New Job / Sarah's Holiday / Cheerleading
Here I sit on the couch doing something I never thought I'd do, I'm typing Tim's Diary on a Mac. A Macbook Pro M2 specifically. My new work laptop. Before I started my new job they asked me what laptop I wanted and I started to look at the usual suspects. But then I though hell whenever I see Greg with his Macbook he's never got the thing plugged in, the battery life they have is amazing. Plus I know a Mac basically is Unix (FreeBSD) underneath and I use Unix all day every day. And finally what swung me was the fact I know everyone else in my team is going to have a Mac, so it seems dumb to be the odd person out with a Windows PC. I've never used a Mac before so it seemed time to give it a go. I've had it for about a week now and I am still getting used to it. I don't think it's anything amazing over my Windows PCs I've used before, but I do think the battery life the thing has is simply amazing. I haven't plugged it in at all this weekend and it's still on 75%. Admitted I've only used it for about 4 hours. Still on a Windows laptop 4 hours would be in the dying gasp "I need to be plugged in right now" mode. So yea - I'm a Mac user now it seems? Still don't think I'm going to chuck my Pixel phone but hey, never say never.
What's been happening? Well as I mentioned, started my new job last Monday. Nothing really has changed - I started work by walking in and telling people to SPEAK TO THE HAND. But only in jest. Not really much happened that wouldn't have happened if I was employed by NOW stiil.
The week before on Wednesday morning Sarah went to Fiji with Holly and Mary. Sounds like they had a great time, I didn't really hear from them very much, Sarah rang a few times to talk to the kids on a video call. I did the school dropoff and pickups, got some new tires for the car etc. It was a pretty relaxed week really, took the kids up to swimming on the weekend etc. On Sunday Peter took them for a coupe of hours which was nice, I had the idea to go the pub but really all I endeded up doing was cleaning the house up ready for the cleaner who was coming the next day.
This weekend we went to Tauranga for another of Beth's Cheer competitions. I took the Friday off (yes I worked 4 days at my new job then took a day off, great look!) and we drove up, We really wanted to do the Napier-Taupo in the light because of the state of the road, too many stories of people with blown out wheels/tires etc because of the state of the road. And it was pretty dicey, no doubt about that. We got up there on Friday evening and Sarah went to the supermarket and got some Pizza Hut for dinner. Got the kids off to sleep with many reminders to Theo that he'd better not keep his Sister up all night talking because she had a BIG DAY the next day. He was really good, he kept quiet and they were off to sleep well.
Saturday was competition day and everyone got up at a decent time, we got some breakfast into Beth. She went and got her makeup done, after much confusion with Coach about where we were supposed to be at what time etc. She's great at coaching but she's fucking hopeless at organisation. It's always confusion and uncertainty. Once Beth had her makeup applied we had ~4 hours to kill, so we went for a drive to a shopping mall that was WAY TO FAR AWAY and after a couple of wrong turns to get there, we made it. Theo needed new jandels as his failed on the way in the car. Beth got a new jumper, then we took them to The Warehouse to spend some of the money they have in their bank accounts that's been burning a little hole in their pocket. Theo bought a Turtle that swims in water and a Magic 8 Ball. Beth bought more slime. She LOVES slime. They played with their toys for a bit back at the accomodtation, then Beth went down to the beach for photos. Then it was off to the competition. We left Beth then had a panic as we still had her special cheer socks. Sarah tried to go upstairs to the prep-room to give them to her but security was strictly enforcing the "no one else" rule. We luckily found another girl in Bay City and gave her the socks. We were still worried, so I went out and had a look around before they were on and found Beth with all her cheer friends, she'd got the message and the socks and was just fine, so that was good. Then it was time for them to perform and they did a great job, Beth didn't get lifted up properly though which was a little dissapointing for her but she nailed all the bits she had to nail, so that was great! She wasn't in tears at the end of the routine which was good.
And, surprise surprise, her team got 1st place again! As Beth pointed out, it does help that her team is the only team in her division, so it's a little hard to loose.
That night we went to BluebyYou for dinner, right next door to our accomodation. Had a nice meal, Beth drew a lovely picture for the waitress. We rang Jeremy and Nicole for Emme's first birthday! I am a bad brother because I forgot to send a present or a card. Terrible.
This morning we packed up to drive home, some utter fucknuckle has found Beth's crocs at the front door of the accomodation overnight and stolen a bunch of her prized gibbets from the. What a horrid thing to do. She was pretty sad about that as you can imagine, I couldn't understand what she was so upset about until she explained it clearly. Poor little sausage, which a horrible thing to have happen. At least they didn't steal the crocs! We packed up and drove back via Taupo where we stopped at AC Baths. Beth was determined we were being so horrible by buying her a Waterslide pass. She had one go and declared we were mean for making her go. Later on she went again and what do you know, she loved it. They both did about 20-30 waterslides by the time we left - it was such a lovely day (in fact the weather all weekend was perfect) and there were hardly any people at AC Baths, so it was perfect. I mean it was cold out of the water but in the water it was lovely. A really nice time. Then we left there and drove home and here we are.
What else? The kids have been enjoying playing Chess with me most nights, I play either Beth or Theo. I offer them lots of helpful moves which they enjoy and they often beat me. It's great fun though, I love playing with them.
Beth made her own menu called "The BackYard" which she spent a lot of time writing menu entries for. I don't think it's finished and I'm not sure it'l ever GET finished, but I've got some photos of it and it's pretty cute. The other thing she's been doing is making lots of "squishies". Here's some photos of them.
I got banned from Twitter. Not sure why, the message I posted to someone wasn't that funny but it wasn't bad. I posted it and straight away my account started telling me I was banned. I've been trying to appeal it but I think that's a lost cause. Oh well. It's rooted now anyway it's called X. Most people I used it for to follow have long since gone anyway, it's a ghosttown compared to what it used to be like.
I'm sure I've missed a few things, but that's mostly what's been happening. Will try and update on a more regular basis, but I always say that and I never do.
Tim