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Memories - 28th April

Last year — 2023

Lowest temperature was 10.9°C at 06:40, highest was 27.3°C at 14:26.

  • New Apple Watch! I'd been using @yayKM's one since mine died as she can't wear hers regularly so it didn't really matter, but she's going to be going into the office more often now and it's super-handy for notifications and such. I was going to wait for the Series 9 later this year, but on reflection I was fine with the Series 5 as it was and @yayKM was going to need her old Watch significantly before the expected September release date of the new one. The backup and restore process from the old Watch to the new is slick, I was up and running with the Series 8 within a matter of minutes with all of my configuration and data exactly as it was on the old one. The physical size of the new Watch is only 1mm larger (41mm versus the 40mm of the old one), but there's much less bezel so the physical screen area is significantly larger, 904 sq mm for the new versus 759 sq mm for the old and it's very noticeable. I can only imagine how comically oversized the 45mm Watch would look on my dainty little wrists (or better yet, the Apple Watch Ultra).

    our house darkroom new toys apple watch

    Posted on 28 April 2023, 14:52

3 years ago — 2021

Lowest temperature was 13.2°C at 06:58, highest was 25.2°C at 14:17.

4 years ago — 2020

Lowest temperature was 16.5°C at 05:37, highest was 24.9°C at 13:49.

6 years ago — 2018

Lowest temperature was 16.3°C at 07:57, highest was 20.2°C at 15:53.

  •  

    A trip to Queenstown

    Last week we finally got around to visiting New Zealand! We’d been meaning to go for a good couple of years now, but never actually did it. We started small and visited just Queenstown and surrounds, and were only there for three full days.

    We flew in at night on Saturday night, and the descent in was rather long and bumpy which I guess is to be somewhat expected when it’s surrounded by mountains. We went into Queenstown for dinner first, and had one of the best burgers I’ve ever had at The World Bar.

    The place we were staying was about 15 minutes drive from Queenstown, but because it was night time all we could see was brilliant yellow leaves on the trees at the side of the road where the headlights were lighting them up. We woke up the next morning, and holy crap, the view!

    The Remarkables, morning light

    Untitled

    We went up the Skyline Gondola which has a hell of a view over Queenstown itself.

    The view from Skyline Queenstown

    Next we drive up to Glenorchy, which is about an hour away. Lunch was surprisingly delicious beef noodle soup from a Chinese restaurant there (there are a lot of Chinese tourists around).

    On the road to Glenorchy

    Kristina

    Orange

    Glenorchy Wharf

    We spent the afternoon wandering around Queenstown Gardens and Queenstown itself. This was definitely a fantastic time to visit, the air was cool and crisp and all the leaves were changing and everything was bright yellow.

    Sitting

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    Secluded

    Smokey

    Dinner was whole baked flounder with shaved fennel and orange from Public Kitchen and it was absolutely magnificent, cooked to total perfection. The “whole fish” bit was slightly off-putting because it’s literally that, a entire fish, eyeballs and all, sitting on your plate staring up at you but I pretty quickly got over it. 😛

    The morning view the next morning was even better than before.

    The Remarkables, morning light 2

    We paid a brief visit to Arrowtown, though there wasn’t a whole lot there and it was mostly tourist shops.

    Untitled

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    We then drove up to Wanaka and took the obligatory photo of the tree there.

    That Wanaka Tree

    The drive itself had some great scenery along the way too.

    Untitled

    Winding road

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    Dinner was at the Pig & Whistle pub, I got the dry-rubbed steak with veggies and red wine jus and Kristina had chicken and mushroom pasta, and they were both absolutely incredible.

    The final full day we were there, we drove two and a half hours up to Lake Pukaki. As before, the drive itself was quite scenic too.

    Stopping at Tarras

    Lindis Pass

    The lake itself is amazing, it’s this crazy neon-blue colour. The first two photos don’t really do it justice, but the third one is exactly how it looked even in person.

    Lake Pukaki

    Lake Pukaki

    Lake Pukaki

    We drove a little further north along the western edge of the lake to get a bit closer to Looking towards Aoraki / Mount Cook, which was looking very dramatic with its peaks covered in clouds.

    Looking towards Aoraki / Mount Cook

    Overall it was a fantastic trip, we definitely want to go back again but we’re thinking we’ll fly into Christchurch next time and drive around further in the north of the South Island.

    The full photosets are here:

    Posted on 28 April 2018, 16:32

8 years ago — 2016

Lowest temperature was 15.8°C at 06:54, highest was 25.0°C at 15:05.

11 years ago — 2013

12 years ago — 2012

13 years ago — 2011

  •  

    Busybusybusy

    Holy crap today was non-stop busyness from the moment I sat down at my desk. I met up with the lovely velvetrhapsody for lunch, since we discovered that we work right across the road from each other! Apart from that, though, I had no downtime until I finished for the day. It was a reasonably productive day at least, but man am I fried.

    Posted on 28 April 2011, 18:16

  •  

    Dubstep

    I don’t get it.

    I like my music to have a solid beat and rhythm to get into, be it electronic for grooving to or metal for headbanging to (there needs to be more than just that, hence my loathing and hatred for R&B, rap, country, etc. but that’s a start). Dubstep just sounds like random beats without any particular groove to get into.

    Take this song for instance. A couple of friends were going on about how awesome it is, but I’m just not getting it. The beat keeps changing and there’s nothing to just rock out to. One of my aforementioned friends was claiming that it’s all in 4/4 time, which I suppose is possible as I don’t have enough of a musical ear to pick it up, but I’m really not hearing it. It’s just thump-thump-pause-thump-pause-thump-pause-pause-thump-thump for me.

    I am confuse.

    And with that off my chest, I should probably get to bed considering it’s 00:10 and I have to be up in less than seven hours. 😛

    Posted on 28 April 2011, 0:09

14 years ago — 2010

15 years ago — 2009

20 years ago — 2004

21 years ago — 2003

  •  

    Excellent. We’re going in to Jax tomorrow to book getting my mags put on. 🙂 It’ll be Saturday, I think…I want to be there when they do it. 🙂

    Final price is $1320, for 4 15″x6.0 Hyperfang Silver mags and Michelin tyres, which includes fitting, balancing, and alignment.

    😀

    Posted on 28 April 2003, 20:56