Highs and Lows

Wow! Well, as I said earlier, it as been a very busy fortnight. I've been out most evenings - my fault for trying to cram too much in!

Work has been excellent - I have completed a major project, with the final sign off happening on Friday. It has taken a lot of effort over the last six months, not just from me, but from a lot of people across different departments (I have been given permissions to play around with time-sheet reporting to analyse just how much work has been done on it!), and, with the ink not yet dry on the signature sheet, we are already seeing the benefit of it. A very satisfying end to the week!

Hockey has definitely been on the down side of the highs and lows of the fortnight - we lost last week, and should have won this week, but the other team scored off of a foul (they kicked the ball, and then scored) - the ref was looking directly at it, and claimed that she didn't see anything. We definitely played the best we had for a long time today, so not a great finish to the season (with the draw, we won't get through to the finals). All very disappointing, given how well we started the year.

Tae Kwon Do, on the other hand, is going from strength to strength. It transpires that the examiners at the last grading weren't very impressed with the Wellington clubs as a whole, particularly with their power and technique. So there is a change of ethos within the club, and we are doing a lot more work on those critical areas, which means that the training sessions are much more of a workout, and, from my point of view, a lot more fun (I think that some of the other members may beg to differ, looking at how tired people were by the end of the session!). My knuckles have just about forgiven me for the pounding I gave them on the pads on Wednesday... There's also another club member, who has been off sick for a while, who is at my level, and is also hoping to grade at the next examining session, so I think we are going to be working very closely together.

Orchestra has been fun - we only have one rehearsal left before the workshop next weekend. I've finally taken the plunge and bought some new reeds - I was very impressed with how quickly they arrived, but I haven't really had a chance to test them out - first time playing them will be tomorrow!

We have had two board gaming sessions over the last fortnight - we had friends over to supper last week, and went over to another sci-fi member's house last night. I learnt two new games, one at each session, and really enjoyed both of them (despite not winning either...). Yesterday was also the "Book Sale Day" for the Wellington Mission - a charity book sale where they take over an exhibition venue in order to sell off books for $2 (given that a new book will sell from anything from $30-70, and even second hand can set you back $7-20, you can imagine how popular this was!). John and I took our bags down and spent nearly $100 between us, and were then travelling round the rest of the day laden with books.

Our big excitement of this week was taking part in Wellington's food festival, Wellington on a Plate. We had bought tickets for "Dr Grordbort's Venusian Hunting Party", an evening of entertainment by the Weta team and very high class food at a local restaurant. If you have not come across the Dr Grordbort universe before, this comes under the sci-fi sub-genre of "steam punk". Effectively looking at futuristic scenarios, but set from an Edwardian or Victorian viewpoint. So, corsets and laser guns, clockwork rockets and solar topees. The Dr Grordbort universe is specifically focused on Empire expansion, but out on Venus and the Moon. The weapon of choice is the laser gun, either the Pomson 6000

or the Righteous Bison


We got to play with the pretty toys (and managed to avoid blowing anyone's head off...), and also meet the geniuses behind them, from Greg Broadmore, the designer (who also was the lead designer for "District 9") to Tom, the general manager, Warren, who is one of the team who actually builds the guns and models from the designs that Greg comes up with, Ann, who runs the Weta Cave, and who organised the event, and, for a brief period, Richard Taylor, who is the head of the whole company. I might have done a teeny little fan-girl style "Squeee!" when he came in through the door. But I was very quiet and I don't think anyone noticed... It was a fantastic evening, and I am already looking forward to doing it again next year!