I've been in Christchurch for the last five or six days (arrived there last Tuesday, around tea-time, and left Sunday lunchtime). Christchurch, site of New Zealand's most famous earthquakes, considerably outranking the huge ones that flattened the smaller city of Napier back in the thirties.
I didn't go into central Christchurch, an area I previously knew better than anywhere else in the city, because I couldn't bear to see live what I'd already seen on television: the devastation of fine heritage buildings would have been more than I wanted to handle, I think. Apart from that, I didn't have any real time to go exploring, or sightseeing. The area I was working in had enough of its own visual demonstration of the effects of the earthquake: a suburban area on the East side of the city where much of the worst damage happened. Houses here have been demolished completely, are due to be demolished, are boarded up, have boards up to protect them until they're repaired, have wonky paths and driveways, and are situated on streets where your car's suspension is likely to get a hammering. In fact, the roads are one of the most obvious factors in terms of gauging the city's overall damage: everywhere you go there are roadworks, and changes being made to the layout of roads, and this constant feeling that you're going over a lot more bumps than you're used to.
When you go inside the houses, even the ones that look okay, you see the cracks in the plaster, the corners where wallpaper and plaster has pulled away, the gaps between ceilings and walls, the floors that aren't quite flat. We were in St Ambrose's Anglican Church yesterday for a service: the building itself doesn't seem too bad - at least not to look at - but the floor is all over the place. Our base during the week was Parklands Baptist Church, and again, while the building seems pretty much okay, there's a fair amount of taping up of large cracks in the flooring.
To my great relief, we didn't have any tremors while we were there. People are still on edge, however; they've more than once got to the point where they've thought quakes and tremors had come to a standstill, only to have another large quake, the sort that's big enough to upset you all over again, bring back all the tensions and fears.
I went up to ChCh with a team of 12 other people from our church, Dunedin City Baptist. The church has done these local mission trips before in a variety of places, including our home town, and while the leader has remained the same for all of them (they happen once or twice a year), the remainder of the team varies considerably from trip to trip. They almost always stay in a hall connected to the local church they're working with, and they cook meals together and have prayer times together and 'debriefings.' They go out in pairs, usually, knocking on doors and asking if the people would be willing to answer a few questions on a survey. Being a Christian group, the survey naturally leads onto discussing what people feel about church, and about Jesus. But that's only part of it: they're also looking out for people in need within the area, and once these needs are identified, the local church follows up and does their best to alleviate the situation. In the process, of course, it makes contact with the people and hopefully they feel comfortable enough with these church people to want to get to know them better.
Of course it has an evangelistic bent; there are enough plain social workers out there without us primarily doing social work as well (although it was the church that began 'social work' to a great extent, two millennia ago.
This trip, however, had a number of differences: firstly we were going to a church that had already done a great deal of door-knocking. Secondly the door-knocking in question was primarily to find out how people were doing as a result of the ongoing earthquakes, and to put them in touch with people and organisations who could assist them further. The group overseeing our visit, CCR (Christchurch Community Response) has been up and running for some time, and has a good relationship with groups like the Red Cross. It has a number of volunteers who are able to assist more quickly than some of the bigger, more official organisations, as well.
Thirdly we were there to help out CCR (it doesn't stand for Creedence Clearwater Revival, or Revisited, by the way) in any way we could. So, on and off for two days we did door-knocking, and completed some of the streets that CCR wanted covered. We also assisted at St Ambrose's in such tasks as dropping off free firewood, or taking round care packs and such. On top of this two of our team got themselves into Bake-a-thon mode, and not only gave away a good deal of the baking we'd brought up from Dunedin, baking that was intended to be part of our in-house food, they made a great deal more and gave that away too.
In fact giving things away was a delight: the leader and I, on Friday morning, went round one long street giving away some sixty fleecy blankets, the sort that you wrap around yourself if you're watching TV, or reading a book in your chair. The Warehouse used to sell them a great deal, and may still do so. The sixty blankets we gave away had been donated to the CCR people, but no one had had time to dispose of them. So we walked from house to the next, and wherever people were home, gave the blankets a new home. There's nothing quite like someone knocking at your door and asking if you want something free, something which is obviously of use to you. It's warmed up in ChCh, but it's still not the hottest, so I suspect those blankets will already be coming in handy. To be continued....
Showing posts with label earthquake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label earthquake. Show all posts
Monday, September 03, 2012
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Blankets
There's a great poem by Barbara Hamby called Ode to American English, in which she does a scatter-shot approach to the marvellous way in which English is expressed in the States. It's very hard to quote from it because it has no stopping point, but here's a sample:
I miss the mongrel plentitude of American English, its fall-guy,
rat-terrier, dog-pound neologisms, the bomb of it all,
the rushing River Jordan backwoods mutability of it, the low-rider,
boom-box cruise of it, from New Joisey to Ha-wah-ya
with its sly dog, malasada-scarfing beach blanket lingo
to the ubiquitous Valley Girl's like-like stuttering...
You can see the whole poem on Hamby's site.
This post is about blankets, specifically personalized baby blankets like those on the left, but let's also celebrate whatever we can find out of my digital cuttings that relates to the subject. One of the writers I catch up with occasionally is Kim Fabricius, a somewhat anarchistic Christian pastor with a wicked sense of humour (and I mean 'wicked' in its current sense of outstanding, but also in the sense of very cheeky). He wrote a Good Friday sermon in 2008 which was posted on the Faith and Theology site this year. (Fabricius doesn't seem to have a site of his own; most of his material that I've come across has appeared on F&T)
Fabricius is as hard as Hamby to quote briefly, so here's a decent chunk near the beginning of the sermon (in which our theme 'blanket' briefly appears):
This sermon doesn’t have three points, it’s got three words: Lose your faith! (I warned you I would be sacrilegious.) Yes, lose your faith. Lose your faith in God. For as the French mystic Simone Weil insisted, there is a kind of atheism that is purifying, cleansing us of idols. Lose your faith in the god that the cross exposes as a no-god, a sham god. Lose your faith in the god who is but the product of your projections, fantasies, wishes, and needs, a security blanket or good-luck charm god. Lose your faith in the god who is there to hold your hand, solve your problems, rescue you from your trials and tribulations, the deus ex machina, literally the “machine god”, wheeled out onto the stage in ancient Greek drama, introduced to the plot artificially to resolve its complications and secure a happy ending. Lose your faith in the god who confers upon you a privileged status that is safe and secure. Lose your faith in the god who promises you health, wealth, fulfilment, and success, who pulls rabbits out of hats. Lose your faith in the god with whom your conscience can be at ease with itself. Lose your faith in the god who, in Dennis Potter’s words, is the bandage, not the wound. Lose your faith in the god who always answers when you pray and comes when you call. Lose your faith in the god who is never hidden, absent, dead, entombed. For the “Father who art in heaven” – this week he is to be found in hell – with his Son.
Phew! Imagine hearing that piece of fire coming at you from a pulpit...!
Here's another radical person: Tamie Fields Harkin, an Episcopalian minister from Alaska. She presented a list of things to do if your really wanted to attract young people to your church - and they don't include any of the usual bumpf that's regarded as youth ministry. Her 19th point is:
19. Make some part of the church building accessible for people to pray in 24/7. Put some blankets there too, in case someone has nowhere else to go for the night.
Sounds like she was anticipating the Occupy movement, and the way in which some churches are suggesting they open their doors to those who'd be sleeping in tents on very cold nights.
Okay, I know this post is very loose in terms of how it's using it thematic material, but just go with the flow and enjoy the contrasts.
Here's an extract from an email one of the Presbyterian ministers wrote shortly after the devastating February earthquake in Christchurch, NZ:
I walked home from what remained of Knox [his church] yesterday afternoon surrounded by scenes of devastation far worse than on 4 September. Whilst visiting a parishioner I spoke with one of his neighbours, whose husband was at that time unaccounted for in the Pyne Gould Guinness building in town. I walked for a while with a barefoot young woman whose workplace in the city had collapsed, and who told me of seeing a woman giving birth on the footpath. Later I passed others heading on foot with blankets and little else for Hagley Park, and wondered how they fared when the rain began to fall a couple of hours after that. Dinner was sausages cooked on the outdoor barbeque; I've drained the leaking hot water cylinder upstairs into several large water containers so can probably manage with that, whatever food there is in the fridge and a bucket toilet for several days.
There's a sense of just getting on with things, of having to; but the quiet desperation is apparent. How do you start to deal with the enormity of the problem. Christchurch is still dealing with it, and has another major earthquake since this date.
Finally, an example of those church bulletin bloopers that appear in emails every so often:
I miss the mongrel plentitude of American English, its fall-guy,
rat-terrier, dog-pound neologisms, the bomb of it all,
the rushing River Jordan backwoods mutability of it, the low-rider,
boom-box cruise of it, from New Joisey to Ha-wah-ya
with its sly dog, malasada-scarfing beach blanket lingo
to the ubiquitous Valley Girl's like-like stuttering...
You can see the whole poem on Hamby's site.
This post is about blankets, specifically personalized baby blankets like those on the left, but let's also celebrate whatever we can find out of my digital cuttings that relates to the subject. One of the writers I catch up with occasionally is Kim Fabricius, a somewhat anarchistic Christian pastor with a wicked sense of humour (and I mean 'wicked' in its current sense of outstanding, but also in the sense of very cheeky). He wrote a Good Friday sermon in 2008 which was posted on the Faith and Theology site this year. (Fabricius doesn't seem to have a site of his own; most of his material that I've come across has appeared on F&T)Fabricius is as hard as Hamby to quote briefly, so here's a decent chunk near the beginning of the sermon (in which our theme 'blanket' briefly appears):
This sermon doesn’t have three points, it’s got three words: Lose your faith! (I warned you I would be sacrilegious.) Yes, lose your faith. Lose your faith in God. For as the French mystic Simone Weil insisted, there is a kind of atheism that is purifying, cleansing us of idols. Lose your faith in the god that the cross exposes as a no-god, a sham god. Lose your faith in the god who is but the product of your projections, fantasies, wishes, and needs, a security blanket or good-luck charm god. Lose your faith in the god who is there to hold your hand, solve your problems, rescue you from your trials and tribulations, the deus ex machina, literally the “machine god”, wheeled out onto the stage in ancient Greek drama, introduced to the plot artificially to resolve its complications and secure a happy ending. Lose your faith in the god who confers upon you a privileged status that is safe and secure. Lose your faith in the god who promises you health, wealth, fulfilment, and success, who pulls rabbits out of hats. Lose your faith in the god with whom your conscience can be at ease with itself. Lose your faith in the god who, in Dennis Potter’s words, is the bandage, not the wound. Lose your faith in the god who always answers when you pray and comes when you call. Lose your faith in the god who is never hidden, absent, dead, entombed. For the “Father who art in heaven” – this week he is to be found in hell – with his Son.
Phew! Imagine hearing that piece of fire coming at you from a pulpit...!
Here's another radical person: Tamie Fields Harkin, an Episcopalian minister from Alaska. She presented a list of things to do if your really wanted to attract young people to your church - and they don't include any of the usual bumpf that's regarded as youth ministry. Her 19th point is:
19. Make some part of the church building accessible for people to pray in 24/7. Put some blankets there too, in case someone has nowhere else to go for the night.
Sounds like she was anticipating the Occupy movement, and the way in which some churches are suggesting they open their doors to those who'd be sleeping in tents on very cold nights.
Okay, I know this post is very loose in terms of how it's using it thematic material, but just go with the flow and enjoy the contrasts.
Here's an extract from an email one of the Presbyterian ministers wrote shortly after the devastating February earthquake in Christchurch, NZ:
I walked home from what remained of Knox [his church] yesterday afternoon surrounded by scenes of devastation far worse than on 4 September. Whilst visiting a parishioner I spoke with one of his neighbours, whose husband was at that time unaccounted for in the Pyne Gould Guinness building in town. I walked for a while with a barefoot young woman whose workplace in the city had collapsed, and who told me of seeing a woman giving birth on the footpath. Later I passed others heading on foot with blankets and little else for Hagley Park, and wondered how they fared when the rain began to fall a couple of hours after that. Dinner was sausages cooked on the outdoor barbeque; I've drained the leaking hot water cylinder upstairs into several large water containers so can probably manage with that, whatever food there is in the fridge and a bucket toilet for several days.
There's a sense of just getting on with things, of having to; but the quiet desperation is apparent. How do you start to deal with the enormity of the problem. Christchurch is still dealing with it, and has another major earthquake since this date.
Finally, an example of those church bulletin bloopers that appear in emails every so often:
This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Learning from a disaster
Matthew Taylor from RSA writing in relation to the Japanese disaster (and also the Scottish economy, but that doesn't get mentioned in the following extract)...
It was...fascinating this morning...to hear James Naughtie on the Today Programme describing the issues which some Japanese people hope their country will now face up to in the wake of their unfolding tragedy:
first, how could the Government and the people have a deeper and more honest conversation about the choices facing a country which already had a debt twice the size of GDP even before the crisis.
Second, how could Japan rediscover the entrepreneurial flair which led to it being the world’s economic powerhouse in the seventies and eighties.
Third, how could Japan develop a new and stronger civil society to fill the gaps between big Government, big corporations and individuals?
The idea that Japan could turn this crisis into a national conversation about a new idea of citizenship and society is inspiring. It is also fascinating how recognisable these issues are to us in the UK.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Japan on the 11th March
I'm posting this in full....it appeared on the Tall Skinny Kiwi blog (he's in NZ just now) on March 11th and is a 'conversation' between him and a colleague in Japan. It gives some idea of where things are at for those on the ground.
He writes: My friend Mika Goto was stuck in Tokyo tonight after the earthquake and I asked her some questions for the blog. I am posting it unedited.
TSK: Did you feel the earthquake in Tokyo? What is happening there now?
MIKA: I and co-workers, felt the earthquake in the central Tokyo.
It was the biggest earthquake in my life, intensity 5 in Tokyo area.
After emergency escape, we are told to go home or to go safe place,
but trains were stopped, there were traffic jam,
so that, there were lots of people walking to go home, or to find warm and safe place.
some of co-workers, who live near central Tokyo, they walked home.
some of us, who live away from the central, we stay at office for tonight.
hotels and restaurants were full, lots of people are staying in some building to keep themselves warm.
from around 11pm, trains started moving in Tokyo area.
phone line has been too busy, we lost contact with each other.
I kept calling to my parents, so that I could reach them to find that they are safe.
(my father is also staying in his office in the central Tokyo.)
tokyo, is ok, i gues, but the area close to the origin of the earthquake,
people there are facing difficult situation, with collaption of building, landslide, seawave.
one of my co-worker, her family is in Miyagi, near earthquake center,
inside of their house is messed up, but the family is safe and their hous is ok.
I heard, the parents of a guy in our church, live in Sendai, which is also near earthquake center, he hasnt reach them yet.
TSK: Have the churches begun to respond in Japan? What do you think they will do?
I dont know if they have begun, without any info,... but I hope, the churches aound the epicentral area will help, such as offering them place to stay, food, blanket, caring of those who lost their family...
TSK: People around the world are praying for Japan right now. And we expect that churches and organizations everywhere will want to help in any way we can. Which organization is the best one to donate money to help Japan?
I don't have any church org in mind now. I will ask some of church friends for this...
TSK: How can we pray for your country?
it will be great if you pray for Japan, asking Jesus what to pray.
I pray that no more death will be caused by this earthquake,
and that God will use good of this for the future benefit of this country and the people in this country... (coz this gave us opportunity for us to think what is really important in our lives.)
no photo for now......and,,, i m going to sleep... hope i can go home tomorrow morning.
thanks for your prayers, mika goto
He writes: My friend Mika Goto was stuck in Tokyo tonight after the earthquake and I asked her some questions for the blog. I am posting it unedited.
TSK: Did you feel the earthquake in Tokyo? What is happening there now?
MIKA: I and co-workers, felt the earthquake in the central Tokyo.
It was the biggest earthquake in my life, intensity 5 in Tokyo area.
After emergency escape, we are told to go home or to go safe place,
but trains were stopped, there were traffic jam,
so that, there were lots of people walking to go home, or to find warm and safe place.
some of co-workers, who live near central Tokyo, they walked home.
some of us, who live away from the central, we stay at office for tonight.
hotels and restaurants were full, lots of people are staying in some building to keep themselves warm.
from around 11pm, trains started moving in Tokyo area.
phone line has been too busy, we lost contact with each other.
I kept calling to my parents, so that I could reach them to find that they are safe.
(my father is also staying in his office in the central Tokyo.)
tokyo, is ok, i gues, but the area close to the origin of the earthquake,
people there are facing difficult situation, with collaption of building, landslide, seawave.
one of my co-worker, her family is in Miyagi, near earthquake center,
inside of their house is messed up, but the family is safe and their hous is ok.
I heard, the parents of a guy in our church, live in Sendai, which is also near earthquake center, he hasnt reach them yet.
TSK: Have the churches begun to respond in Japan? What do you think they will do?
I dont know if they have begun, without any info,... but I hope, the churches aound the epicentral area will help, such as offering them place to stay, food, blanket, caring of those who lost their family...
TSK: People around the world are praying for Japan right now. And we expect that churches and organizations everywhere will want to help in any way we can. Which organization is the best one to donate money to help Japan?
I don't have any church org in mind now. I will ask some of church friends for this...
TSK: How can we pray for your country?
it will be great if you pray for Japan, asking Jesus what to pray.
I pray that no more death will be caused by this earthquake,
and that God will use good of this for the future benefit of this country and the people in this country... (coz this gave us opportunity for us to think what is really important in our lives.)
no photo for now......and,,, i m going to sleep... hope i can go home tomorrow morning.
thanks for your prayers, mika goto
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Some Presbyterian views on the Christchurch earthquake
There have been some messages sent through to a group I'm on (and they've gone to other groups too, I understand) from two or three Presbyterian ministers in relation to the earthquake yesterday. There particularly interesting because they're from eyewitnesses. Here's part of one from Geoff King, whose church (Knox) was already damaged in the first earthquake in September:
Thank you for the messages and prayers of support that greeted me as I switched on the computer this morning - power was restored to our place around 9.30 last night but I was still dealing with texts and trying to find somewhere for the family to sleep in the mess of our manse. At midnight I accepted a friend's offer to take [my wife] and our two boys north to catch the ferry to the North Island, so it's just our dog and I getting ready for another day.
I walked home from what remained of Knox yesterday afternoon surrounded by scenes of devastation far worse than on 4 September. Whilst visiting a parishioner I spoke with one of his neighbours, whose husband was at that time unaccounted for in the Pyne Gould Guinness building in town. I walked for a while with a barefoot young woman whose workplace in the city had collapsed, and who told me of seeing a woman giving birth on the footpath. Later I passed others heading on foot with blankets and little else for Hagley Park, and wondered how they fared when the rain began to fall a couple of hours after that. Dinner was sausages cooked on the outdoor barbeque; I've drained the leaking hot water cylinder upstairs into several large water containers so can probably manage with that, whatever food there is in the fridge and a bucket toilet for several days.
Got around some of our older parishioners yesterday afternoon but by no means all of them - back on the bike after I've had breakfast today. It's hard to describe the destruction in the central city - modern buildings have collapsed crumbled this time, and there is now no need for the reconstruction meeting that was planned for Knox tomorrow, as only the wooden pillars and roof are still standing - I am profoundly relieved that no one was injured when the wall on Bealey Ave collapsed towards traffic. I've heard that at least one bus in the central city was not so fortunate, and all of us are anxiously awaiting the release of the names of those who've died. I've closed the Knox Centre as a precaution - whilst the newer building is still standing the rear wall of the church collapsed through the gallery and hall/centre stairwell, so may have damaged the centre's outer wall.
And a shorter one from another minister:
Trinity Pacific is in a really bad way including fire. As is Knox. Centre of town looks like a bomb site. I was next to Durham street Methodist as it collapsed in a pile of stones . Thank you for your prayers.
The Pacific church she's referring to had already had a fire before the September earthquake.
And finally, from Martin Stewart:
Thanks to you all for your messages of prayer and thoughts - so far from what I have been able to find out we have four churches in considerable strife (all were damaged in September) - fortunately the workers on the St Paul's trinity Pacific restoration were on lunch break and all got out.
This church is diagonally opposite the devastated CTV building.
Our Methodist friends have had more damage and there are reports of three people still missing on the Durham St Methodist Church which was ironically being made safe. The Methodist Connexional Offices are closed with some damage to that building.
The pic [photo - above right] is of Oxford Terrace Baptist Church which totally collapsed. Knox Church is also one of the significantly damaged Pressie buildings.
Time will tell as to whether the ones lost are known in our church families, but we all feel emotionally drained in a way different from September because of the loss of many lives.
Thank you for the messages and prayers of support that greeted me as I switched on the computer this morning - power was restored to our place around 9.30 last night but I was still dealing with texts and trying to find somewhere for the family to sleep in the mess of our manse. At midnight I accepted a friend's offer to take [my wife] and our two boys north to catch the ferry to the North Island, so it's just our dog and I getting ready for another day.
I walked home from what remained of Knox yesterday afternoon surrounded by scenes of devastation far worse than on 4 September. Whilst visiting a parishioner I spoke with one of his neighbours, whose husband was at that time unaccounted for in the Pyne Gould Guinness building in town. I walked for a while with a barefoot young woman whose workplace in the city had collapsed, and who told me of seeing a woman giving birth on the footpath. Later I passed others heading on foot with blankets and little else for Hagley Park, and wondered how they fared when the rain began to fall a couple of hours after that. Dinner was sausages cooked on the outdoor barbeque; I've drained the leaking hot water cylinder upstairs into several large water containers so can probably manage with that, whatever food there is in the fridge and a bucket toilet for several days.
Got around some of our older parishioners yesterday afternoon but by no means all of them - back on the bike after I've had breakfast today. It's hard to describe the destruction in the central city - modern buildings have collapsed crumbled this time, and there is now no need for the reconstruction meeting that was planned for Knox tomorrow, as only the wooden pillars and roof are still standing - I am profoundly relieved that no one was injured when the wall on Bealey Ave collapsed towards traffic. I've heard that at least one bus in the central city was not so fortunate, and all of us are anxiously awaiting the release of the names of those who've died. I've closed the Knox Centre as a precaution - whilst the newer building is still standing the rear wall of the church collapsed through the gallery and hall/centre stairwell, so may have damaged the centre's outer wall.
And a shorter one from another minister:
Trinity Pacific is in a really bad way including fire. As is Knox. Centre of town looks like a bomb site. I was next to Durham street Methodist as it collapsed in a pile of stones . Thank you for your prayers.
The Pacific church she's referring to had already had a fire before the September earthquake.
And finally, from Martin Stewart:
Thanks to you all for your messages of prayer and thoughts - so far from what I have been able to find out we have four churches in considerable strife (all were damaged in September) - fortunately the workers on the St Paul's trinity Pacific restoration were on lunch break and all got out.
This church is diagonally opposite the devastated CTV building.
Our Methodist friends have had more damage and there are reports of three people still missing on the Durham St Methodist Church which was ironically being made safe. The Methodist Connexional Offices are closed with some damage to that building.
The pic [photo - above right] is of Oxford Terrace Baptist Church which totally collapsed. Knox Church is also one of the significantly damaged Pressie buildings.
Time will tell as to whether the ones lost are known in our church families, but we all feel emotionally drained in a way different from September because of the loss of many lives.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
How to spend a holiday
I'm on holiday for a week - which is going to be interrupted by a course in Auckland (at the other end of the country for those who don't know our geography) which will take four hours, but will cost me an entire day tomorrow. I'm going to take next Monday off in lieu.
The course was an afterthought: I'd been due to go on holiday for a few weeks, but the course notice arrived in my email last week - about Thursday, I think - and foolishly, instead of ignoring it, I showed it to my colleague (my de facto boss) and within a zippity doo of an hour I was booked to go to Auckland and had someone available to pick me up at the airport, transport me to the course site, and bring me back again. (A free early evening meal is now being thrown in as well, so I can't complain.)
As to the holiday, I've now had two days of it, and yesterday wasn't too bad weather-wise, although it got very cold in the afternoon. My wife and I got up early and loaded up the van with accumulated rubbish (accumulated and smelly) and headed out to the tip. The dog came too and was not impressed at being kept in the vehicle while I unloaded it. Frantic was the attitude he assumed.
Then we went and picked up a trailerload of soil/compost from 'Designer Trees' and rejoiced in the fact that the trailer was thrown in for free...for an hour. Back home, and over the next hour we slaved away at emptying the trailer's contents into a couple of our raised gardens. That's hard work when you haven't done it for a while.
While it was still fine we went down to the nearly new Bunning's Warehouse (my first trip - it looks almost identical to Mitre 10 to my jaded mind) and bought some items for the garden. But by the time we got home the weather was turning off rapidly, and none of the plants have made it into the garden yet.
Today's plan was to replace some of the glass in the glasshouse. We measured up, and my wife had some thoughts about perhaps it would be more economical to replace some of the glass with a firm plastic, so that required another trip to Bunning's where we found the sort of thing we needed. We also got some glass for the missing panes out of the roof - the glasshouse had suffered quite a bit of damage in the terrific wind that we had a few days after Christchurch had its awful earthquake.
But today the weather wasn't going to give us any clemency whatsoever, and most of the glass replacement was done in the freezing cold, or with snowflakes drifting down onto us. We got the roof sorted but nothing else at this stage. I spent the other part of the day inside, getting warm again, and avoiding wasting my time looking at sites like those called acne treatments reviewed or how to gain a six-pack in three minutes a day, and worked hard at getting notes typed up for the Varsity course I'm doing. I had to tell myself severely that I wasn't allowed to do any music writing today; the course has been suffering a bit of late because of that.
So I guess you could call it successful, in spite of the weather. I had been hoping for lovely sunny days over this week, but it doesn't look as though my hope is going to be met. Pooh.
The course was an afterthought: I'd been due to go on holiday for a few weeks, but the course notice arrived in my email last week - about Thursday, I think - and foolishly, instead of ignoring it, I showed it to my colleague (my de facto boss) and within a zippity doo of an hour I was booked to go to Auckland and had someone available to pick me up at the airport, transport me to the course site, and bring me back again. (A free early evening meal is now being thrown in as well, so I can't complain.)
As to the holiday, I've now had two days of it, and yesterday wasn't too bad weather-wise, although it got very cold in the afternoon. My wife and I got up early and loaded up the van with accumulated rubbish (accumulated and smelly) and headed out to the tip. The dog came too and was not impressed at being kept in the vehicle while I unloaded it. Frantic was the attitude he assumed.
Then we went and picked up a trailerload of soil/compost from 'Designer Trees' and rejoiced in the fact that the trailer was thrown in for free...for an hour. Back home, and over the next hour we slaved away at emptying the trailer's contents into a couple of our raised gardens. That's hard work when you haven't done it for a while.
While it was still fine we went down to the nearly new Bunning's Warehouse (my first trip - it looks almost identical to Mitre 10 to my jaded mind) and bought some items for the garden. But by the time we got home the weather was turning off rapidly, and none of the plants have made it into the garden yet.
Today's plan was to replace some of the glass in the glasshouse. We measured up, and my wife had some thoughts about perhaps it would be more economical to replace some of the glass with a firm plastic, so that required another trip to Bunning's where we found the sort of thing we needed. We also got some glass for the missing panes out of the roof - the glasshouse had suffered quite a bit of damage in the terrific wind that we had a few days after Christchurch had its awful earthquake.
But today the weather wasn't going to give us any clemency whatsoever, and most of the glass replacement was done in the freezing cold, or with snowflakes drifting down onto us. We got the roof sorted but nothing else at this stage. I spent the other part of the day inside, getting warm again, and avoiding wasting my time looking at sites like those called acne treatments reviewed or how to gain a six-pack in three minutes a day, and worked hard at getting notes typed up for the Varsity course I'm doing. I had to tell myself severely that I wasn't allowed to do any music writing today; the course has been suffering a bit of late because of that.
So I guess you could call it successful, in spite of the weather. I had been hoping for lovely sunny days over this week, but it doesn't look as though my hope is going to be met. Pooh.
Sunday, September 05, 2010
Earthquakes, winds and printers
The earthquake that hit Christchurch yesterday has left an appalling mess, but amazingly, there was no loss of life, thank the Lord - though there were some near misses.
Tonight here in Dunedin, we're having gale force winds; they've been thumping against the house since before tea time, and apparently there are tree branches littering the roads. Our neighbour's fence has collapsed, and if the wind keeps up that won't be the only thing.
The worse part about this wind is that it's supposed to be travelling up the island and will hit Christchurch tonight, or tomorrow. Hopefully it'll wear itself out before then.
On another (non-weather related) front altogether, one of the things about writing blogs regularly is that you forget what you've written a couple of years ago, and when you go back things seem quite fresh to you. For instance, to take a random post, a couple of years I wrote a piece on the WorkReport blog entitled, Poking around the printing world. It discusses a day I had a great deal of problem with the printer that used to be in the office where I work (we've since replaced it, thank goodness). While I don't mention color printing (note the American spelling - that's for those people who think this is the way the word should be spelt), I do go into some detail about the frustrations that the printer was causing. There was a time when I threatened to toss it out the window - we're on the fifth floor - just to let it know it was way out of favour. I never got to do that and see what state the thing would have been in after its lengthy fall - unfortunately. We're too frugal to consider throwing a piece of equipment out the window just to see the mess, however satisfying it would have been!
When I bought the computer I'm typing this on, we got a printer thrown in. Dell were the people who supplied the computer and printer (by a series of confusions the printer arrived some weeks before anything else, and I'm sure I've written about it somewhere on one of my blogs). We installed the printer and it worked well - and then I rang Dell to find out how much
the replacement cartridges would be. They were an exorbitant price, and at that time, because the printer model was new, they weren't even available in New Zealand. In the end we put the old printer back into use (it can use recycled cartridges without problem, and they're a great deal cheaper) and the brand new one is sitting on a shelf sulking.
The very first printer I had was a wonderful old dot matrix. We used to use them at work in the shop too. They were extraordinarily fast, rarely went wrong, and would happily print page after page without requiring replacement inks. I'd be using them still today if it wasn't for the fact that they wouldn't have a hope of printing out most stuff you want to print now. Which means that we have to use printers which use expensive cartridges which don't last a fraction of the time the ribbons that used to go in the dot matrix machines lasted.
Progress ain't always progress. But at least the newer buildings in Christchurch stand upright because of newer building codes. That's the sort of progress that's worth having.
Tonight here in Dunedin, we're having gale force winds; they've been thumping against the house since before tea time, and apparently there are tree branches littering the roads. Our neighbour's fence has collapsed, and if the wind keeps up that won't be the only thing.
The worse part about this wind is that it's supposed to be travelling up the island and will hit Christchurch tonight, or tomorrow. Hopefully it'll wear itself out before then.
On another (non-weather related) front altogether, one of the things about writing blogs regularly is that you forget what you've written a couple of years ago, and when you go back things seem quite fresh to you. For instance, to take a random post, a couple of years I wrote a piece on the WorkReport blog entitled, Poking around the printing world. It discusses a day I had a great deal of problem with the printer that used to be in the office where I work (we've since replaced it, thank goodness). While I don't mention color printing (note the American spelling - that's for those people who think this is the way the word should be spelt), I do go into some detail about the frustrations that the printer was causing. There was a time when I threatened to toss it out the window - we're on the fifth floor - just to let it know it was way out of favour. I never got to do that and see what state the thing would have been in after its lengthy fall - unfortunately. We're too frugal to consider throwing a piece of equipment out the window just to see the mess, however satisfying it would have been!
When I bought the computer I'm typing this on, we got a printer thrown in. Dell were the people who supplied the computer and printer (by a series of confusions the printer arrived some weeks before anything else, and I'm sure I've written about it somewhere on one of my blogs). We installed the printer and it worked well - and then I rang Dell to find out how much
the replacement cartridges would be. They were an exorbitant price, and at that time, because the printer model was new, they weren't even available in New Zealand. In the end we put the old printer back into use (it can use recycled cartridges without problem, and they're a great deal cheaper) and the brand new one is sitting on a shelf sulking.The very first printer I had was a wonderful old dot matrix. We used to use them at work in the shop too. They were extraordinarily fast, rarely went wrong, and would happily print page after page without requiring replacement inks. I'd be using them still today if it wasn't for the fact that they wouldn't have a hope of printing out most stuff you want to print now. Which means that we have to use printers which use expensive cartridges which don't last a fraction of the time the ribbons that used to go in the dot matrix machines lasted.
Progress ain't always progress. But at least the newer buildings in Christchurch stand upright because of newer building codes. That's the sort of progress that's worth having.
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