ArchivePage 3 of 26

separated at birth

one of the new features in iphoto ‘09 is automatic face detection. if you give it a good starting photo of someone it will then find all the other photos that include that person. cool.

since i already manually tag (label) all my photos with place, subject and people/dogs included i though this would just be a novelty - but it has turned into endless hours of fun.

the first search with the jboss got 7 out of 8. sorry about that rob.

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the next search of another family member got a match on the photo below.

maybe someone needs to change their brand of toothpaste?

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once in a lifetime

tonight we went to an amazing david byrne concert. the show was fantastic - the music and the visuals were stunning, david’s voice was even better then his early days with the talking heads, the venue was great and our seats were dead centre less than 10 metres from the stage.

the show was at the michael fowler centre - the small venue next to town hall and the home of the nz symphony. a great space for a concert.

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as we were waiting for the show to start we noticed this was not your typical concert crowd. almost no one between the ages of 20 and 30. mostly folks who were in uni during the 80s. and some of them brought along their kids. but there was one real standout. mid show much of the crowd left their seats to go right up to the edge of the stage. these seats were quickly filled as folks from the back moved up into the now empty seats. all of the audience is now up on their feet really enjoying the show and i notice the guy now in front of me. he is standing motionless, with homeless guy hair and a baseball cap with an image of the madonna draped in the us and italian flags. i kept waiting for him to ask “hey man…when does the zz top show start?”

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we almost didn’t go to the show - and a techno-house band would have been to blame. way back in the early 90’s my friend heavy d (aka david) bought tickets to see “the klf” perform. “the klf” is actually two pale british lads who create the music on computers in their basement. so how were they going to do a live performance of music that was made without any musicians? the answer was bringing out a boom box on the stage and hitting the play button. no live musicians. no actual members of “the klf”. as you might expect the crowd was more than a bit peeved. with that in mind the jboss dismissed the posters all around town that pitched “songs of david byrne and brian eno”. the night before the show i was able to convince her that the actual live breathing david byrne was coming and we started looking for tickets. nothing but impaired view seats available from the theatre, but at the last minute we were able to grab our most fantastic seats from a seller on trademe (the nz copy of ebay).

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the band were all in white and many of the songs featured 3 dancers in workout clothes & ipods. it sounds hokey, but having seen it i now couldn’t imaging the show without them.

as we were leaving the show we both commented on how much it seemed like david and the rest of the band & dancers were having a blast. when my work colleagues and i gather round the water cooler each night before heading home our smiles are not quite as wide…

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sevens

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the flash gordons (there were 50 of them) were amazed at the real life superman policeman (almost 7 feet tall). i like the photo of the flash gordons getting some first aid and withdrawing some cash from the atm. i just didn’t expect flash to pull out a wallet to pay for his lunch…

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the photo below on the left is great on so many levels. a bunch of corporate stooges in a luxury box, not in costumes, with their backs to the pitch, watching the action on tv monitors.

i think the guys in the netball uniforms (a women’s basketball-like sport very popular in oceania) were my favourite.

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<click on the images below for mini movies>

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i blame george

less than 24 hours until george w is on his way back to a retirement filled with brush clearing, so i’m taking this last chance to blame him for an troubling miscarriage of justice.

in our previous visits to new zealand we had spent almost all of our time on the south island - the greener, wilder and more action packed half of nz - and when we were planning to move here we always assumed we would live on the south island.

then we ended up in wellington and have been keeping ourselves busy on the north island for the last 18 months. but our first trip to the south island was on the books for march. and it was a big one - the milford track.

the milford track is viewed by many as the finest walk in the world. the track is limited to 90 walkers a day and reservations open up each july 1st for the following year. last july i jumped on the booking system the minute it opened to secure our reservation for this march. even better jackie’s brother from chicago was able to join us for the tramp.

but unfortunately it is no longer in the cards for me - and i’m confident that somehow this is w’s fault.

my recovery from my fracture is progressing along - but not fast enough to allow me to go on the tramp.

damn.

adding a super sized dose of salt to the wound - the NY Times featured the Milford Track in this weekend’s Sunday edition.

A Walk Through New Zealand’s Watery Wild

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ohope to gisborne

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today we started the journey back to wellington. we’re taking the long way home

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gisborne

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ohope beach

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no need to go to disney

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he who smelt it dealt it

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sleigh not available, resorted to car

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2008 holiday trip.tiff

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christmas in welly

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