Hello groovers and welcome back to your scheduled programming. I'm feeling a lot better now, I can't believe how hard that flu knocked me around though. I guess with all the exercise I've been doing (Karate 4 times a week, plus going to the gym) along with not enough sleep finally caught up with me. Though probably it's just all the flying, one diseased person on the plane and everyone gets sick!

Work is getting a little more interesting this week. Not a real lot more interesting but enough to feel like I'm being slightly challenged in the ol' brain department. Things are getting all ramped up and everyone's getting excited, Christmas is nearly here and there's a lot of stuff to get through before we're allowed to go on break.
It's also been confirmed that I'm down here for all of January and some of February (until the 10th)...

It's 4:55am and I can't sleep. I've done well to sleep most of the night with crazy horrible recurring dreams. The same thing, over and over for 4 hours.
Just suddenly on Saturday night I started to feel really shite, before I knew it I was crook as. I rang Qantast yesterday and they wouldn't let me change my flight. Sarah suggested I ring back and plead illness, which I did. I also mentioned I fly Qantas every week. The nice lady this time changed my flight for me to tonight at 8:30. I hope I'm feeling better by then.

It really sucks. We were going to go surfing on Sunday, but of course I was ill. I don't think I'll be doing my Karate grading on Tuesday night either, it's an hour and 15 minutes of intense physical workout. I can barely keep up when I'm fit and healthy...

It was the Prophecy Christmas party on Wednesday night and I had a really good time. We went to a place called Monsoon Poon and everyone was there, even the new guy Nigel who's just been employed in Napier.
There was lots of lovely curries to eat (including a potato one and a veggie one) and of course a lot of exotic beers to try.

Once the meal was over there was only 4 of us left who thought we might kick on for a bit. We tried to go and play pool but the first place wouldn't let us in because Tony had slightly staggered up the stairs and he had, according to the twunt in the pool hall "The appearance of being slightly intoxicated"
Hello? It's a pool hall. They serve beer and meat headshang out there. So we left there and Matt told us he knew...

Hello! Be sure to check Sarah's Flickr for some really cool Bee photos. I especially love this one, Mr Bee with his little pollen cache. I'm glad they take it away, anything mother nature can do to limit the amount of pollen is a good thing, it gives me hell hayfever.

We went to the Vodafone Christmas party on Saturday night. Here we are in our costumes, hand made by Sarah. Those are our tails, made with cool fluffy material and wire in our hands. My shorts had a major blowout just after we entered the party, but I soon fixed it with the cotton and needle I'd got Sarah to bring "just in case"!

The party was pretty cool, certainly not as good as the last couple of years because the music really sucked, it was all techo and nothing else. We scored tickets to the "VIP" area...

Our Karate grading is coming up next Saturday (not tomorrow). I'd like to attempt it, so I asked last night if I could do it at a different time, seeing as I fly back to Auckland each week. Chris, the admin guy talked to Shihan Ben (read as "Big Kahuna") and I'll be getting graded on Tuesday night!
I'm a bit nervous about it, but I think I know all the various things that I need to know to "pass". If I do I'll still be a white belt (i.e. total beginner) but with blue tips, which basically means "half way to blue belt"

If I get it I'll be well chuffed, I only started 8 weeks ago.

Tim

PS: Happy Christmas - It's the 1st of December!

It's the middle of the week, oh yea!
I've been looking for this online for so long and today I finally found it. A true Australian classic that started a catchphrase I still all the time... NOT HAPPY JAN!!!

Sunday while we were out shopping for our Christmas Party costumes, we stopped in to visit the Pet Store that we bought Oscar from. I always drag Sarah into Pet stores, but she likes seeing all the critters just as much as I do. They had 3 young friendly Indian Ringnecks in a cage at the front of the store, obviously to attract suckers like me to want to buy them.

While I was talking to them and watching them play in their cage, the manager of the store (I knew this by the big "Manager" badge she was wearing) came over and started to talk to me about them, how...

U2 on Friday night was awesome, as expected. They'd done a good job of transport as well, we caught a bus from downtown Auckland that took us right to the venue, it only cost us $5 each. Once we got off the bus though things turned a little crap. It started to piss with rain and we had to walk for a good 15 minutes because the bus had dropped us off at gate A and we needed to be at gate C. Oh yea, neither of us had brought rain coats with us.

Once we got in I realised I'd been extra stupid and had forgotten to get any cash out. The problem with large concert things like U2 is that none of the vendors of food/drink take EFTPOS and while there is often a "cash out" person, the queue is massive. Which is exactly the problem we faced...