Update2: Apparently the images only look bad when I viewing them from Windows Vista. Still rather than put them back up I'm sticking up a couple of other more recent ones I prefer more!
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Playing about with Photography
Finally some finer weather allowing me to play a bit with a recent purchase. Nothing amazing just getting used to all the options that are now available, and the higher image quality.
Update2: Apparently the images only look bad when I viewing them from Windows Vista. Still rather than put them back up I'm sticking up a couple of other more recent ones I prefer more!
Update2: Apparently the images only look bad when I viewing them from Windows Vista. Still rather than put them back up I'm sticking up a couple of other more recent ones I prefer more!
Friday, June 27, 2008
Yeah so...
4 Weeks, kinda surprising to realise I've now been working full time for 4 weeks up here and that in a couple of days I'll have spent my first full month up here. Hamilton's winter seems to finely have hit if you call ~14c and rain winter, it seems to have an annoying habit of switching between sunshine and rainstorms at a rapid pace. There will be a gap in the clouds for 15mins with plenty of sunshine every where and then boom, it's pouring like crazy and will continue to do so for 30-40mins before you get another bunch of sunshine for 15-30mins, repeat ad infinitum. Makes for annoying biking weather when you live a 20-30min ride away from work, which means you end up wearing wet weather gear while biking home directly into the blazing sun.
Have also moved into a flat, it's a bit of a student flat, 3 other christian guys 20-21 which takes some adjusting too (they all go to a New life style church as well), it's about 4k's closer to work than where I was boarding which is nice cutting, 15mins or so off my bike to work. Should be a reasonable place to stay until around Christmas/NY at which point I should hopefully have gotten to know a few people and can look at finding a better flat.
Work is okay, hardly the most exciting job but that's to be expected for a testing lab, hopefully at some point I'll be able to work on some of the R&D stuff they do there as well as the standard testing stuff. Apparently things will get a little crazy once the calving season starts off and every second farmer wants us to test his calves. The people are interesting, in the group where I work they're mainly gals, 4 or 5 guys in a team of ~24.
Apart from work not been doing a lot, hung out with Brehaut a bit (his flat is a few min walk away), seen Ruth once, read a book or two, watched anime, and SF (brehaut's flatmates hold a SciFi night during the week which is rather awesome!) and played a fair bit of Mass Effect. Also tried playing around with a recent acquisition (a new camera), but Hamilton's apparent idea of a winter has put a dampener on that, quite literally. Have visited a few churches, (1 bapo, Flatmates, and a Brethen (by far the best)) still got to visit B&R's church and the local baptist which is hopefully better than the previous one I looked at. Which was very excited about contributing ~18% of it's budget to missions, which is rather pathetic compared to Westchurch's 70%+ to missions/community, still I may be doing them a disservice possibly they contribute more to local community stuff. Of course seeing I'm not exactly sure that missions, is what we should really be spending money on rather than actively helping people, I'm not sure why it annoyed me so much. Other than possibly I think that missions spending is a sign of a health church that has a decent focus rather than one that's more interested in a big building etc.
Any way if you made sense of all that and are still reading I'm impressed, not sure when I'll next be back in Chch, maybe Christmas/NY depending on what my parents are doing. In the mean time though I'm planning to visit Auckland, New Plymouth and Tauranga to see relatives, though the lack of long weekends in the second half of the year is rather annoying!
Any way hope your all doing well.
Have also moved into a flat, it's a bit of a student flat, 3 other christian guys 20-21 which takes some adjusting too (they all go to a New life style church as well), it's about 4k's closer to work than where I was boarding which is nice cutting, 15mins or so off my bike to work. Should be a reasonable place to stay until around Christmas/NY at which point I should hopefully have gotten to know a few people and can look at finding a better flat.
Work is okay, hardly the most exciting job but that's to be expected for a testing lab, hopefully at some point I'll be able to work on some of the R&D stuff they do there as well as the standard testing stuff. Apparently things will get a little crazy once the calving season starts off and every second farmer wants us to test his calves. The people are interesting, in the group where I work they're mainly gals, 4 or 5 guys in a team of ~24.
Apart from work not been doing a lot, hung out with Brehaut a bit (his flat is a few min walk away), seen Ruth once, read a book or two, watched anime, and SF (brehaut's flatmates hold a SciFi night during the week which is rather awesome!) and played a fair bit of Mass Effect. Also tried playing around with a recent acquisition (a new camera), but Hamilton's apparent idea of a winter has put a dampener on that, quite literally. Have visited a few churches, (1 bapo, Flatmates, and a Brethen (by far the best)) still got to visit B&R's church and the local baptist which is hopefully better than the previous one I looked at. Which was very excited about contributing ~18% of it's budget to missions, which is rather pathetic compared to Westchurch's 70%+ to missions/community, still I may be doing them a disservice possibly they contribute more to local community stuff. Of course seeing I'm not exactly sure that missions, is what we should really be spending money on rather than actively helping people, I'm not sure why it annoyed me so much. Other than possibly I think that missions spending is a sign of a health church that has a decent focus rather than one that's more interested in a big building etc.
Any way if you made sense of all that and are still reading I'm impressed, not sure when I'll next be back in Chch, maybe Christmas/NY depending on what my parents are doing. In the mean time though I'm planning to visit Auckland, New Plymouth and Tauranga to see relatives, though the lack of long weekends in the second half of the year is rather annoying!
Any way hope your all doing well.
Monday, June 09, 2008
Friday, June 06, 2008
Hamilton, Photos
A few pics from the Hamilton Gardens. Visited them a couple of times as they're on my route to work, though I've not managed to explorer them properly yet. In other news I've finished my first week and moved from a 10month contract to a permanent one, and had my first bike tire puncture 5 days after starting biking, blasted annoying especially seeing I didn't have a single puncture in 6 years in Chch! Work is fairly interesting lots to learn, though undoubtedly it may start getting a bit repetitive once I've got must of the stuff memorized. Planning to spend a bit of time exploring the city this weekend which should be fun/interesting.
The River
Altar?
Red Tree's.
The River
Monday, June 02, 2008
Well...
I'm in Hamilton, arrived 1:35pm on Sunday after getting stuck in a holding pattern for 35mins, due to fog.
Was given a quick tikky tour of the CBD and the route to work that afternoon, Monday was spent getting a bike, bus cards, maps, biking back to where I'm staying etc. Then biking out to the work site and back again to determine how long it would take, on a quite road looks to be 25-30mins may be a bit slower on a work day...
Both bike trips took little detoures to look first at the lake and later at the river and gardens. Some quite pretty bits in the sections of the garden I looked at, unfortuantely my camera seems to have died so no photos (still I was planning on buying a new one any way so will just have to do it a bit more quickly now).
Any way based on what I've seen of Hamilton so far seems to be an odd place compared to Chch, Napier/Hastings etc the city appears to be built a hilly section of a highland, with the river running in it's own little gorge through the city.
Was given a quick tikky tour of the CBD and the route to work that afternoon, Monday was spent getting a bike, bus cards, maps, biking back to where I'm staying etc. Then biking out to the work site and back again to determine how long it would take, on a quite road looks to be 25-30mins may be a bit slower on a work day...
Both bike trips took little detoures to look first at the lake and later at the river and gardens. Some quite pretty bits in the sections of the garden I looked at, unfortuantely my camera seems to have died so no photos (still I was planning on buying a new one any way so will just have to do it a bit more quickly now).
Any way based on what I've seen of Hamilton so far seems to be an odd place compared to Chch, Napier/Hastings etc the city appears to be built a hilly section of a highland, with the river running in it's own little gorge through the city.
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