Dear Readership,
Now the weather has kicked into gear here I've been a busy boy with lots to tell!
The Ocean Swim across Auckland's harbour I've been telling you about went pretty well. I'd spent 10hours in the pool playing hockey in the day and a half before hand at an NZ Men's training camp so perhaps not the most ideal preparation. The 2.8km swim started off in calm water but the wind and waves picked up in the middle of the harbour and the last 800m or so was a bit of slog. I finished 108th out of 1269 people who finished (over 1400 started...!) So I'm happy with the 44mins I did it in and getting into the top 10% but I think I can improve on a few things next year. The major improvement I could make is my navigation skills. I used the Auckland Skytower as a marker to swim towards but realised halfway across that it's actually round and looks the same from every angle. I realised this as I took a moment to look around and discovered that the main pack was about 100m to my left and taking a better line to combat the current than I was...!
Also on the fitness front I've entered a few events called the Stroke and Stride series here in Auckland. They consist of an ocean swim followed by a run and take place in either St Heliers or Mission Bay every other week. The first one I entered was a 750m swim and a 4k run, I finished 6th out of 20 in my age group and beat the four other people I knew in the race including two guys from my swim squad. About 500-600 people enter each event and it's a great atmosphere. I've just completed my second event this evening and although I won't find out my placing till it's posted on the Internet tomorrow I think I did alright.
Hockey is taking up most of my life at the moment, I'm doing a lot of fitness work outside of the two games we have a week and although it's early days I feel a lot better for it, although I tend to fall asleep after 9pm now! We've got another training camp on in Auckland this weekend, I'm hosting two players from other towns for a few nights and I've even managed to convince work to let us use a meeting room for one of our sessions!
Last weekend I kayaked to and camped on an island in the Auckland Harbour called Motuihe (pronounced Moto-hee) with five friends, two from work, one from swimming and an old school friend from Fortrose and her husband Adrian who were staying with us last week. We had amazing weather to say the least, clear blue skies and the wind on our back on both trips. We slept on a tarpaulin in our sleeping bags under the stars and dined on freshly caught mussels (and some sausages and steak we took with us!) After a few sociable drinks we went for a night time dip in the sea and swum in some phosphorescence (sp?) which were about the size of snowflakes and lit up when you disturbed them in the water (which was bloody cold even after a few beers!)
There was one slight mis-hap on this trip, on the way over we were fishing off the back of our kayaks when I noticed that one of the lures trailing behind another kayak had hooked a lump of seaweed. Being helpful I told them to stop while I removed the seaweed but whilst doing so our boats drifted apart, the slack was taken up and the lure slipped from my grasp embedding the treble hook in my left index finger and dragging me behind the other kayak! On the off chance we caught a fish I had popped my dive knife in my lifejacket so I was able to cut the fishing line pretty quickly. I paddled over to the other kayak which happened to be a double, Adrian removed the lure from the treble hook and we decided to paddle to the island and sort out the hook there. It was about a 3.5k paddle during which time I developed quite an appreciation for my index finger whilst paddling using just three fingers on my left hand (and my right of course) this also happened to be the choppiest paddling we had to do all weekend!
Reaching the island I made my way to the rangers hut with my friend Kieran dancing around like a child in a sweet shop proclaiming he knew exactly what to do. The ranger was nowhere to be seen so in the presence of an elderly volunteer who hadn't come across this predicament before I opted for Kieran's method of hook removal (luckily only one barb was embedded in my finger) The theory went like this; twist the hook in the direction it went in so that the barb comes out of your finger in a different place than it went in, snip the barb off and pull the whole thing back through the entry hole. In practise it turns out that the skin around the joints on your finger is incredibly tough and it took ages to push the tip of the hook through, Kieran was dying to have a go at it just like mum used to always want to pick my spots for me, luckily I learned when I was very small that other people have no sympathy for your pain so I didn't let him pull the hook out for me! when it finally did emerge though we had to then work the skin over the hook till finally the barb 'popped' through and we were able to snip it off with the multitool that I'd brought! Another stroke of fortune was that Adrian happens to be an outdoor instructor back in Inverness and had brought with him a first aid kit that your average paramedic would be envious of. Between the first aid kit and the fact the hook was brand new I was pretty lucky to have minimal infection in it and it's almost back to normal now!
Work is chugging along nicely, I've floated a few of my ideas with the bosses and they have gone down well so far, our project is throwing up a few unexpected challenges but it's keeping me on my toes. At this point I'm learning a great deal so staying on top of it is occupying my time rather than playing with ideas for future roles and opportunities within the company.
It's almost Christmas and I'm looking forward to the break although I'll still have to train for the hockey team. I'm off to stay at Evelien's family's beach house for a few days then hoping to go camping and fishing for a few days over New Years. This has been a monster of a journal so I'll sign off here and get some sleep! I hope this finds you all well and will talk to you all soon
Lots of Love
Nick
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Alive and Swimming
Last post in August...erm...sorry about that! again...
I promise I'll make up for it in this post though! I've got some great pics and an even better video to post (fingers crossed it'll work!)
A few weeks ago I had a friends sister come to stay on her round the world trip. She was keen to go diving in the Poor Knights marine reserve which is a few hours drive up north and was listed by Jacques Cousteau as one of the top 10 dive sites in the world. It's a small set of islands about 12 miles off the mainland and we travelled up north with my colleague Steve and his partner India early in the morning to board a dive charter for the day trip to the islands. Steve, India and Siobhan all have their SCUBA diving certificates and were put in a small group with a dive instructor while I pottered about in my new wetsuit snorkelling to the same depth that they were diving at. The deepest Steve saw me at was about 20m but I only made it that deep once, by the time I recovered they had moved to about 16m so mostly I pottered at about 10m and was able to stay down there for a minute or so.
The Poor Knights are the islands in the background on the left.
View looking up at the huge cliffs above us
A school of fish formed a wall and swam in circles around some of the dive instructors and I at the end of the second dive session. This was taken at about 6m.
This doesn't really reflect how many of these fish there actually were but it was one of the best things I've seen underwater!
I took some video which I will attempt to post here, you should be able to click on the play button and it will play a clip of a dive I did to see a Stingray in a cave at about 8-10m. If it doesn't play straight away give it a minute or two to load up:
Work is going well, I got a payrise today! I'm in the middle of putting together a presentation to make a case for creating a new position at work where I will be responsible for helping project teams understand the people they are designing for and guide them through the design process in order to help drive innovation in the company whilst retaining the knowledge generated for future use. And to help me do this I approached a government agency called 'Better By Design' a few months ago to ask for some mentoring as there is no one in work who can teach me the skills that I want to learn in order to develop as a designer and ultimately a design leader. They have been very helpful and I've been invited to attend a 'Design Masterclass' on Tuesday where I'll spend the day learning about decision making tools for the design process and a few other bits and pieces. It's an invitation only day and one of the speakers is a famous American designer called Charles Pelly who founded a firm called Designworks that became so famous that BMW bought it!
The hockey stick venture is coming along nicely, we now have a website and have sold almost 200 pairs of sticks in about two months. If you haven't already seen it the website is:
www.snorkelbattleextreme.com
I'm just in the middle of refining our production techniques by building a mould that can make four sticks at once which should streamline our process a fair bit. It's all still a great deal of fun and I'm hoping to break the back of the work before the real summer arrives so I can make the most of the outdoors and get plenty more dives in. This year I'm aiming to improve my hunter/gatherer skills and am on the hunt for scallops and crayfish with perhaps the odd bit of spearfishing in here and there.
Preparation for the first ocean swim is going well, the organisers reckon that over 1500 people have entered. I'm keen to try and finish in the top 10% , we'll find out in two weeks how ambitious that goal is! Especially given that I'll be at a NZ Mens underwater hockey camp for the day and a half prior to the swim!
Love to you all
Nick xox
I promise I'll make up for it in this post though! I've got some great pics and an even better video to post (fingers crossed it'll work!)
A few weeks ago I had a friends sister come to stay on her round the world trip. She was keen to go diving in the Poor Knights marine reserve which is a few hours drive up north and was listed by Jacques Cousteau as one of the top 10 dive sites in the world. It's a small set of islands about 12 miles off the mainland and we travelled up north with my colleague Steve and his partner India early in the morning to board a dive charter for the day trip to the islands. Steve, India and Siobhan all have their SCUBA diving certificates and were put in a small group with a dive instructor while I pottered about in my new wetsuit snorkelling to the same depth that they were diving at. The deepest Steve saw me at was about 20m but I only made it that deep once, by the time I recovered they had moved to about 16m so mostly I pottered at about 10m and was able to stay down there for a minute or so.
The Poor Knights are the islands in the background on the left.
View looking up at the huge cliffs above us
A school of fish formed a wall and swam in circles around some of the dive instructors and I at the end of the second dive session. This was taken at about 6m.
This doesn't really reflect how many of these fish there actually were but it was one of the best things I've seen underwater!I took some video which I will attempt to post here, you should be able to click on the play button and it will play a clip of a dive I did to see a Stingray in a cave at about 8-10m. If it doesn't play straight away give it a minute or two to load up:
Work is going well, I got a payrise today! I'm in the middle of putting together a presentation to make a case for creating a new position at work where I will be responsible for helping project teams understand the people they are designing for and guide them through the design process in order to help drive innovation in the company whilst retaining the knowledge generated for future use. And to help me do this I approached a government agency called 'Better By Design' a few months ago to ask for some mentoring as there is no one in work who can teach me the skills that I want to learn in order to develop as a designer and ultimately a design leader. They have been very helpful and I've been invited to attend a 'Design Masterclass' on Tuesday where I'll spend the day learning about decision making tools for the design process and a few other bits and pieces. It's an invitation only day and one of the speakers is a famous American designer called Charles Pelly who founded a firm called Designworks that became so famous that BMW bought it!
The hockey stick venture is coming along nicely, we now have a website and have sold almost 200 pairs of sticks in about two months. If you haven't already seen it the website is:
www.snorkelbattleextreme.com
I'm just in the middle of refining our production techniques by building a mould that can make four sticks at once which should streamline our process a fair bit. It's all still a great deal of fun and I'm hoping to break the back of the work before the real summer arrives so I can make the most of the outdoors and get plenty more dives in. This year I'm aiming to improve my hunter/gatherer skills and am on the hunt for scallops and crayfish with perhaps the odd bit of spearfishing in here and there.
Preparation for the first ocean swim is going well, the organisers reckon that over 1500 people have entered. I'm keen to try and finish in the top 10% , we'll find out in two weeks how ambitious that goal is! Especially given that I'll be at a NZ Mens underwater hockey camp for the day and a half prior to the swim!
Love to you all
Nick xox
Monday, August 18, 2008
Hi All,
Considering it’s been some time since I last wrote and I feel like I’ve not actually been doing much since I last wrote but I’ve actually been flat out with lots of little side projects that seem to end up occupying all my time. I think I’ve told most of you that I’ve been busy designing a new kind of underwater hockey stick with two of my friends from hockey, well I thought I’d show you some pictures of what we’ve done so far. I’ve designed most of it on computer based on a stick that one of the guys uses and makes for other people already. Our main point of difference is that we’re using two types of plastic to improve the player’s control of the puck, something that most plastic sticks don’t do very well. No-one has done this before se we’re learning all the time, so far it’s moving in the right direction, the CAD work has taken up a lot of my time over the last few months and I’m looking forward to getting it finished!
You can see the two different materials best in the CAD picture, there is only a slight difference in colour on the actual prototype.
Another little side project I’m working on is to come up with ideas for Evelien’s family bach, we’re off to stay there this weekend to suss it out and come up with ideas to beat her parents and brothers in a little family competition they’ve got going.
Every year there are a several Ocean Swims organised around Auckland and I’ve decided to enter one or two of them, starting in November with The Harbour Swim from one side of Auckland’s harbour to the other which is 2.6km (just over a mile and a half). I’m going to have to get back into some lane swimming to top up my water fitness first but I thin they’ll be a good challenge for me this summer.
The weather here over winter has been pretty naff. It’s not been too cold except for a very cold snap in June, it’s just been very wet, we’ve had two cyclone’s move through in the last month and are set for another storm this weekend. It’s given me the opportunity to do a lot of work on the hockey stick but I’d rather be getting out and about. Petrol prices have finally dropped again to just below $2 a litre here (76p) but as in the rest of the world things are a bit tighter than they have been since I first arrived.
I’ve had a few visitors in the last few months, a design friend from
Work is good, quite busy with the design work for this new type of nasal cannula Steve and I are working on. I’m in the model shop most of this week making prototypes of the form of our designs, that will feed into the CAD work Steve is doing then we’ll get some rapid prototypes made and test them out around the office before getting a proper tool made and testing them on real patients.
Last week I met up with a business advisor from a group called Better By Design which are part of the NZ government’s Trade and Industry department. I arranged a meeting with him to see if he could help me find a mentor from whom I could improve my design skills and business acumen as there isn’t anyone at work with enough experience for me to learn the skills I want to develop in order to lead the company through the design process (they’re all Engineers here and think slightly differently!). The meeting went very well and Dean (a former general manager of a large manufacturing firm here) was enthusiastic about helping me out and has promised to look into a few contacts for me. Better By Design was set up four years ago to help NZ companies integrate design principals into the day to day running of their businesses in order to improve profitability so they’ve got an interest in trying to promote design with Fisher and Paykel Healthcare.
I’m off to
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Winter?
Good evening all, time in New Zealand appears to be permanently on fast forward, I continuously seem to be apologising for the infrequent posts and making various excuses for not having written in a while. Hopefully you can get the impression from my ramblings that I manage to keep myself entertained and fully occupied most of the time. And the last few weeks have been no exception.
The weekend after I got back from Scotland my flatmates (Con, Cat and Andrea) and I went to a place called Waiheke Island (pr. Why-hee-kee), which is half an hour from Auckland by ferry, where we rented a 'bach' with some of Andrea's brother's and sisters and other friends of ours, there was around a dozen of us in total. Waiheke is somewhat of a retreat for New Zealand's arty and hippy populations, or possibly where the rest of the population has chosen to locate them as all the 'locals' we encountered were bonkers! With little else to do other than frequent the many vineyards and sit on the sandy beaches it's probably worth going round the bend for.
Andrea, Yours Truly, Con and Cat wine tasting at a vineyard I can't remember the name of...
Renting scooters was a highlight and provided an excellent reminder why four wheels are safer than two... I'm proud to report that I am still in one piece but did have a minor altercation with a bush... Another highlight was the snorkel ling, Con and I went snorkel ling all three days (it was a long weekend) and saw plenty of Eagle rays (see other posts for pictures) and on the last dive Con came very close to swimming over a Stingray that, no word of a lie, was the size of a dinning room table. We tried to get it to move so we could watch it swim but it wasn't having a bar of it and we decided not to pursue this line of entertainment given it's tail (the bit that killed Steve Irwin) was the size of a broom handle.
One of the bays we snorkeled in, the ship in the background is a tall ship called 'The Spirit of New Zealand' which takes kids on a life skills/team building type of activity weekend/holiday
Con, Sam and I on our scooters down by one of Waiheke's numerous beaches
Work is great at the moment, Steve and I are making some good progress on the product definition and user research stages of the paediatric nasal cannula project and I'm getting to grips with the medical and therapeutic terminology. I've also formalised a business plan for producing the underwater hockey stick that I've co-designed with two other guys from hockey. By adding a more formal and business like structure to proceedings we hope to do a better job of producing and selling the stick. We're aiming to make and sell 1000 pairs by the beginning of 2009.
All is well in the flat, the weather hasn't been too cold here in the last two weeks so no need for the heater in my room. Went kayaking with my friend Kieran from work this afternoon, first time I've had the kayak out in a number of months and although it was a bit choppy it was refreshing to be out on the water. I think that's me just about out of news for the time being, I hope you are all well and I will speak to you in the near future.
Love Nick xxx
The weekend after I got back from Scotland my flatmates (Con, Cat and Andrea) and I went to a place called Waiheke Island (pr. Why-hee-kee), which is half an hour from Auckland by ferry, where we rented a 'bach' with some of Andrea's brother's and sisters and other friends of ours, there was around a dozen of us in total. Waiheke is somewhat of a retreat for New Zealand's arty and hippy populations, or possibly where the rest of the population has chosen to locate them as all the 'locals' we encountered were bonkers! With little else to do other than frequent the many vineyards and sit on the sandy beaches it's probably worth going round the bend for.
Andrea, Yours Truly, Con and Cat wine tasting at a vineyard I can't remember the name of...Renting scooters was a highlight and provided an excellent reminder why four wheels are safer than two... I'm proud to report that I am still in one piece but did have a minor altercation with a bush... Another highlight was the snorkel ling, Con and I went snorkel ling all three days (it was a long weekend) and saw plenty of Eagle rays (see other posts for pictures) and on the last dive Con came very close to swimming over a Stingray that, no word of a lie, was the size of a dinning room table. We tried to get it to move so we could watch it swim but it wasn't having a bar of it and we decided not to pursue this line of entertainment given it's tail (the bit that killed Steve Irwin) was the size of a broom handle.
One of the bays we snorkeled in, the ship in the background is a tall ship called 'The Spirit of New Zealand' which takes kids on a life skills/team building type of activity weekend/holiday
Con, Sam and I on our scooters down by one of Waiheke's numerous beachesWork is great at the moment, Steve and I are making some good progress on the product definition and user research stages of the paediatric nasal cannula project and I'm getting to grips with the medical and therapeutic terminology. I've also formalised a business plan for producing the underwater hockey stick that I've co-designed with two other guys from hockey. By adding a more formal and business like structure to proceedings we hope to do a better job of producing and selling the stick. We're aiming to make and sell 1000 pairs by the beginning of 2009.
All is well in the flat, the weather hasn't been too cold here in the last two weeks so no need for the heater in my room. Went kayaking with my friend Kieran from work this afternoon, first time I've had the kayak out in a number of months and although it was a bit choppy it was refreshing to be out on the water. I think that's me just about out of news for the time being, I hope you are all well and I will speak to you in the near future.
Love Nick xxx
Monday, June 9, 2008
Pictures pictures pictures...
I've just had a rude realisation that I last wrote on my blog in MARCH! Well at least I can say that I've seen you all in person in that time so I don't feel quite so bad!
I've landed back in NZ in one piece and straight back into work where I'm in charge of designing a paediatric nasal cannula with my colleague Steve. Today was our first hospital visit to establish a relationship with the nursing staff on the Paediatric ICU at Auckland hospital, they seem quite enthusiastic and willing to help with our research which is going to be a very important part of the project.
I'm back playing hockey although not quite as well as I'd like after effectively about 6 weeks off. I'm playing wednesday night 5-a-side football with a team from work which is not particularly competitive but a lot of fun. Tonight I've finished a big portion of the 3D CAD work for the next underwater hockey stick protoype that I'm making with one of the guys from my club so I'll be busy over the coming weeks making that computer model a reality that we can play with in the pool.
I thought I pop a few pictures in this post to make up for the months of not having written. As I'm sure you've all heard Ewan's wedding was tremendous fun and well worth the trip. It was lovely to see you all again despite the brevity of the visit.
Enjoy:
I've landed back in NZ in one piece and straight back into work where I'm in charge of designing a paediatric nasal cannula with my colleague Steve. Today was our first hospital visit to establish a relationship with the nursing staff on the Paediatric ICU at Auckland hospital, they seem quite enthusiastic and willing to help with our research which is going to be a very important part of the project.
I'm back playing hockey although not quite as well as I'd like after effectively about 6 weeks off. I'm playing wednesday night 5-a-side football with a team from work which is not particularly competitive but a lot of fun. Tonight I've finished a big portion of the 3D CAD work for the next underwater hockey stick protoype that I'm making with one of the guys from my club so I'll be busy over the coming weeks making that computer model a reality that we can play with in the pool.
I thought I pop a few pictures in this post to make up for the months of not having written. As I'm sure you've all heard Ewan's wedding was tremendous fun and well worth the trip. It was lovely to see you all again despite the brevity of the visit.
Enjoy:
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Water water everywhere...
Hello, Hello,
Yesterday was the anniversary of my arrival in NZ, a whole year has flown by in what seems like no time. So to celebrate I have a monster news bulletin for you!
Last weekend was Easter, or more importantly, four days off work! I took to the water as much as possible starting off with a visit to a Regional Park about an hour and twenty mins away. Last time I visitied the water was tremendous but rather cold, luckily summer has warmed it up and I went looking for Stingrays as they sunbathed in the sand near the beach. I saw two Eagle Rays which are a smaller species of Stingray found in NZ waters, I managed to take a few pics of them with my underwater camera set up:
The following day I headed over to the Coramandel Peninsula with Evelyn to visit a Blues Festival, it turned out to be an enjoyable evening with some great music. We spent the night at a campsite next to the beach with Evelyn's parents, woke up and took a dip in the sea followed by a fry up for breakfast! Evelyn, her mum and I went for a kayak near a town called Whitianga (pronounced Fitianga) before having lunch and heading back to Auckland.
I spent Easter Monday surfing with some friends from hockey, two hours of solid surfing wiped me out and I had to go to bed for a few hours afterwards! I'm starting to get the hang of it though and was using a smaller board than the last few ocaisions. Might go again next weekend while the water is still warm!
You'll have to take my word for it that this is actually me and not just some random punter!
I've taken to going out for a kayak on a wednesday evening with Kieran, a colleague from work. Unfortunately I had a mishap this week, we decided to put his sit on top kayak in my car by folding the seats down etc as we didn't have enough tie downs to put it on the roof with mine. Whilst making sure the boot could shut I gave the kayak a nudge to get it in the last inch or so and accidentally pushed it through the front windscreen...! I thought Kieran was winding me up when he told me I'd broken the window but no, there for all to see was a huge spiderweb crack on the passenger side. Luckily i'm fully insured and I'm getting a new windscreen on Tuesday and I don't even have to pay any excess on it!
It's been on the cards for a while but I've finally got a date for moving house, Con and Cat's Aunt and Uncle move to Australia in Mid April so I'll be moving in with them on the 19th April. It's a nice house in a fairly well to do area nearer town and closer to some nice pubs, cafe's, newsagents etc. I'll drop you all a line with the address when I find out what it is!
I took my driving theory test this weekend to convert my UK licence to a New Zealand one, I got one wrong out of 35 questions and should recieve my new driving licence in a few weeks
It's Sunday night here and I've played seven hours of hockey this weekend at the NZ Mens Underwater Hockey Training camp. I was asked to come down and help out by playing opposition before they head off to Durban in two weeks for the World Championships. I also took part in two fitness tests to see how I compare with the guys in the team. Based on that performance I'd say I'm quicker than half of them with not much training on my behalf. I'm definately going to go for the team when I become eligible next year but I have a lot to learn in terms of skills and team play. The competition for places will as always be very tough, much much tougher than it ever was for the GB team.
Yesterday was the anniversary of my arrival in NZ, a whole year has flown by in what seems like no time. So to celebrate I have a monster news bulletin for you!
Last weekend was Easter, or more importantly, four days off work! I took to the water as much as possible starting off with a visit to a Regional Park about an hour and twenty mins away. Last time I visitied the water was tremendous but rather cold, luckily summer has warmed it up and I went looking for Stingrays as they sunbathed in the sand near the beach. I saw two Eagle Rays which are a smaller species of Stingray found in NZ waters, I managed to take a few pics of them with my underwater camera set up:
The following day I headed over to the Coramandel Peninsula with Evelyn to visit a Blues Festival, it turned out to be an enjoyable evening with some great music. We spent the night at a campsite next to the beach with Evelyn's parents, woke up and took a dip in the sea followed by a fry up for breakfast! Evelyn, her mum and I went for a kayak near a town called Whitianga (pronounced Fitianga) before having lunch and heading back to Auckland.
I spent Easter Monday surfing with some friends from hockey, two hours of solid surfing wiped me out and I had to go to bed for a few hours afterwards! I'm starting to get the hang of it though and was using a smaller board than the last few ocaisions. Might go again next weekend while the water is still warm!
You'll have to take my word for it that this is actually me and not just some random punter!I've taken to going out for a kayak on a wednesday evening with Kieran, a colleague from work. Unfortunately I had a mishap this week, we decided to put his sit on top kayak in my car by folding the seats down etc as we didn't have enough tie downs to put it on the roof with mine. Whilst making sure the boot could shut I gave the kayak a nudge to get it in the last inch or so and accidentally pushed it through the front windscreen...! I thought Kieran was winding me up when he told me I'd broken the window but no, there for all to see was a huge spiderweb crack on the passenger side. Luckily i'm fully insured and I'm getting a new windscreen on Tuesday and I don't even have to pay any excess on it!
It's been on the cards for a while but I've finally got a date for moving house, Con and Cat's Aunt and Uncle move to Australia in Mid April so I'll be moving in with them on the 19th April. It's a nice house in a fairly well to do area nearer town and closer to some nice pubs, cafe's, newsagents etc. I'll drop you all a line with the address when I find out what it is!
I took my driving theory test this weekend to convert my UK licence to a New Zealand one, I got one wrong out of 35 questions and should recieve my new driving licence in a few weeks
It's Sunday night here and I've played seven hours of hockey this weekend at the NZ Mens Underwater Hockey Training camp. I was asked to come down and help out by playing opposition before they head off to Durban in two weeks for the World Championships. I also took part in two fitness tests to see how I compare with the guys in the team. Based on that performance I'd say I'm quicker than half of them with not much training on my behalf. I'm definately going to go for the team when I become eligible next year but I have a lot to learn in terms of skills and team play. The competition for places will as always be very tough, much much tougher than it ever was for the GB team.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Sports Report
Last weekend I spent four days in Wellington competing in the NZ Regional Underwater Hockey Champs. I was playing on the Northern A team, consisting of 8 of the current Kiwi Mens team, one of the players from the last gold medal winning kiwi team and me! It was by far and away the best hockey team I've ever played on and I learnt a great deal and even managed to score a few goals. We made it to the final having only conceeded two goals then beat the Central A team 9-1 in the final to earn a shiney gold medal!
In work, I've been having some interesting conversations with various managers about increasing the involvement of Design in the business. I got some positive feedback from one of the senior managers and just have to wait for the powers that be to give me the projects to show that I can walk the walk.
This weekend I popped up to a town called Waipu to visit a university friend who recently married a kiwi girl on the Saturday before coming back down to Auckland to run in the Round The Bays 'Fun Run' Untill I moved to New Zealand, running was a survival skill and not something that I found 'fun' However 70,000 people turned up to run the 8.4km from downtown Auckland to St. Helliers, round the bays in between, for various charities and I did my bit by entering and running with work. I've put a few pictures below, It took at least five minutes to get to the starting line after the gun announced the start and then a further few minutes was spent walking trying to get out of the corwds before I could start running.
After the run everyone heads up to a big park where work had pitched a large tent and filled it with free food and drinks, most NZ, or certainly Auckland based, companies were represented with everyone running in company T-shirts and eating at their company tents afterwards. And the sun came out, which was nice.
Chris and I waiting for the start...
If you use binoculars you might be able to make out the Start line and some of the 70,000 other punters waiting to get moving. Helen Clark, the NZ Prime Minister, started the race and after about 5 mins I eventually walked past her as she waved to everyone moving over the start line.
Pete and I outside the F&P Healthcare tent. Note my nice black 'tights'! They're compression tights and are supposed to help your legs perform better and aid recovery. Not having any other running race to benchmark I can't say if they helped me run any better and I'll tell you if my legs hurt in the morning!
In work, I've been having some interesting conversations with various managers about increasing the involvement of Design in the business. I got some positive feedback from one of the senior managers and just have to wait for the powers that be to give me the projects to show that I can walk the walk.
This weekend I popped up to a town called Waipu to visit a university friend who recently married a kiwi girl on the Saturday before coming back down to Auckland to run in the Round The Bays 'Fun Run' Untill I moved to New Zealand, running was a survival skill and not something that I found 'fun' However 70,000 people turned up to run the 8.4km from downtown Auckland to St. Helliers, round the bays in between, for various charities and I did my bit by entering and running with work. I've put a few pictures below, It took at least five minutes to get to the starting line after the gun announced the start and then a further few minutes was spent walking trying to get out of the corwds before I could start running.
After the run everyone heads up to a big park where work had pitched a large tent and filled it with free food and drinks, most NZ, or certainly Auckland based, companies were represented with everyone running in company T-shirts and eating at their company tents afterwards. And the sun came out, which was nice.
Chris and I waiting for the start...
If you use binoculars you might be able to make out the Start line and some of the 70,000 other punters waiting to get moving. Helen Clark, the NZ Prime Minister, started the race and after about 5 mins I eventually walked past her as she waved to everyone moving over the start line.
Pete and I outside the F&P Healthcare tent. Note my nice black 'tights'! They're compression tights and are supposed to help your legs perform better and aid recovery. Not having any other running race to benchmark I can't say if they helped me run any better and I'll tell you if my legs hurt in the morning!Saturday, March 1, 2008
March Madness
I'm afraid I seem to be lacking in pictures to show you at the moment, I promise to rectify this soon!
Although nothing hugely exciting is going on at the moment I have busy with various projects that seem to keep me out of trouble. I'm in the middle of putting a proposal together for one of the senior managers at work that will outline a few ideas I have on how the business could improve it's design process with a view to possibly creating a new role for myself. I'm visiting our sister company Fisher&Paykel Appliances tomorrow to find out how their design dept. works as it is well established and there are a number of similarities between our companies.
The second prototype of my hockey stick design went well and it's time to start thinking about designing the moulds for it now which will probably take some time. In the mean time I have been making a new set of wooden sticks for the NZ Regional Underwater Hockey Champs in Wellington this week. They take place on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and should be a lot of fun. I'm playing in the Northern A-team which is without doubt the best team I've ever played on so I hope we do well! The weekend after that I've been talked into taking part in an event with work called the 'Round the Bays Run' which is an 8.4k run from the centre of Auckland "round the bays" to a place called St. Helliers. I've been mixing some running into my training for hockey and hope that my legs will survive the onslaught!
The weather has been good the last few weeks - until it's time for the weekend, the last two have been very wet and windy so I haven't been to any beaches or kayaking lately. I'm still plugging away at the Best Man's speech and have been organising Ewan's Stag weekend in the evenings. Not too much left to report at the moment, I'll let you all know how we get on in Wellington in a week or two!
Nick
Although nothing hugely exciting is going on at the moment I have busy with various projects that seem to keep me out of trouble. I'm in the middle of putting a proposal together for one of the senior managers at work that will outline a few ideas I have on how the business could improve it's design process with a view to possibly creating a new role for myself. I'm visiting our sister company Fisher&Paykel Appliances tomorrow to find out how their design dept. works as it is well established and there are a number of similarities between our companies.
The second prototype of my hockey stick design went well and it's time to start thinking about designing the moulds for it now which will probably take some time. In the mean time I have been making a new set of wooden sticks for the NZ Regional Underwater Hockey Champs in Wellington this week. They take place on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and should be a lot of fun. I'm playing in the Northern A-team which is without doubt the best team I've ever played on so I hope we do well! The weekend after that I've been talked into taking part in an event with work called the 'Round the Bays Run' which is an 8.4k run from the centre of Auckland "round the bays" to a place called St. Helliers. I've been mixing some running into my training for hockey and hope that my legs will survive the onslaught!
The weather has been good the last few weeks - until it's time for the weekend, the last two have been very wet and windy so I haven't been to any beaches or kayaking lately. I'm still plugging away at the Best Man's speech and have been organising Ewan's Stag weekend in the evenings. Not too much left to report at the moment, I'll let you all know how we get on in Wellington in a week or two!
Nick
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Time flying
Evening all,
Just thought I'd post a quickie before I head to bed, it is after all a school night but I wanted to keep up the correspondance.
Things are all go at the moment, I'm busy making up some prototypes for one of the jobs that Rich and I have got on for our new firm - Underdog Design. I've also been making the second prototype of my new underwater hockey stick which hopefully I will have finished tomorrow if I can get some time on the machine after work. Some of us here in NZ are quite heavily into designing new sticks for hockey and as such we've put forward a paper proposing new rules for the design and manufacture of sticks to the governing body so I was involved in that last week.
The last two Wednesdays have brought good weather so I've spent both evenings in one of the parks in town watching films on a giant inflatable cinema screen. There is live music till it gets dark then they put the films on. The series of six films are all NZ made (and surprisingly Lord of the Rings doesn't feature in the line up!) The park is packed with people and it makes for a very enjoyable night out and something a bit different.
On Saturday some work colleagues and I went to a Food and Wine festival by the sea in town, there were some big NZ bands playing in the background and more wine than you could see with beer goggles on. Suffice to say that a good time was had by all and I finally made it to bed around 2am...
The coming week involves further planning for Ewan's Stag doo and speech writing for the big day. Time seems to be flying by at a staggering pace and before long I'm sure I'll be sitting infront of you boring you with more pictures and stories! In the meantime I hope that this finds you all in good health and I'll be in touch again soon.
Love Nick
Just thought I'd post a quickie before I head to bed, it is after all a school night but I wanted to keep up the correspondance.
Things are all go at the moment, I'm busy making up some prototypes for one of the jobs that Rich and I have got on for our new firm - Underdog Design. I've also been making the second prototype of my new underwater hockey stick which hopefully I will have finished tomorrow if I can get some time on the machine after work. Some of us here in NZ are quite heavily into designing new sticks for hockey and as such we've put forward a paper proposing new rules for the design and manufacture of sticks to the governing body so I was involved in that last week.
The last two Wednesdays have brought good weather so I've spent both evenings in one of the parks in town watching films on a giant inflatable cinema screen. There is live music till it gets dark then they put the films on. The series of six films are all NZ made (and surprisingly Lord of the Rings doesn't feature in the line up!) The park is packed with people and it makes for a very enjoyable night out and something a bit different.
On Saturday some work colleagues and I went to a Food and Wine festival by the sea in town, there were some big NZ bands playing in the background and more wine than you could see with beer goggles on. Suffice to say that a good time was had by all and I finally made it to bed around 2am...
The coming week involves further planning for Ewan's Stag doo and speech writing for the big day. Time seems to be flying by at a staggering pace and before long I'm sure I'll be sitting infront of you boring you with more pictures and stories! In the meantime I hope that this finds you all in good health and I'll be in touch again soon.
Love Nick
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Festive Run Down and New Year News!
Hello, Hello,
It's my weekend for catching up with all the things I should have done weeks ago but didn't have time to do because of visitors and good weather!
The Bay of Islands (The islands are round the corner...)
Queenstown - scenery like Scotland on steroids.
Dad, Mum and Ruth snorkelling at Goat Island Marine Reserve
Cathedral Cove beach
It was very nice to have the three of them over and I got quite used to having them around again. By the sounds of it I don't think it'll be too long before they pop back again.
Since then I've had a hockey mate from my club in Southsea staying with me for the best part of two weeks. He's the leading contender for worst guest at the moment, he's just stayed in and watched tv all day and expects to be entertained when I get home from work. I've re-drafted a list of things to do to suit his shoestring budget and he still sat on his backside infront of the telly. Babysitting is not on my list services offered as host and tough love is the order of the day.
Work has got off to a slow start this year, first the project I was working on was chosen to go forward for production and the rest of my team were assigned to help out, then last week it got put on the back burner in favour of the original solution that had been rejected a month before Christmas. Swings and roundabouts. The hockey stick that I'm working on in my spare time is still under development after a bit of a setback discovered after I made a prototype before Christmas. Mark 2 should be ready for testing this week or next and is looking promising.
Last weekend was a long weekend here and I spent it camping and surfing with some freinds on the Coromandel, we enjoyed wall to wall sunshine and big surf that was a little bit beyond my limited skills! It was nice to get away from everything, catch up on some reading and relax. In March I'll be going to Wellington to play on the Auckland Regional Underwater Hockey team in the NZ Regional champs, it's the highest level hockey tournament in NZ so I'm putting in a bit of extra time on the bike and in my running shoes so I can keep up!
In other news I'm in the early stages of setting up a small design firm with a colleague to do some small projects on the side and we've got two projects on the go already, just going to take it slow and steady for the time being and earn a little bit of extra money here and there. I'm also busy preparing my speech and organising things for Ewan's wedding in May which I'm looking forward to!
It's my weekend for catching up with all the things I should have done weeks ago but didn't have time to do because of visitors and good weather!
The dust has settled after the family visit and by now I'm sure they've all told what we got up to so I won't give you a day by day account! After re-adjusting to living as a family unit we had a great time at Derek's family's bach (a.k.a. beach house) for New Year (spot of walking, snorkelling, fishing, drinking etc.) Then up to the Bay of Islands where we stayed in a bach with terrible views as you can see:
The Bay of Islands (The islands are round the corner...)
Queenstown - scenery like Scotland on steroids.
Dad, Mum and Ruth snorkelling at Goat Island Marine Reserve
Cathedral Cove beachSince then I've had a hockey mate from my club in Southsea staying with me for the best part of two weeks. He's the leading contender for worst guest at the moment, he's just stayed in and watched tv all day and expects to be entertained when I get home from work. I've re-drafted a list of things to do to suit his shoestring budget and he still sat on his backside infront of the telly. Babysitting is not on my list services offered as host and tough love is the order of the day.
Work has got off to a slow start this year, first the project I was working on was chosen to go forward for production and the rest of my team were assigned to help out, then last week it got put on the back burner in favour of the original solution that had been rejected a month before Christmas. Swings and roundabouts. The hockey stick that I'm working on in my spare time is still under development after a bit of a setback discovered after I made a prototype before Christmas. Mark 2 should be ready for testing this week or next and is looking promising.
Last weekend was a long weekend here and I spent it camping and surfing with some freinds on the Coromandel, we enjoyed wall to wall sunshine and big surf that was a little bit beyond my limited skills! It was nice to get away from everything, catch up on some reading and relax. In March I'll be going to Wellington to play on the Auckland Regional Underwater Hockey team in the NZ Regional champs, it's the highest level hockey tournament in NZ so I'm putting in a bit of extra time on the bike and in my running shoes so I can keep up!
In other news I'm in the early stages of setting up a small design firm with a colleague to do some small projects on the side and we've got two projects on the go already, just going to take it slow and steady for the time being and earn a little bit of extra money here and there. I'm also busy preparing my speech and organising things for Ewan's wedding in May which I'm looking forward to!
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Festive Season Part 1
It's been a while since I last wrote so this post will be fast paced and action packed!
I spent the weekend before Christmas learning to surf with a colleague from work four of his Irish mates at a place called Raglan, the weather was perfect and the waves were about 2-3 feet high and perfect for learning on. After standing up on the first attempt things went a bit down hill for a while before getting the hang of it half an hour later. We all had a great time and returned to the beach on Christmas eve morning to rent a few boards and spend the morning in the sunshine surfing some more. Alas nobody told the ocean this and I think even ants would have struggled to catch a wave.
The remainder of Christmas eve and Christmas day were spent with my long time friend Evelien and her family in Hamilton in the central North Island. They live only half an hour from Raglan so we went back and did a spot of kayaking on Christmas day, by this time the weather had turned to custard and we kayaked in the pouring rain! It wasn't cold though and was quite refreshing. Christmas day didn't really feel like Christmas, perhaps it was the weather or not being around family or perhaps the lack of Christmas decorations in NZ but Evelien's family did a great job of making sure I enjoyed myself. In the evening I drove back up to Auckland and got the house ready for the impending arrival of the family!
Luckily all my flatmates were away for the bulk of the Christmas holidays so we had the house to ourselves which was a god send. We spent boxing day relaxing and exchanging gifts (thank you for all my pressies!) after lunch I spent the afternoon bullying the family into staying awake till a reasonable hour by taking them for drives and walks around town.
The following day, Dad went sailing on his Americas Cup Yacht experience that Ruth and I got him for his birthday and I took Mum and Ruth to the Chocolate Boutique! I've got to dash out now but I'll post some more writing and pics soon!
I spent the weekend before Christmas learning to surf with a colleague from work four of his Irish mates at a place called Raglan, the weather was perfect and the waves were about 2-3 feet high and perfect for learning on. After standing up on the first attempt things went a bit down hill for a while before getting the hang of it half an hour later. We all had a great time and returned to the beach on Christmas eve morning to rent a few boards and spend the morning in the sunshine surfing some more. Alas nobody told the ocean this and I think even ants would have struggled to catch a wave.
The remainder of Christmas eve and Christmas day were spent with my long time friend Evelien and her family in Hamilton in the central North Island. They live only half an hour from Raglan so we went back and did a spot of kayaking on Christmas day, by this time the weather had turned to custard and we kayaked in the pouring rain! It wasn't cold though and was quite refreshing. Christmas day didn't really feel like Christmas, perhaps it was the weather or not being around family or perhaps the lack of Christmas decorations in NZ but Evelien's family did a great job of making sure I enjoyed myself. In the evening I drove back up to Auckland and got the house ready for the impending arrival of the family!
Luckily all my flatmates were away for the bulk of the Christmas holidays so we had the house to ourselves which was a god send. We spent boxing day relaxing and exchanging gifts (thank you for all my pressies!) after lunch I spent the afternoon bullying the family into staying awake till a reasonable hour by taking them for drives and walks around town.
The following day, Dad went sailing on his Americas Cup Yacht experience that Ruth and I got him for his birthday and I took Mum and Ruth to the Chocolate Boutique! I've got to dash out now but I'll post some more writing and pics soon!
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