Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category
Thursday, April 13th, 2006
In the past month or more I've been working hard on making sure William had a good experience at school. I talked to his teachers to make sure that they were keeping their eyes open for bullying (and to ensure that they knew I had very high standards for ...
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Wednesday, February 15th, 2006
Today was unsatisfactory. I worked a solid 8 hours, packed in the email, made a coworker laugh, and made significant progress towards a goal. So why, at the end, do I feel blah? I was so knackered after the day of full on email and phone ...
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Monday, February 13th, 2006
We took William out of school for the day, drove down to Auckland,
and went to Kelly Tarlton's
World (like the Monterey Aquarium) and then to a buffet for lunch.
Very luxurious, but you have to be on the ball when it's the missus's
birthday and Valentine's Day. The kids had fun, ...
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Tuesday, December 20th, 2005
It's been an adventurous week, weather-wise. Being away for so long, I'd forgotten the misty mornings that are classic New Zealand fare. We had a front parked over us for four or five days, with what the weather forecasters discreetly refer to as "scattered showers" but which really ...
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Saturday, December 10th, 2005
I'm reading Russell Brown's collection of other people's essays, Great
New Zealand Argument, and at the same time I'm reading The
Nationbuilders by Brian Easton. Both tackle the subject of what
it means to be a New Zealander. I'm reading them in bite size pieces:
Easton's in the bedroom and Brown's in ...
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Monday, December 5th, 2005
It's been hard to balance life and work here on the other side of the
world. Some days the work consumes me and I ignore family (bad Dad!)
and other days I'm burnt out and can't face the keyboard. I dug in a
garden last weekend with my uncle Les and ...
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Tuesday, November 29th, 2005
Today I sent email to, and got
replies from, the acting CEO of New Zealand On Air, and the general
editor of Te Ara (the
Encyclopedia of New Zealand). I love that these people are so
accessible.
Today's accomplishments: moved the dead cars out of
our garage so the emptying of the house can ...
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Monday, November 28th, 2005
Today Jenine helped out at William's school, and we learned that
there's quite the gulf between the grouchy old woman teaching his
class and the sweet old woman who taught him in Colorado. This one is
bullying, dismissive, and belittling. This puts us in the awkward
position of being new to ...
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Saturday, November 26th, 2005
I'd forgotten how amazing New Zealand's weather is. We're just a
thin strip of island in a lot of water, close to Antarctica. The
weather's always shifting: some good stuff, some crap, some good
stuff, some crap. A strip of concentrated crap floated in last night
and dumped a ton ...
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Thursday, November 24th, 2005
I've been stuck into work, and it's interesting how the cycle of
the day is different here. I only overlap the West Coast of America's
work day for five hours--by 2pm my time, they're all heading home. So
I email furiously in the morning, and get replies, and spend the
afternoon clearing ...
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