Posts Tagged ‘New Zealand’

To Be or Not to Be a Kiwi Dad in Emergency Situations

Friday, December 9th, 2011

Sometimes I wonder whether I did well when I decided to move to New Zealand. Occasionally I get a hint. Today I went to get my kid from school and, as he was coming from the indoor swimming pool with all his wet stuff tucked randomly in his backpack, a bright red box fell on the footpath. It was a pocket-size waterproof electronic device which combines radio (including two SW bands), LED torch and USB laptop/cellphone charger, a battery-free dual-powered (dynamo and solar) compact emergency unit. Initially, my Romanian-educated instincts made me believe that my son pinched it somehow and I was ready to take it to the ‘lost and found property’ area, then I realized that every single kiddo had one of them. The NZ Red Cross gave every single school-aged child in Christchurch this survival item in the wake of the terrible earthquake we had earlier this year. Yet sometimes I doubt I’ve made a good decision by coming to this country – in the end of the day I didn’t get a bright red solar radio to listen to my cricket when I have my beer pretending that I’m out fishing, boating or camping. This is age discrimination and I should complain to the authorities!

This is no advert, I really like it!

Oh, it seems that the Americans get a fake version of this device. Watch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_10KXcTGV4g

only if you have nothing better to do. Mine (my son gifted it to me: ‘you can have it, Dad’) has better features!

New Earthquake

Tuesday, June 14th, 2011

This is my street, Gloucester, in Christchurch, New Zealand, as it looked 24 hours ago, when we were hit by another 6.3 quake.

Photo courtesy to www.stuff.co.nz

Ooops!

Thursday, June 2nd, 2011

I was driving behind this truck/motor-home when it hit the railway over-bridge today.

Time: 10:55 A.M. Location: Richardson Terrace, Opawa, Christchurch, New Zealand.

(The photo is cellphone quality, yet authentic and exclusive.)

Ups! This bridge is too low or this lorry is too tall.

Nobody got hurt.

Fourteen months ago, another incident happened just meters away:

https://www.mockoblog.com/?p=788

Bed Time Story (continued from 16/03/2011)

Thursday, April 28th, 2011

Part 5. This is about money, isn’t it?

Yes, it is when it gets about the wizard thing. When Faruno turns into a wizard.

How do we make money on Planet Go-to-Bed?

I actually have a good idea: kill a cow with a sword made of lava and obsidian and diamond? (That was cool.)

Do you know that long time ago even on Planet Earth people were killing cows to make their wishes come true?

Dad, people don’t do that. But people on Planet Go-to-Bed think that. Did you put a full-stop? I’ve got a better idea! If they feed the cow or an elephant to a rhyno, they may get another person from the Planet Earth.

This is called sacrifice. OK, let’s get back to Faruno becoming a magician (Dad, this is another word for wizard). OK, we want to make more money, but we don’t know how. If we copy this story many times with the printer and sell them to a librarian for money, we get rich.

[at this point the author goes back to his computer game]

I think we have to carry on with this story another night.

Dad, I want to do some more of the story now ’cause the page is not big enough. I can attack from wherever I want, I have two bad guys, but I move when they attack me.

I can’t think of how Faruno can make money.

But there’s no money on Planet Go-to-Bed.

They have to kill a cow with a sword. To kill a cow means making money because that planet is a magic place.

OK, can we go to bed now before we make money? I’ll go to brush my teeth and the computer should be off when I return. We’ll finish the money story another night, when we figure out how. Good night, Faruno Albalgandon Vextraliensis!

Dad, I want you to read a real story for me, not to be making a fake one. You pick any story but it has to be one I like.