the New Zealand Herald, Fran O’Sullivan pondered the costs NZ is already paying: ‘The steady drain of our talent to Australia in search of greater opportunities and higher wages coupled with the remorseless transformation of New Zealand into a branch economy has a price.’

To take the next economic steps, the Kiwis are going to have to embrace more of the Australian part of the term ‘Australasian’. The choices are tough. They don’t have to surrender the All Blacks, but what price the New Zealand dollar?

Sorry, buddy, but you presume too much…just as we declined Australia coming aboard as the province of West New Zealand, we think we might hold off on your plastic play money as well for a while…bigger’s not necessarily better and once you’ve sold off all your minerals to China, we don’t want to get caught in the subsequent vacuum when the hollowed-out cavern under what was mainland Australia implodes. True, Tasmania will survive, but like you, we don’t really want it either…

Josh tells me that this ‘I support New Zealand and anyone else playing Australia’ thing is called Segmentary Opposition and that he came across the term in an interesting Massey project he’s involved in – more to follow on that soon…I researched Segmentary Opposition…OK, I didn’t, I googled it and enough of the hits looked interesting enough to be worth some time in the next month or so…

Major Earthquake Strikes Christchurch, NZ

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Photos are coming in of the devastation caused by today’s large earthquake, which occurred at 12.51pm in Christchurch

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The dust cloud over the central city from damages buildings is reminiscent of September 2001 – advice from authorities is to stay OFF the roads and OFF the phone – these are the life lines…

People will be afraid and frightened…check on neighbours and people around you…

BE SAFE!!

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More images here

There have been ‘multiple fatalities’ after a shallow 6.3 magnitude earthquake in Christchurch this afternoon caused buildings to collapse, police have confirmed.

Police said fatalities had been reported at several locations and that two buses had been crushed by falling buildings.

Christchurch resident Jane Smith, who works in the central city, told the Herald a work colleague had just returned from helping rescue efforts after a building facade had collapsed on a bus on Colombo St.

“There’s people dead. He was pulling them out of a bus. Colombo St is completely munted.”

Police said there were reports of fires in buildings in the central city and of people being trapped.

All available police staff were helping with the rescue operation and the Defence Force had been called in to assist.

Triage centres have been established for the injured at Latimer Square in the central city, Spotlight Mall in Sydenham and Sanitarium in Papanui.

Shallow quake

GNS Science said the quake was centred at Lyttelton at a depth of 5km at 12.51pm.

GNS said the earthquake would have caused more damage than the original 7.1 earthquake on September 4 because of its shallow depth.

Its data centre manager Kevin Fenaughty said residents said the quake’s epicentre was located in the “worst possible location” for the city.

“It’s a nightmare. A lot of people were just getting back on their feet after the original quake.”

Another earthquake of 4.5 struck at 1.21pm, 10 km east of Diamond Harbour.

Streets flooded

Herald reporter Jarrod Booker said the shake lasted approximately a minute and was extremely violent – rocking buildings back and forth.

He said people had left buildings and were out on the streets where tarmac had cracked and water mains had burst, causing extensive flooding.

Tuam Street had become a river as water poured from ruptures in the road and was impassable in places.

The whole central city was in grid lock as people tried to evacuate central businesses to check their homes, Jarrod Booker said.

Most traffic lights are out and cars were also having to negotiate around hordes of people on foot.

Jarrod Booker said that he could hear sirens but that it would be difficult for emergency services to access the city because of the gridlock.

“Even sitting in a car you can feel continual shaking on a smaller scale than the original quake,” he said.

‘Great confusion’

Mayor Bob Parker said he was “thrown quite a distance” by the earthquake.

“That was, in the city central anyway, as violent as the one that happened on the 4th of September,” he told Radio New Zealand.

Mr Parker said there were scenes of “great confusion” on the streets, also saying the roads were jammed as vehicles sought to get out of the central city.

“I know of injuries in my building and there are unconfirmed reports of serious injuries in the city.”

Mr Parker did not know the extent of damage to the city’s infrastructure, but advised people not to drink the water supply.

“We’ve been through this before this once, we now need to think we did at that time.”

Buildings collapsed

Jarrod Booker said Christchurch’s historic cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament on Barbadoes Street had half collapsed, with the remaining part of the building filled with cracks.

There was huge damage to other older buildings with large amounts of debris falling to the ground, he said.

He said the carpark at the Christchurch Star had turned into a river with huge cracks and that the roads had risen in areas.

People were comforting people outside amid a general state of shock as they tried to absorb what had happened, he said.

Radio New Zealand reported widespread damage to the city centre, with a church on Durham St collapsed and concrete lifted by up to a metre.

A Newstalk ZB reporter in Christchurch said liquefaction was spewing out of the ground at St Albans High School.

School kids had to be removed from the fields with liquefaction also spewing from the tennis courts.

Civil Defence response

Civil Defence spokesman Vince Cholewa said the National Crisis Centre had been activated and was preparing the Government response.

“The quake is significantly smaller than the previous Christchurch earthquake, however it was very shallow and might have been very close to the centre of the city,” he said.

Mr Cholewa was not aware of any casualties or the extent of the damage.

“We are still getting a picture of what has happened and we are aware of the details.”

Phone lines are down and calls are not being connected to emergency services. Telecom said it is working to understand which services have been affected by the earthquake and get these restored as soon as possible.

Christchurch Airport has been closed.

Today’s quake was shallower and closer to Christchurch than the original Darfield quake, which took place 30km west of the city at a depth of 33kms.

Civil Defence advice

The Civil Defence has issued the following advisory:

Check yourself first for injuries and get first aid if necessary before helping injured or trapped persons.

Assess your home or workplace for damage. If the building appears unsafe get everyone out. Use the stairs, not an elevator and when outside, watch out for fallen power lines or broken gas lines. Stay out of damaged areas.

Look for and extinguish small fires if it is safe to do so. Fire is a significant hazard following earthquakes.

Listen to the radio for updated emergency information and instructions.

Do not overload phone lines with non-emergency calls.

Help people who require special assistance – infants, elderly people, those without transportation, families who may need additional help, people with disabilities, and the people who care for them.

Detailed safety advice will come from local authorities and emergency services in the area. People should act on it promptly. MCDEM, local civil defence authorities and scientific advisors are closely monitoring the situation.

I hadn’t head anything on this until Carmen called to tell me, hadn’t even felt the shake although it was apparently felt in Waiouru on the other side of the mountain…unlike the stronger but deeper 7.1 that hit in September, today’s quake (think it is well beyond a ‘shake’) hit during a busy midday week day…the Cathedral has definitely been seriously damaged….

I thought the Prime Minister spoke well when he broke the news to the House and it looks like all the instruments of national power are swinging into action…that probably sounds a little trite but they have had quite a bit if for real practice in the last six months and Kiwis are fast learners…

Tangihanga – Major M.M. Brown, RNZMP

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Monique

…usually, one might use a title like this to remember a member of the old and bold who has passed on…Major Monique Brown of Waiouru died suddenly in Wellington on 14 February…although quite definitely bold she equally definitely wasn’t that old, certainly nowhere close to be the topic of an obituary.

Monique and her whanau were welcomed onto the Army Marae on their arrival from Wellington yesterday afternoon and a church service will be held at the marae this evening at 7pm. She will be buried with full military honours commencing with a service at the National Army Marae- Rongomaraeroa o Nga hau e Wha Marae- Waiouru on Friday  at 1100. The service will be followed by a burial at the Waiouru Cemetery. Dress for military personnel attending the tangi is Dress 1A, HMR. Light refreshments will be available at the WO & SNCOs’ Mess at the completion of the formalities.

Wow…Monique…gone just like that…Monique was a Kiwi who’d joined the Aussie Army (OK, no one’s perfect!!) and went to the Australian Defence Force Academy at Duntroon, graduating near the top of her class. I first met her int eh mid-90s just after she’d seen the light, come home and joined our own Army. At the time I was a fresh-as lieutenant and Monique was the ‘go-to’ captain in Army Headquarters. The whole time I knew her she was always bubbly and happy but damn professional as well – I suspect, although I never had occasion to find out personally, that ‘bubbly and happy’ could chnage very quickly if she felt that an individual was unreceptive to the ‘carrot’ approach…

One of the good things about a small army is that it’s easy to keep in touch with people and so Monique and I would bump into each other from time to time over the years. In 2007, she was posted up to Waiouru, ostensibly to work for me but I prefer to think if it as ‘with’ rather than ‘for’ – I was a newly minted major and she had some years seniority over me but never once saw fit to mention this but she managed to keep me on the straight and narrow and a jetted back and forth between my domestic responsibilities and those arising from CWID that year.  Around this time, Monique wrote a book for children, a family story about what her granddad did in the war – she was always concerned that the boys would know their heritage – and I’m very glad now that I took the opportunity to get a copy then: it’s on a shlef in our library waiting for a time when the twins are a little older. I was quite sad when she moved out to occupy the new simulation centre that she had built in Waiouru: very flash with two indoor twelve lane weapon ranges and 24 station simulation facility…A year later, she got the posting that was nearest and dearest to her heart and that was the defacto ‘Mayor of Waiouru’, responsible for support services for the camp. Monique was all about support…supporting her family, her friends, her work colleagues and all those in her little dependency in the Central Plateau…

At the end of last year, Monique had been posted back to line logistic unit and would have been just getting her feet under that desk…I remember seeing a mention on Facebook that she was moving south late last year and said to her that we’d have to ‘do lunch or coffee or something’ since we were both back in the Manawatu…too slow and now Monique’s made one last trip back home to Waiouru…

OK…LISTEN UP,  FRIENDS…NO ONE ELSE IS TO DIE THIS YEAR – THAT”S AN ORDER!!!!!

Masterchef Update

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Serious advertising for NZ Masterchef 2011 has now kicked in…hopefully I’ll be able to schedule myself to follow it again this year – due to work commitments, I missed almost all of the last Aussie Masterchef except the final…

Meanwhile, here in the heartland, we continue to investigate buying a local cafe so that Carmen can live at home again and also do what she is so good at for a living…

In Colour Me Scared last year, I mentioned my foray into the scary world of combining chili and sardines – pretty safe really as chili, like tomato sauce, is a great ‘coverall’ for culinary not-quites…I hadn’t actually tried it again since then but late last night after a crap afternoon wresting with connectivity issues and losing the better part of a day’s productivity – and thus forgetting to take something out of the freezer to thaw – I gave it another shot… definitely a great but very simple and fast (longest thing is waiting for the rice to cook) meal for when you really don’t want to put yourself out…what’s left will be combined into a fried rice tonight…so is one less thing to worry about while I’m doing the home alone thing…

The big difference between home along last year and this year is that this year I actually have work to do and don’t quite so much have the luxury of time to spend in the kitchen experimenting…the absence of any fast foods in easy distance means that I still have to look after myself and plan ahead…my major culinary issue at the moment is what to do with so many damn eggs …

Secret Stash

Since we keep stealing, them the chickens have taken to concealing their eggs around their run…this one was buried beneath layer of blackberry and is a good week and a half to two weeks work for them…24+ eggs recovered here! Carmen took a bunch back up the road but, combined with what we had already, I’m really scratching for good simple egg recipes…had a great omelette on Friday night after I got back from a meeting with Hawkeye in Palmerston North that afternoon (and resisted the temptation to treat myself in Mr Models) that meet two key objectives: a. it took five eggs and b. it very neatly wiped out most of the leftover vegetables and venison left in the fridge…I can see scrambled eggs coming back onto the breakfast menu which will go nicely on a slab of freshly-made bread, followed up with muesli and homemade yoghurt (well out of the packet but just as good, if not, better than the prepackaged stuff)…just so long as I don’t become a creature of habit…

As you probably guessed, I having a  bit of a no news day today – I’ve spent most of the day doing ASIC administration, psyching myself up to complete the draft doctrine review I had planned for yesterday…we’ve taken to using the NATO doctrine review template, which, although, involves more typing, promotes a far deeper review of a publication and which also provides the author feedback in a standard format that can be combined with similarly-formatted feedback from other reviewers…one of these days, I WILL complete that touch-typing programme…

Not quite

I mentioned in My Fellow Americans that I had first met Martyn Dunne while working on a number of Army clothing and personal equipment projects; one of these was reviewing the camouflage pattern then in use, especially the colours (of which there had been 17 distinct variations since it was first introduced)…needless to say, our testing and evaluation wasn’t as dedicated as this…talk about taking your work home with you…

Still…I guess if you’re looking at optimising for urban combat…

My fellow Americans…

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Many great addresses have begun with those words but few more memorable than those spoken on August 11, 1984…My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.

The 40th President of the United States

100 years ago today, Mrs Reagan had a baby boy she named Ronald Wilson…who became an actor most remembered for playing with a monkey…and a President who brought an Empire to its knees…The 80s were an interesting time…little leadership had been shown anywhere in the 70s and, really, it looked like the whole planet was going down the gurgler…Iran had toppled, the Russians looked like they were heading in that direction via Afghanistan, the Domino Theory looked like it was alive and well in Southern Africa and the Soviet Bear kept leering at Western Europe…post-Vietnam America, who we most looked to for leadership and support appeared weak and disorganised, apparently bent on returning to the isolationist days of the 30s…

War was a real and present threat…the IRA was in full howl and in 1981 terrorists seized the Iranian Embassy in London; Maggie Thatcher had to sort out Argentina in 1982; in 1983, America faced terrorist in Beirut and destabilisation in Grenada, and Russia thought it was OK to shoot-down civilian airliners; in 1985, it was still OK to use your air force (Navy in this case) to force down another nation’s airliner because you wanted to have a word with a terrorist on board; we all wondered if that nutjob Ghaddafi was going to spin out and take us all with him – and in January 1986, we thought he might have done it when Challenger exploded. It’s odd but my clearest memory of that morning is not of televised debris trails over Florida but of peeling potatoes…I was on Infantry Corps Training at the time and maybe we were in the kitchen at Balmoral Camp – or maybe that was a few months later when the US Navy gave the Libyans so lessons in dissimilar air combat…

But all through those years, there was this calm force that never seemed to get angry or upset but who stayed his course…who stared the Russians down and set the scene for Saddam’s first serious trouncing, who led his nation out of the morass of the 70s (The 70s Show only shows the good stuff) and laid the path for the next two decades…I have no idea who Reagan’s domestic policies were like of how he fared as a leader internally – the he was re-elected in 1984 is probably a clue – but as a world leader, he excelled…

He gets results

I missed the media release but ‘He gets results’ was the title of the email sent to me to let me know…and indeed he does…Martyn Dunne is  straight shooter and straight talker who expects the same from those around which, I believe, some may find a tad disconcerting…I first met him when he was a colonel and I was a lowly juniuor officer running projects to develop and introduce new clothing and personal equipment for soldiers in the mid-90s – projects in which he took a personal interest. I always found him very direct and confident in his views but also willing to listen to and discuss (with some vigour!) contrary points of view but not once did I ever know of him abusing any advantage in rank…I was pleased to see him promoted to Brigadier as our senior representative in Peter Cosgrove’s INTERFET headquarters and only 18 months later, attain Major-General as the commander-designate for the new joint headquarters. Here, not only did he have to get a new headquarters up and running while commanding operations from domestic activities through East Timor and Bougaineville to Bosnia and Afghanistan, but also had to merge into a team, three previously-separate environmental commands that had a long history of not working and playing together particularly well…

Three years later, with that task a success, at a point where other generals might be eying up the golf course, he became Comptroller and Chief Executive of the Customs Service, again successfully leading and reinventing that service, for the last six years. And now, when the bach and golf course might be beckoning again, he has accepted another challenge in the diplomatic realm as High Commissioner to Australia…look out, Aussies, there’s a new marshal coming to town…

Something fishy

A couple of littlies

I got this long but interesting article from Dean @ Travels With Shiloh‘s Facebook page a week or so ago (it’s been sitting open in browser ever since as I don’t have a good system of ‘post-it-ing’ interesting links I come across). There are some comments at the end of the article but they are only worth ignoring. The reason this article struck a chord with me is that it is a great article of the sort of things that we never really think to much about until it’s all too late and, in this case, the fish are all gone…

Harking back to one of my frequent soapboxes, that of countering irregular activity, the stripping of non-renewable (well, not quickly) fishing grounds is happening now. As a destabilising activity (I like destabilising better than irregular), the rape of East African fisheries is a direct catalyst for the Somalia pirate problem that is keeping a number of navies off the streets at the moment. In our neck of the woods, we are constantly aware of various nations attempting to curry short-term favour with Pacific Island nations in return for fishing rights, or sometimes, maybe just a blind eye from time to time. Even domestically, it is illegal to list trout on a commercial menu here because it is pretty obvious that this would lead to a gutting of our trouteries in about six months…it’s fine to catch a trout the old-fashioned way and take it to a restuarant to be prepared and most of them, especially in this region, will do a bang-up job of it.

A few years back, we had a doer-upper bach in Purakanui – beautiful spot but really too far away for us to use or even do any work on some rather sadly we let it go…at low tide, most of the inlet would empty out and you could dig up cockles on the sand bar exposed…the legal limit is something like 40 per person but some weekends we could see greedy and unscrupulous restaurateurs come out from Dunedin and plough up the whole bar for cockles – they would bring out babies so as to beef up the limit they could take away i.e. 40 x the number of people in each group regardless of age…the legislation is too weak to cover this abuse…and it’s not hard to see that this one will end in tears as well…

Purakanui - you can stay overnight (via Bookabach) in the red and white cottage in the upper right - highly recommended!

Wry humour

These have also been sitting on my browser for the last few days…

Julian Assange claims success in free release of information…oh…uh-oh…it’s not meant to work like this…not when it’s about me...just goes to show how trivial ever aspect of this issue is…

and how to fail Bombmaking 101…probably way more to this story than Wired knows but these days it almost counts as a War on terror feel-good story…some of the coments are quite revealing too…

Fill your hand, you sunnovabitch!!!

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johnwaynetruegrit

The Jeff Bridges’ version of True Grit opens here tomorrow…coincidentally, I only watched the original John Wayne version from 1969 on the weekend and commented to Carmen the other night that so much of the lines in the trailers for the remake were word-for-word from the original, I wondered if there was going to be much different about the new version other than Rooster gets to wear his patch on the other eye this time round…

So, imagine my surprise to read in today’s DomPost that “…where Wayne played Cogburn as a one-dimensional veteran gunslinger, the original Rooster of the novel (brilliantly rendered by Jeff Bridges in the Coen’s version) is drunken, half-blind, smelly and deeply flawed…” Furthermore, this amazing bad and inaccurate review, in this nation’s second largest daily, isn’t even by a Kiwi – it’s some loser called Ben Macintyre who writes for something called The Times…my recollection of John Wayne’s performance, only days old, is exactly of “…drunken, half-blind, smelly and deeply flawed…”

Dean’s comments yesterday notwithstanding – and they do apply more to general soldiery than to the specifics of those in sensitive roles – I really worry if that bumper sticker actually has a broader application beyond the intel community into the general information community. I’m reading Dean Koontz’ Cold Fire this week and parts of that also struck a similar chord with me as the reporter lead in the story laments to demise of good old fashioned ‘honest’ reporting in favour of what sells – and that was written in 1991…

I’m on base for the next couple of days and was able to catch the big TV in the bar free tonight and take it over to keep up with Coro – waiting to see how, not when, Molly and Kev’s little affair gets blown – but was reading today’s paper in the ad breaks. Maybe it was just a slow news day but I was disappointed at how superficial many of the items were…we don’t get  a paper delivered at home and, really, why would we bother if all it’s going to be good for is starting the fire and wrapping the frozens when we go away…

I find now that I get greater stimulus from the non-professionals on the internet; in fact, I would have to say that Michael Yon’s Facebook page, when he isn’t whining about milkooks, or general officers who have (apparently) slighted him, offers a very good range of cues; as do the Facebook pages for the USN’s Information Dominance Corp and Marine Corps Gazette; Small Wars Journal and Travels with Shiloh…

I wonder whether the maturity of the information age also means the demise of the true professional reporter in favour of info-marketeers who tailor their stories to specific markets (as opposed to audiences), and the rise of the information militia as the new voice of the ‘news’…?

I did find a couple of interesting titbits in the Dompost:

  • The capital of Afghanistan,Kabul, was rocketed by rebels – in 1993. It’s quite strange to think of a time where it was necessary to state that Kabul was the capital of Afghanistan.
  • And also on this day in 1944, NZ pilot Irving Smith led Mosquito bombers in a pinpoint raid on Amiens prison to save condemned prisoners. If nothing else, a timely reminder that airpower is more than just running a flying bus service and providing direct support to the troops on the ground.
  • In 1848, Mexico ends a US invasion by ceding Texas, New Mexico and California to the US. If Mexico does get a handle on the cartel wars soon, I wonder what they have to trade-off against the next US invasion..?
  • In 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khoumeini becomes the de facto leader of Iran and the place has gone steadily downhill since. While Europe and the US get all antsy about Iran’s nuclear programme (but not Pakistan’s), the biggest risk offered by Iran to regional instability comes from its increasingly dissatisfied youth. The best thing that the US and NATO could do is invite Iran into Afghanistan, get it committed (entangled) by both its own rhetoric and the tarbaby mess that is Afghanistan; and then step back and watch it all unravel…Iran, that is – Afghanistan does need anyone’s help top unravel…just install an unpopular (in every sense of the word) leader and retire to a safe distance….