So, Just to be geeky for a second… I’m not sure how many of you have discovered iGoogle… but basically it allows you to customise your Google homepage. On mine I just have a gmail plugin (so it shows me what’s in my inbox) and Google Reader. Google reader is quite a nice little RSS reader. What this means – is that you can subscribe to all your friends blogs and it will automagically tell you when they’re updated. Quite useful. You can click to test it out. It will ask you do you want to add it to Google Reader (good idea) or to the iGoogle homepage..

Well I like it anyway. So there.

As for the other thing… lets say every time you went to your mailbox (postal one!) you found that all of your mail had been slit open and read.. and then put back nicely… you’d be pretty annoyed I imagine? I would be anyway. Well that’s pretty much what happens with email – except that you can’t tell it’s been opened.

I rarely use encryption because
a) no one else uses it
b) it’s a pain to use.

Enter FireGPG a FireFox plugin for GPG – which basically makes it super simple to encrypt emails / attachments / anything else you like and send it around the place… brilliant. You will need to fist install WinPT and GPG if you’re on windows..

Once you’ve installed it all and generated your keys – then if you want to send me a test email you can download my public key

So, quite a while ago I went tramping in the Mt. Owen region with Mhairi,Marcel, Dave and Anthony… it was a fairly eventful trip and one I’d not care to repeat (well, it’d be lovely to tramp with them again, but the whole Anthony-falling-concussion-helicopter thing I could do without)

Anyway, this time it was back with Thor & his lovely wife Jess and our friend Anna. Headed up on (Good) Friday… Anna and I had forgotten to get some drink.. and while we couldn’t in the supermarket…

did manage to pick up a bottle of palatable whiskey for the cold nights ahead.

The walk in is a bit of a slog (pretty much 6 hours uphill)

On Easter Sunday the Easter bunny arrived for the newlyweds, and they found a substantial amount of eggs around our tent…

The walk to the summit (5 hours return to the tents) is really interesting – as it’s a karst landscape.. really good fun. There was a bit of low cloud, but we had pretty decent views for most of the day – and fortunately weren’t baked by the sun!

Had my cream egg on the summit – tasted delicious after lugging it all the way up there :) And I think the other photo below is looking down towards sunrise ridge where all the excitement happened on the last trip… very pleased there was nothing like that this time!

So yes, a great Easter- thanks to Thor & Jess and Anna for a really wonderful weekend.

For the last few wednesday evenings (into the night) I have been doing a rogaine series with Steve and his lovely girlfriend Michelle, and our friend Mike who has just returned from travels (and about 150 other people). For some reason best known to Steve (who’s into bugs & suchlike) we are called the rostrums. Good fun though… great to get out and stretch the old legs after work!

So a long time ago my friend Declan sent me over an Irish leprechaun – who has been called Seamus. He always comes out on the town given a chance – and St. Patrick’s night (not Paddy’s day – heathens!) is usually a big one for him. The pictures speak for themselves really.

Well one of my crazier (and I should know ;) friends, Florian, is leaving NZ to head back to Europe to become a teacher. He has – by a country mile – the most messed up (interesting??) accent I have ever heard. He is French, but spent quite a while in Ireland and Scotland. He was the reason I got to live in my wonderful (if run down) house – with my own river and a huge garden – and lots of great house mates. I was flatting with a guy called Jim – who is a very nice guy – just very different from me. I’d moved in about a month and then 39 Fendalton came free… and I was agonizing over leaving Jim after just a month… but Flo said something along the lines of Who’s life are you trying to make happy. Now I don’t think one should be selfish… but I was really glad he said that to me and that I moved in. I have met so many great people and just had a great time.

Then there was the time we went hiking (Flo leading) with the tramping club – and off we set into the depths of Arthur’s Pass. Up a ridge, and we were walking along and it became apparent things were a little off. Flo was adamant that we were heading South.. and said – “Look at the Sun – of course we’re heading South”… one of the party disagreed and eventually it was resolved by pulling out a compass. At which point Flo gave in (and then realised he was in the Southern Hemisphere so it was all backwards).

Then there’s his cooking… he is an AMAZING chef.. but the kitchen is a complete bomb site afterwards… and I should know as I lived with him for a few months … still.. acceptable tactical losses.

Anyway – he will be greatly missed – but I’m sure I’ll see him again somewhere!