Windy

So my flatmate Michael said, "Do you wanna see a wind farm?" I thought it sounded nifty, and agreed.

What I had thought would be a basic jump-in-the-buses-and-head-into-the-hills trip turned out not to be. They were having an Official Opening of Te Rere Hau Wind Farm. There was speechifying (inside a conference room), with coffee and food, and the Prime Minister.

Then we climbed into buses and headed into the hills. I'll give the rest of the details when the camera that I took pictures on is back in the city so that I can upload them.

to be continued...

Home is the Hunter, Home From the Hill

My flatmate David has finally returned from his sojourn in large, strange countries (the USA, and GenCon), safely, though with a tendency to fall asleep.

He says that Indianapolis, the site of the Con, is very, very friendly to it. Restaurants have Gamer-theme menus. Coffee-shops and movie-theatres are open all night long. That sort of thing.

He says that GenCon is a lot like other conventions, but it doesn't end; it extends infinitely up, down, and sideways, and that most of the business seems conducted, not in the Dealer rooms, but after-hours in the bars.

He also failed miserably at his mission to bring back trashy souvenirs, instead gifting Michael and myself with several lovely card-games purchased at same Con, including Sluggy Freelance's Get Nifty which is, indeed, Nifty.

That's all.

Night Work

So I've been hired to run the Extramural Student Help Desk in the library this week (study break? holiday? what are those?), which is sorta kinda occupying my evenings.

Still and all, some friends asked me to babysit their children so they could head for the hills (a barbecue at Fielding) last night, so I went there after work.

Little Miss Clementina vanished into her room about the time I arrived, though Fergus (the baby) was still in the process of getting his nappies changed and pyjamas put on. We played with balls for a bit, then the children and the adults moved along their respective preordained paths, leaving me in the living room with a cat, a dog, a dvd player, and several movies to watch.

Suss, a scabby, half-bald, stand-offish, territorial farmcat slept on my lap all through Bridget Jones' Diary: The Edge of Reason. I've discovered his secret weakness for chick flicks, I conclude.

Then there was a double-billing of The Cat Returns and Charlie Chaplin. Somewhere in there Fergus woke up and felt lonely and panicky, so we had a long, solemn, eloquent discourse vis-a-vis my ability to fetch his parents home and somewhere in there he stopped crying and I sang him a lullaby and put him back to bed. Never underestimate the power of reasoned discourse when dealing with children.

And sometime on the fading edge of midnight the parents came back, bent on hot noodles, and I got a ride home, full up on baby-dandling and cat-napping, and fell asleep soon after.