Francis’ Weblog

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

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!

The one thing that is quite hard to come by in Auckland is a book shop that sells books. Well books I actually want to buy. If you dive into a regular Auckland book superstore for example American borders, you would think they would have some technical computer books. You ask the counter staff nicely where they have the computer books … they look at you blankly for a bit and then say that maybe if you go down to the basement and look in the disused lavatory with the stuffed iguana you may get a couple. You head down and you do find one shelf that has been dedicated to “computer books” but they are the idiots guide to office and things like that. So you hunt around the web for a new Zealand online book shop which sells… books that you want… and you fail. So you end up ordering them from US amazon.com. Which I have now done BUT I thought it might be an idea to check out the customs charges for bringing books in, and found this:

Private Importers Custom Charges

Ok books are free… yupiee! but look at the other stuff! Golf balls are free, golf clubs are free yet golf bags are $7? “Linen - table cloths” are $5 yet “Linen - Kitchen Linen” is free?? and what about the lego?! $7 for lego bricks?!!! Bizarre!

This weekend a friend was over from the UK and I managed AT LAST! to get over to Waiheke Island… its about a 40min ferry from where I live. Hover over the images for captions. We hired a couple of bikes on the island and had a ride around. A friend Jen lived on the island between the NZ and US winter seasons. Found the bus she lived in! oh and the guy in the picture is Alex.