Two months ago I got made redundant, so the first thing I did was cut a mohawk as in the last entry. Since then its pretty much been a big holiday. I’ve applied for a few jobs. Had an interview at Woosh for 3rd/4th level System Engineer but unfortunately my networking experience wasn’t up to it. That would have been a sweet job. Applied for a 1st level support position at AUT supporting students and staff, but they haven’t contacted me back on them so I’m still looking.

Here’s what I’ve been up to:

Beach Hop: Easter Weekend

Went with Nick and Tesh and Brad and Jess to Beach Hop in Whangamata (Big hot rod show), stayed at nicks uncles and met Shelley down there as well a few other DF locals. Lots of nice cars there something like 70,000 people attended. Unfortunately we couldn’t get the classic car we were going to take going in time so it was another van mission.

Karipito Forest ride: Week before my birthday

Went with Nick and Tesh down to Wellington. Nick had a contact course to do so me and Tesh accompanied him. We stayed at Nick’s mates house in Upper Hutt. Much hilarity ensued. Bas is a fucking crack-up. Me and Tesh bought our bikes, which was a mission fitting a KX80 and a YFZ450 in one van, but we managed it, not without damaging one of the speakers in the van tho.

Ended up going riding in Karipito Forest not far from Upper Hutt with Tesh and Bas. I had my first crash. Came round a corner quite fast and couldn’t stop in time for some concrete blocks serving as a 4WD blockade. Bent my bullbars in quite badly but bike was sweet as, so kept going. Awesome riding. Very scenic with big uphills and big downhills, river crossings, we even rode up a creek at one time. It’s all rocks tho, big chunky limestones.

Wilsons Road trail ride: Weekend after my birthday
After going for a quick cane at the bike park on my birthday I went to a trail ride out in South Head that was 6k farm loop and 50k forest loop. The riding was excellent, forest enduro stuff, and most of it was sand tracks. There was even a track right out the back that I found that was just a huge long sandy straight through the long grass for ages, with little whoops every now and then. I was going full speed all the way along it.. was KICKASS!

LAN Party

Went to a LAN at my mate Jason’s, got a heap of new stuff and played Left4Dead for the first time, and loved it.

Bombing range

I been out the bombing range twice. Once with Shelley from Wilson’s road and once with Iydden from Rimmers. Both times was pretty good, hid the gas and lunch in the bushes and played around. Shelley had a bit of a hard time but it was her first time on sand so can’t blame her. Did a bit of forest riding with Iydden, got surprised by what we thought was a ranger driving down one of the forest tracks, and gapped it ask fast we could. Later we found that they were tourists as they were walking round the dunes.

Server Upgrade

Alkaif very kindly gave me his old server board and processor to use in my file server that died. I now have a nice Gigabyte board with a Athlon 64 3000+ processor and a gig of ram. I also bought a few hard drives and swapped some over with my system so now the server has 3 x 500gigs and 2 x 320gig. I’m currently have 1.1 TB of stuff shared. Probably not much compared to some people but I’m happy with it. Currently I have 3 computers in my room, with dual LCD’s setup on my computer which makes web development a whole lot easier.

Web Development

I have been working on a new site which is very close to being done. It is something I feel very strongly about and hopefully it will help other people become informed. But more on that when I launch it. Unfortunately the Telescum overhaul I was working on fell behind.

I am also currently playing with screen scrapers, spiders and web bots. I am currently scraping information from the web that I can use for at least 2 sites! But more info on that later as well.

Chopper

Went and saw Chopper live at Skycity Theatre during the comedy festival. Was absolute crackup. He was selling wristbands like the WWJD (What would Jesus Do) band you see, but they said on them HARDEN THE FUCK UP. He commented on the WWJD wristbands by saying something like “Hmmm.. what would Jesus do.. in this situation… Well surely, Jesus would just miracle himself the fuck out of there. ‘Argh I’m drowning!’ *flash of light* ‘Not anymore, hahaha!’”

Taupo trip

Went to Taupo on friday with my family to a timeshare down there. Then the next morning me and Mope went up Ruapehu to see the snow. Unfortunately all we found was ice but it looked like snow. We mucked around the moutainside, despite it being freezing as fuck up there. Altimeter said 1433m above sea level. Man I love the cold. Got back in the van, then got back out again to go for another walk.

Trail ride in Woodhill

Unfortunately I leave Taupo on Saturday to go a trail ride yesterday in Woodhill forest. It wasn’t that great. Mostly real tight forest enduro tracks but there was some open stuff where I got my speed up. I went on all the tracks even the highest difficulty. Still tricky as on a quad. Real technical steering and shit have to dodge stumps all the time. My chain fell of twice and I ripped off the plastic swingarm guard which I knew wouldn’t last 2 seconds. Overheard some guys talking and one of them said to his mate “Fuck doing that on a quad.”

And yeah, thats about it. Still looking for a place to live and still looking for jobs. Constantly being turned down for both is getting annoying as fuck though. So many people are looking for jobs. And landlords are completely age-discriminating, don’t want young people living in their houses so we’ve missed out on some real mint places.

I wake up about 6pm after my last nightshift and find a text from him asking if I wanted to go on a roadtrip the next day. I said yeah sweet and texted the people I was buying my motox boots and helmet from and told them not to post them cos I was coming down country.

So I went for a drink with Becky and B-rad up at the trig. Sitting on the back of the utes watching the sunset over the Waitoki valley drinking beer is fucking mean (if you replace beer with something tastier anyway).

Then me and Brad cruised down to Nicks to see what he was up to, and we decided to go that night instead and drive the 8 hours or so down in the dark. Since I had just come off nightshift I could drive and not fall asleep while Nick slept in the back. With my quad. We thought we’d take the quad too and stop on the way down and back for a blat.

Brad had work so he left about 9pm. “Drive safe, if you get sleepy, just pull over and buy a big bag of crack!” he said as he got in his car. Crack up… lol.

I went for a blat up the road before chucking my quad in nicks van and went home, got a few things and came back, parked my van up and we left about 10:30 pm.

Nick drove until Papakura BP (bout 2230hrs) and then we bought some supplies and dinner (for myself) and I took over. He jumped in the back and slept on some beanbags on the vanbox between my quad and the front seats.

We got to Taupo somewhere around 0230hrs and after filling up the van and bike at BP headed onto the Desert Road. There was some roadworks and we were escorted through the “three sisters” by a roadworks vehicle – to keep our speed down I suppose.

Got to the “end” of the Desert Road at about 0330hrs. Just after you go down a big hill into the valley but before you get into Waiouru. Pulled over in a big gravel pit next to the road and pulled the quad out, got geared up. Nick reckoned I would need a Swani so I put one on but it ended up being too hot.

Did a few donuts and stuff around the gravel pit, cars and trucks driving past like “WTF is that?!” then went down a track into the “army land” till we got to like, a river thing but didn’t want to cross it cos it looked quite strong. Did some donuts on some sand stuff, did a bit of exploring, then went back to the gravel pit and had turns drifting around the van, and then around each other. That thing drifts so good.

Then we loaded it back up and drove onwards. Nick went back to sleep in the back. Got into Porirua at about 8 and went and picked up my helmet, and Nick started driving. Then went to see Nicks mate in the Upper Hutt motorbike shop, hung around there for a while until the guy with the exhaust system texted nick. Said goodbye, then Nick showed me where he used to live. Went to McDonalds for breakfast and saw Nicks other mate drive past on the way there.

I climbed into the back and tried to sleep while we drove to Miramar, told Skinny we’d come see him at work at like 930… then it was 1030, then it was 11. Got to the exhaust guys house, he was at work and Nick had already paid him for the exhaust so we just loaded it into the van. But the Surf it came out of was sitting there along with the engine and gearbox already removed and sitting on the ground. Nick texted him and asked if he wanted to sell them. Got the gearbox for $100 but the engine was already sold. Loaded the gearbox in as well and went to see Skinny.

I couldn’t be fucked sleeping at this point. Got to Skinny’s work at about 1130. Showed him my quad, gave him the US Office Series and his playstation which I had borrowed. Then we left. I texted the lady who had my boots and tried to organise a pickup from New Plymouth but looking at the map it was too far out of the way.

Then she said she needed to go to Wanganui and could meet us there. We needed to go to Horopito to a vintage car parts place and Wanganui was perfect. We stopped and went for a ride at Tangimoana. Had a play on the beach and dunes. Was pretty mean. Unloading and loading the quad was a bit of a mission with all the other stuff we had loaded in the van though.

Got to Wanganui and had subway. Must have looked funny to a bunch of prissy schoolgirls in there. No sleep, barefoot, sweaty, smelly, quad in the back. Had to wait for the lady for a while but eventually she turned up at about 5 and we got the boots and took off up State Highway 4 to Horopito. The start of which is an awesome road, with some nice scenic views.

We left a little too quickly however. About 40k’s away from Ratehi the empty light came on. We forgot to gas up at Wanganui. We were eying up diggers and farm equipment wondering if we could steal a bit of diesel if we needed to, to get to the next gassy. State Highway 4 is scenic, but its a bit back country and far from anywhere *cue deliverance banjo*.

But after 20 minutes of not talking in aticipation of wondering whether we were gonna make it we pulled into the 24 hour Caltex at Ratehi at about 7pm and filled up. I jumped back in the back and tried to sleep again while Nick stopped to try get into the vintage car parts place but it was shut.

Took SH4 around the west side of the mountains, and got back on SH1 at Turangi. Stopped at Taupo for Burger King (I ate so much junk food that trip ). Then carried on. I tried to sleep again but couldn’t.

Nick was getting pretty tired driving and we pulled over at Tokoroa at about 1130pm and got some energy drink and chocolate. Gotta feed the brain with glucose to keep it awake. Then I jumped in the drivers seat so Nick decided to sleep. I jumped back on the highway and followed a B train all the way back to the Bombays. It was wierd I was falling asleep in my seat when I wasn’t driving, but I got behind the wheel after having the sugarfix and I was buzzing, focused as.

Got into Auckland about 1, but got detoured at Papakura, thought we were gonna get mugged at some lights while driving through there. Then got detoured again at Northcote. By this time I was starting to get tired but finally got back to Nicks, parked up and then I drove home in my van.

By end I had been awake for 31 hours with 1 hour sleep, Nick was more than that cos he didn’t sleep very well.

Ended up being 26 hours of straight driving with breaks of no more than an hour. What a mission!

I was working new years eve so me and Brad, Nick, and Tesh decided to head up to Pakiri, one of the the meanest, whitest beaches NZ has for new years eve eve. They got there new years eve eve eve night and smashed some pipi’s (literally). Brad even cooked some up and ate them, got drunk and consequently vomited them back up. He no longer eats seafood.

So they had already been there for a day and a night by the time I got there after work on new years eve eve. They had been on a 8 day bender by this time, consuming a 40ounce bottle of Jack Daniels every night leading up to new years eve. Sometimes more than 1 and other times throwing in the odd bottle of Appleton Rum.

I left work at 7, put my double bed in the back, picked up some supplies, 2 bottles of Jack, sausages, coke, L&P, sprite, ice, bread and sauce, and headed up there. Bless daylight saving. Last petrol stop was the turnoff at Warkworth. I headed on but my fuel gauge looked deceivingly lol, though I though I could have only done about 250k’s on that tank so should have heaps left. Besides the gassy in Matakana shut at 8, and I I was there at 8:15. I carried on, through some little town starting with M then through Leigh, and started going up this massive hill.

Massive hill. Got to the top and had the mean view! Right around. Could see all Omaha beach and right around to Pakiri and all the way up Pakiri beach. Was awesome!

Then I started going down and it turned to gravel, that looked like it hadn’t had new gravel or a grader down it in about 5 years and was quite narrow with a 200 metre steep drop down one side, and a vertical wall on the other. And bumpy as shit in my lowered van. Took ages too. Brad told me they had driven up it that day and Nick was drifting his van round every corner on the gravel. I would have shit my pants had I been in there.

Got to the bottom of the hill and it went back to tarseal. Weird that such a road would be neglected by the council to such a state of disrepair but oh well. Then turned off and down another looong fine gravel road until I was almost at the beach and I saw the others parked up. Did a handbrake slide onto a driveway bit but was almost in the ditch, so did a 97 point turn to get onto the grass and through a mud puddle, then backed up to nicks van and opened the back doors so one went under the other. This was our campsite. Right under that big tree.

Got there about 8:45 which is slightly quicker than Google said (my trip there) (I left Dairy Flat at bout 730).

It was just started to get dark, luckily I had put a bottle of Jack on ice and we got into it. I had about 3 shots worth in a cup with coke and I was gone. Cheap drunk – not being a drinker has its upsides . I was stumbling around then Nick started pouring another cup and I grabbed it off him, “Coke is for girls!”, I slurred, and started to scull it straight. “Naa!” he said as he wrestled it back off me “You’ll be passed out in no time you idiot!”, and filled the rest up with coke. Then I sculled that anyway.

I was stumbling around and we started cooking up the sausages. Water and sauce in a pan with precooked sausages on little gas cooker. Nick was eating them raw. Had a few sausage then went round the other side of the van and got out the other bottle of jack and had a few swigs, Nick was like “What’s chumba doing,” and came round the side and grabbed the bottle off me as I cracked up laughing and tripped over air. “Fucking menace,” he smirked and put the bottle in his van.

I got up and (with the support of the van) made my way round to the center of the van where the others were sitting and talked shit with them. I was holding onto the backdoor (which was the makeshift roof), and lost my grip and fell on my face between the vans. My head missing the towbar of nicks van by inches, and started laughing uncontrollably.

“Holy shit,” Nick said, “This is getting serious. We better oshify* this shit!” and put his shoes upside down on both towbars. * OSH = govt dept Occupational Safety and Health

Much drunken hilarity ensued, and then I wanted to go for a swim so we walked down to the beach, and the tide was in. The sand was nice and cold. The water wasn’t too cold, I didn’t go too deep cos I was drunk and it was nighttime and I didn’t want to get eaten by a shark. I was the only one man crazy drunk enough to go though.

Then on the way back we’re all drunkenly tackling each other and shit. Then I was like “Hey Brad, hold this!” and threw my wet (unbeknownst to me sandy) towel in his face and got a big clump of sand in his eye lol. He’s like “Ah fuck, my eye! Oh not fun…” and we had to stop, and Nick was like I’ll help you, got a handful of sand and smacked it into his other eye.

Brad was not happy to say the least. Man we’re awesome mates.

Went back to the vans and after getting the sand out of brads eyes there was more drunkenness and singing to Pantera and Black Label Society and Metallica into the early hours of the morning. Much to the disgust of the people around us I am sure. Then Nicks like “I bet you can’t headbang to an entire song!” and put on some Dying Fetus. So I did, headbang the entire song. So furiously in fact that my neck was stiff and sore for the next 3 days.

Went to bed at about 4 or 5. Got up, cooked some more sausages. Went for some swims in the daylight. Lazed about while Brad played some tunes on the geetar. And then we all went home. There was sooo much traffic on the road heading north, backed up for miles in about 5 places. Soo much better to have your new years before new years.

That night I went to work, lay on the roof of the carpark next door and watched all the fireworks go off the Skytower.

I think this is like my longest post ever.

Yeah, skinny got a job software testing for the government, got a nice little flat in Newtown. Wellington was pretty nice, went for a few drives. It’s actually amazing how much more relaxed Wellington is than Auckland. Tonnes of bogans in Newtown as well, was cool. Lots of weirdos tho. We started yelling out “Weirdo!” everytime we saw one but then on observing that there were shitloads of weirdo’s around we started yelling out “Wellingtonian!” instead (no offense to any Wellingtonian’s).

I went and watched him on his BMX at island bay skatepark, he’s pretty mean on a BMX. Should’ve taken some vids but no camera. Yeah.

Was gonna see Tiger while I was in town but she didn’t reply to my email so wasn’t worried, think she was in Christchurch anyway lol.

I left on the Monday, after dropping Skinny off at work – bout 830am dept time. Was cool on the way back, pulled over for a rest, jumped in the back in my hammock and read my book. Bill Bryson’s “A Walk in the Woods”. Dude is a genius.

Got back to DF at about 6pm, bit long but did have quite a few rests.

Got up there, dragged the thing into the van and onto a tire. It was way heavier than the 2L we picked up from Hastings that time. Lucky we had Brad to help us. The guy he bought it off then let us grab a bunch of other stuff off a Hilux carcass sitting in the paddock. Can never have too many spare parts.

His project lux is getting there. He sold his V8 beast a few weeks ago and spent the money on a 39 Ford Bonus pickup with a V8 in it, which is now sitting at the factory. Saw it the other night when me and Shellz went to grab some tires off “Danger”, her old holden ute that got rear ended. She bought a new ute too, another Holden, but gloss black. Looks badass.

That family has an abnormal amount of cars. Nick has 4, 3 of which are projects. His lux, the Bonus, and the aforementioned damaged Danger, which is to become a rat rod in the future, the “Dairy Flat Rat” or something to that effect. Should be mean, flamethrowers, body dropped to an inch off the ground, just real rough and dirty, with a two-tone bare metal and rust paintjob. Or something along those lines anyway.

Shelley’s friend Ella is apparently into pop and stuff but she came anyway. Didn’t ask her if she liked it though. Pretty sure Shelley liked it, Nick and Brad just thought it all sounded the same, and didn’t like the growling vocals. Everyone is like that at the start though. They played Colour of Sleep and Skin Coffin and Lacertine Forest but unfortnately not my favourite song in the whole world, Cruelty Incarnate

Was still good though. Dawn of Azazel and Metal Tower supported them. The bassist in Metal Tower had a Warlock Bass Guitar.

Anyways, here’s some of their tracks if you haven’t heard them before:

They were out of shirts by the time we got there too which sucked. I was going to buy a hoodie for $40 but forgot… (??)

Unfortunately, I am a lazy fuck and I never got around to putting my speakers and central locking cable through, before Sunday but no one else but Nick came with me. Brad went riding, as did Shelley and Tesh. It was a mean sunny day, had a bit of a jam, got yelled at by Nicks mum for distrubing the neighbours, and left at about noon.

I love roadtrips. Grabbed some subway at Bombay. Got down there at about 3, met the dude in New World carpark in a suburb called Gate Pa (wtf?). Checked the guitar out, no wobbly neck, sweet as. Dude gave me some cash for gas which was cool of him, and we decided to go for a drive and check out the Mount (Manganui). Quite a few people on the beach. Nice girls everywhere, including one of my types (black tshirt and jeans on a hot day) lol.

There were tonnes of dicks just driving round and round in their peice of shit cars though.

Left there, Nick had a sleep in the back, while I stalked some chick in a white skyline all the way back to Papakura. Don’t remember what time we got home. Tried out the guitar, its got a mean sound but only on that amp for some reason. Sounds like crap on Nicks amp.

Then stayed up until about 4am playing Far Cry 2 (awesome game).

Finish at 7am this Sat morning, I’ve gotta get some sleep, then get up, install my front speakers in my van, change the oil, hook up the drivers door central locking, and tune the amp for all the speakers.

Then going to the Psycroptic concert with Joe, Nick, Shelley and her friend Ella, get drunk off my nut, and mosh the fuck out. Should be mean. Gotta buy a Psycroptic Tshirt too. My brother wants to come but he is not 18 for another 15 days. Shame.

Then on Sunday (hopefully not hungover) road trip it down to Tauranga to pick up my gat and amp and hang around Tauranga if its nice weather.

Then on Monday I can install and play Far Cry 2!! Dave bought it in for me tonight, going to be SO mean! Thats another one I can scratch off my list Plus COD5 came out yesterday so hopefully I’ll get my hands on a copy of that soon.

Shit just remembered its my dads birthday on monday too… what am I going to get him… also skinny leaves for Wellington…

I just got off night shift and he picked me up from work at about 730. Got to Taupo after about 3 hours driving and then through State Highway 5 (the Napier-Taupo Highway). That road is AMAZING! All twisty and wicked views and no houses for miles. Lots of cool looking places to Moto-X too. Awesome road. So want a bike.

Tried to have a sleep on the way down but couldn’t, ended up taking the dash of Nicks van apart while driving on Napier-Taupo road so I could plug in my iPod and cranked some metal instead.

I also took a pad and pen along and did some data normalisation and sorted out the database layout for the new telescum site.

It was such a nice day too, got to Napier and cruised round there. Then onto Hastings, trying to find the place to pick up the engine from but we got lost a bit. Found it, but it looked like no one was home. After about 15 minutes of knocking on the door and trying to figure out how to carry the (heavy-looking) engine around a Hilux Surf, we finally woke the dudes wife up and she moved her jeep for us.

We backed the Hiace up and ended up making a ramp with a plank of wood and dragging it up. It was a heavy peice of shit. We strapped it in and then had another engine which we were delivering to Hastings, so went and found that guy, and dropped it off.

Then back on the road to Taupo. My turn to drive. By this time its about 130pm and I have been without sleep for about 21 hours, but I had a Demon and was sweet. Got to drive all the way back through the Napier-Taupo road, was mean. Except for Nicks van. Its a mean van, but the engine is a little rooted (after like 450,000k’s) so its a bit gutless. You have to gun it on the straight before a hill and then try and keep it going but you always end up having to shift down to 3rd and plodd up the hill at like 50kph. Not so mean. My van powers up hills.

We got to Taupo at about 5pm, and contemplated going to Taranaki because he’d also bought an engine stand from there (yes, Nick is a trademe whore…). But after calling the guy we worked out it would cost the same to freight it as it would cost in diesel.

Went to Pizza Hutt to get some dinner, and they were playing rap or hiphop or some shit in there. I said to the girl who served us (who looked a lot like what I would imagine a 15 year old Lilley to look like – you got a cousin in Taupo Lilley?), “God I feel sorry for you guys, having to listen to this crap all night!”, and she was like “haha, yeah…” and started blushing. Went to wait outside and Nick said to me “I think they actually put that on the stereo”. Lolwhoops!

The manager there looked like a creepy dodgey mother fucker too. Like I touch little girls kinda dodgey. Yuk!

Nick got back behind the wheel and drove until the lookout at Maramarua where we stopped for a rest and I had the longest urination in my entire life. I never knew my bladder could hold that much fluid!!! Lol, sorry, Too much information!

Then I drove back, the rest of the way. Nick fell asleep and by now its like 8pm, 28 hours without sleep, so I was swerving a little bit, maybe shouldn’t have driven lol but we’re still here.

Got back to my work at about 930pm got in my van and raced nick home. He drove on the motorway without his lights for like half the way back, crazy mother fucker.

Yeah fun times.

Had a game of Guitar Hero with her, and got fuckin owned. It was my first go, but seriously, that girl can shred!

We were both still pretty munted from the night before I think lol, I felt like such a douchebag… like real slow and dumb. But yeah, she’s really cool. Hard to find girls like her. Then you do find her and something comes between you. *sigh* Murphy’s law bites me in the ass again…
Murphy: 6
Hamstar: 0

Left at about 3pm took the normal route home. I was being a dick on the Desert Road, through the three sisters and stuff, seeing what the van could do round the corners but there were other cars on the road! Bastards! I was even overtaking them through there which was fun. Lilley must have read my blog by that stage and text me like “wtf u a satanist?!” haha.

Stopped at Taupo for subway and parked by the lake with the door open sitting in one of the lounge seats. Was mean.

When I left it was dark, and the headlights on the van are really bad so could see hardly anything after I left Taupo, even on hibeam (cos hibeam is useless and lowbeam is parking lights???), plus I pulled a fuse out from somewhere to plug in for the ACC so neither the horn nor the hazards are working (reminds me I should look for a fuse box plan on the net). So that was fun.

I would’ve almost made it back on one tank, but filled up just after Matamata, then going through Maramarua I kept having to go slower and slower, could hardly make out the road. Then I saw a B Train coming up behind me so I pulled over and let it past. That dude was going so fast. Keeping it pinned at like 110kph through these little country roads, bush on both sides. No wonder you see so many dead animals on the road!

Followed the truck till the motorway and got home at about 11:30. The cat was so happy to see me. Everyone else was in bed though.

Met up with Marlo in Lower Hutt and went to his place. Which is a garage he rents for $20 a week and sleeps in his van haha, so classic. Just showers and everything at uni. Get Riki and Marlo together and its like a freakin Comedy Show.

We ended up staying at Riki’s dads best friends place up in Brooklyn. Was pretty good, camped up in my new van in my hammock. Just happened to be holes in the sheet metal at the perfect places. A long wheel base Hiace would’ve been better but meh.