Started out with the trip down to Christchurch on the Interislander with the boys so they could visit their mum. Sounded like they had a great time while they were there.Was a bunch of new experiences for them, going in a taxi, catching the ferry and surviving the drive down to Christchurch.

After getting back fromt there I spent far to much time in both ED and GSG Ward in Hutt Hospital with Amanda. Seems there were some issues going on inside (won’t go into more details) them were causing her alot of pain. So after three stays, two ambulance trips and one yelling at a doctor she is finally on the road to recovery.

But to kick a person when they are down, her house got broken into and a large amount of gear was taken As she had been so unwell her dogs were staying with a friend of hers and she had been staying at my place, so some scum bags took advantage of this and did an extremely good job of cleaning her out. Have to say the Police, BNZ Bank and her insurance company have been great through it all, but it’s still been an awful experience.

So needless to say we are all looking forward to having a few peaceful weeks ahead.

The boys have been really getting into their swimming and are growing in confidence after each lesson. Living in NZ I feel it’s important to know how to swim as we are surrounded by water. I don’t expect them to be Olympic swimmers, but they should be able to feel comfortable in and around water.

As for me, won’t lie been struggling a bit with depression. Nothing major but just the black cloud hovering around and been a bit hard to shake. Nothing that I can put my finger on that has triggered it, just been a bit off (and no Wayne you can’t make any smelly jokes!!) So I’m going to spend a bit of time working on whats might be the triggers and seeing what I can do to minimise them.

But as always the boys continue to be the thing that keeps me going and are growing into fine young men. It is however a bit hard to think that Reegan will be starting school soon.

As I mentioned a few posts My ex-wife has breast cancer. She has undergone two lots of surgery so far and will be starting Chemo on the 27th.

As she’s not able to travel I arranged with work to change my travel plans and took the boys down on the ferry to spend some time with her. Seems like
they had a great time.

I’ve also been spending a weeny bit of time in Hutt Hospital with Amanda. First off with an infected insect bite and just last night again with extremely bad abdominal pain. I reckon she’s just in it for the frequent flyer points!!!

Both boys and I are all good and probably the most boring out of the lots of us!!

Had to move everything to a new server and really just haven’t had the time (or motivation) to get the move done.

But managed to get 5 minutes, well about 60, to spare so got it all moved over. Now running on a VM on my new ESX Server. Seems to be much faster than the poor old server I had.

I’ll do a full update in the next few days as lots has happened.

Not something that I would wish on anyone. She has a very tough time ahead and is going to need a lot of support. But as she is still down in Christchurch the best that I can do is make sure the boys are cared for.

She is undergoing surgery tomorrow and we’ll know more after then, but still a long road ahead.

So from Alex, Reegan and I, Heather you have all our love and we are passing on our strength to you. Stay strong and fight this evil disease.

Life is just trucking along at the moment. Nothing spectacular happening, nothing not happening. Just going through the motions.

We did however have a “Weather Bomb” hit the country during the weekend. Not sure if I missed something but it was just like a rainy, windy Saturday to me. Here’s a couple of pikkies from the Kaitoke Water Works. Took the boys up there to see the water coming down after the rain.

The noise was amazing. The boys really enjoyed it.

Work is still moving on nicely towards getting ready for the 2013 Census. Lots of work still to be done but I have to say I am kinda enjoying it this time. ALOT less stress than previously.

Off to the Speights Alehouse on Bealey Ave we went, and were in the middle of enjoying a chat when the landscape of Christchurch changed forever. At 12:51 a 6.3 earthquake struck the city, taking with it 185 lives. I will never forget the power of the shaking and the isn’t any words that can describe it.

…. I for one will never forget that day, as I am guessing a lot of people in Christchurch won’t either.

To the 185 lives lost RIP.

Chris

The Bands…

First up were Shotgun Alley. Haven’t heard much from them before but enjoyed them. Then were The Thomas Oliver Band, really enjoyed them, so much that I have just purchased their album from iTunes.

Next up were The Checks, great energy and although I didn’t know many, if any, our their songs enjoyed them.

Then came I guess what you would call the first of the big names, in OpShop. Great band, whom I had heard live before and wasn’t impressed, but they put on a great show and really interacted well with the now growing crowd.

The Feelers were next up, and to be honest while the music was good they seem a bit flat after OpShop. They had little or no interaction with the crowd and seemed to just go through the motions of playing their set and buggering off.

Not one of my favorites were next, Blacklist (aka Blindspot). The first couple of songs are what I would describe as mindless noise, but once they played something I knew I enjoyed them. They do however seem pretty bitter about not being able to call themselves Blindspot, and referred to it numerous times during their set.

Shihad… What else do you say. Fricken amazing live. Not hard to see why they are NZ’s top rock band. Very polished and great interaction with the by now huge crowd. This is the first time I have seen them live. I really loved the bit when the lead singer asked the crowd who are younger than 22 to put up their hands…. As the song “Screwtop” was older than them. Love it.

The biggest comment I would make is… Sound Engineers of NZ… Please please do some work on mixing the vocals correctly! Just about every band prior to Shihad, who had their own engineer, you couldn’t hear the vocals at all.

So thanks Amanda for my Xmas pressie, I had a great day.

While I was in Chch on Feb 22nd, I was able to return to a safe dry warm and most of all stable house in Wellington.

I have a huge amount of respect for you all in Chch living through this on a daily basis. Stay strong and know that you can and will rebuild and once again make Chch the great city that it once was.

I really want to say more but I am a bit lost for words.

In fact life as a whole seems very busy at the moment. With the move a couple of weeks back I am still sorting through boxes and trying to find places for everything. I do however need to be a bit more ruthless when sorting things out and chuck out a lot of the crap that I really don’t need to hold onto. Good old TradeMe might get a workout I feel, might as well makes some $$ selling my junk!