New Zealand citizenship

New Zealand law states you have to be in New Zealand for five years on an "unrestricted" visa before you can apply for citizenship. That is, a visa that allows you to stay indefinitely. I wrote about this before: A "resident" visa has an expiration date but you're allowed to live in New Zealand indefinitely; you just can't leave. (If you do, and the resident visa is expired, they won't let you back in.) It's kind of messed up.

Regardless, I got my resident visa on December 9, 2015. (I'd been in New Zealand for over a year before that but was on a tourist visa.) Today I was eligible to apply for citizenship, and I desperately wanted to give the government $470 for no benefit whatsoever. Seriously, unless I wanted to join the military or get top secret clearance*, there is no benefit to being a citizen over having a "permanent resident" visa. I still get to vote, I still get a pension**, I can still leave the country and return***, etc.

But in my desperate effort to be like Jason Bourne, I wanted another passport, so I applied. In the past I took my own passport photos and they were awful, so I decided that this time I'd get my passport photo taken professionally. It cost me $20 but was so worth it:

New Zealand law states you have to be in New Zealand for five years on an "unrestricted" visa before you can apply for citizenship. That is, a visa that allows you to stay indefinitely. I wrote about this before: A "resident" visa has an expiration date but you're allowed to live in New Zealand indefinitely, you just can't leave. (If the resident visa is expired, they won't let you back.) It's kind of messed up.

Regardless, I got my resident visa on December 9, 2015. (I'd been in New Zealand for over a year before that but was on a tourist visa.) Today I was eligible to apply for citizenship, and I desperately wanted to give the government $470 for no benefit whatsoever. Seriously, unless I wanted to join the military or get top secret clearance*, there is no benefit to being a citizen over having a "permanent resident" visa. I still get to vote, I still get a pension, etc.

But in my desperate effort to be like Jason Bourne, I wanted another passport, so I applied. In the past I took my own passport photos and they were awful, so I decided that this time I'd get my passport photo taken professionally. It cost me $20 but was so worth it:

Of course that looks awful, but contrast it with my other passport photos****:

 

 

When I finished my application, I got a friendly email that read:

Tēnā koe,

Thank you for applying for New Zealand citizenship. We will assess the application and tell you the outcome within 5 to 10 months.

 

After it's approved, I still have to schedule (and pay for) a swearing-in ceremony, so I'll be lucky if this is completed within a year.

 

* New Zealand is part of the "five eyes" alliance with the US, UK, Australia and Canada, so my US or UK citizenship would probably qualify me, anyway.

** The cheeky bastards make me take any other pensions first and then "deduct" that from my New Zealand pension, so once I've taken my US pension they will not likely have to pay me anything.

*** Even during the pandemic, I can leave New Zealand, but if I want to return then I have to spend two weeks in a "government quarantine facility" and pay $3,000 for the privilege. (The quarantine facilities are all 4-star or 5-star hotels and include three meals a day, so $3,000 for two weeks is actually heavily subsidized, but I still don't want to do it.)

**** In my last US passport photo, I wore a Hawaiian shirt. I thought it was funny. Now it would mark me as a radical extremist.

 

***** That's far too many asterisks. What would my English teacher say... 

Lecretia Seales

From https://lecretia.org/about/

Lecretia Seales was a lawyer based in Wellington, New Zealand. She was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2011. In January 2015, Lecretia’s health entered a decline despite her treatments and she came to the end of her options for treating the cancer effectively.

She began to review her end-of-life alternatives. She discovered that if she was very lucky, she might die quickly, but that the more likely outcome was that she would have to undergo a drawn out, undignified death, after losing her mental faculties and all quality of life. Her other alternative was suicide.

Lecretia would have liked the choice to receive physician-assisted death, to bring about her demise before she entered a long, pointless and wasteful period of suffering prior to her death.

On 20 March 2015, Lecretia and her lawyers filed a statement of claim with the High Court of New Zealand arguing that her GP should not be prosecuted under the Crimes Act 1961 in assisting her in her death with her consent, and that under the Bill of Rights Act 1962 she had the right to not be subjected to the unnecessary suffering of a long, cruel death. Her claim was denied.

Lecretia’s case brought awareness to the plight of the terminally ill, and through her hearing she both clarified the current state of New Zealand law and catalysed New Zealand politicians into engaging with the issue of assisted dying for the first time in more than a decade.

Lecretia passed away on 5 June 2015, the same day the judgment was released to the public. In December 2015, Lecretia was named New Zealander of the Year by the New Zealand Herald.

Parliament had attempted to legislate assisted dying or euthanasia three times since 1995 but all had been blocked. The End of Life Choice Act was passed in November 2019 with the proviso that a public referendum needed 50% support before the Act became law. In October 2020, it passed with 65% and will become law on January 1, 2021. 

If a person requests assisted dying, two doctors – the person’s doctor and an independent doctor – must agree the person meets all the criteria:

• is suffering from a terminal illness likely to end their life within six months
• significant and ongoing decline in physical capability
• unbearable suffering that cannot be eased in a manner that the person finds tolerable; and
• be able to show they can understand the decision and communicate their response.

The person then chooses a method, date, and time and can change their mind at any time. The lethal dose can be administered by the person (ingested or intravenously) or the doctor (feeding tube or injection). In Victoria, Australia, where it is already legal, most people ingest pentobarbital as a drink.

I mention all of this for two reasons. First, obviously, the option of physician-assisted dying has become very personal to me, and I am very grateful this is an option. And second, because my wife and I were house-hunting and looked at a home just a few blocks from us. It's very hard to go house-hunting because it's a constant reminder that at some point my wife will not be able to use stairs, and may not be able to get out of bed, and we want a place that she will be happy in.

This particular house was perfect: One level, on the flat, just a short walk from the shops, quiet with a lovely deck and backyard. The vendor said she was selling the house on behalf of her niece, who had died a few years previously. We noticed handrails in the shower and asked if she had mobility issues. That's when the vendor told us her niece was Lecretia Seales.

I'd only been in New Zealand about six months when her court case unfolded on television but I remembered it well, especially how heartbreaking it was she died the same day they unsealed the judgment. Unfortunately we did not get the house -- the New Zealand property market is out of control, and we were outbid by a significant amount -- but it was only because of that interaction that I realised the End of Life Act was a direct response to her case, and that I owe a debt of gratitude to this woman I'd never met.

Queenstown hotel and spa

My wife and I found a hidden gem in Queenstown. Technically, it's in Frankton, about 10 minutes from Queenstown, between the airport and Lake Wakatipu. We spent four nights there, with all meals included, and the best part, it was free*!

I should note they didn't have a pool or a masseuse (though they did offer physio and, uh, "colonics") and they only had single beds and shared bathrooms/showers. There was a lounge with piano, but we didn't discover that until the third night. (To be fair, it was behind a plastic curtain that said "red zone" and it took us several days to work up the courage to go through.)

If you want to go, the place is called Lakes District Hospital, but I should warn you they're quite particular about who they let in. Collapsing outside the ambulance bay seems to be a good way to gain entrance, though.

At the beginning of the year, the airlines had a sale and I booked a 3-day trip to Queenstown, including an all-day coach/cruise tour of Milford Sound, which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places in New Zealand. (And there's a lot of beautiful places in NZ!) Of course that got cancelled and the airline and tour gave us credit, not refunds. A few months ago, there was another sale so I rebooked the flight for November. Then I found out the Milford Sound tour was now only offered Fridays and Saturdays, and the new flight landed Saturday afternoon.

Last month and I got an email that the flight had been "impacted" by Covid-19, so I could accept it or change to a different flight for free. The "impact" turned out to be the flight was ten minutes later, but I took advantage of the offer to move the flight to Friday, and then booked the Milford Sound tour on Saturday. Then I found out that the Airbnb I booked was not available on Friday.

Then I had a brilliant idea: We could rent a campervan. My wife had wanted to do this for years, but pre-Covid, these were ridiculously expensive and often had a minimum booking of one or two weeks. Post-Covid, with no international travellers, they were less than NZ $100/day and you could rent them for a weekend. I booked a 7-meter, three-berth van with a toilet, hot water shower, kitchen and bbq.

A couple of weeks before the trip, my wife developed nausea so the doctors gave her some new meds to try. On the morning of the flight she was feeling ok but by the time we landed, just an hour later, she was pretty miserable. It was a ten minute walk to the campervan pickup and I, being cheap, refused to pay for a taxi. Along the way we passed the hospital and my wife announced she was going there.

Obviously in hindsight I should have gone with her, but I thought she was just tired and needed a place to lie down, so I said I'd get the campervan and meet her there. She later told me that by the time she crossed the street, she felt very ill, and it turned out we were in the back of the hospital so she ended up at the ambulance bay, which was locked. She pushed the button and then laid down on the ground.

Meanwhile, I was two blocks away, completely oblivious. The guy was showing me how everything worked, and when he was showing me how to fill the water tank, the pipe fell off in his hand. He was clearly quite embarrassed by this and went off to find a mechanic. They said it would be forty minutes to glue it back on so I walked back to the hospital. That's when I found my wife in ED, shaking terribly, obviously in a lot of pain. The doctor looked at me and was clearly wondering why I would drag her onto a flight when she was like this. I assured him she was ok when we left.

Queenstown is known for skiing and is the original home of bungee jumping, so I'm sure the hospital is used to tourists showing up with all sorts of injuries, and their goal is to patch them up enough that they can get home. They took the same approach with my wife, though I was still hopeful we could continue the trip. I collected the campervan and even bought some groceries. It then sat in the hospital parking lot for two days before I returned it. They were a bit surprised I returned it three days early with only 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) on it, but they assured me there would be no refund.

They tried her on various drugs and every time she felt a bit better, I'd start looking at booking a flight, but then she'd relapse. Her main complaint was a debilitating headache, but an x-ray and CT scan didn't find anything. They put her on an IV with an anti-psychotic medication that also happened to treat nausea and migraines. It helped, but only for a few hours. On Sunday they tried Oxycontin and she was feeling so well, we talked about getting a hotel room and spending one day in Queenstown before catching our scheduled flight Tuesday morning. A few hours later, she was doubled over in pain and we never got to see Queenstown.

Monday afternoon we made a plan to give my wife all the drugs at 8:30am, get her to the airport at 9:30 for the flight at 10:30. A friend was going to meet us in Wellington so she'd be home by 12:30pm. It was a four hour window but it was the best plan we had. They gave me a prescription for Oxycontin and asked me to get it filled before we flew. It was 5pm, the nearest pharmacy was a 20 minute walk and they closed at 6pm, so not a problem. Except, that pharmacy was out of stock, the next closest pharmacy was a 40 minute walk, and they also closed at 6pm. I called an Uber and we ended up getting stuck in horrendous rush-hour traffic. Thankfully (!) there was a new shopping mall under construction and he took me down a dirt road through the site and got me to the pharmacy just before they closed.

(I'm sure the hospital would have just given me a few, but I'd spent four days feeling completely helpless and they'd finally given me a job to do and I was determined to to do it.)

Tuesday morning went as planned. I tried to call Uber but it turned out they were banned from the airport, and the closest they could drop us was *further* than the hospital! We got a regular taxi and paid $20 to go about half a mile. I'd arranged for "assistance" at the airport which, it turned out, was just the airline giving us a wheelchair to use. We checked in, got to the gate, and then they announced the flight was delayed by an hour. Later they announced it was at a different gate.

A few years ago, we were in Auckland when I developed shingles and my wife drove eight hours non-stop to get me back to Wellington. She wanted to go straight to the hospital but I insisted we go home, so I understood when she insisted she just wanted to go home. Since then, she's had a couple of periods where she felt like she was sliding down that path but has been able to get the pain under control. No doubt we'll be meeting with the doctors and hospice to try and sort this out, but for now she's doing okay.

In two weeks, we're planning to fly to Napier to see friends. It's just for a weekend, but then in January we're planning to fly to Auckland to visit the kids on camp, and in February we're probably going to drive to Auckland to drop the kids at University. Hopefully we can get this under control so it doesn't impact our plans.

* Uber to airport: $32

Flight to Queenstown:  $179

Campervan for five days: $507

Groceries: $133

Uber to pharmacy: $15

Taxi to airport: $20 

Soy chai latte at airport: $7

Total: $893

So maybe not free, but four nights in hospital in the US would have bankrupted us so I am not complaining.

Leaky buildings

In 1952, the New Zealand building code required framing timber to be treated to resist pests, rot and termites; it required a cavity around the framing timber to provide ventilation; and it required eaves and flashings to deflect water away from the building.

All three were slowly chipped away by an industry that wanted to make houses cheaper and faster. By 1992, the New Zealand building code had abandoned all three of these principles. As a result, an entire generation of homes were built using untreated timber, no ventilation and ineffective flashing. The results were predictable and dramatic: New homes were unlivable within ten years.

All buildings leak, but these buildings -which often didn't have overhanging eaves and lots of architectural embellishments that werent easy to flash - would leak more. The water would get inside the frame and be trapped against the timber; there was no cavity for it to drain away and no ventilation that would allow it to dry. And since the timber was untreated, it would start to rot very quickly. This also invited pests and fungi to flourish, so it was not only structurally unsound but unhealthy to live in.

A government report in 2002 finally addressed the issue and by 2005 the building code had been changed to include these three elements again. (Although still not at pre-1952 levels.) There were a lot of lawsuits, both against builders and the councils who had allowed it. The only remediation is to rip off the entire exterior, replace any rotting wood, treat the rest, then re-clad the building. This can easily cost in excess of $200,000 and is not covered by insurance. Plus it can't be lived in for 12-18 months!

New Zealand has always had a shortage of homes, never more so than today, and replacing all buildings during this 13 year span is obviously not going to happen. So kiwis play russian roulette, buying homes they hope will survive their occupancy, and that they can pass the problem to someone else. It's a terrible situation that the building industry and the government, in a classic example of "regulatory capture," have inflicted on the public.

A tale of four toasters (and four toaster ovens)

When my wife's original toaster died in 2016, I convinced her to get a toaster oven. I had bought one in my early twenties and had it for about fifteen years. (For all I know, my ex-wife still has it.) Since I never had a microwave, it was my go-to appliance for heating small meals, plus it made great toast. If you can love an appliance, I loved that toaster oven.

She agreed and I did my research and bought one that was disappointing from the start. In particular, it didn't make good toast. Instead of pushing a button, you had to set a timer, and if you didn't get it exactly right (or watch it like a hawk) it burned the toast every time. That is, except when you forgot to put it in "toast" mode, in which case you came back to warm bread.

My research also indicated the heating element tended to blow after a couple of years, so I paid $10 for the "extended warranty," which is something I never do. Two years later, the heating element blew, so I took the whole thing back and they gave me a new one! A year later, the heating element on that one blew, so I took it back but the model had been discontinued so they refunded me the purchase price! It was like I'd rented a toaster oven for three years for $10.

Now at that point I should have listened to my family and bought a toaster, but instead I listened to the salesman who sold me a "better" toaster oven. I got that home to find it took up the entire countertop, so it immediately went back and I came home with a much smaller one. This one had the same issue as the first one -- burnt toast -- so my wife went to Kmart, picked up a $9 toaster, and the kids were ecstatic. They'd been without a decent toaster for a quarter of their lifetime! Bread consumption shot way up.

Of course a $9 toaster is not going to last, and within a year it went supernova -- literally, when you turned it on, it lit up like the sun. (We unplugged it before we saw what happened next.) We took it back to Kmart and, to their credit, they replaced it without question. A month later, the lever on that one stopped working, so we were going to take it back but then Covid-19 lockdown happened. When the lockdown was lifted, our car died and was in the shop for nearly a month. When we finally got the car back, we took the toaster back to Kmart and were told the warranty had expired two weeks earlier*.

It was a moot point, anyway, as they were out of $9 toasters and I refused to pay more. So we went back to the toaster oven, and bread consumption went way down. A couple of months later, they were back in stock and we bought a new one. Two weeks later, it looked like this:

Now, you might be wondering what happened to cause the plastic to literally melt off the top and sides. Was it a fault? Did the kids stick a knife in it while it was turned on? No. My wife decided that, rather than use the toaster oven to heat up a tortilla (which it's really good at!) she would rip the tortilla in half, stick it in the toaster briefly and remove it when it was warm. Of course she got distracted and left the kitchen for a moment; the tortilla halves flopped over and by the time the toast cycle had finished, they were on fire. Fortunately my wife returned and caught it before anything else happened.

Do I tell this story to embarrass my wife? Yes. Did I take the toaster back to Kmart, tell them the toaster caught fire spontaneously and demand a full refund? No, but I did think about it. (My father would have done it.) I did go and buy a new $9 toaster, bringing the total I've spent on toasting appliances over the past five years to $122 (plus about $1,800 on bread).

* Some of the details have been changed to make a better story.

So...my wife has cancer. Four words I'd never thought I'd have to write.

In October 2016, she was diagnosed with a breast tumour. They quickly removed it, as well as the lymph nodes around it. They did find a small amount of cancer in the lymph nodes but didn't think it had spread beyond that, and they treated her with localised radiation rather than chemotherapy to minimise the side effects. They then declared her a "cancer survivor" and in my mind, that chapter was behind us. Like most people, I thought any cancer detected early enough was survivable.

Exactly three years later, just as the pandemic was circling the world, my wife started having difficulty breathing. She was tested for Covid-19 but it was negative. Her GP gave her an inhaler to see if it relieved the symptoms; it didn't. Finally her GP requested a CT scan, which was scheduled for 30 March. On 26 March, New Zealand went into lockdown and the hospital cancelled all "non-urgent" scans.

Because of her history, oncology were already aware of the situation and they called to say they would try to organise a CT scan through a private hospital. That happened on 31 March and on 1 April they told us her cancer was back. I'd like to say it was an April Fool's prank, but it wasn't.

They said the reason she was having trouble breathing was because there were lesions on the lining around her right lung (the pleural) which were causing the lining to fill with fluid, preventing the lung from expanding. They put a needle in her back and drained the fluid: Normally there is about 10ml of fluid (less than a capful); they drained 1.5 litres.

After a few days, she was able to breathe normally, but it was short-lived and she had the pleurel drained three more times. On the last one, they injected talc which -- for reasons they don't even understand -- tends to turn off the fluid production. Thankfully she hasn't had any issues with her lungs since then.

While that was going on, they also did a biopsy to confirm the cancer was the same type as the original tumour (it was). On 27 April, they scheduled a meeting to tell us what they had confirmed: It was stage 4, meaning it had metastasised (spread) and it was not curable. All they could do was slow the growth to give her more time, but the 5-year survival rate was less than 25%. That is, my wife has a 1-in-4 chance of seeing her 56th birthday.

The cancer was hormone-receptor-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer, which meant they could target it with endocrine (hormone) therapy rather than chemotherapy. The problem with the endocrine therapy is they know it's only effective for a short period; the mean time for letrazole is 15 months. There is another medication, palbociclib, which extends that to about 24 months. New Zealand had only begun financing palbociclib in April of this year; before that it would have cost us over NZ $5,000 (US $3,325) per month. If there was a bright side to this diagnosis, that was it.

I think there were 3 lesions on her pleura, 2 lesions in her bones and a "mass" near her heart. I say "I think" because when they were giving us this diagnosis, I was thinking about the scene in "Breaking Bad" where Walt is being given a diagnosis of lung cancer, and as the doctor is talking about treatment options all he hears is a ringing noise, like tinnitus. It was a powerful scene, and I felt the same way.

My wife was, oddly, relieved. We'd agreed after the 1 April meeting not to google it or second-guess the doctors, and I'd carried on obliviously, thinking we might have to go through another round of surgery and maybe even chemotherapy, but we'd get through it just like before. She had promptly googled it and, based on what she'd read, thought she had months to live. To hear them talking about years rather than months was a relief.

We told the kids straight away. It's hard to know how they are processing it, because they don't often talk about it, and I don't usually ask because I don't have the reserves to support them while dealing with it myself. One night a couple of months ago I was helping my daughter do some homework and she was frustrated and started saying stupid things like, "I hate my life" which to her was just a phrase; it didn't have any meaning. But to me it was deeply upsetting and I blurted out something like, "Mum's going to die and you're complaining about your homework?" That did not end well.

The good news is she has responded to the drugs; there are no new lesions and her "cancer markers" have fallen from 150 to 50, which means nothing to me but the oncologists are quite pleased. After the first month -- when we were at the hospital two or three times per week -- we've gotten into a routine, seeing the oncologist once a month and having a CT scan every 3 months.  We saw the "palliative specialists" from the hospice and the doctor got my wife on a mix of fentanyl, paracetamol (acetaminophen) and ibuprofen which generally manage the pain. Unfortunately the hospice counsellor was useless, and my wife's one attempt to see the hospice physiotherapist ended when she couldn't find parking.

My wife gave up her job because the combination of the cancer, pain meds and endocrine therapy left her exhausted, and she wanted to spend what energy she had with the kids. She usually sleeps about 12 hours but it's very broken sleep. Sometimes she'll take a nap, but she's always been a very active person so I know it's difficult and frustrating for her.

Our friends ask us what they can do and I tell them, "Nothing yet." Right now she's still able to take care of the house and the meals and the kids and me. At some point that will change, but I can't even imagine it. Which is to say, I can't let myself imagine it. It's like getting too close to the edge of a cliff: The thought of falling is so terrifying, you can't imagine what it would be like to actually be falling.

We don't talk about it much; usually something sets us off and we end up just crying and trying to console each other. I can't imagine what it's like for her; we can talk about mortality in the abstract but we can't conceive of our own death. I'm sure she can't imagine what it's like for me, either; she has no idea how much I depend on her, how much her love enables me to just function every day. We often talked about growing old together, and in my mind this always ended with me going first because I could not conceive of life without her. I still can't.

Does it feel better to have written this? No. Does it feel better to talk to people about it? No. Does it feel better to know people who have gone through similar circumstances? No. My uncle often quoted his father (my maternal grandfather) and these words resonate now more than ever: "Sometimes there's just no use talking."

I voted

It's hard to believe it's been 12 years since I last voted. My birthday is just before election day and I've voted every year since I turned 18. However, I couldn't vote in the UK until I had citizenship, and I moved to New Zealand three days after I got that.

(If I had put my name on the electoral role before I left the UK, I would have been able to vote for Brexit, but I was more concerned with packing all my stuff and selling my car. Also, at the time I hadn't expected to leave Britain forever. I guess what I'm saying is that Brexit is my fault.)

As an American ex-pat I am able to vote for President, but only for President, and my vote goes to the electoral college for the state I last lived in, which is California. I understand the absentee ballots are only counted if the election is too close to call, and since California is always strongly democratic, it seemed like a complete waste of paper (and an expensive stamp).

New Zealand would let me vote once I had permanent residency, which I got one month *after* the 2017 election. And unlike the US, where you vote for a mix of federal, state, county and local officials at the same time, in New Zealand you have separate national and local elections National elections are every three years and you only get two votes: Your local parliament representative and your party vote.

I think I spoke about MMP (mixed member proportional representation) before but the quick recap is that parliament is adjusted to reflect the overall country. To put this in US terms, about 31% of Americans are registered as Democrats, 25% as Republican and 40% as "other." In the Senate, however, Republicans make up 53%, Democrats are 45% and "other" are 2%! That doesn't represent the country at all! If the US had MMP, the elected senators would still be there but the Democrat Party and third parties would be given extra seats so they made up 31% and 40%, respectively. It would no longer be a two-horse race and the third parties would have real leverage as the big parties needed their support to form a working majority.

So who did I vote for? The Labour party, lead by Jacinda Arden. Three years ago the National party had been in power for nine years, the economy was doing well, the Labour leader wasn't well-liked and the polls indicated Labour were going to have their worst result in history. Six months before the election, the Deputy Leader resigned and Jacinda was elected to replace her. Then two months before the election, the Labour leader stepped down, as well! Jacinda stepped up and ran an unrelentingly positive campaign. She was passionate, informed, empathic, and she didn't have a chance. She didn't win the election but she saved Labour and, more crucially, she stopped the National party from achieving a majority on its own. National had to form get a coalition to get a majority, but no third parties wanted to work with them!

Then a crazy thing happened: Jacinda formed a coalition with the "New Zealand First" party. They were unlikely bedfellows, much like the Tories and Liberal Democrats in the UK in 2010, but with the roles reversed. Jacinda, at 37, became the new Prime Minister. She was very likeable but her track record was a bit spotty - a lot of promises with little to show for it - and she may well have lost in the next election except for a little thing called Covid-19. By relying on the doctors and scientists, and expressing compassion, she got the entire country working together and was able to nearly eliminate the virus from New Zealand. It wasn't perfect and of course the New Zealand economy has taken a big hit, but everyone knew how much better they were compared to the rest of the world.

In 2017, rather than an historic defeat, Labour won 14 new seats. In 2020, they won an additional 19 seats, The National party, by contrast, lost 3 seats in 2017 and 23 seats in 2020! Going into 2020 they had a very unlikable leader; he was challenged by another member of the party and lost, but then the new leader stood down a few weeks later, allowing a third person -- Judith Collins -- to take the role. It should have been interesting, having two females contesting for the role of Prime Minister, but Judith ran a very mean campaign and everyone hated her.)

So in 2014, National had 60 seats and Labour had 32. In 2020, Labour has 65 seats and National has 33. Amazing how quickly the tides can turn.

(On a personal note, it's the first time I've ever voted for a liberal party. In the US, I always voted for the Libertarian Party* because, as I said, California was always going to vote Democrat so I didn't have to worry about keeping out Republicans.)

* True Libertarians, not scumbags like Rand Paul.

Fish tank, week 6

It would help if I would use a consistent format...

I have 5 neons, 3 black skirts, 5 pearl danios, Gizmo the angelfish and a Siamese algae eater named "Ali G" (get it?).

I had a bit of a scare earlier this week - the larger black skirt was looking bloated and sitting at the bottom of the tank while the two smaller ones were hassling it. However, the next day all was fine. I suspect the larger one is a female and she was ready to release eggs, and the smaller ones are males who were looking to fertilise said eggs. I think she laid her eggs at night, which were probably a treat for everyone else. In my youth I would have immediately thrown her into quarantine and treated the tank. Now I just couldn't be bothered.

My next project is building a chicken coop. (Or, to be more accurate, a mobile chicken coop.) Watch this space...

A tale of three sofas

Since I got my office back (it was a bedroom from February to July) and have been working from home more, I thought it would be nice to add some extra seating to have some company. (And to save heating two separate rooms.) Although we have three sofas, my wife didn't want to shift any of them, so I started looking on Trademe, the NZ equivalent of eBay.

At first I was looking for a Lazyboy but we both agreed they were hideous. We did look at some smaller recliners, but they weren't very sturdy. (I also looked at some really cool designs, but they were way, way out of our budget.)

So I focused on two-seater sofas, and I finally found a black leather one that looked perfect. I paid NZ $150 and drove 40 minutes to collect it. It was deeper than expected, and about half an inch too wide to fit in the car but we were able to get it on the roof and bring it home. 

That's when I found it was *much* deeper than expected, and I could barely move my chair without bumping it! My wife also didn't find it very comfortable, so "papa sofa" needed to go.

I had also been watching a blue sofa on Trademe that was advertised as a "Small 2 seater couch. Ideal for bedroom or study." It had only gotten one bid so I put in a cheeky bid of $1.50 and won! We picked it up and put it in the office and it was the perfect size, but there was a wooden bar that made it impossible to lie down on, so "baby sofa" needed to go. 

I relisted both of these on Trademe and in a few days I'd sold baby sofa for $30, a $28 profit, and papa sofa for $127, a $26 loss. 

Then another sofa appeared on Trademe that was described as a two-seater sofa in near-new condition. It wasn't as deep as Papa Sofa so I bought it for $200. When we went to collect it, we found it was a full-size sofa! (You could probably sit four people on it.) However, it still fit in the room and looks good, so "Mama Sofa" is staying. 😀

Fish tank - 3 weeks

Four neons died when I introduced them into the tank*, but the other six have been going strong, along with 3 black skirts and an angelfish named "Gizmo."** The plants are growing and I'm getting ready to introduce some more fish. I'm quite happy with it.

* One was a freak accident: The "lid" that came with the tank was just two pieces of mismatched glass that didn't fit, so I went to a glass company and had one piece made and one piece cut down. While it was off the tank, one of the neons - who aren't known for jumping - jumped out of the tank! But he landed on the other piece of glass so all he had to do was wriggle himself just a little bit and he would have fallen back in the tank. He didn't do that. :'(

** Gizmo was from a joke I made: I told the kids to not expose the fish to bright light, never feed them after midnight, and above all, never, ever let them get wet. 

Prostate exam

My uncle used to love to say to me, "I knew there was a problem with my prostate exam when I felt the doctor's hands on my shoulders."

In the US, general advice (assuming you have medical insurance) is for men to have a rectal prostate exam starting at age 40. I left the US when I was 38.

In the UK, general guidance is to have your first rectal prostate exam at 45. I left the UK when I was 44.

In New Zealand, general guidance is to have your first rectal prostate exam at 50. I just turned 50 last November. It seemed extreme to flee the country just to avoid being probed.

And I'm happy to report my prostate is "symmetrical and soft" and, more importantly, the doctor did not put his hands on my shoulders at any point. 

And so it begins...again.

Today I crossed the Brimley/Cocoon Line:
https://brimleyline.date/

Uh...congratulations?

When I grow up

I wrote this in 2007 or 2008. At the time I was trying to grow my hair long because I liked how Willie Nelson looked. (He was about 80 and I wasn't yet 40, so I'm not sure what I was thinking!)

When I grow up
I will wear my gray hair in a pony tail
Tied with a bright red band
And faded blue jeans
Sometimes with a vest and fedora
Or a shirt and cap
Maybe even a fishing hat or baseball cap
I will have a closet full of hats
And wear a different one every day

When I grow up
I shall sit on the park bench
And watch the people scurry by
And wonder why I didn't sit down long ago
I will smell the roses, and
Pluck a petal, to rub between my fingers,
Then give it to a small child

When I grow up
I will remember what it was like to be young
To fall in love, to discover new music,
To be passionate about everything
But long after the passion is gone
The love remains, a smoldering connection
Imbuing all of my senses
I shall not wish to be young again
But I will appreciate my life

When I grow up
I will finally be as old as I feel
I will cry at happy moments
And laugh at sad ones
I will love everyone (even if they don't know it)
And I shall find such peace
That when my time comes
I will not begrudge it

When I die
I want to be buried with my gray hair in a pony tail
Tied with a bright red band
And faded blue jeans
With a white shirt and a vest
But no hat
I will leave my closet full of hats
To someone who will
Wear a different one every day

Music to break up by

Dido's "Life for Rent" came on the other day and it took me back 9 years ago, to my breakup with Jess. In fact, I associate a specific album with every breakup in my life; or more accurately, I credit a specific album with helping me get through those dark periods. Dido's lyrics resonated with me at the time, like "Life for Rent"

I haven't ever really found a place that I call home
I never stick around quite long enough to make it
...
But if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy
Well I deserve nothing more than I get
'cause nothing I have is truly mine

"White flag"

I know I left too much mess and
destruction to come back again
And I caused nothing but trouble
I understand if you can't talk to me again

"Sand in my Shoes"

I've still got sand in my shoes,
And I can't shake the thought of you
I should get on, forget you
But why would I want to?
I know we said goodbye,
Anything else would have been confused
But I want to see you again

and "Stoned"

When I feel loved baby, I join the road
And the world moves with me
When I feel lost I just slip away
Silently, quietly take my things and go
And think what's the point
Think where's the hope we're coming home

In 2006 it was Mindy Smith's "One Minute More" helping me get to grips not only with my divorce, but my entire future falling apart, with songs like "Raggedy Ann"

So when did I get so broken?
I wouldn't notice...
Everything just breaks away from me.
Hey! When did I get so broken?
I wouldn't notice...
Everything important leaving me.
Falling apart at the seams.

"Angel Doves"

When it's hard for you to breathe
Keep a clear mind
When it's hard for you to be
Just to be yourself sometimes

"Down in Flames"

And I would tell you I am happy
If I wasn't so damn sad
And the loneliness both overwhelms and keeps me empty
That's how it's been for a while
And life's so hard
It's the little things that seem to be getting me today, yeah
Life's so hard
But I'm doing what I can not to be getting down
I'm going down in flames
Going down in flames

and "Hurricane"

I need a hurricane
To empty out this place
Seems it's the only way
To salvage any sense I have left
To move on

In 1992, Steve Winwood's "Back in the High Life" got me through the end of my first relationship with songs like "Higher love"

Worlds are turning and we're just hanging on
Facing our fear and standing out there alone
A yearning, and it's real to me
There must be someone who's feeling for me

 "The Finer Things"

I've been sad
And have walked bitter streets alone
And come morning
There's a good wind to blow me home
So time be a river rolling into nowhere
I will live while I can
I will have my ever after

 And "My Love's Leaving" (a bit on-the-nose, I'll admit, but more poignantly she kept our dog, Shadow)

Can't believe, only me
Shadows in purple thrill me
I cry myself awake each night
I can't believe that it's true
Here am I, oh, where are you

Recently, I've noticed these songs I thought were about break ups could equally apply to death. Songs like Hall & Oates' "She's Gone," Willie Nelson's "Always On My Mind" and "Loving Her Was Easier," Bill Withers' “Ain’t No Sunshine,” Alison Krauss' "Baby, Now That I've Found You," Frank Sinatra's "One for My Baby" -- all take on a very sombre tone when you imagine the singer lost someone they loved. In particular, Crosby, Stills and Nash, "Southern Cross" is haunting.

When you see the Southern Cross for the first time
You understand now why you came this way
'Cause the truth you might be running from is so small
But it's as big as the promise, the promise of a coming day

So I'm sailing for tomorrow, my dreams are a dying'
And my love is an anchor tied to you, tied with a silver chain
I have my ship and all her flags are a flying'
She is all I have left and music is her name

Think about how many times I have fallen
Spirits are using me, larger voices calling'
What heaven brought you and me cannot be forgotten
I have been around the world looking' for that woman girl

Who knows love can endure
And you know it will
And you know it will

The twenty-tens

Having dredged up "the noughties" in 2020, it seems only appropriate to repeat the exercise now.

	2010	2020	In between	What's next?
Work	Working for a small consulting company	Working for a medium-sized weather company	Worked for a large consulting company, worked for a tiny start-up	Get AWS certified and become a New Zealand citizen, then start looking for new work next year.
Computers	Running a crappy old laptop, that is still 20 times faster than my old desktop	Using a Microsoft Surface Pro 4 from work, possibly the only thing from Microsoft I've ever liked.	Bought a new (crappy) laptop when I moved to New Zealand in 2014, then when I joined the startup in 2016 they gave me a MacBook Pro. (My son has since claimed that.)	No plans.
Mobile	After toying with the idea of an iPhone, got a Motorola Razr that doesn't do anything	A Samsung Galaxy S7.	A Samsung Galaxy S3, S4, S6, S7 edge, S7, S8, S7. (I hated the S7 edge and broke my S8.)	I haven't bought a new phone since my S3 so I'm always a few years behind.
Music	My laptop, phone, alarm clock, and electronic organizer can play MP3s, but I stream most music over the Internet.	All of my songs are in iTunes, plus a family subscription to Spotify.	Last.fm was fantastic for finding years; I was so sad when it died. I hate using iTunes but the other music players I used all died or couldn't sync with my phone.	Get my dad's old records out of my mom's garage
Television	Have a 32" TV set, which I bought for $30	My wife had a 40" TV when we met, but she never watched TV.	I watch Daily Show, Stephen Colbert and Last Week Tonight on YouTube. Recently finished Good Place Ozark, Community, A Family Man and Upload on streaming TV.	Waiting for new seasons of Mrs Maisel, Mandalorian, Ozark and Upload.
Home	Renting a 1-bedroom flat in London	Renting a 5 bedroom house in Wellington.	Moved in with Jess, bought and renovated a home with Jess, broke up with Jess, lived in Reading for 3 years, was homeless for a few months, moved to New Zealand.	My wife and I are hoping to buy a house in February but I'm not allowed to do any renovation as that seems to be the death knell for my relationships.
Car	Don't have a car; have been using public transportation for 3 years :-)	Own a 2008 Volkswagen Touran 7-seater.	After living in the UK for two years, I bought an old, red Peugeot convertible that I had to scrap when I moved to New Zealand. My wife had a Toyota Wish but we bought the Touran off some friends who moved back to the States.	I've been saying "my next car will be electric" for 20 years now, but this time I mean it. Just waiting for one more child to fly the nest.
Microwave oven	Don't own a microwave	Don't own a microwave	When I moved in with Jess, she had a microwave, and when we broke up I rented a furnished apartment that had a microwave.	My wife feels the same way about microwaves that I do. They are evil bastards.
Photography	Just bought a Canon digital SLR camera	I take all my photos on my phone.	The SLR just can't compete with the convenience of a phone.	I should sell my SLR to someone who will use it.
The Internet	Regularly blast my friends with email spam	I've stopped spamming my friends.		God knows. I already feel like a dinosaur.
Comics	xkcd	Dilbert. (I write a monthly summary for the department and I always include a Dilbert cartoon, so I have to read a lot to find one that is relevant.	I loved User Friendly.	Any suggestions?
Books	"King Solomon's Ring" by Konrad Lorenz (published in 1952)	I've been reading biographies of late: John Cleese, Bryan Cranston, Trevor Noah.	Mostly everything I read now is technical, generally off the Internet and not cohesive. (A little bit here, a little bit there...)	Need to study for AWS certification.
Movies	Can't think of anything I loved, but still want to see Nowhere Boy, Up in the Air, and maybe Avatar	Anythingffrom Taika Waititi.	Lots and lots of Marvel films...	I really want to share the classics with the kids but they don't have the attention span for a 90-minutr film.
Health	Overweight, not exercising.	Overweight, not exercising.	I joined a gym, started taking a lot of yoga classes again, even went a year without eating gluten...and didn't shed a pound.	Need to join a gym again.
Relationship	Engaged, talking about having kids.	Married, three stepkids (about to turn 16, 18 and 20!)	Hard to believe they were 8, 10 and 12 when I first met them!	The eldest has moved out and is attending uni; the middle child graduates high school this year and hopes to spend a gap year in Israel.

The noughties

I wrote this in 2010 but never published it...
 
The end-of-decade celebrations have included a lot of timelines, so I thought it would be fun to contrast my life then-and-now.

	2000	2010	In between	What's next?
Work	Working for a large consulting company	Working for a small consulting company	Became an independent contractor for Honda; opened a bed and breakfast	Renew my work permit in May, and then who knows?
Computers	Running a 486 on Windows 98 with a dial-up modem, hooking up to a public server in Colorado to access the Internet.	Running a crappy old laptop, that is still 20 times faster than my old desktop	Went through 3 computers, including building a desktop from scratch two years ago; now it's a doorstop; bought laptops for nieces and nephews	Upgrading to a new netbook next year, with Chrome OS
Technology	After years of saying I would never have a mobile phone, finally bought one	After toying with the idea of an iPhone, got a Motorola Razr that doesn't do anything	After years of saying I would never get an electronic organizer, finally bought one (and when that broke, I bought a used one that was even older)	Again toying with the idea of an iPhone
Music	Ripped most of my albums to CDs. This was a laborious and time-consuming process, and took so much space I deleted the music off my hard drive	My laptop, phone, alarm clock, and electronic organizer can play MP3s, but I stream most music over the Internet.	All of those CDs died, so I lost all of that music again. Ripped all of my CDs to MP3 files. Bought a record player, but sold it when I moved to London.	Get my dad's old records out of my mom's garage
Television	Had a 20" TV set which was already 10 years old	Have a 32" TV set, which I bought for $30	Didn't watch much TV until I got Tivo in 2003. Only shows I watch regularly are Doctor Who and The Daily Show.	Get rid of my TV. (Went 6 months without one and didn't miss it.)
Home	Had a 3-bedroom house in LA	Have a 1-bedroom flat in London	Moved 9 times (twice back to LA)	Moving in with Jessica, and buying a house together in May
Car	I had just bought a '98 Pontiac Sunfire convertible, forest green	Don't have a car; have been using public transportation for 3 years :-)	Left it in Pennsylvania; I have no idea why	Moving out to the countryside, and will need to buy another car :-(
Microwave oven	Didn't own a microwave	Don't own a microwave	Never bought a microwave	Jess has said if we move in together, a microwave is non-negotiable
Photography	Had just bought a Canon SLR camera	Just bought a Canon digital SLR camera	Got really into photography for several years, then lost all interest	Jess just gave me her old digital camera, because I kept complaining the SLR was too heavy to lug around
The Internet	Didn't know anyone who had an email address	Regularly blast my friends with email spam	Started four blogs, built three web sites, and still completely missed the digital revolution	Toying with a Twitter account
Comic strips	Dilbert	xkcd	I still miss Calvin & Hobbes	Fail blog
Books	"A Sand County Almanac" by Aldo Leopold (published in 1949)	"King Solomon's Ring" by Konrad Lorenz (published in 1952)	Read a whole lot of books on business process management and historical home restoration	Haven't read any fiction for about 15 years, so I have a lot of catch-up
Movies	Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon	Can't think of anything I loved, but still want to see Nowhere Boy, Up in the Air, and maybe Avatar	Lord of the Rings!	Alice in Wonderland, The Rum Diaries and the A-Team :-)

Washington, D.C. (September 2008)

Every year, we spend one week's holiday with Dawn's family and one week with my family, which leaves zero weeks to go any place new. To cope with that, I've tried to add side-trips to Philadelphia, Maryland, etc. This year we weren't going to do that. In fact, I booked flights into Lancaster Airport, just 15 miles from the farm, so we wouldn't even have a chance to go elsewhere!

We planned to go over Memorial Day and I bought plane tickets on sale in February. Dawn put in a leave request which was...denied. Apparently Dawn had told her co-worker about the trip the day before, and her co-worker then submitted a leave request for that same weekend, and the firm didn't want both of them on holiday at the same time.

To say Dawn was furious would be an understatement, but I was equally upset because the sale was over and rebooking the flights would cost twice as much! However, I was able to get flights into Baltimore for a small increase. That's when I realised we could make a side-trip to Washington, D. C.

Friday night we took the red-eye to Baltimore, arriving Saturday at 6am, drove an hour to Washington D. C. I'd been watching the weather and it had been hot and muggy, so I convinced Dawn not to pack any heavy clothes. Of course that night a storm had moved in and it was raining and cold! We stood in line in 50-degree weather wearing light windbreakers for an hour and a half to get tickets for the White House. Considering all of our holidays, this was not a bad start.

The White House was a very understated experience, but in a good way. Having been through some of the more ornate castles in Europe, I rather liked knowing that the President of America lives in something less than opulent. (And that he gets kicked out when his term is finished.)

We went to the Smithsonian which, I quickly learned, is actually nine separate museums along The Mall. We started in the Aviation museum, which has the original Wright flier, the Spirit of St. Louis, and several of the Apollo capsules. Dawn summed it up neatly when she said, "It’s just a bunch of dumb planes and stuff." Fortunately she found something she liked--the Albatross Condor, a precursor to the Albatross Gossamer that flew across the English Channel under human power.

We walked back to our hotel and crashed for a couple of hours, then headed off in search of food. We headed for a french restaurant just a few blocks away, but to get there we had to go through three empty parking garages, down two dark alleys, and across an open field. What I gained from this experience was a stark appreciation for the homeless problem in DC.

We walked into the french restaurant and quickly realized our jeans-and-t-shirt ensemble would not fit in with their black tie affair, and quickly departed for a seafood restaurant a block away. It was much more laid back and the reason quickly became obvious: The "rum buns" they served as dinner rolls were about 40 proof! Since I don’t like alcohol, I couldn’t eat them, but they did serve as excellent candles.

After dinner we drove to the Lincoln Memorial. It was surprisingly crowded considering it was midnight, but I got a couple of nice pictures while Dawn memorized the Gettysburg address. We then went to the Jefferson Memorial, which (I thought) was even more impressive. By this time, however, our legs had completely collapsed and we had to be carried back to our hotel.

The next morning, we drove into the outskirts for a wonderful french breakfast (eggs benedict seemed so appropriate in the capitol), then walked past the Supreme Court and through Congress. Again it was gratifying to note that these buildings were still reserved and stately without being ornate or showy. We walked to the front of the Congress and watched several ducklings cavort in the reflecting pool. By this point we were already hopelessly late so we grabbed a sandwich and raced across town to the Vietnam Veteran’s memorial. We had about ten minutes to appreciate it, so we took about an hour. Of all the historic sites, natural wonders, and scenic splendor I have rushed past with barely time to snap a few pictures, the one place I slowed down was just a list of names on a wall, many of whom died before I was even born.

I also recognized, with no small amount of indignation, that there was no memorial to WWI and WWII veterans. Being a pacifist, this may be a strange thing for me to say, but it seems to me that of the billions Congress wastes each year, it could find a little decency to "waste" some of it here.

We finally moved on, racing back to Pennsylvania before it got dark. The farm was essentially unchanged with the exception of five new wolves. Lucky and Lady, two black wolves, had been born in the pack, but not to the alpha female. She had tried to kill them so Dawn’s mom was hand-raising them. Fortunately we missed the hourly feedings (and hourly clean-ups) and had arrived just a few weeks after they had moved outside, in a pen of their own.

The rest of the week I spent planning for the rest of my life. Essentially, I’m looking at a major money pit out in the middle of nowhere and being told that is where I’m going to retire to. Now a sane man would just walk away, a brave man would just say no, and a smart man would convince Dawn that she would really rather retire in Hawaii. I did none of these. But before I sank my entire retirement portfolio into a piece of property that I didn’t even own, I wanted to shore up this investment somewhat. So Dawn's mom and I squared off and started negotiating, the practical upshot of which is that I’m going to sink my entire retirement portfolio into a piece of property that I don’t even own. But, as my uncle would say, at least I get to pet the wolfies.

House update (Jun-Sep, 2000)

We'd been told the roof needed to be replaced four years ago. It was "wood shake," which had since been banned in California because of the fire hazard, and was well past it's 20-year lifespan. We preferred the look of shake over shingles, because it's thicker and has more character, but composite shake costs about $8,000 more! So we ate PB&J all year and saved our pennies, but when we were finally ready to commit we found a company that had just started producing a thicker shingle, so we could do the roof and save the $8,000!

Dawn did some back-of-the-envelope calculations and figured $1,500 to remove the acoustic ceiling and $3,000 to put a cover over our deck, even though neither of us could remember why we wanted to do that in the first place. That left about $3,000, so I started calling spa places.

The cheapest new spa was $5,200 but I found a used spa for $950. He even delivered it, but I didn't have anywhere to put it--I didn't want to leave it in the yard while the roof was replaced--so I put it in the garage. On Dawn's side. She did not take having to park in the street for a month well.

Still in the garage were the sliding french doors we bought in '97 to replace the regular french doors that lead out to the deck-cum-spa. We hadn't planned to buy new doors but I'd mentioned my plans for the hot tub to my neighbor John (the general contractor) and he was picking up some doors for a job one day and saw these selling for half price. Apparently it was a custom order that had been cancelled, so they were just trying to get rid of them. John agreed to buy them, dropped them off at my house and gave me the bill. (In hindsight it was a great bargain and they fit perfectly, but at the time I was a bit...perturbed.)

First the roof guy came out. The first thing we learned was that all of the quotes we received weren't for the thicker shingle Dawn liked; that cost $1000 more. Then we found out the fascia around the house would cost another $1000. We cancelled the acoustic ceiling and the cover over the deck, but then Dawn decided she needed gutters, so the cost went up another $500.

Over the deck-cum-spa was a large opening in the roof. We'd talked about installing a skylight but somehow I convinced Dawn that it would be nice to keep the opening--you could see the stars, you didn't have to worry about steam, etc. The day before the roofer arrived, Dawn took me to the deck and pointed at the two inches of leaves, and let me know she had just cleaned the deck last week. I ordered the skylight that afternoon, for $700.

The next week the spa guy came. He looked at our five-foot-wide deck, then at our five-foot-wide spa, and asked us if we knew what the hell we were doing. Then the door guy came out. He looked at the current French doors, then at the sliding French doors which were one inch short and five inches wider, and asked us if we knew what the hell we were doing. Then the drapery guy came out, because we wanted tiebacks on the sliding door, just like the ones on the french doors in the guest room. The drapery guy pointed out that you can't attach tiebacks on a sliding door, announced we didn't know what the hell we were doing, and left.

Next came the paint. I looked at the French doors, then at the 1" paintbrush I had, and I asked Dawn if she knew what the hell I was doing. Dawn also re-painted the back deck, partly because it desperately needed it, but mostly because we'd replaced a couple of the boards to hide the last vestige of the pine tree that had once grown through the deck, and we needed the paint to match.

Finally the plaster man came out. Two years ago we had replaced two doors with windows but decided not to repair the plaster until the spa was in. He looked at the spa butt up against the stucco and asked us if we knew what the hell we were doing.

I thought we were done, but one of Dawn's coworkers announced that they'd just taken down a brick wall, and so had 600 bricks they were giving away. The house used to have brick walkways on both sides of the house, but when we moved in they were both in bad condition and we ended up scavenging the (rarely used) west side to finish the (high traffic) east side. Dawn decided this was an opportunity for us (read, "me") to refinish the west side. After three truck-loads of bricks, I declared the walkway finished. (And every time Dawn points out the big gaping holes, I again declare the walkway finished.)

And then we were done. We'd spent almost $17,000. Dawn got a new roof, a new set of doors, a new brick walkway, four new dining room chairs, the deck was fixed, the stucco was repaired, the carpets were cleaned and I GOT MY HOT TUB!!!

Before and After photos

Living room. Note the "atrium" is two levels and goes down to earth. Unfortunately it's north facing so doesn't get much sun. We put in a koi pond and a ficus tree.

Back yard. Originally a wooden fence overgrown with ivy; when we pulled that all out we were pleasantly surprised to find the neighbors had built a nice cement block fence on their side. We planted more ficus trees; in two years they were over ten feet tall.

Master bedroom. We installed a giant skylight to try and increase the sunlight in the atrium.

Front fence. The original was only finished on the outside and was in very poor condition. We decided to replace it but the local by-laws now said a front-fence could only be two-feet tall! We decided to ignore that, but put in trellis so it looked more open, and some bushes to soften it. The city never noticed.

 

The front yard. 20 years of neglect had left the yard barren and rock-hard. After turning it over, we ordered some turf and in one day had created a lawn.

 

The garage. I have no idea what they were thinking when they decided to build a garage but no door into the house. Dawn's truck barely fit in the garage, so the stairs had to be specially built to accommodate that.

The back yard. I originally tried to make a grass path but the walnut tree did not allow enough sunlight, so it was eventually replaced with brick.

 

The guest room. Later it became the piano room.

 

The deck-cum-spa. I don't have an after photo but imagine new doors, a spa taking up the entire deck and a skylight.

 

The kitchen. It was hideously ugly but perfectly functional, so the only thing we did was put in the curtains.

 

More of the split-level living room. Including the koi pond, I had over 1,000 gallons of water. Thankfully we never had any major quakes while we lived there.

The west side. This was almost inaccessible and I had no plans to do anything, but the neighbor wanted a cement block fence so we ended up splitting the cost. Unfortunately it damaged the roots of the avocado tree and it didn't produce for several years.

Gender is not binary

Or is it?

(at a McDonald's in Wellington) 

Fish Update 37 (July 1995)

I think this was the last one I wrote, and ironically it had nothing to do with fish. It was a rambling mess and I'm not certain I ever sent it. (At least, I hope I didn't.) The previous one had been shortly after my father passed away, and this covered from March 1994 to July 1995. I include it here for completeness, but I don't recommend reading it.

I can't believe we’re halfway through 1995 already and it’s been over a year since the last Fish Update. So much has happened, I just couldn't keep up. At one point I tried to keep an audio accounting, but by the time I filled the second tape, transcribing all of it was too daunting. (I’m thinking of releasing fish updates in audio format, though. Bobcat Goldthwait could read it.)

Employment Update

As everyone knew, I was not satisfied with my job. Sure, coming in at 9, leaving at 4, and taking two hour lunches was nice and spending most of the day surfing the 'Net was fine, but in two years all of the projects I worked on had been cancelled before implementation, so it was not very satisfying. More than that, though, I wanted a raise. 

Last July I started floating my resume. Launching a river might be more accurate, as I must have sent out nearly 200. I got my first interview almost immediately, and a job offer two days later. It was a good offer at a good company, but I turned it down because I wanted to see what else was available. It took another two months before I got another offer.

The most ridiculous moment was when I realized I had an interview in Newport Beach at 1pm, and another in Simi Valley at 4pm. Even in light traffic that was a two-hour drive, and there's no such thing as light traffic in LA. I ended up cancelling the first interview. About five months later, that guy called me and said he was now selling nutritional supplements and wondered if I was interested. Very odd.

I applied to a consulting firm that specialised in Unix. My only experience with Unix was with one particularly awful system the Air Force rolled out to all of its bases. I'd volunteered to support it because it meant I got to attend a Unix system administration course. When I got back, the first thing I did was accidentally delete every file on the server. (Thankfully I knew enough that I was able to restore all the files before anyone noticed.) I bluffed my way through the interview and was quite sure I'd never hear from them again.

However, they called back that afternoon to set up a second interview, and the day after that, they called to make an offer that was 25% more than what I had asked for! My first thought was the Groucho Marx line, “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.”. I accepted immediately.

I started two weeks later, terrified I was going to be discovered as a fraud. However, I was put on a project supporting some old code for an investment company *by myself.* It was ideal because I didn't have to worry about other people seeing my mistakes! I put in a lot of long hours but I loved it. I was also working in downtown LA and, after some trepidation, I really came to love the downtown area. 

The only downside of working downtown (besides the traffic) was that faded jeans and t-shirts cut it; I need some suits. I ended up spending my first two weeks' salary on clothes. 

School Update

I had taken an auto repair class at the community college just so I could change my own oil. Ten days before Christmas we had a final, but the teacher said everyone who had an "A" was exempt. I was genuinely surprised to find I had an A, but I didn't tell Dawn. Instead, on the night I should have gone to class, I went to the mall and did some Christmas shopping. When I got home, Dawn asked how the final went and I said something vague, like I thought I might get an A. I'd never gotten away with anything before, but she bought it!

The next day Dawn called me at work and asked what I'd been doing at the mall last night. Apparently her boss saw me. I wondered if I could get home before she changed the locks. I imagined all my nice new clothes laying out on the lawn. I thought about telling her that must have been somebody else, but in the end I just said, "I love you." "Uh-huh," she replied.

Las Vegas Update

My parents' accountant moved to Las Vegas about five years ago, which my parents were thrilled about because it meant they could write off a trip to Las Vegas once a year to get their taxes done. (They were also personal friends.) After my father passed away, my mother filed an extension and then completely forgot about her taxes. One Thursday she called and said she had to file by the end of the month! We checked out calendar and discovered the only weekend we were available was...the next day.

The plan was to leave work early on Friday, get on the road by 6 and arrive by 10. The reality was I left work an hour late and my mother arrived two hours late. By the time we'd eaten dinner it was 8:30. Somebody told me it was a four hour drive but it turned out to be five and that didn't include the hour I spent trying to drag Dawn and my mother out of the first casino we passed. We finally arrived at 3:30 in the morning and our hosts were not amused.

The last time I'd been to Vegas was about six years before, and it was pretty dull because I was underage. Now it was dull because I didn't drink or gamble. I did check out the new casinos that had been built: The Luxor was fairly impressive from the outside but the interior looked like it had been slapped together by a fourth grader. The Mirage had a 10,000 gallon salt tank but it was filled with tacky day-glo fake coral. The pirate battle outside Treasure Island was actually quite cool, but hard to appreciate when crushed in by 3,000 people. One building still under construction was Bob Stupak's "Stratosphere." Or, as the locals call him, "Bob Stupid." His idea of building the tallest structure in the world was fine, but putting it on the flight path for McCarran airport was not.

In the end we all got our  taxes done and our hosts were so lovely I've already arranged to come out next tax season.

Consultant Update 1

About a year ago, Dawn started noticing problems with her server at work. The person who installed the system suggested changing the motherboard, but I said that was ridiculous, motherboards don't go bad.  Unfortunately I said that in front of Dawn's boss and the next thing I knew I was their new computer consultant.

I had no idea what I was doing, but I'd come in after my day job and spend hours fiddling with the system. At first, I thought it was one of the network cards. I swapped it with a new network card, which worked fine for about 12 hours. The next day, Dawn called and we ordered pizza and spent the whole night trying to figure out what was wrong. I tried a different network card with no success, and in desperation I tracked down a network card that was exactly the same model as the original card and it worked fine. (So much for generic, interchangeable parts!) after all this I wrote up a bull for the new network card and two hours of labor. I was too embarrassed to admit how much time I'd actually spent on it. I also forgot to include tax in the bill and had to pay that out of pocket. As a computer consultant, I was effectively charing about $6 per hour, which was less than minimum wage. 

Dawn's boss of course was thrilled, and asked me to upgrade the server. Of course the first thing I did was take a backup. (No, seriously, I did.) The tape backup unit had about three years worth of dust and it indicated it would take about 2.5 hours so I wandered off to the mall for two hours. When I returned, I was greeted with this message, "Tape full, insert new tape."

I took a look and decided it had backed up the important stuff, so I aborted the backup. I pulled the hard drive out just to get its specs; it also had about three years worth of dust. I couldn't read how big the hard was so I decided to turn on the PC and check that way. As soon as I flipped on the power, smoke started pouring out of the hard drive.

I immediately turned off the computer and prayed the smoke was just from the dust, but when I tried to reboot the computer it told me there was no hard drive. Thankfully I'd started this on a Friday night so the next morning I was able to run out and buy a new hard drive. I went to install DOS but I had 5¼" disks and the computer only had a 3½" drive. Thankfully I was able to pull a 5¼" drive from another machine and got it sorted. By now it was late Sunday, I still needed to restore the backup and it had to be ready for Monday morning.

When you use a program to backup data, you typically need that same program to restore the data. Of course, when I changed the hard disk, I lost the backup software, as well. Miraculously, after ransacking the boss' office, I found the original disks in the back of an unlocked drawer. I installed it, started the restoration process, went and got dinner, then came back for a victory lap only to find two directories were completely empty. After a panicked phone call, Dawn said she wasn't sure what those folders were for, or even what might have been in them, so I quietly decided to ignore it and see if her boss noticed. (She didn't.) 

After spending an entire three-day weekend on it, I submitted a bill for the new hard drive and...five hours of labor.

Tile Update

After the earthquake destroyed my parents house, my mother rented a condominium. One day there was a water leak by the front door and the plumber had to pull up some tiles to access it. The tiled section was tiny - maybe four square feet - and my mother worked for a tile company so she got a quote and the landlord just gave her the cash to take care of it.

Meanwhile, I happened to be at Home Depot one night and saw they were offering a free class in tile laying the next day. It was a one hour lesson and the instructor made it look quite easy, so I convinced my mother to let me do the job.

The following Saturday I drove to her place and the first thing I did was mix up a batch of the cement, as it takes a while before it's ready. Then I started removing the old tiles only to find an ants nest colony under there! I found some ant spray and took care of them, then proceeded to remove the old cement. Nobody told me this would take over two hours! (I also managed to get several large chunks of cement in my eye, which is not a pleasant experience.) 

I then laid out the new tiles but all I had was a manual tile saw so it took forever to cut them properly.  (I butchered about 15 before I finally got the hang of it.) By this time, the cement I'd mixed up five hours ago was almost past its usable life, so I decided to quickly set all the tiles and then move them as needed. That's when I discovered you can't move them after they're in. But it was okay; they actually looked pretty good.

The next day, I came back to do the grouting. Again, it actually looked pretty good...from the ground. Dawn went up the stairs and looked down, then ominously said, "Uh, could you come here for a second?" I replied, "If it's a problem, it's too late to do anything about it." She told me I needed to come up so I did and discovered that what had looked straight and level from eight inches away looked ragged and crooked from ten feet away! 

If I was a good son (or even a good person) I would have ripped everything up and started over, or just let a professional fix it. Instead, I decided that since it was a rental, it didn't really matter. My mother covered it with a throw rug and we never discussed it again.