Geolocations

The GPS coordinates for the pictures I posted the other day:

Mackenzie Basin: S 44 05.681 E 170 33.686
Lake Tekapo: S 44 00.228 E 170 28.922
Mt. Cook: S 44 10.653 E 170 12.000
Pelennor Fields: S 44 13.451 E 170 02.770

The Battle of Pelennor Fields from Return of the King:

See, I told you

You watched the video, and now the pictures are ready.

Visited Aoraki-Mt. Cook yesterday

While I work on getting the pictures together, you check out this ...

Still not fully recovered from our train-riding marathon

So the pictures are still waiting to be posted. However, in the meantime you can read about the good old semicolon.

Just returned from Wellinton last night, headed to Greymouth tomorrow

First impressions of Wellington: it's much more like an East Coast city than Chch is. Welly is much more crowded, which makes sense because of its peculiar geography. The lack of land has meant building up rather than out, and the streets are generally pretty narrow. The dining and shopping seems better too, with a harbor-area much like Baltimore's inner harbor--purpose-built for tourists.

Anyway, more later ... as well as some pictures.

NZ airport security: the man on the street

Comments from the NZ Herald website ... hilarious.

Apparently, in the US we make everyone strip down to their underwear and submit to cavity searches before they get on the planes. NZ'ers seem to know that installing a couple of metal detectors will lead to the same thing.

And so it begins ...

More Kiwis to lose homes

Real estate experts have warned of increased mortgagee sales this year as the housing market cools and interest rates rise.

New figures released yesterday showed the housing slowdown continuing this year.

While prices were holding, the rate of house price rises had slowed in most regions, including Canterbury, Quotable Value (QV) figures showed.

QV Christchurch spokesman Richard Kolff said economic factors were working against the housing market.

"Sustained pressures such as high fuel and food prices and the Reserve Bank holding up the official cash rate are resulting in a slowdown," he said.

Kolff said property owners with low incomes or big mortgages could be struggling as they faced higher interest payments after fixed-term mortgage rates expired.

"Already this month we have seen some properties go to mortgagee sale and this is likely to become more prevalent as the year progresses," Kolff said.

Christchurch real estate agents believed the housing market this year would be flat, but were split on whether the slowdown would lead to a rise in mortgagee sales.

The number of mortgagee sales listed on the Trade Me Property website had risen from 12 in 2006, to 29 in December 2007 and 39 at present.

[snip]

Further evidence the housing market was slowing came yesterday with the real estate industry announcing more houses than ever on the market.

An industry website, featuring 90% of all real estate listings, said there were almost 57,000 residential properties on the site.

"At this time last year, there were 42,500 residential properties for sale, so we're looking at an increase of 35% of homes for sale -- a huge increase," realestate. co.nz chief executive Alistair Helm said.

Grandma arrived safely

Grandma arrived safely yesterday morning. Her bags, however, did not. One showed up today, and hopefully the other will arrive sometime tomorrow.

We're off to Wellington Tuesday, taking the Tranz Coastal up the coast, then the InterIslander across Cook Strait.

We've gotten the TranzScenic rail pass, which is good for a week. So starting Tuesday, every day for the next week we'll be riding the train: first up to Welly, then across to Greymouth, then back up the coast to Kaikoura. Hopefully we'll have lots of nice pictures.

Terra! Terra! Terra!

Mid-air bomb threat, stabbing drama

An armed woman who hijacked an Air New Zealand flight demanding the pilots take her to Australia tampered with the aircraft's controls, making it difficult for the pilots to land.

Two pilots and a passenger were injured during the hijacking. At least one of the pilots and the female passenger were stabbed with a knife the woman was allegedly armed with.

The woman allegedly started her attack on the pilots 10 minutes after take-off from Blenheim. She was seated in 1A, directly behind the pilots.

One pilot was tonight in surgery for cuts to his hand.

Police arrested the woman, a 33-year-old Blenheim resident originally from Somalia, after she allegedly caused 20 minutes of mid-air terror, stabbing two pilots on a flight from Blenheim to Christchurch and threatening to blow up the plane.

There are two remarkable things about this situation: 1. this is the first attempted hijacking in NZ history and 2. there is no screening for domestic flights at most NZ airports.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out here.

Hey NZ ... 1957 called and it wants its homophobia back

'Real men' sought for teaching positions

Male primary school teachers who are heterosexual, rugby-playing real men make better role models, according to a survey of primary school principals.

One respondent referred to the "limp" handshakes of two male teachers being interviewed for a job.

They were passed over for strong female teachers, the New Zealand Herald reported today.

The findings, published in the Gender and Education journal, came amid repeated calls to raise the proportion of male primary school teachers, which fell from 42 percent in 1956 to just 18 percent in 2005.

Study author Penni Cushman, a University of Canterbury principal lecturer in health education, said the research showed the extent of homophobia and sexism that put men off careers as primary school teachers.

She said a history of sexual abuse accusations against male teachers was also a factor.

Ms Cushman believed attitudes had to change before the number of male primary school teachers would increase. "We need to be more accepting of a greater range of males in schools -- just like we are accepting of a greater range of females in the schools.

"Not all boys or girls are going to relate to a man who's a rugby player, because not all boys play rugby."

The survey was sent to 250 randomly selected primary principals nationally, of which 169 responded.

The majority said more male role models were needed with the main reason to meet the needs of single-parent children.

Sports leadership was the second most cited reason why more male role models were needed in schools.

Principals Federation president Paddy Ford agreed that more male role models were needed in schools but not that they had to be heterosexual.

"I find that strange. They need to be honest and fair. It doesn't worry me if they play rugby or not. I've been quite lucky with my own staff.

"We have several male teachers. There's an ex-Olympian, a rugby player and a ponytail-wearing fella from Britain. It doesn't make a difference."

I read this and I just really didn't know what to think. I guess in a country with some of the higest rates in the OECD of family violence, drunk driving, sexual abuse and assault, and violent crime, something needs to be done to make sure NZ's status as a world leader doesn't slip.

On another note entirely, I guess there was some sort of football contest yesterday. Not really sure how it all turned out ... /denial

Update: Check out the comments on the article--they're priceless!

Moving and randomness

Okay, so we've spent the last week packing and carting boxes and random crap from our old rental to our new rental on the other side of town. We lived on the southeast side of town, and now we're out on the northwest, nearer the airport.

The joke around here is that Chch is a '20 minute city', meaning that you can get from anywhere to anywhere else in the city in 20 minutes. Well, it takes exactly 20 minutes to get from our old place to our new place. That assumes, of course, that there's normal traffic and the traffic lights cooperate.

However ... Chch is a city of 400,000 people and has no highways and only 1 by-pass within the city. So the main roads within the city can get pretty backed up between 5:00 and 6:00.

On another note ... Edwards! Grr ... I didn't think he'd win, but I thought he'd at least fight to the end. I guess he's angling for another VP slot. However, I'm still sticking to my prediction that if Hillary is the nominee, Wes Clark will be her pick for VP. My conviction is made even stronger by the fact that McCain could be the R pick.

I guess at this point it's about choosing the lesser of two evils. Obama is probably the lesser evil, though still decidedly evil. After the last 7 years, we need a little more divisiveness and a lot less capitulation. That's what worries me about Obama. He's put himself out there as someone too willing to play nice. %^&* that. We need someone to kick some ass and stand up to the 30%'ers who think they have legitimacy in the political process. Bipartisanship brought us ... the PATRIOT ACT, FISA abuses, warrantless wiretaps, suspension of habeas corpus, the Iraq War ... etc. etc. Is that really what we need more of? I think not.