Most democracies use a "first past the post" system -- that is, each constituency votes for their preferred candidate, and the one who gets the most votes represents that area. The party that gets the most representatives then is the "ruling" party. That seems quite reasonable; however, that "winner take all" approach means the elected representatives don't necessarily reflect the electorate.
In America, this is most clearly seen in the electoral college, but it can also be seen in Congressional races. For example, in the last US election, 45.2 million Americans voted for a Democratic senator while only 39.3 million Americans voted for a Republican senator, yet Republicans kept control of the Senate by focusing on where the votes were cast. Because each state gets two senators regardless of population, votes in small states are "worth" more than large states. Similarly, in "swing states" (where the election is close), votes are worth more than "safe states" because winning by one vote is the same as winning by a million votes. According to wallethub, a vote in New Hampshire is "worth" 84 times more than a vote in New York!
Of course, this isn't a recent phenomenon, and isn't limited to the US: In the last UK elections, Labour received 42.2% of the popular vote while the Conservates received 42.1%. However, Conservatives captured 318 seats (48.9%) while Labour only captured 262 (40.3%).
In 2011, the UK held a referendum to change the "first past the post" vote with what they called "alternative vote." It suffered a resounding defeat, although I believe it was because the Conservatives--who benefited most from the current system--ran a successful campaign of fear and doubt. Under "first past the post" a vote for a third party is effectively wasted because that candidate has no chance of winning. Alternative Vote would have allowed voters to cast multiple votes, specifying the order of preference, so voters could vote for a third party candidate followed by a major candidate, knowing their vote would count either way.
In the 1980s, New Zealand was suffering a similar situation but took a different approach. The first-past-the-post system had encouraged a two-horse race between National and Labour, and third parties were completely sidelined. In 1978, Social Credit won 16% of the vote but only one percent of the seats. In 1981 they won 21% of the vote but only 2% of the seats. At the same time, Labour received more votes than National, but National won more seats. When Labour won in 1984, the set up a Royal Commission to review the situation. The Royal Commission recommended an alternative that had been forced on Germany after World War 2.
In March 1933, the Nazi party won the German Federal election with 44 percent of the popular vote. This was enough to seize control, install its leader as a dictator and dissolve the Reichstag. All other parties were then banned. At the end of World War II, the Allies wanted to resume democracy but prevent one party from seizing control again. They came up with a "party list" system to ensure proportional representation system, which worked like this: Each voter got to vote for a candidate and a party. They did not have to be the same. The candidate still won using the first-past-the-post system, but the party vote was then used to allocate additional seats to ensure the electorate reflected the national vote.
Using the US senate race as an example, imagine if voters from each state voted for one candidate and one party. 50 Senators would be chosen by direct ballot, but the other 50 would be allocated to based on the party vote. If the Democrats received 53% of the votes but only 48% of the seats (as they did in the last election), they would be allocated 29 additional seats; whereas if the Republicans only received 46% of the votes but won 52% of the seats, they would be allocated 21 seats. Thus, the Senate would have 53 Democrats and 47 Republicans to match the proportion of the party vote.
The idea in Germany was that by preventing one single party from dominating politics, they would be forced to form coalitions and work through compromise. In the US 2016 election, third parties won nearly 5% of the vote; if that had been reflected in the results, neither the Democrats nor Republicans would have won an outright majority and would have had to form a coalition with one of the smaller parties.
In 1993, New Zealand formally adopted the system, calling is "Mixed Member Proportional" (or MMP) for reasons I do not understand. There are 121 seats in Parliament; 71 are elected directly in regional elections and 49 are allocated from the party vote. In the 2014 election, National and Labour still claimed the lion share (76% of the seats between them) but five other parties were represented, and National had to form a coalition with New Zealand First.
I mention all of this as a prelude to the 2017 election, being held in two weeks, which has been an absolute roller-coaster ride. Unfortunately only permanent residents can vote, and I won't be eligible until December. (I also want to talk about the saga of Kim Dotcom, an Internet millionaire who bought his way into New Zealand citizenship in 2009 and has been fighting US extradition on money laundering and racketeering charges since 2012, but in the meantime has bankrolled a new political party, called the Internet Party.)
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
One year later
OK, technically it's 11 months since my "Along came a spider" post, but well past time for an update. The tumor turned out to be much larger than expected (10mm instead of 3-5mm) and it was found in the "sentinel node" (the lymph node closest to the tumour). However, so little was found in the lymph node that they chose to treat her as if it hadn't been there.
She developed several infections after the surgery. Unfortunately, because there were no external symptoms the surgeon dismissed her concerns, and only took it seriously when the infection got so bad her surgical scar burst open! (Yeah, it was pretty disgusting.) We spent quite a few nights at the ER/A&E/ED (or whatever you call it). Fortunately, we have friends who are ER doctors at Wellington hospital, so we were always well looked after.
The infections delayed the radiation treatment until January, because they needed the tissue to be stable. By then, my partner had already resumed work, and every day after work she'd drive to the hospital for a five-minute dose of radiation, then drive home and immediately fall asleep. She had almost no energy but after a month they pronounced her "clear" with a 1-2% chance of recurrence in the next ten years.
I said, "No more medical dramas" but of course she didn't listen to me (or perhaps did it to spite me). I mentioned they accidentally found the tumour when they did a CT scan because she'd been having abdominal pains. Those pains seemed to go away while she was dealing with the cancer, but came back with a vengeance in March. She had several attacks where she was simply doubled-over in pain, unable to move. Over the next two months we had several more visits to the GP and the hospital, and the consensus pointed to gallstones but she did not have the classic symptoms (such as pain after eating a fatty meal). During one attack, they wanted to do an MRI to try and catch the gallstone in action, but it took the MRI team three days to fit her in, and by then the attack had stopped and -- not surprisingly -- they didn't find anything. (An ultrasound had confirmed she had gallstones, but I later learned that most women over forty have gallstones; only a small percentage of them ever develop problems.)
By then we'd decided there really wasn't a down-side to removing her gallbladder--the surgery was routine, and the gallbladder is really a vestigial organ--so we might as well try it and see if it worked. I know that sounds a bit callous, but she was in a lot of pain and nobody had a plan B. For the second time in four months, we called her private health insurance company and they were just as amazing as last time: She was scheduled for surgery in less than four weeks, at the end of July. Had she stayed in the public system, it could have taken a year or more.
It was an overnight procedure, and my partner was very leary of the general anaesthetic. She is a real lightweight when it comes to drugs, and after the cancer op it took her almost 24 hours to recover. The anesthetist was a sweetheart and he said he'd put her on the lightest medication possible, and she was alert an hour after the op. She had no complications apart from a nagging pain in her ribs, which might have been a lingering issue from the radiation.
(She did have one bout of pain; her GP thought it was an internal bleed, and the surgeon thought it might be a small hernia. Either way, they thought it would pass on its own and it did after about a week.)
So she is back to work (again) and slowly rebuilding her muscles after a year of medical traumas. (I called it, "Our year of living medically.") She is walking home from work and swimming and looking great, although she still gets tired quite easily. We have family visiting soon so she is taking five weeks off work to spend time with them; it will be interesting to see if the tiredness still plays a factor.
I'll end this with a photo of my partner, circa 1974. :-)
She developed several infections after the surgery. Unfortunately, because there were no external symptoms the surgeon dismissed her concerns, and only took it seriously when the infection got so bad her surgical scar burst open! (Yeah, it was pretty disgusting.) We spent quite a few nights at the ER/A&E/ED (or whatever you call it). Fortunately, we have friends who are ER doctors at Wellington hospital, so we were always well looked after.
The infections delayed the radiation treatment until January, because they needed the tissue to be stable. By then, my partner had already resumed work, and every day after work she'd drive to the hospital for a five-minute dose of radiation, then drive home and immediately fall asleep. She had almost no energy but after a month they pronounced her "clear" with a 1-2% chance of recurrence in the next ten years.
I said, "No more medical dramas" but of course she didn't listen to me (or perhaps did it to spite me). I mentioned they accidentally found the tumour when they did a CT scan because she'd been having abdominal pains. Those pains seemed to go away while she was dealing with the cancer, but came back with a vengeance in March. She had several attacks where she was simply doubled-over in pain, unable to move. Over the next two months we had several more visits to the GP and the hospital, and the consensus pointed to gallstones but she did not have the classic symptoms (such as pain after eating a fatty meal). During one attack, they wanted to do an MRI to try and catch the gallstone in action, but it took the MRI team three days to fit her in, and by then the attack had stopped and -- not surprisingly -- they didn't find anything. (An ultrasound had confirmed she had gallstones, but I later learned that most women over forty have gallstones; only a small percentage of them ever develop problems.)
By then we'd decided there really wasn't a down-side to removing her gallbladder--the surgery was routine, and the gallbladder is really a vestigial organ--so we might as well try it and see if it worked. I know that sounds a bit callous, but she was in a lot of pain and nobody had a plan B. For the second time in four months, we called her private health insurance company and they were just as amazing as last time: She was scheduled for surgery in less than four weeks, at the end of July. Had she stayed in the public system, it could have taken a year or more.
It was an overnight procedure, and my partner was very leary of the general anaesthetic. She is a real lightweight when it comes to drugs, and after the cancer op it took her almost 24 hours to recover. The anesthetist was a sweetheart and he said he'd put her on the lightest medication possible, and she was alert an hour after the op. She had no complications apart from a nagging pain in her ribs, which might have been a lingering issue from the radiation.
(She did have one bout of pain; her GP thought it was an internal bleed, and the surgeon thought it might be a small hernia. Either way, they thought it would pass on its own and it did after about a week.)
I'll end this with a photo of my partner, circa 1974. :-)
Thursday, November 3, 2016
Falling off a cliff
Looks like the USD and GBP are headed for parity! Two years ago, 1 pound would have gotten you $1.60. Today it gets you just $1.24. Since June it's lost 17% of it's value! I haven't seen a slide like that since 9/11.
But if you think that's bad, compare the New Zealand dollar against the pound. A year ago 1 pound would have gotten you $2.30, today it gets you $1.74, 25% less!
If I were earning NZ dollars, this would be an excellent time to visit Britain. :-) Unfortunately I'm earning US dollars and the US dollar has been quite soft lately, no doubt helped by the ridiculous presidential election. Since the beginning of the year, 1 US dollar has gone from 1.56 NZ dollars to 1.33 NZ dollars, a 15% drop. That means I'm effectively earning 15% less than I was in February! That totally sucks.
That said, there was an article two days ago that the kiwi (as it's affectionally known) had fallen to a 7-week low because...the global price of milk had dropped. If "what's good for the country is good for General Motors" is true in the US, then in New Zealand what's good for the country is good for cows.
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
Eurovision revisited
I've long poked fun at Eurovision (which is something of an institutional pastime, I think) but nothing really sums it up better than the UK entry for 1974, by an Australian singer who didn't even like the song she was singing. (It was chosen by public ballot, a formula which continues to be disastrous for Britain.) What's remarkable is that this came fourth that year! (Abba's "Waterloo" won.)
https://youtu.be/7CSmksNRQ9w
Olivia Newton-John, Long Live Love
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
Along came a spider
There's no excuse for my appalling neglect of this blog, especially considering that my motivation for starting this was a love letter to my future self; a reminder of where I was at, a crutch for my poor memory. It was like "The Notebook" in case I ended up single. (Did anyone notice that nobody actually kept a notebook during the relevant period of the story?)
Anyway, there's no point in apologising. The reason I'm writing tonight is simply because I'm sitting in a hospital room at midnight. Thankfully I'm in the lounge in the corner, not in the bed in the middle of the room. My partner is hogging the spotlight tonight.
It's hard to believe it's only been two weeks since she was diagnosed with breast cancer. And it was a fluke: She had an abdominal CT scan because of intermittent pain, the the CT scan just happened to catch a small part of her breast. Her GP saw it and called her in for an immediate evaluation. Two days later we were talking to the specialist, who ordered a raft of additional tests to see how far it had spread.
Thankfully, it hadn't spread at all. ("Stages" seems to be a pretty ambiguous diagnosis, but I'll put it between stage 2 and 3, depending on whether or not it spread to the lymph nodes; more on this later.) Friday we had a follow-up to discuss options, although there weren't really any options: the tumour needed to be removed, and then more testing needed to be done to see if she needed chemotherapy or radiotherapy.
The specialist only operates on Mondays so he scheduled us for today. (The following Monday was a public holiday, so otherwise we would have had to wait two weeks. Two weeks probably wouldn't have mattered to the cancer, but it mattered a lot to our peace of mind.) I spent the rest of the day on the phone to the insurers; trying to get pre-approval on a Friday afternoon for major surgery Monday morning is as hard as it sounds.
We arrived at 7am as instructed, even though we knew she wouldn't be called until 11:30am at the earliest. It all sounded very straightforward and I thought we might be home by 3pm, when the kids get out of school, although I did have contingency plans. It turned out, she wasn't called until 1:30pm, wasn't out of recovery until 3:30pm, and they said she could leave at 5:30pm provided she could walk and pee (not necessarily at the same time).
At 3pm I arranged for friends to watch the kids. At 6pm I arranged for friends to feed the kids. At 8pm I was arranging for sleepovers for the kids. My partner was recovering very slowly, and I was starting to wonder if she was going to leave that evening. At 8pm I collected the kids and brought them home to pack an overnight bag, with the intent to drop them at their dad's. That's when the middle child started sobbing uncontrollably, saying she didn't want to go to her dad's and begging me to keep her with me.
I still don't know if the issue was really with her father or if she was just worried about her mom, but I didn't have many options at that point. I managed to get her to pack a bag and make some lunch and I took all three over to their dads, which is when they all started crying! They were all hugging me and crying and I was trying to comfort them but I was also aware it was past bedtime and I needed to get back to the hospital, in case my partner was ready to check out!
To make matters worse, my phone had died. I knew it was low so I had it plugged it in while I was waiting for the kids, but NZ (like the UK) has little switches on every outlet, and I'd forgotten to switch it on. So I was trying to charge it in the car but meanwhile I had no way of checking with the hospital.
The kids finally went inside and I headed back to the hospital, which was only a ten minute drive. Halfway there my phone had enough charge that I could check my messages, and the nurse had left a voicemail that they'd decided to keep my partner overnight. By this point I was practically in front of the hospital, but I made a U-turn and went back home to pack our own overnight bag.
I also grabbed some food because by this time I was hangry. That's hungry+angry, and you could tell I was hangry because I only had some bread and cheese for lunch, I hadn't had dinner, and I was screaming at the top of my lungs at my phone, which had now shut off again and the car charger was refusing to work. I finally got back to the hospital around 9:30pm, and after checking to see my partner was okay, I then proceeded to sit in the corner, swearing at everything around me, while I texted updates to our friends. I then finally heated up some food and started to feel better.
Thankfully the nurses were lovely and they gave me a reclining chair, a couple of blankets and showed me where to get tea. Unfortunately I'm not going to get any sleep because I'm well behind at work, and the rest of the team are in San Francisco trying to land a large client that could very easily make or break the company. (I was supposed to fly to California last Thursday, but obviously the cancer took precedence.) So I'll be up all night trying to finish some work to support the rest of the team. (Did I mention I receive a large bonus if they land this client?)
Meanwhile, my partner's prognosis is excellent. They took out some lymph nodes during the surgery and will biopsy those to see if the cancer had started to invade them. If not, and all other signs are clear, she'll be given radiotherapy which is just radiation directed at the breast to kill any remaining cancer cells. The side effects can be just as nasty as chemotherapy, but in general it is much better tolerated (and her hair probably won't fall out).
It's been a rather surreal journey, from an unexpected start to a rather hopeful finish. Along the way I kept describing myself as "naively optimistic," not because I was ignorant of how horrific cancer can be, but because I couldn't conceive of it happening to my partner. I love her completely and the idea of not growing old together was simply inconceivable. Mercifully, her prognosis was excellent, her chance of recurrence is very low, and as her GP told her, "you will die someday, but it will have to be from something else."
P.S. I don't know why I titled this post, "Along came a spider" but it seemed apt, given how suddenly it appeared, and how scary it was. Thankfully my partner isn't Little Miss Muffet, and she kicked that's spider's ass. :-)
Anyway, there's no point in apologising. The reason I'm writing tonight is simply because I'm sitting in a hospital room at midnight. Thankfully I'm in the lounge in the corner, not in the bed in the middle of the room. My partner is hogging the spotlight tonight.
It's hard to believe it's only been two weeks since she was diagnosed with breast cancer. And it was a fluke: She had an abdominal CT scan because of intermittent pain, the the CT scan just happened to catch a small part of her breast. Her GP saw it and called her in for an immediate evaluation. Two days later we were talking to the specialist, who ordered a raft of additional tests to see how far it had spread.
Thankfully, it hadn't spread at all. ("Stages" seems to be a pretty ambiguous diagnosis, but I'll put it between stage 2 and 3, depending on whether or not it spread to the lymph nodes; more on this later.) Friday we had a follow-up to discuss options, although there weren't really any options: the tumour needed to be removed, and then more testing needed to be done to see if she needed chemotherapy or radiotherapy.
The specialist only operates on Mondays so he scheduled us for today. (The following Monday was a public holiday, so otherwise we would have had to wait two weeks. Two weeks probably wouldn't have mattered to the cancer, but it mattered a lot to our peace of mind.) I spent the rest of the day on the phone to the insurers; trying to get pre-approval on a Friday afternoon for major surgery Monday morning is as hard as it sounds.
We arrived at 7am as instructed, even though we knew she wouldn't be called until 11:30am at the earliest. It all sounded very straightforward and I thought we might be home by 3pm, when the kids get out of school, although I did have contingency plans. It turned out, she wasn't called until 1:30pm, wasn't out of recovery until 3:30pm, and they said she could leave at 5:30pm provided she could walk and pee (not necessarily at the same time).
At 3pm I arranged for friends to watch the kids. At 6pm I arranged for friends to feed the kids. At 8pm I was arranging for sleepovers for the kids. My partner was recovering very slowly, and I was starting to wonder if she was going to leave that evening. At 8pm I collected the kids and brought them home to pack an overnight bag, with the intent to drop them at their dad's. That's when the middle child started sobbing uncontrollably, saying she didn't want to go to her dad's and begging me to keep her with me.
I still don't know if the issue was really with her father or if she was just worried about her mom, but I didn't have many options at that point. I managed to get her to pack a bag and make some lunch and I took all three over to their dads, which is when they all started crying! They were all hugging me and crying and I was trying to comfort them but I was also aware it was past bedtime and I needed to get back to the hospital, in case my partner was ready to check out!
To make matters worse, my phone had died. I knew it was low so I had it plugged it in while I was waiting for the kids, but NZ (like the UK) has little switches on every outlet, and I'd forgotten to switch it on. So I was trying to charge it in the car but meanwhile I had no way of checking with the hospital.
The kids finally went inside and I headed back to the hospital, which was only a ten minute drive. Halfway there my phone had enough charge that I could check my messages, and the nurse had left a voicemail that they'd decided to keep my partner overnight. By this point I was practically in front of the hospital, but I made a U-turn and went back home to pack our own overnight bag.
I also grabbed some food because by this time I was hangry. That's hungry+angry, and you could tell I was hangry because I only had some bread and cheese for lunch, I hadn't had dinner, and I was screaming at the top of my lungs at my phone, which had now shut off again and the car charger was refusing to work. I finally got back to the hospital around 9:30pm, and after checking to see my partner was okay, I then proceeded to sit in the corner, swearing at everything around me, while I texted updates to our friends. I then finally heated up some food and started to feel better.
Thankfully the nurses were lovely and they gave me a reclining chair, a couple of blankets and showed me where to get tea. Unfortunately I'm not going to get any sleep because I'm well behind at work, and the rest of the team are in San Francisco trying to land a large client that could very easily make or break the company. (I was supposed to fly to California last Thursday, but obviously the cancer took precedence.) So I'll be up all night trying to finish some work to support the rest of the team. (Did I mention I receive a large bonus if they land this client?)
Meanwhile, my partner's prognosis is excellent. They took out some lymph nodes during the surgery and will biopsy those to see if the cancer had started to invade them. If not, and all other signs are clear, she'll be given radiotherapy which is just radiation directed at the breast to kill any remaining cancer cells. The side effects can be just as nasty as chemotherapy, but in general it is much better tolerated (and her hair probably won't fall out).
It's been a rather surreal journey, from an unexpected start to a rather hopeful finish. Along the way I kept describing myself as "naively optimistic," not because I was ignorant of how horrific cancer can be, but because I couldn't conceive of it happening to my partner. I love her completely and the idea of not growing old together was simply inconceivable. Mercifully, her prognosis was excellent, her chance of recurrence is very low, and as her GP told her, "you will die someday, but it will have to be from something else."
P.S. I don't know why I titled this post, "Along came a spider" but it seemed apt, given how suddenly it appeared, and how scary it was. Thankfully my partner isn't Little Miss Muffet, and she kicked that's spider's ass. :-)
Saturday, May 21, 2016
Eurovision 2016
The Eurovision finale was broadcast in New Zealand for the first time, and I missed it! To be fair, it started at 7am here, and it sucks. I could not have sat through four hours of it. I could barely sit through 9 minutes of it:
All I can say is that this year didn't disappoint. (Be sure to check out the winner, Ukraine, in its entirety.) Also check out the UK entry--to be fair, they didn't come in last place as usual, but it is ironic that artists from Azerbaijan and Belarus sang better English. (I think the line was "I come alive when I'm with you" but it sure sounds like "I come a lot when I'm with you.")
Tuesday, May 17, 2016
Feijoa - the real kiwi fruit
Forget Chinese gooseberries -- grown in China and renamed "kiwifruit" as a marketing exercise -- if you want an authentic taste of Kiwiana, come to NZ between March and June and feast yourself on feijoas (fe-jo-ahs).
Of course, if you believe Wikipedia, feijoas are native to South America, and are usually referred to as "pineapple guavas" in the States, but this isn't about facts, it's about the subtle taste of "pineapple, apple and mint." It's about cutting an egg-sized fruit and letting the soft, somewhat slimy flesh slip over your tongue. It's about the strong, somewhat sour scent hitting your nasal passages. In short, it's about acquiring a taste for them. It's about going native.
Last year I found them a novelty, the kind of reaction that is neither good nor bad, but "interesting." This year I find myself craving them, in large part because someone had the genius idea to put them in a pavlova. Which, by the way, was actually invented in NZ (unless you believe Wikipedia).
Sadly, feijoas can't be picked early and artificially ripened, and they bruise easily, making them a poor candidate for shipping. However, if you have a local source (I'm looking at you, California and South Carolina) I highly recommend you find yourself a few of these gems and trying them straight, put them in a smoothie or mix with yoghurt. Or just come to NZ and I'll make you a feijoa pavlova.
Of course, if you believe Wikipedia, feijoas are native to South America, and are usually referred to as "pineapple guavas" in the States, but this isn't about facts, it's about the subtle taste of "pineapple, apple and mint." It's about cutting an egg-sized fruit and letting the soft, somewhat slimy flesh slip over your tongue. It's about the strong, somewhat sour scent hitting your nasal passages. In short, it's about acquiring a taste for them. It's about going native.
Last year I found them a novelty, the kind of reaction that is neither good nor bad, but "interesting." This year I find myself craving them, in large part because someone had the genius idea to put them in a pavlova. Which, by the way, was actually invented in NZ (unless you believe Wikipedia).
Sadly, feijoas can't be picked early and artificially ripened, and they bruise easily, making them a poor candidate for shipping. However, if you have a local source (I'm looking at you, California and South Carolina) I highly recommend you find yourself a few of these gems and trying them straight, put them in a smoothie or mix with yoghurt. Or just come to NZ and I'll make you a feijoa pavlova.
Saturday, May 7, 2016
Lost wallet
I'm so lucky, I've never been mugged or pickpocketed* but I have lost my wallet...twice. The first time was just after I moved to the UK, I had no cash, no credit card, no ATM card, nobody to help me, and I was living in a hotel so I didn't even have the option of eating at home! I was quite desperate during the week or so it took to cancel all my cards and get new ones. And then a few days later, my wallet fell out of a suit pocket in the closet.
So when my wallet went missing two weeks ago, I was hopeful it would show up on it's own. However, I was so busy I had no time to look for it. It took a good week just to go through my drawers and closet, plus the car and office, but I finally came to the inescapable conclusion that it was not coming back, and I needed to deal with it.
Fortunately I had some emergency cash so I was fine until the bank cards arrived. The driver's license was a bit more annoying, as I had to go to an agent and provide sixteen forms of ID, plus pay $38 for the privilege. Similarly the Snapper card (the equivalent of London's Oyster card) cost $10 to replace. (More annoying, the city is looking to get replace Snapper cards with HOP cards, so this is a limited investment at best.) I have yet to replace my library card.
I also lost a $30 gift card from Mitre 10, the local DIY chain, I'd just received a few days before. I had returned some window stays that I'd never gotten around to installing on the last house, and the current house didn't need them. As the cashier pointed out, 11 months was slightly out of their 28-day refund policy, but she gave me the gift card instead. Amazingly, I was able to fish the receipt out of the bin and take it back to the shop, and they re-issued another gift card!
But of course, the main thing I miss is the wallet itself. When my last wallet died, I decided to eschew a leather replacement and found this:
It was made out of Tyvek, the same material used for shipping packages. I didn't think the wallet would last six months but it lasted two years and was still in fine condition! Plus everybody loved the idea of a wallet made out of money. Of course, being in NZ I couldn't get another one with British pounds, they didn't offer one with NZ notes, and I didn't like any of their other designs, so I was a bit flustered until I discovered you could design your own.
This is what I put together:
The laser kiwi is obvious, but why a $5 note instead of, say, a $50 or $100 note? Well, for starters, it has Sir Edmund Hillary, of Mount Everest fame, who is a lot more recognisable than Kate Sheppard ($10), Sir Apirana Ngata ($50) and Ernest, Lord Rutherford of Nelson ($100). Plus it won best banknote of the year, 2015 (seriously!) But the main reason is that the $20 note has a truly awful photo of Queen Elizabeth II, and as much as I adore the Queen I couldn't bear to look at that regularly.
* I once told an ex-girlfriend I'd never been pickpocketed, and she pickpocketed me! So I really have to qualify that by saying I've never been pickpocketed by anyone who wasn't kissing me at the time.
So when my wallet went missing two weeks ago, I was hopeful it would show up on it's own. However, I was so busy I had no time to look for it. It took a good week just to go through my drawers and closet, plus the car and office, but I finally came to the inescapable conclusion that it was not coming back, and I needed to deal with it.
Fortunately I had some emergency cash so I was fine until the bank cards arrived. The driver's license was a bit more annoying, as I had to go to an agent and provide sixteen forms of ID, plus pay $38 for the privilege. Similarly the Snapper card (the equivalent of London's Oyster card) cost $10 to replace. (More annoying, the city is looking to get replace Snapper cards with HOP cards, so this is a limited investment at best.) I have yet to replace my library card.
I also lost a $30 gift card from Mitre 10, the local DIY chain, I'd just received a few days before. I had returned some window stays that I'd never gotten around to installing on the last house, and the current house didn't need them. As the cashier pointed out, 11 months was slightly out of their 28-day refund policy, but she gave me the gift card instead. Amazingly, I was able to fish the receipt out of the bin and take it back to the shop, and they re-issued another gift card!
But of course, the main thing I miss is the wallet itself. When my last wallet died, I decided to eschew a leather replacement and found this:
This is what I put together:
* I once told an ex-girlfriend I'd never been pickpocketed, and she pickpocketed me! So I really have to qualify that by saying I've never been pickpocketed by anyone who wasn't kissing me at the time.
Friday, May 6, 2016
A new toy
Yes, it's a Mac.
Now, before you accuse me of selling my soul (which I'd have to do to afford a new MacBook Pro) let me hasten to note it belongs to the company.
When I moved to NZ, I bought a $200 laptop primarily for updating my blog, which of course hadn't seen much action. I knew it was woefully underpowered for a work laptop, but since almost everything we were doing was in the 'cloud' I thought it wouldn't matter how much horsepower the laptop had. So when I joined the company and they asked if I wanted a new computer, I said no, my laptop would be fine.
Needless to say, it wasn't fine. Although the systems were in the cloud, I'd often have 15 windows open trying to manage them, plus video conferencing or listening to music. The laptop would regularly grind to a halt and I'd have to spend half an hour just shutting everything down and rebooting so I could continue to work!
A couple of times this occurred while I was talking to my boss, and he told me in no uncertain terms to get a new computer. For some reason I felt bad about this, like it was a failure on my part, and besides I had no idea what the budget was and I didn't want to look greedy. After going back and forth several times, I finally decided to go all-out and get a 27" Mac All-in-one. My boss sent me this 13" MacBook Pro instead.
Which is fine. I already bought an adapter so I can use my external monitor and I will probably get an external keyboard (when the %#*& is keyboardio going to ship?!) and mouse, so at least I won't get carpal tunnel, but I definitely need new glasses (or new eyeballs). And for all the terrible things I've said about Apple over the years, I have to admit this thing is fast, and so far a pleasure to use. But tomorrow I will start using it for work, so I'll reserve final judgment until then.
Saturday, April 23, 2016
Citizen of the Crown
Yep, I finally got my UK passport*. It was a vanity project, really -- I don't need it, and it wasn't cheap, but having two passports makes me feel like Jason Bourne.
Actually, it would have helped in Auckland en route to Japan, but that's because it has an RFID chip and I could have used the automated lanes. This was only an issue because I'd gotten confused and was watching the wrong entry on the departures board, and ended up having to race to the gate and was the last one to board. However, apart from that it would not have helped at all and in fact coming back through Auckland, the NZ officer said that since I had a resident visa I could use the NZ passport lane, anyway.
Now that I think about it, because the visa is in my US passport I will have to carry that to get back in NZ, but now that I have a British passport I am required by law to use that when entering the UK, so I've just damned myself to carrying both passports! What was I thinking?
* I'd like to say I made the photo intentionally fuzzy for security purposes, but of course there's nothing sensitive on the passport cover! However, the RFID chips have no encryption and will respond to any RF reader in their proximity, so I better get a better passport holder. (Oh wait, those don't work.)
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