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I’ve finally uploaded our wedding photos. Photographers were Paul and Julia Rondel and they did a fabulous job!

Feel free to browse and let us know which ones you like.

I was invited to the Topaz Company Conference this year which was held in Taupo. This is an interesting situation because I don’t actually work for Topaz. This is the company I currently contract through. It was very nice of them to invite us. Not only that, but it’s a family thing so all family members are also welcome to attend.

We were put up at the Bayview Wairakei Resort which is right opposite the Wairakei Golf Course. We drove up on Friday afternoon and arrived about 7:30pm. We had the evening to ourselves as there were no events scheduled until Saturday. Of course there was the gathering at the bar on Friday where berverages were available.

Saturday morning had us scheduled for a team building event. There were four activities. We were split into fours teams with a even spread of kiddies and adults. Our self proclaimed team leader was a 6 year old girl who did an excellent job of . . . advising . . . the rest of us on best method practices :)

With the team building over we were left to our own devices for the afternoon. Again, an excellent way to run a conference. It’s about meeting people you work with and their families, rather than boring company things that can be better handled at work. After food, Carissa and I went to visit one of her Uncles who owns a hair salon in Taupo. Uncle Tuka and his wife Auntie Dawn. A man who is full of energy. The banter between Tuka and Dawn was absolutely hilarious. I think everyone should be like this. We stayed longer than intended but the tea and biccies were good.

Saturday evening saw the main event. Activities and a feed at the Prawn Farm. Most people stuck to the prawn fishing. There were some huge prawns caught. Richard Fowler’s family pulled up two 30cm fellas! As per usual, Carissa caught four with very little effort and I caught a big fat zero :(

There were presentations just before dinner, but the bar was open so it was a very jovial atmosphere. The food was great. Prawns were overflowing. I loved it!

It was a great event which I think other companies should embrace. It was also good to see the ABs scrape by with a win thanks in large to Dan Carter’s return. Good to see him back, but a bit sad that a nations confidence in their national rugby team relies on a single individual.

Sunday was travel day. First, a morning swim before breakfast. They keep the pools between 35 and 38 degrees celcius. Perfect when the outside temperature is more like 5 degrees. Showered, packed, feed we headed into Taupo for some shopping. We had some time to kill before Carissa flew to Auckland to pick up Tyler. I was driving back to Wellington to pick them up from the Airport. It was good to have a break from Tyler, but I think a week is too long and we missed him heaps.

Since Tyler is in Auckland this week (and we’re missing him greatly), Rissa and I decided that wed paint the town red and go see a movie. Meena and Gareth also came along. The movie chosen was Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

I haven’t read the books but the movies are getting slowly darker and darker. Characters are getting stomped in the face, flung around like rag dolls, stuff blowing and generally inflicting damage and death on one another. Awesome :)

The movie was a little on the long side but still enjoyable. It seemed to amble along at a nice pace developing and developing the newly found interest in the opposite sex by the younger characters. Again, I haven’t read the books but one interesting item for me was the revelation that Severus Snape is actually an agent of the Dark Lord . . . or appears to be that way. Apart from the fact that he actually said he was working for the Dark Lord there were further actions that leads me to believe this was true. For example when he killed Dumbledore. Be careful, that was a spoiler.

A decent enough movie. Its one of those things you just have to see after watching the first five in the series anyway.

My lovely wife bought some Tapis Rouge tickets to Dralion | Cirque du Soleil for my birthday and we were in Auckland last weekend to see the show.

Ive seen the Varekai DVD which was brilliant, but seeing a Cirque du Soleil show live was amazing. Its an extremely well put together event. The production company rocks up to a location and plonks down I think 5 tents for food, refreshments and merchandise sales; another large tent for the Tapis Rouge where they serve complimentary beverages and finger food and the big top where the main event occurs.

Dralion was held at the ASB Showgrounds and they brought in some flash portable toilets so you didnt have to walk too far to find some amenities. There was a lot of parking available and with our VIP tickets we had a park close to the main gate. Of course this meant that we were on the tail end of the queue when leaving.

The show itself is about 2.5 hours long with a 25 minute intermission. Its broken up nicely with some very humourous clown skits while people are making their way in and when there are set changes.

The performances and acrobatics were outstanding. I dont really have a lot to say here except that you have to experience it for yourself. Any of the shows are recommended.

I’ll definately be going to see another one.

There’s an article in the New Zealand Hearald about a home owner who is wanting to break his fixed mortgage. Have a read of the article, but my beef is not with the break fee (which is what the story is about) but with the lack of customer service from the bank.

We have a situation here where the home owner knows that they will eventually default on the mortage which after all the processes are followed will cause the bank to have to sell the property in a mortgagee sale. The owner wants to break the fixed mortgage and re-fix at a lower rate. He is willing to pay a break fee that was advised in an email to the home owner, but the bank is now wanting a substantially higher break fee. This issue is currently before the banking Ombudsman.

If I was the bank I’d be looking long term. While I will miss out on interest initially I’d still retain the customer and his future business.

For those who don’t know, MobileMe is an Apple service that pushes email, contacts and calendar events to iPhones, PCs and Macs to keep your stuff in sync.

I have two major issues with this paid service.

1. The from/reply to address cannot be changed from the default your_name@me.com (unless you use an email client).
   
2. You cannot create alerts in the MobileMe web interface.

Let’s talk about point 1. This is an insanely annoying issue for me. I own a domain and want push email to my iPhone. However, I don’t want the person expecting a reply from me to have it come from a different address. That’s just stupid. I know there are various work arounds but these mean I lose my replies. Dumb. I mean come on Apple, Google do it . . . for free.

Now, point 2 is equally annoying. Using the MobileMe web interface I can create a calendar entry and even make it recurring, but I cannot add an alert to it. I have to wait for it to be pushed to my iPhone and then add the alert. Unbelievable. This is another case where Google do this and for free.

Come on Apple, you need to sort this stuff out.

As you would expect, I don’t use MobileMe for anything other than iDisk and Find My iPhone.

Those of you who watch Manga may recall the title Blood: The Last Vampire which was released in 2000. It’s basically about a Japanese half human/half vampire school girl who’s mission is to slay vampires.

I have just found out that there has been a live action movie made. It’s directed by Chris Nahon who also did Kiss of the Dragon.

Watch Trailer
Official Site

Round 2 of the Super 7s was played at Action Paintball Games in Serpentine Western Australia over the weekend. Well done to Menace who came 3rd. Interesting to note that SWAT didn’t place this event.

Results:
D1 – Pro
1st – Extreme
2nd – STK
3rd – Menace
4th – Hostile Intentions

D2 – Semi Pro
1st – Menace Kids
2nd – Killswitch
3rd – A9X
4th – Apocalypse

D3 – Amatuer
1st – Korrupt
2nd – West Coast Triads
3rd – Shenanigans
4th – Dash Bratts

Original post here.

I picked up a camcorder on the weekend. It’s a Sony DCRSX40E. I’ve only had a little play with it so far but it seems to do the job. Pretty good low light recording and it’s fast to switch on and start recording.

It records to flash so the only moving part is the lense. I need to get a larger battery and Memory Stick (has a built in 4GB capacity which is sufficient at the moment as the stock battery lasts about that long for SP recording).