Otaihanga rock throwing

Long weekend + sunshine = awesome!

Dom loves water, and loves throwing rocks into it.

He would happily throw himself in too, so he's never a free range Dom when near a river or deep puddle.

Off for further sunny walking - back in the stroller. He's getting heavier and still hasn't decided he likes proper shoulder rides.

Gravity? We don't need no steenking gravity!

Dominic is learning to mock the very laws of physics.



He can jump.



He pretty much looks like this most of the time.



Note that this photo is not blurred. This is how Dominic appears to the naked eye, he jumps so fast.

Extreme swinging action!

 
 

New Hitchhikers!

Eoin Colfer has written a new Hitchhikers book! And Simon Jones has voiced the audiobook version! I am pretty excited about this, moreso as I wasn't particularly fond of the 5th book in the trilogy and therefore don't have unrealistically high expectations :-) On an entirely unrelated note I've been enjoying reading the posts on the audiobooklovers LJ community. Apparently it's really easy to download large files from sites like rapidshare and megaupload. And people on that community seem to be good at finding links to all sorts of audiobooks. Even new ones ;-)

Always a professional

Teacher 1: I'm covering X's roll check. Who is X anyway. Teacher 2 (definitely not me): Tall, blonde, walks like a giraffe. *does giraffe walk through office* Teacher 1: Thanks, Matt. Teacher 3: I'd hate to hear how you'd describe me!

Grey Hoodie Sunday

It was a grey, overcast day so the family for almost entirely coincidental reasons* dressed in their grey hoodies and black pants for our Sunday fun.
 

Matt and Dom walking to the park.

Dom and his mum chillin' out together.

The failed attempt at a cute self-portrait shot of the family walking hand-in-hand. Alas the range in heights was too great for the camera.

Dom isn't embarrassed that his parents copy his outfits at all. Honest.

The Tiger Strike pose is always popular with the Dominator though. We were rewarded with giggles.

In the midst of practising our Tiger Strikes on the sofa at home.

* Dom and Matt were both wearing their outfits and when I noticed they sort of matched, I had to copy them and join in the grey hoodie/black pants fun.

Interesting copyright case

From the ever-reliable wikipedia: In Cummins v Bond, a psychic in a trance claimed to have written down what spirits told her, through a process of automatic writing. In court, she accepted that she was not the creative author of the writing. The creative input, had, presumably, come from the spirits. Nonetheless, the court held that she had exercised sufficient labour and skill in transcribing what the spirits had told her, and translating it, that she had a copyright in the literary work which resulted.

Part Five begins...

 MY part of the final installment of TheEvent is now up here.

How to find The Event

Google search "what is the cause of a sac buldging from my axolotl between the back legs"

11th hit:



Also, look in this month's SpecFicNZ newsletter. They're a group that's officially launching next year, looking to unite the speculative fiction (horror, SF, fantasy) community in NZ. They're very writer focussed.

Please feel free to pass on this newsletter to anyone you think might be interested. Requests to be put on the mailing list, as well as requests to cancel your subscription can be sent to give_a_rip at yahoo.co.uk. In addition, we appreciate any New Zealand-specific Spec Fic news that might be useful. Please send any such information to the above e-mail address.

More Holiday Snaps

One of the many places we visted up in Tauranga was Classic Flyers. I definitely recommend this place to plane enthusiasts, especially the smaller ones because they have awesome pedal cars and planes.

 

Dom tries to find a horn to honk in the steering wheel while his cousins take off in the yellow planes behind.

Dom likes to drive while cousin Ben is a keen aviator.

Can I take this home Dad?

Dom nearly backs up into his mother. Hopefully this was accidental. 

The Event - Mitchell & Webb Style

 Remain indoors! The Event is over but you may not be safe!

  

Note that our Event isn't quite over yet - Part 4 will be concluding soon, followed by the shocking final chapter of Part 5.

Writing update

Productive holidays so far: Ongoing On a Roll - added 1,000 words Solomon's Pearls (short story) - added 1,400 words. Now complete. New short stories (completed) 13 Bodies - 1,500 words Guilty Pleasures - 1,750 words Murray the Sex Machine - 1,069 words Fashion Crime - 1,450 words The Tunnel - 1,091 words

Mount Maunganui

 
 
 
 

A few shots of the viw around the east side of The Mount. There were seals on the rocks sunning themselves, but a little far off for a good shot even with a 12x zoom.

Not just photos of kids

 
 
 
 

I also took a bunch of photos of thrilling things like flowers, rocks, anti-graffiti statues and a dead bird.

Holiday cat!

 Behold the glorious majesty of holiday cat!

I find it comforting that no matter where you go, cats are the same. A local feline will always sniff a cat-friendly family out wherever they are staying and oppress them into opening doors at their meowy insistence, stroke and fuss them, and give them food.

The gorgeous smarm-puss spent a large portion of our holiday snoozing on our bed. It was very affectionate and had a loud rumbly purr. Dom loved it and it tolerated being patted by a toddler quite happily (especially since it also found the toddler frequently dropped delicious bits of chicken for it from his highchair).

Holidays are Awesome

 
 
 
 

As are kids' rides with no maximum weight allowance :-)