2 upcoming gigs

The morning started slow and typical, Meliesha had her school ball and pre-ball and post-ball, Deana took Meliesha to the post ball at 1-30 AM so it was a late night.

I got up and did a 10km run, it was not the best run ever though I was happy with my time of 53 minutes. I did not think I ran that quickly round the Titirangi Rd loop.

On the warm down I walked to the dairy to get the paper, as always I started with Time Out, and wow - I mean wow...

Dance Macabre are reforming for a 1 off gig on the 22nd July at the Kings Arms. I saw them a few times in their brief career in 81/82. They were primarily a synth band but very much influenced by the post-punk music of Joy Division/cure etc. I really liked they released 1 stunning EP, Between the lines and a soso LP. I have neither and have been looking in record shops and on-line for years. Top cap this great news off they are releasing a CD of both works on the 15th..

The following weekend Children's Hour have also reformed for a one of gig at the KA as well. They have a CD of all their works out already, but I have all their material on vinyl. They were stunning live as well. Late 83-84 they were around, very agrresive but again influenced by the post-punk era music coming out of the UK.

I have not been to many gigs in the last 10 years, and I must admit to being very excited about this.

London bombings

A couple of days after every other person on the planet has blogged this.

I was "lucky" enough to be watching TV when the breaking news came on, and I sat and stared for 2 hours, in shock initially (though in the cold light of day it was no surprise) and then as no real news came in I went to bed about 11.30 PM, about 12.30 PM London time.

It was a weird feeling watching the news, I watched 9/11, the aftermath of the Madrid bombing, the tsunami disaster in Indonesia/Sri Lanka etc and for each of those I felt for the people were injured the families of those who died and of those who were missing. With the London bombing there was more, even though I am 19,000 km's away from London, I am still English, I was born in the outer 'burbs of London - sort of. Though I have lived here for 30 years and have a NZ passport I still feel English. After spending a couple of years in London in the mid-eighties, I knew all the streets, the squares, the stations, I recognised bus numbers as they drove past, I have no idea why I remembered them, but I did.

The thing that really amazed me as I watched this live on TV, apart from the fact I was watching it live on TV, was how calm everyone was, the images from NY after 9/11 were full of a screaming and running chaos whereas in London it was so quite, maybe the scale was different.

At work on Friday we talked about the bombings and someone said that they could not understand why the bombers only did 4 small bombs and compared to 9/11 it was all quite minor. Well I disagreed I believe 4 small bombs was enough, it brought the Underground and the Red London buses to a stand still. These are major British icons, the underground is a bigger icon than the WTC, yes the death toll was less but the message was the same.

Track building stage 1

I took the day off of work today, with 2 and half weeks left until I leave I thought I should at leat use up my "personal day". Personal days are great, we are entitled to 1 day off a quarter to do stuff. Normally stuff you cannot get done during a normal week, like visit the lawyer, the dentist, the bank etc etc. Most people just use em as an extra day off, we are not supposed to add them to annual leave though. I took the cat (he's 11) to the vet this morning as he has been grumpy as hell since the kitten arrived 2 months ago, don't blame him the kitten's a nut ball, well he's a kitten anyway. Cat had an abscessed wound in his head from a fight, not bad, a few days antibiotics and he will be back to his miserable self.

The main reason for the day off was to go up to Woodhill and start to dig my bike track. I decided to build a track a while ago, mainly because a new track (Northern Exposure) that was built that I like to ride just sort of ends, in a dumb place, so I wanted to link this track to another track that I like (Ironhorse). I decided to link them together. I talked to the Bike park guys and they were happy for me to dig. So dig I did.

Unfortunately the weather was utter pants today, I decided to go up anyway and mark the track out in the rain. I was an interesting day, the idea of the track was to make it with a very gradual gradiant, so that it could be ridden by all. I made quite a few adjustments as I went, but think I have a rideable line. I got about half way through the marking anyway. I aim to go and complete the track when I have a week off between jobs.

My longest ever run

Well the training plan has really been a waste of time this week.
Ate lots of chippies, drank whisky and beer, and did no running at all.
The weather was average, but no excuse...

I did run today, beautiful day, cool but sunny, no wind.

I ran for the longest I have ever ran, 2:23, had 2 walks at around 1:50 and 2 hours. It was really tough. I did the run I wanted to do it was just a lot further than I expected. no idea of the distance but would be 21-22kms. I am going to look for some option for carrying water for future long runs, as I think I did get quite dehydrated.

The masters half marathon is in 2 weeks so I will try for a short mid week run and a shorter 1 next weekend.