Police hard at work in Santa's grotto

With the last murder in Dunedin about 3 years ago (from memory) and crime dropping by 6% last year our police in Dunedin are really finding themselves with a little bit of free time on their hands. Time to hit the malls to stop the rampant crime from occuring there. All fun aside though it is cool to see cops on the beat around the shoppping area. The kids love to see police cruisin around and waving and smiling

This patrol needed three (for safety) anfter all who knows how many tots in the Meridian Mall may go berserk with their lollipops.

The Annual Walk to Port Chalmers

After a week of complete crap weather we (Josie, Vic and I) managed to make our annual pilgrimage to Port Chalmers. THe weather started off pretty overcast but as as the walk continued it got better. Vis manged to make it the whole way this year without complaining or having to be piggybacked.  The girls clained to be really tired but it hasn't stopped them from playing ever since we got back from the excursion. All up it was 15.9 Kms. I wouldn't have wanted a longer walk though - it was just enough to be a pleasant jaunt but not enough to be too taxing.

A slightly bumped pic? I think the iPhone 4's camera isn't that hot really.

Answer to Kevin

for some reason I can't post a reply so you get your own whole blog entry! 
Yeah the weather has been getting noticeably hotter. In fact on Sunday it reached a staggering 23 degrees. One of the problems about being on an island on this latitude is that you get all of the crap weather that the antarctic weather gods decide to vomit our way. The weather can change from hot to snow in the space of hours -literally. We can have really settled great weather all really settled shit. In the South Island you should pack for winter but hope for summer if you go camping. For a human from the northern latitudes it must seem a little incongruous to see a winter santa being celebrated in a southern summer. For us however we receive our iconography with little critical thinking.  Besides it is cooler to see a winter Santa than a Santa in a tee-shirt and jandals (worth looking that last word up)

Its that time again,,,

The girls decorated the tree this time themselves. I think they overcooked the baubles a bit but otherwise it was a pretty good job.

Santa

Santa has to source my boxes of soldiers from England. They were put on the reindeer 2 days ago so I hope they make it before Christmas.

Last Week....

Here it comes babeeeeeee! We have organised a staff party at Ombrello's at the outside part.  This is important as it enables me to smoke my obligatory end of year cigars!

Holidays are coming up....

Santa has organised...
2 boxes of penninsular war brits from Hat Industrie, French Curassiers, Russian Hussars and French General Staff from Zvezda. 2 and a bit weeks to go till the end of the year and I will have 3 WEEKS OFF!!! Beer, Sun, Riding,Painting, Sleeping!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My "New" Osprey Books

I picked up some second hand Ospreys from TradeMe a few weeks ago and here they are. This little group expands my 19th century collection quite nicely!

I actually bought this one in Hong Kong in '92. It sat alone in my collection because I was much more interested in the Napoleonic wars that the earlier period.

This ine is really outside my period of interest but it has sparked a bit of interest in the uniforms of Marborough.

Nothing to report...

I'm older...... It has been so long since I last posted that I had forgotten my password and had to go and make a new one. I haven't painted a single figure in months and I am not exercising. My stomack looks like I am six months pregnant. But I have bought 6 more Osprey books. I now have the complete 18th century American Colonial period uniform books. Photos coming...

Testicular Cancer.

One of the All Blacks recovered from testicular cancer in his teens to go on to become one of the best young up and coming members of the team.  During the finals one of the announcers expressed his amazement that someone could so quickly overcome the loss of one of one's testicles and go on to become such an impressive sportsman. Victoria was listening to the commentary and exclaimed "Testicles? Wow...and I thought only an octopus had them!"

I was piking....

Yey we won the World Cup!!! Like most I was glued to the TV to watch what I thought would be a walk in the park for the ABs.  It wasn't (a one point win!!) so I am sooooo happy that we have procken the 24 year hoodoo.  Stink that the ABs didn't get this far south for the victory parades.

I haven't got jogging for about 2 weeks.  I have lost all of the hard work of the previous month. It is so depressing. Outside it is just pissing down at the moment. Tjat gives me a great excuse not to go running tomorrow.

I am very busy at work as the end of year rush seems to be starting again. I haven't painted more ages but I have been reading through a book on Fredrick the Great that I bought for $2 at Regent Theatre Book sale.

Argentina Vs All Blacks.

OMG - I find myself interested in Rugby now that we are in the quarter finals....
The ABs played a pretty flat game without Dan Carter. Piri Wepu stepped up though which was good to see.  I can seee now that Dan Carter was such an important Fullback. Our plays seemed a little too "pick and run" without Dan. At least Richie Mcaw's foot held out for the duration of the game.
On Another interesting note it is all hands to the pump for the next few weeks with 2 staff away on holiday and the school holidat classes in full swing. AND we have a visit from the Saudi Cultural Mission at lunchtime.
I didn't go running today because it was too windy.... I hope I am not piking out.

One week of exercise RESULT.... 4mm lost around the tummy. :(

Saturday Morning

Yey! The start if the school holidays! We get to loose the kids for a week up at my mum's house! We can get up to all sorts of mischief next week!
Today I have examining all morning and into the early evening. I have a break in the middle until 4 pm and I will use some of that time to pick up my sister from the airport. This morning was really cold so I didn't go running. So far since the start of my running I have been out on 5/7 of the mornings. I am actually handling the running pretty well. I am not running the full circuit yet but I am also not stopping (which is pretty optimistic). By zigzagging I can get up the hill of death without stopping!

Jogging and Doodle Jump

Well today signalled the beginning of the Summer fitness drive.  My stomach has th horrific girth of 102 cms and people have been commenting on its impressive size for about the last 3 months. Today I crawled out of bed and went on my first jog. It was a pathetic thing but at least it was a start. FOr self ,otivation I intend to post girth updates every 2 weeks. If I can remember correctly from last year it look about 1 month of jogging to have any effect. I scored 33000 on Doodle Jump as well. I am the family record holder - oh the heights I have scaled!

NASA 's weather Satelite and Dead Island...

With the Nasa weather satelite coming to earth on late Saturday people are beginning to worry about where it will land.  Victoria isn't worried however. In the morning she commented that there was no need to worry because she would catch it it it fell near her.

I downloaded Dead Island last night for $60 US. From what I have played it isn't as scary as LFD2 and it is not arcade style. It does nave some goodpoints like the ability to fight with a zombie rather than shoot them. The graphics are ok but not anything special. I am pretty new to the story but there are a number of challenges which seem be needed to be completed on each level rather thanthe linear LFD2 style. 

For all of their evil looks these zombies don't scare me as much are the LFD hordes.

Compared to LFD2 there has been more work put inti the anotomical parts in terms of blood and gore (which I like!!)

One of the good points about this game is that you get multiple weapons to fight the zombies. They can also be upgraded at workbenches which are dotted arounf the island

The graphic of the game are pretty!

I found my old highschool's badge...East Otago High

Decile 5 and way out in the countyside. I hated this school when I was there  but as the years pass I find I have a real soft spot for it.

 According to Wikipadia the school's claim to fame is that it won the 2009 Otago Daily Times Extra spelling Quiz for Year 9 and 10. Next comes a nobel prize or at least a Rhode's Scholarship....waiting...waiting....waiting. 

Updates from the Georgia-England Game

We got to the ground pretty early

and had nothing to do so a nice lady took a few snaps

of us.

We got to see Johnny Wilkinsin sooooo close we could almost reach out and touch him. Victoria now likes him more than Sonny Bill Williams.

The stadium was about 60% full.

It just looked awesome. I think it is the only covred stadium in the Southern Hemisphere (but I could be wrong).

Just a view from the back.

Well Georgia ended up gettting thrashed but they played out of their skins. The new stadium was awesome and we all had a great time even though we we in the cheapest ppart of the ground.  All in all a fantastic Sunday's entertainment.
Some Youtube films of the stadium
here is another one

OK... So I will be going to ONE game :)

Luckily Mari didn't want to go. For an adult the ticket price was $40 in the top stands BEHIND the tryline. Maybe we will get to catch a conversion? THe ticket prices for the best seats are around $240 per ticket.

I am not a very big fan of sport but even I can get swept up in cup fever. So tomorrow the girls and I are off to watch England vs Georgia. It will be a slaugher of epic proportions but just going to the new stadium should be cool.  I hope the pies are nice. Nearly $100 lighter in my wallet but well... how often do we get to host a World Cup?

Olympically empty life

The All Blacks have just downed Japan 82-7 in the latest pool match of the World Cup. Victoria has a crush on Sonny-Bill Williams (and she is nine). I am soooo out of touch with what is going on in the All Black team I can hardly be called a New Zealander.  I have been working pretty hard and haven't painted a single figure since about a month ago. All in all nothing really to blog about. I hope the spirit of creativity can move me to at least pick up a paint brush soon.

Just a busy but uneventful life....

Nothing to blog about really. I've been really busy at work. Josie got accepted into Columba on a music scholarship. Columba has a really good reputation so it is a bit of a coup to get in. Victoria  is starring in her primary school production of "The Magic Schoolbus".

I have got sick of Shogun Total War 2 and am hanging out for Napoleon Total War 2 ... When will they decide to do it????

I spoke too soon!

Kitchen window

Dining room window

Sunday

The horse at the front is my first ever attempt at shading. Crappy but interesting nevertheless!

This is a finished lot of Waterloo British light cav.  I am pretty happy with the end result.  If I had any twisted individual in my city who shared the same hobby, I would be more than happy to put them on the wargames table.

This weekend everybody has prepard for a big dump of snow. The media has dubbed it the "perfect storm" but so far it has just been a colder than average Sunday. Today I painted a second batch of Waterloo British light cavalry. Italieri are a pretty patchy manufacturer. They can either make really nice figures like the light cav I have been painting or they can produce some pretty aweful ones like French and British infantry pre 1806. They are also guilty of 'scale creep' where the figures get just that little bit bigger set after set. The 1805 Austrians are giants compared to the Esci or Hat figures so even though they are well sculpted they can't be used on a table with other figures.

Just the horse bits to go before basing.

The Perfect Storm! You can see the snow piling up in huge drifts outside our back window. How will we ever survive the weekend!!!

In the news Josie is back from her camp. It was too cold for her and she didn't really enjoy it. Victoria has got a solo part in her school production of The Magic Schoolbus. She also gets to play the violin and do the 'hat dance'.

Oh Bugger.

I am a massive Bowie fan so the recent news from this biographer is a real disappointment. I just wish that he has been siting at home at the piano and recording stuff without going to the recording companies.  I doubt it though....sigh.

Monday... the TV lives another day!

Half way finished! The light cavalry rides again!

Ready to cut some peasants down to size!

Spur of the moment purchase from Toyworld. Ihave always had a hankering to paint Austrians. The problem was that they had two distinctive uniforn styles during the Napoleonic period. Painting 2 3000 man armies would be a little tiresome.

The dude who has fallen from with horse is a cool figure and desrves a good standard of painting. I might really paint him up next weekend.

My rifles in skirmish order reasy to see off those frenchies!

My AWI horses got a bit of a touch up tonight before tea. I used acrylic brown on top of my standard enamel. Acrylics are pretty cool but I grew up with enamel Humbrol paints and I am not sure I can part with them totally. With browner mounts the Brits look a lot cooler. Next stage is the finicky touch up stage and then the basing.  Previously, I have got a joinery shop to cut up thin MDF for me. Unfortunatley I have ru out of those bases so  it looks like a call to "my man" might be in order.

Getting rid of TV

So far what I have painted during the first six months of the year. I dedect a small movement away from French and towards Arthur Wellesley's army!

Stuff I use for basing figures... 95th Rifles pre-flocking in the background

AWI figs early on Sunday.  By the evening they were looking much more finished

Bits and bobs of British light cav and rifles.

My messy painting box.

Josie is off on camp for a week at a place called Berrick. I have no idea where it is but she has been reallly looking forward to it.  As for rest of the family there is nothing special for the week apart from learning to live without TV. We made the decision that there was too much time wasted in the evenings and not enough homework and practice getting done.  We have been a TV free family quite often during the years but now hopefully we will make the break for good.  I have placated the youngest by promising to buy a family Ipad so she is a little happier. I will wrap the TV and stick it under the house to bring out on special occasions ---like it we make the finals of the World Cup this year and don't choke like we usually do.

As for this weekend I did some Olympic painting and managed to get through my AWI British Light Cavalry. I am not sure how happy I am with them.  I am a pretty crappy painter and I am not that interested in painting every figure to its fullest portential. I just want to see massed ranks of figures on a table.  If I take my glasses off they even look pretty good.  The broblem with my AWI figures is that they just look so clean and bright. I doubt the average trooper fighting the insurgency would have scrubbed up very well at all on campaign so my bright carnival figures are hardly realistic