[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbf34JXCLfI]

and finally… it’s a tiny bit American.. and possibly a little too sweet.. but still.. all good.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbk980jV7Ao]

Firstly – the obligatory picture of the Japanese Maple trees in flower along Hagley Park.

Off to Fox Peak for the weekend – with Nick and Heidi and Ruth and Neil. Maaike unfortunately having a little too much work to get done :(

The conditions were.. marginal.. at best.

The hut was lovely – though as it was all powered by diesel it was a little smelly to begin with.

In fact, being honest, I can’t stand the smell of diesel ever since I went on a “sailing” trip with Declan Flood and Co back after finishing university. We hired a boat sailing out of Split in Croatia – and it was in their hottest heatwave in a century. With no wind.

We had a beautifully re-conditioned boat, unfortunately the refitters put the diesel in backwards – or something – and it leaked. So I spent 10 days at about 42 degrees in a boat that stank of diesel. While it was a lovely trip.. I still cant stand the smell. Some pictures from croatia – many moons ago

Anyways… the hut was lovely.. and there’s a postcard at somepoint for the first person who can tell me what is in the picture on the right is.

So, finally, had some .. interesting .. runs with Ruth – while the others were off ski-touring (trying to find snow). The video is Ruth showing how to get on a rope tow..

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8WpxKAENXk]

Finally.. we honestly did end up on this grass… and you can see how far above the car-park we are. Spring conditions. Perfect.

Sunday was lazy – played 500 and headed back to ChCh early ish.. all in all a good weekend.. but perhaps the end of the snow for this year.

Friday night was my annual mulled wine and mince pie party. Slightly more subdued than last year – but certainly a lovely evening. I suspect it will be my last one in this wonderful house that I live in…

No rest for the wicked though – cleaned the house on Sat and then off for a bike ride in the port hills with Steve & Michelle and Maaike. Michelle and Maaike and supposedly training for the Spring Challenge.. harumph.

They have the posing down though.

:)

Sunday headed to Mt. Cheeseman – for, for me, what was one of the best days boarding I’ve had this season. Spring conditions (read pretty solid in the morning – softening up nicely by 11am) but thick powder was there to be found..

Here’s a picture of Maaike, followed by a video of me heading down slope. It’s ridiculous how Irish Maaike sounds in this video. Way more than me (not that that’s super hard!)

Lots of fun – thanks to Berit for driving!

At reasonably short notice I flew up to Wellington. The excuse was to go to the Open Government barcamp and hackfest. It was my first time to one of these events… It’s an (un)conference where the participants make up the agenda for the day. Really it’s just a good way of generating a lot of conversation.

The theme for the conference is to open up and lobby for access to Government held data so that interesting things can be done with it (well, that’s what I think anyway). Not quite sure where to from here.. and not quite sure what the current appetite within Government is for this sort of thing to happen. Seems to me that if New Zealand is trying to promote itself as a knowledge economy – then the more of this there is the better.

Anwyay.. enough with the serious stuff.. well, differently serious..

Glynn kindly let me stay at his and Jayne’s house. They did warn me that I would have to judge in the pie competition. What I didn’t realise was that I was the single sitting judge. This competition is serious. I mean seriously serious. Check out the prizes and score sheet.

The trophy that they were all trying to win (here modelled by Nic – the previous winner) was the belt and small engraved pot.

So.. I found out that I was doing the judging. This was serious pressure. Had to try and make sure that everything was completely fair and above board. Forgot to take pictures of my comments on each pie – but I was rigorous. Some pies had matching beer / sauce combinations. You’ll see a red plastic gun – which had to be checked in on the airplane as the security people thought it would be a risk… sigh.

The pies were quality – any of them would be delicious for dinner. However, there had to be a winner.. and it was Mikey with the pie below on the left. I would have rather awarded it to someone who hadn’t engineered the situation at Glynn’s stag which wound me up in hospital – but fairs fair, it was good. Glynn one the beer match – and Brett the sauce. Inge the desert pie (citrus flavour is my favourite)

Mind you, I think Mikey may have sampled one too many of his own pies ;)

Still, it was lovely to be up there and hang out for the weekend. Maaike and I should be heading up in November again – once she books the flights (I’m not allowed to book anything .. something about having to be sure she doesn’t have any classes on..)

So I recently bought the Home DVD.. (really worth watching)… and .. as it’s my DVD I’m took certain liberties and ripped the music out of it.

This track – I just … well, it’s just beautiful.

Unfortunately, I’m also quite ignorant, and it’s quite possible this is “famous” music – so if anyone knows what it is – please leave a comment!

Enjoy.

http://static.odeo.com/flash/player_audio_embed_v2.swf