A journey of 1000 miles starts with a single SaaS Solution
Francis
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Posts by Francis
SkyTower jump… yeah right!
Mar 29th
Imagine your at work and a colleague asks “Are you busy Wednesday evening?”, you reply “Yup, think so… why?” and you get the reply “No reason”… do you worry? do you ask for more information? like an idiot I kept quiet…
On wednesday morning an email is sent to everyone in the office… “As you are all free this evening we have booked 10 tickets for the skyJump at 5pm, it will be followed by a meal in devonport”. The office goes quiet… you can hear the jaws dropping from all around… For those that do not know the SkyJump is a virtually freefall jump from a tower no just a smallish tower… its the biggest tower in the Southern hemisphere… nice!… ok, you don’t jump from right at the top but at 640ft tall and going 85kph its still very, very high and fast… and i’ve just received an email saying that i’m going to do it… NO WAY!!! … oh and the added pressure being that they have paid for it so you have to do it.. the panic starts the set in. I’ve seen people doing it, hanging in no mans land waiting to fall… I start to go into a strange laughing hysteria which lasts most of the day… unfortunately my window looks out at the sky tower it dominates the Auckland skyline.
At 4.35pm we get in the taxi and leave the office… 4.50pm we get to the sky tower looking directly up the tower… it looks big… very big.
We get our harnesses and jump suits, I ask for another harness but they says its pointless as your only attached to one cable… nice… I ask how long the person has been working for SkyJump… the reply “one week”, right. Confidence high!… not. Were taken up to the lift and we go up the sky tower. The lift is a glass lift, you can look down and see the bottom of the lift shaft and look directly out of the window to the world. I keep my eyes firmly on the back wall of the lift, not looking out. We get to the top and one by one go onto the little ledge. I have this recollection of the guy saying “Are you ready?” to which I reply “Yes” and wonder why on earth I’ve said yes? because agreeing to a stranger to push you off a building at 192 metres just sounds stupid! and well … unwise! Anyway I didn’t have much time to think about it because he shouts out 3 … 2 … 1 … and i’m gone…
Note the clenched fist! the second photo isn’t great because of the strong lights from the base of the building and night fast approaching. You get a better idea from the video on the website.
James Blunt but not as you know it!
Mar 25th
Tom Gleeson an Ozzie Comedian dissects James Blunts famous song You’re Beautiful:
Snow is a coming!
Mar 15th
Well I think summer has finally been blown away in Auckland. Over the past couple of days we have been having some major weather… thunder lightning… the works. It cleared up a bit today but I’m feeling that summer is over and roll on winter! The mountain season ski passes go on sale at the end of March and I’m going to be first in the queue… ok maybe second. The “Weather Man” in Wanaka has predicted a bumper snow season and we’ve also had news on snow already hitting the mountains.
Earthquake in Auckland
Feb 27th
Yes, there was an earthquake on wednesday just north of auckland out to sea… and where was I??? just north of auckland snowboarding at snow planet. Did I feel anything?! .. nothing. I was talking to a local who has lived in auckland for 20 years and has never felt an earthquake, and i’m in snow planet falling over and don’t notice a thing. Then at 11pm there was another but smaller and I didn’t feel that either. Oh well… maybe next time.
Generally Auckland isn’t geared up as much as Wellington for earthquakes. While I was down in Wellington a couple of weeks ago I took some photos of equipment etc in the buildings in Wellington.
On the floor of the building I was working there was a civil defence cabinet:
On top were “Readi-safe survival packs for emergency relief and natural disasters”. The packs can sustain Five adults or Two adults and three children for up to three days. I didn’t check to see what was in the cabinet but the “perishables” replacement list on the front had: Batteries (AA Radio) x3, Batteries Torch (D Cell) x8, Readi-safe survival packs x2, Tampons 1box, Light Sticks 12 hour 15, Water purification tablets 1 box of 50. All interesting stuff 
And then downstairs on the ground floor was the “Orange Box”, a safe room incase of disaster… basically an empty room from what I can see
Special Effects: The History and Technique (Hardcover)
Feb 26th
For all the digital effects / special effects guys and gals a new version of “Special Effects: The history of Technique” is gonna be coming out in April!
