I love my wife: she is brilliant, a beautiful and most incredible person ... She is however a moving freak ... Where some guys might drink beer, watch sports or play video games for fun she likes to rearrange the house. That isn't me in the photo but it's how I feel when any sentence starts with "This weekend I want to ..." because I know the next word will be "rearrange". If she really wants to do something, and I am resisting, that just adds to the challenge, and she recruits her partners in crime, Brenda and the kids. It got so bad that one day when she went away I rearranged the house just To View More >>

Mates and family, they are definitely awesome! The best thing that has come from joining the Fire Service is the friendships that have developed. Last week we had a serious storm that blew a big tree across the road, destroying a power pole and tearing the lines from our rental property. Today two of my favorite people came over and helped restore things. That's Bain up in the basket and Vern down below. We had to spend the day trimming trees to re-thread the line, but it was very cool, we laughed, and I was very grateful. Days like today are also when family rallies around. While we did that To View More >>

SPEAKING OF LOVE: We were out to dinner the other evening and the conversation turned to relationships, and more specifically how many people don't know how their partner 'needs' love expressed to them. It seems a lot of people our age are having relationship issues, breaking up etcetera, and a debate developed as to whether people 'weren't loving the other person' , or maybe, 'weren't loving their partner the way that person needed to be loved.' Is there a difference, and should it matter? I'm pretty clear on this, but that's another story. Anyway, knock me over with a feather, my wife Sonya To View More >>

With great sadness we have said goodbye to two family members over the past few weeks. The first farewell was to to my Auntie Rita, who passed away after a long but brave battle with cancer. She is actually my Mum's Auntie, but always felt like a Grandmother to me. A beautiful woman that everyone loved from the moment they met her. My first memory of Rita is when, as kids, we visited her family in Wellington. She made us "Spiders", a messy mix of Coke and Vanilla ice cream ... and instantly became my hero. My last memory of Rita is of a woman, her body failing her, surrounded by a family loving To View More >>

My career started the traditional way, many moons ago, running a lemonade stand, collecting coke bottles, mowing lawns, and basically doing anything I could to turn a dollar. While at university in the late 80s I installed computer systems for a legal firm, and worked in hospitality as a waiter at the Regent Hotel in Auckland. I also worked in the family handcraft/souvenir store, Earthworks, in Parnell, Auckland. Computers were my favourite toys. My Dad had been into computers since before either the Mac or the PC (those were the days), so even though there were no computers in schools I was a To View More >>