Simon Wilson New Zealand

Sunday, 25 July 2010

Well I've been remiss haven't I. Bought a house and didn't even tell you about it! Last.... oh ... month or so has been nuts. I took a week of leave from work to do nothing. And I failed miserably. Bought a house.. So that meant my week of doing nothing turned into a week of visiting lawyers, talking to the bank, talking to real estate agents, going to the council to look at files, going back to the lawyer, talking to the land agent again, making offers, keeping fingers crossed that other two offers pre-existing on the house would not be able to finance in time, waiting, waiting waiting, getting nervous, then finally getting a house! Am I painting a clear enough picture here??

Not a week of relaxing like I really needed and wanted. But.... we now have a house at least! Still seems a bit unreal as we haven't moved in yet. 12 days to go, not that we are counting each and every day..

And in the meantime we are trying to get the house we are in ready for sale for Julie's parents. So that has involved a whole weekend of work last week repairing a bit of cat scratched wall paper (grrrr stupid animule) and laying down new lino tiles in the laundry. And... tidying the yard up, trimming the hedge, washing windows tidying house, clearing away our stuff etc etc etc.

I just want to be in my new house and lock the doors and have the world go away for a while. Sick of people, sick of pressure and stress and work and everything. I want to be in my new place, in my glasshouse with no 'bothering' from the outside world.

And as well as all that going on - work has been very busy as well. Helping out run 'communication days' for the staff coming back from their winter break. So whilst that is fun in some ways, it's also stressful as it involves being up the front of a room full of 70 people, occasionally being on stage etc to give instructions and the like.

AND ADDED TO THAT..... last Friday I was asked to go and present a wee problem solving format I've made to all the site managers who were on a 'start of season retreat thing'. So that meant more nerves as I had to stand and present my work to a group of the senior managers who run the site I work at.

Went very well and have had great feedback, but it's all stress I could really do without as I'm buying a house. Anyway - was also pretty cool at the same time. The stress was bad, but the excitement was cool. And was actually quite honoured to be invited as a guest speaker, that is actually fricken awesome! :-)

But I still want to be in my house and lock the world away for a bit...

Julie and I planning a trip to Greece next year. AND.... we finally bought a bed. Hooooorah! My $70 third hand bed will finally be consigned to the spare room at least if not the tip.

Later,

si

Saturday, 24 July 2010

Sorry to leave you hanging there dear reader...

We got the house!

Am utterly pooped with everything that's been going on with buying houses and at work.

All good but utterly exhausted.

So we got the house and we are moving in on 6th Aug

More soon but sleepy time now

Sunday, 04 July 2010

Just had the misfortune of watching 'Sunday' on TVNZ. Interviews with all sorts of nutcases. The usual suspects. Anti vax loons. Chemtrail proponents. 911 inside 'jobbers'.

So I sent the following wee note to TVNZ. Do you think they will get what I mean? Please tell me if I've been too obtuse.... ;-)


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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Your show on Sunday "Conspiracy Inc." was shameful. Interviewing a couple of nutcases and asking their opinion is not journalism. If you are going to run baseless stories like this again please get in contact with a sceptical organisation who can debunk them for you.

Your stance of practically condoning 'anti vaccination' loonies does great harm to parents who are perhaps not well educated and may fall for the stories of these lunatics who believe that not vaccinating their children is a good idea. The 'antivax' people make claims about the 'danger' of vaccines which is totally baseless and has been disproved extensively with science. You as media organisation have a moral obligation to research these stories carefully and present the facts based on science and research. I urge you to consider this responsibility seriously. Real people's children have DIED from very serious diseases such as polio, mumps and small pox. Please read wiki and remind yourself what a terrible disease smallpox is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox
Smallpox is one of the only diseases thought to be eliminated. And this was through the use of VACCINES.

It is not ok to interview one lunatic and then have a short rebuttal by a scientist. Not all opinions are equally valid. Claims about medical efficacy can be tested and ARE tested using SCIENCE. If the lunatics you interviewed are to have their fifteen minutes of fame then hold them to task and make them provide verifiable FACTS. It is not ok to simply ask 'who checks your facts?' The job of your journalist was to fact check the stories himself then debunk them if they were untrue. He failed in his job miserably on this occasion.

I appreciate that times may be tight but I urge you to spend the resources required on properly researching your stories using EVIDENCE. If you are unsure how to do this please contact sceptical organisations who will help.

In summary: The 'Conspiracy' story was an absolute disgrace. You need to up your game 1000% and start to take your responsibility as journalists seriously once again.

We the public are hungry for REAL stories which are well researched and based on verifiable facts.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Um if they don't get what I meant by that then there is no hope. But based on the idiocy of the story they ran tonight... I'm not holding my breath.

Work this week.

house has an offer on it........

Will know on Thursday if we get it or not. And if we DO get it... holy moly I'll be a happy me! :-)


later,

si

Saturday, 03 July 2010

Howdy,
Well we've put an offer on a house. Maybe maybe. Won't know until Thursday if we have it or not. It's nerve wracking! There are two ahead of us in the queue, buy they are both conditional on other houses selling. One has pulled out already. The other has three days to come up with the money or else its ours.

The real estate agent seems quite confidant that it's ours, but I'm not getting my hopes up until the fat lady sings.

Had a sleepless night last night thinking of every little thing I could possibly think of. Where is that 'off' button dammit?

That's six days! I can't wait till then! What am I supposed to do? I may simply explode. And of course there is a good chance we might not get it. The person in front of us has first dibs on it so it comes down entirely to them. Can they get the money or not. Who knows. Depends entirely on what situation they are in and if they can convince the bank to give them tons and tons of money. Which... may work in our favour, because getting money out of the banks at the moment is like getting blood out of a stone. All your wee duckies have to be lined up in a row, and they all have to be facing the right way and they all need to quack at the same time. And don't let anything frighten the bank or they will run away like a scared child.

So that's the situation. Will let you know more as it comes to hand. And if we ARE lucky enough to get it.... I'll put photos up soon :-)

love,

si

Sunday, 20 June 2010

Had a nice drive in the Catlins yesterday. Went to Curio bay and almost got the car stuck in the sand. You can laugh at my stupidity here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4QWmPCOUp4
Then went for a walk to see a waterfall at Macleans Falls. Very nice. We didn't really go to do those things, they were really by the by. The real purpose was to get some breakfast which we achieved with grand success.

We drove to the Niagra falls cafe and had a huuuuuuuuuge feed of bacon, eggs, mushrooms, baked beans, and saussies. Washed down with orange juice and a coffee.... ahhhhhhhhhh heaven. There is nothing better.

yeah - nice day out to unwind the winter blues. Winter solstice tomorrow, shortest day of the year. Thank f--k for that. At least now the days will start to get longer.

Getting very tired of going to work in the dark, driving in the dark, arriving in the dark. Working all day, then coming home in the dark. Then it's time for dinner, a glass of mulled wine then off to bed. To wake up and do it all again. God it's awful.

We are planning a trip to greece next june though so we can avoid this awful time of the year. House hunting is on the go slow. Waiting to hear back about a house. f--king sick of real estate agents. God I hate them. The one that we really liked did something really dumb and I don't think I'll work with him again. The house we REALLY like we are talking to privately. The land agent is looking for other places for us.

I told him the type of place we are after is like the property at xxx street (who we are trying to buy from privately). So he takes the initiative and asks them if they are keen to sell. (we already know the answer as we are talking to them PRIVATELY). No harm no foul at this point. He's taken the initiative. So I say to him not follow up this place as we have talked to them privately. So what does he do? Goes and calls them again. That pisses me off!

Out of all the agents, he was the one I most happy to give $12,000 (that is their commission) to. But I told him not to call the place and he went and did it. I'm so mad about it. I feel quite betrayed and disappointed. Now I think they are all just the same, always after their commission (which I understand!) and prepared to do anything to get it. That is the bit that sux. Ok fine. We won't use him anymore. The bit that sux about that though is that he was one of the better ones!!! So if we don't use him... who DO we use?

So f--king sick of the whole process. Nothing on the market right now. Fed up with being dragged around to piece of shit houses we won't buy by agents who have nothing better to show us. Sick of the whole damn thing.

Have a week of leave week after next which is much in need. Fed up with everything at the moment.

I hope hope hope, that the house we like will come through. If it doesn't I may almost stop looking for a bit. Or maybe look only online for a while. God its a horrible process.

Prob not so bad if you buying a place just for an investment. Then who cares where it is? But we want to LIVE there. So we want to be in a nice area. Sick of living in the bronx where we get woken up by drunken neighbours or people fighting in the small hours.

bah

that'll do.

later.

si

Wednesday, 16 June 2010

new zealand 1 - slovakia 1 !!!!! horrah. NZ got the equaliser in the dying seconds. Amazing. A draw in the world cup is almost a win for us :-) We'll take the points thanks.

Great job boys :-)

Tuesday, 15 June 2010

sooooo.... what is happening then? Well it snowed. Big fat heavy wet clumps of snow. Actually I think I mentioned that already.

And I called Emily and Sarah cheats. I feel kind of bad about that. But I also think it's true so lets just leave it there.

I bought a Flip camera did I tell you? It is the coolest thing in the world! No external battery, no memory card, no cables. Just a usb flippy thing which flips out and goes into your pc. Oh - it's an HD video camera by the way incase you not in the know. So you usb it in and it loads itself, charges itself, then syncs with your computer (like the ipod except better) and then you have cool free software to make a movie with. I likes.

Only problem was... it didn't like vista on my pc. Dammit! I sent away an email to flip and asked them what the go was and didn't hear much back. I was THIS close to buying windows 7 and re-installing the whole lot. But I got an email back from flip support and... it worked! They basically sent me a brand new release of the software (not yet available to the public! How exciting!) and it is awesome! So now I love my camera again.

http://www.theflip.com/en-au/products/mino.aspx

New Zealand has first game in the world cup tonight. Just have to keep my wary eyes open another hour to watch. They are the underdogs but.... I'm quietly confident! I shouldn't be - Slovakia (or slovenia ) (or whatever country it is we are playing) are ranked way above us. But.... I think... we might just be able to come away with an upset. Fingers crossed.

Work stressful but good. And house hunting is... weird. Very few houses on the market. VERY few. We have the money from the bank, and we have had a call back from a house we liked a lot when we looked a while ago. He is now having a think about it and we see next week if we have any more to talk about. If not then we keep looking. Very sick of looking. Especially when there is nothing to look at. It's SHIT at the moment. I think ppl know the market is not good right now and are not listing. But they are dumb because the rates are going to go up AGAIN soon and they will have to pay more mortgage. They should just sell. All of them. Then the prices will come down and we will be able to get a nice house for cheap. That would be nice wouldn't it?

And then you could all come round for mulled wine and we'll get the fire going! Yay.

That'll do.

later,

si

Sunday, 13 June 2010

Location: invercargill

We had snow today. Snow! I haven't seen snow before in Invercargill. As cold as it is down here next to Antartica, we are coastal so we don't often get snow. Hail yes. Rain - hell yes. Sleet - sometimes. Snow... not often. So imagine my excitement when it came down in big wet chunks for an hour or two today. Didn't settle but hey - you can't have it all.

Now - Sarah and Emily. What the hell is going on with them? How the hell are they in the monthly top 5 when their last entry was on 14Aug 2008! Now I've been on this site a long time as you all know, and I know how hard it is to get on the monthly top 5. You've got to be doing vaguely interesting shit, or at least have some trauma that keeps people amused hehe. So how the hell are you month after month in the top 5 when you haven't written anything for two years??? That's bullshit. Now they are teachers or something right? So what have they done - asked their kids to keep clicking so they can get to number 1? That is bullshit. Stop cheating. That's right I said it - CHHHHHHEEEEEEAAATTTS
Come on now girls - play in the spirit of the game. Either get writing - or stop promoting your site just to get to the top. That is my bit said.

So what else? Ah nothing really... hahah - yes that was deliberately ironic.
Oh! Mr Dude rang about a house today.
Hmm
backtrack
We are looking at a house.
We found a house. We jumped through a firey hoop, promised our first born, and knawed off our own left arms to get the money from the bank. The bank eventually decided we were worthy of entering into a mortgage (derived from French - 'Death Pledge') with them so that we can pay them $400,000 or interest on a $200,000 loan - oh lucky, lucky us!

Anyway - bank says yes. House has gone off market. I do sleuth work and track down man who owns house. And....! Um nothing,. He doesn't want to sell. Goddamit I had my hopes up!

Not to worry. After two weeks of moping about in a mire of depression we look at some others. And we found one! But... we can't buy it because it is going to auction and we can't buy at auction due to bank requirement thingies.

So... back to the drawing board yet again.

So tonight we had a phone call. From Mr. Number 1 house man. Was great to finally talk to him. Because I think we may be able to work something out. And I left a message on his phone to say as much but he never called back. So I figured that was that. I'm not going to pester him. If he doesn't want to sell, he doesn't want to sell.

So we talked. And... maybe. He's going to have a think about some things I mentioned which may work for him.

We will see. Not getting my hopes up again. Will keep looking. But will wait and see :-) It is a cool place. Even has a man shed. A maaaaaaaaaaaaannnnn shed! I have great plans for that shed. I'm thinking a writing / helicopter repair facility. A couch. A mezzanine overlooking the garden. Wireless. Insulation and heating. Hmmmm.

:-)

That will do.

bye for now.
xx and zzzz