Auckland Skytower

Recently my family and I went on a trip to Auckland . We did many interesting things but by far the funnest was on the first day when we went to the sky tower. It was dizzying to look up at let alone look down from epecially for mum who was very tentative...

I had to hold her hand before she would really walk across the glass

panels.

But it was understandable when you see what type of  height we were at.

 

Then when we were done with the mesmerizing heights we went up one more level to the buffet where we all ate about a million deserts.

The food was nice but the views were even better. he sky tower is definitely one of the best places to go in New Zealand and maybe even one of the best places to in the world. It was awesome.

Andrew

 

They say that NZ never left the 60's...

But you! You in Wa state have legalised! What up with that?

On Democracy

After reading the outcome of the election in Venezuela, I am again struck by the comparison of democracy for that much vilified country/leader and our own in the United States.

Hugo Chavez won reelection with an 80% voter turnout, amidst an absence of reported fraud or any other measures of disenfranchisement. The election was held on a Sunday, and alcohol sales were banned on the day, a measure which seems to promote the sober consideration and conduct of one's civic duty.

Meanwhile the U.S. mainstream press was enjoying the possibility of a Chavez upset, and it was widely reported that Henrique Capriles was a strong contender with a chance of winning. The most common explanation offered by the legion of Chavez detractors is that Chavez buys off his citizens with the country's oil wealth, and he uses this money and media time to his own advantage during the election.

I don't know how true or untrue this is in the case of Venezuela. Chavez has certainly poured oil money into programs for the poor, and not just at election time. Really, is the United States able point the finger at anyone else regarding the influence of money in elections?

Allow me to point out an unpleasant fact about elections in the city where I used to live: Houston, TX. The mayor of Houston is often elected with voting totals below 10% of the voting population. Let me repeat that, or let me be specific, in the most recent election in which Anise Parker won reelection, Parker won the election with between 5 and 10 percent of the vote - but closer to 5!

Now it will be reported that she received 50%, or just over. But that is a percentage of the people who voted. And this is nothing new. In her first election she won with 81,743 votes in a city of 4 million people and some 1.3 million eligible voters.

I am not picking on Anise Parker. Houston has a long history of electing its mayors with less than 10% of the eligible vote. Look back to the 1990's and the days of Bob Lanier up through Bill White in the 2000's. Bill White won in 2007 with 20,000 more votes than Parker, but one shouldn't be elected Mayor of a city of 4 million people with only 100,000 votes!

Now you can blame this on voter turnout - it's the peoples' own fault. But I put forth that you could start by not holding the election on a weekday, where people have to sandwich a vote into their before-work-rush, or maybe their lunch hour? What is the practical reality of someone who commutes for an hour to the office, making it back to their home polling station to vote at lunch, or after work before the polling stations close? Hmmm.... maybe if the election were held on a non-workday... and I can bet you this: if no alcohol sales were allowed on the day - you'd get a higher turnout of citizens eager to vote about something!

One last comment while we're discussing voting. Prior to the Houston mayoral election the 11 News/KUHF poll was reporting that Peter Brown was ahead of Parker by a commanding 8% (margin of error + - 4%) . Yet Brown finished a distant third. So polling is not always what it seems, nor is an election win, and nor is the much vaunted term democracy.

Fifa 13 is out!

And Onyx wants to play. Unfortunely he is being a bit.... piggy with the controller.

Congrats homies

Beyond the generic stuff mentioned, there is a long list of cool.

It's been a while and I guess it's time for a geeky post, so ya'll will just have to bear with me. Want to get some notes out there for those in need--

The problem of the day was how to clone Server 2008 R2 at minimal cost. This is a dev workstation and the unfortunate part of using the server OS is that everyone's imaging tools wind up costing an arm and a leg. Take Acronis for example. True Image is maybe $50 for Windows 7, but for 2008 you get to use the server product for $859. We find that a little steep to clone a workstation.

I also have a copy of EZ-GIG which I have used to great effect to clone laptop drives with Win XP thru Win 7 but they too take a pass on 2008.

Well as I repeatedly struck out, I did actually give it a go with DriveImage XML to be sure that it didn't "just work" w Server 2008, and guess what? It didn't go well. What to do... what to do... and I realized I had a couple of 500 GB drives sitting around, and several available SATA connectors inside the trusty Dell T3400. And this is what worked:

1. Put in a spare drive
2. Fire up Windows Server Backup and make a one-time, custom backup. WSB offers a System State option, and a Bare metal recovery option. I chose Bare metal, which as you see in the pic includes System state and the entire C: drive. You could back up and include additional drives at this step, or not, as you wish. This backup operation took about 20 min, for those who are worried about efficiency, but I'm sure time will vary greatly depending on how big your C: drive is, hardware, and the other usual variables.

 

3. This was the fun bit, that originally did not occur to me but became very obvious as I went along: unplug the original C: drive and substitute my second spare drive. Slap in the original Server 2008 boot DVD. Boot to DVD and choose Repair, then select the option to restore from a WSB backup.

Note that at this point I have two drives connected, one empty and one with my WSB backup from step two. Allow the restore operation to complete, which will take about as long as the backup took to begin with.

 

When done, move the restored drive over to its new home. Boot without attaching to the network. This final step is important if you're going to be using both machines on the same network, want to change the computer name and personalize your new clone -

 

4. At the command prompt navigate to C:\windows\system32\sysprep and run the sysprep tool with the Generalize option. This looks like the following:

 

 

 

Reboot a final time and you have a generic cloned image of your Server 2008 machine. I guess the drawback over a true cloning operation is that cloning disk to disk is one operation, whereas this method requires two operations, and therefore twice the time. But here's the advantage - it works and it's free.

 

We were over in Wellington this weekend as B was on display at the NZ Art Show. The NZ film festival is also on, and we were lucky enough to throw a dart at the guide and take in Searching for Sugar Man. Highly Recommended *****. It's docos like this that will keep us going back and willing to take a chance, more than making up for last year's debacle The Tree of Life. 

Each trip over we explore the fabulous Welly a bit more - this time a side trip over to Lyall Bay and a quick bite at the yummy Elements Cafe. Here are a couple of updated pics of the boys.

When the house is burnin', who ya gonna call?

A couple of nights ago a big 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck around 170km northwest of wellington. We all rushed downstairs wondering what to do. We decided that in case of an earthquake that was near us the safest things to do would be to go under the dining room table or to go outside. Luckily nobody was harmed in Nelson and it was 230km deep so it wasn't nearly as bad as anything that happened in Christchurch, no damage was done apart from the occasional item falling off the shelves in the grocery store. With the big 7.0 nobody even realized that there was an aftershock, it was a measly 4.6 magnitude at the same depth 70km south of Opunake. To find out more visit
                                                                                                                                                       http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/7214948/7-0-earthquake-felt-in-Wellington

By Andrew

This term break we fairly spur-of-the-moment took off for the Otago rail trail. Again. Last time was a couple of years ago in the spring. We got hit by some fierce wind and, well, we didn't make it. This time we are older, wiser, fitter? and we are going the full monty from Clyde to Middlemarch. Highly recommended outing for kiwis and visitors alike.

Otago rail trail

First night at the Lauder Hotel. Good to get day one under our belts, saddles, whatever, and practice our cup stacking in the local pub where Andrew holds the record for holding his hands on the frozen beer tap. He's a polar bear. And it's a good thing, because the mornings are a bit cold.

That be frost on those saddlebags. It's all good. We'll warm up pedaling, and before long Mr. Sun will be along. Here are a few pics of the local wildlife.

Glad this one was off the trail and on the wall at the Chatto Creek tavern.

Now it's back to school, work, basketball, soccer, and this term we'll be leading the contingent for FPS at Broadgreen intermediate.

hello.
Last week we went up mount Arthur with Aunt Sue and Uncle Lee. It was a four day tramp and we stayed at a couple of huts. I got sick on the second night so it wasn't great for me but it was a really nice place to go and here are some photos.There was some tough climbing
We saw some keas for the first time.