Yay!!!!
Broadband and phone line working - check
Microwave - check
Washing Machine - negative but the upside is that the technician is coming in on Wednesday to have a look.
2 out of 3 ain't too bad. Wohoooooooo
Labels: Random
Status Quo
OK - now this is getting slightly annoying. After a week - still no broadband and the broadband company seems to have problems getting the technicians (from another phone company) to give us a ring and come and fix the problem. They randomly appear, seem to do stuff and then disappear without explaning what the problem is and if it is fixed or not. So I still don't know what the problem is and neither does the broadband company. I have spent close to an hour each day over the phone to the broadband company and all they know is that something is wrong and that they will try and get this problem fixed, hopefully in this coming week. Grrrrrrrr........
Other electrical malfunctions in the house which I trying to sort out is the second hand washing machine that I bought before moving into this house and Lydia is trying to sort out the microwave that she brought as it doesn't seem to be working either. So all this has definitely got me angsty.
To counter all the angst I decided to do several things - first amongst them was to try and do something physical every evening - it was tennis on tuesday; swimming on wednesday; yoga on thursday. Getting back to swimming after a year and half was a little harder than I thought- I think I will have to increase the frequency to twice a week in order to get my body working again. Then yoga the following day was refreshing but painful. It is amazing how much the body grows brittle if you don't flex it all the time. On saturday morning I had a quick game of tennis with Lance and then I got started on my gardening ambitions - to try and grow some flowers and plants to beautify the house and also to start my own veggie garden.
First I bought
Yates Simply Gardening book and poured through it to get some essential information. After that I spent a good couple of hours in the gardening shop pestering the staff for various kinds of info and I ended up buying a bunch of flower pots and gardening stuff to start off the process. I transfered the flowers into bigger pots and also put some new potting mix to help their growth. Starting a veggie garden is currently out of my budget and i'll start it after my next pay check as I intend to buy a raised garden bed frame and then start the veggie patch, so as to help the vegetables grow better. You will hear more about my gardening adventures in future posts no doubt.
For now - that's me.
Amit
Labels: Gardening, Random
The Week Gone
I have been walking to work and back ever since I moved into the new place in Grey Lynn and it is so refreshing doing that. It takes anywhere between 30-40 minutes each way [about 3.25 KM] depending on the route and the pace at which I am walking.
The move itself was pretty swift as Lance's parents and their neighbours helped us out - which made things very easy but settling in has been taking a little more of an effort with small niggles - like we still don't have broadband and phone because of some major technical fault between the phone exchange and our house. So if I haven't been emailing or replying to emails or phonecalls - that's because I don't have any access to broadband or phone at home. Then there seems to be some minor problem with the washing machine. And then there was the incident where I had a friendly encounter with the neighbourhood cat lady and the same day Lance found a dead cat in our basement. Luckily the landlord took care of removing the dead cat and also breaking the news to the cat lady.
So I have still not quiet settled into the house but still loving the place and the flatmates. It is a stone's throw from everything essential and has a lovely deck and backyard and close to the bus stop as well. I'll try and put some pics up when I get net access at home.
But till then,
Adios,
Amit
Labels: Random
The Move
The house looks like a war zone right now with all the stuff in various states of packing for the imminent move later this week and surprisingly enough I am looking forward to the move. I hate moving because it always costs more money than you plan for and it also puts your rhythm and schedules off-track for a good 2-3 weeks. Lance found us some new flatmates - a french/thai couple (Naam & Yanik) and a kiwi girl (Lydia)- it'll be an international flat for sure.
Serena has dropped out of writing REJECTED because of time constraints and her own priorities, so I'll be doing the next draft myself (atleast for now). It is a weird feeling because our collaboration was very fruitful and creative but at the same time I guess I'll have more control of the characters and the storylines now that the structure is in place and I can see the product as a whole. Interesting process to go through nonetheless.
Entourage is back with it's fifth season and it rocks. When finances permit there are a few TV series I would like to own: Entourage; Seinfeld; Arrested Development - atleast these are the ones I would pay money to own full sets.
Well that's me for now.
Till later,
Amit
Labels: New Zealand, Rejected, TV Series
Intrepid
Today I went ahead and booked my tickets to visit my folks in India. I always keep putting it off primarily because the tickets are so bloody expensive from this part of the world and you are always second guessing yourself. I also wanted to take an intrepid journey to some other part of the world - just to get away from NZ for a while - to regain some perspective on life but again it was proving hard to justify the costs.
So now I have combined the two things and I have booked myself on a
8 day intrepid journey in thailand and after that I go and visit my parents in Delhi. I really wanted to see Borneo but the whole thing is out of price range for me right now, so I settled for the next destination on my list. If I save up enough money next year - i'll definitely be visiting Borneo next. For now I am waiting for December - not just for the intrepid journey but also for some time in Delhi as I love Delhi in winter. Plus the great food, especially at
Karim's . :-)
Till later,
Amit
Labels: Travel
Dolphins
No dolphins in this picture - just meOn the ferry trip back home the skipper noticed a few dolphins swimming in the harbour and he stopped the journey and circled around the dolphins, so everyone on the ferry could get a view. The dolphins then came and swam close to the ferry and then swam under the ferry. It's the first time I have seen them and they are such magnificent creatures - they definitely took my breath away. When I get a chance I'll definitely try and go dolphin watching in Bay of Islands - it could have been this weekend but the program got canceled because of the event that happened earlier in this week.
That's me for now.
Till later,
Amit
Labels: New Zealand
STRANGE LIFE
Life is strange and is definitely unfair - last night I got a call from Doug - a south seas graduate of the class of 2004. He called in to let me know that Rhys Bonney - a graduate from the same year; a good friend; one of my favorite students (when I was teaching editing at South Seas); a gentleman to the core; very down to earth; super-talented and super-bright - had passed away from stomach cancer less than a month after he turned 35.
This is Rhys posing for a database snap for 'Memories of Tomorrow' in 2004
Rhys is now survived by a wife and 2 kids, who are both really really young. I couldn't believe my ears when I heard this and it was a total shock for me. It left me really shaken up - how can life do that? Is it just playing a game of russian roulette with each of us? And why is it that a genuine human being like rhys is snatched away in such a bizarre manner? Where is justice in this world? It is such a sad thing to have happened. Death is a part of life but not like this - this is just unfair. Very unfair.
Rest in peace Rhys. You'll always live on in our hearts.
UPDATE: Check Doug's rememberance of Rhys
HERE. You will also find more photos of Rhys there.
Labels: Random
Structures
We love structures. We have structures for everything and structures dominate our lives - for some more than the others. If there weren't any structures then it would be anarchy and chaos. The trick is in finding flexible structures and breaking away from rigid structures which can cause even more damage than chaos.
I am rambling now.
Till later,
Amit
Labels: Random
Grace is Gone
So after 5 years of living on the North Shore, I am finally making a move into the city as it made more and more sense. So after some house hunting - managed to get a nice 4 bedroom place in Grey Lynn. The rental process is a bit weird because you look at the place, then put in an application, they do reference checks and then decide who they are giving the place to - so it was pretty nice getting the place relatively easily. Now just have to find 2 more flatmates and Lance is on the task, so hopefully we will have them as we move in towards the end of this month. The best thing about the place is that it puts me in walking distance to almost anywhere central - so I can most probably walk everywhere and I am just toying with the idea of getting myself a road bike to cycle to work since it is only 3 KM from the house. The possibilities are endless and I am keeping a lid on them till I actually move into the place.
One of the things I love about NZ is the inorganic collection. Each suburb/locality has 1 day in a year where they put out any old/damaged stuff out on the streets, so that the council can remove it or if you want to you can drive around to pickup any stuff you might deem useful to you. Last night, Lance came back from work saying that there was inorganic collection in Torbay, so we went searching for any thing useful we could find for the flat. It was heaps of fun and we ended up with 5 decent chairs [4 deck chairs and 1 lounge chair] and 8 cups. :-)
'
Grace is Gone' is a wonderful little movie. The performances by John Cusack and the 2 girls are sensitive and understated but spot on. For something that was made on such a shoe string budget it hits above it's weight and succeeds in dealing with such a hard topic.
I took a political test online at
Political Compass to see what my political leanings are and it turns out that my political views are similar to Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Dalai Lama - which makes me a liberal leftist. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. You can do the test on the website for free, to see where you really stand. Or just to look at how the scale works you can
check out this page directly. The thought which cracked me up was what happens if someone does the test and finds out that their political leanings are similar to Hitler. I amuse myself sometimes :-)
That's me for now.
Till later,
Amit
Labels: Movies, New Zealand, Random
Dawn
Dawn
The magical land
Labels: New Zealand
No dolphins in this picture - just me
This is Rhys posing for a database snap for 'Memories of Tomorrow' in 2004
