The New Plymouth Easter Special

And greetings from the other side of the Easter weekend! And back home from holiday too.



It's the typical setup... the 7 of us embark on the cramped familyvan ride up to the preselected location... the one which I got told about several months in advance but forgot until about a week prior.

The ride up is never a pleasurable one. Over the course of a few previous holidays I have learnt from the experience of trying to listen to my own MP3 player while putting up with family members singing to whatever is playing on the radio (which isn't always bad), which lead to me wearing earmuffs over my earphones to block out some of the outside noise. A lo-fi version of noice reduction headphones, if you will. But less expensive and more conserning to my sister if I stepped out the van in public.

What makes the jorney a little less comfortable is the little leg space you get sitting close to the door. Our van is specially designed so that if you get stuck sitting closest to the door you need to get in last, by which time everyone else has claimed their bag and feet space.

After spending what seemed like ages on the road (actually around 4 hours) we reached our destination, New Plymouth. What made it rather amusing is that we kept it secret by calling it "Springfield" and making up where we where staying, I think housesitting for Ned Flanders was a popular explanation.

Among the sights were the Coastal Walkway, Pioneer Village, Pool... um... well, there were a few places. And I managed to do a few things on my list too:

25 Goals in 400 Hours
I admit I'm a bit behind with this list... but here's the update.

#1 - Finish Computer Arcitechture Assignment
Uninteresting. It was actually due on the 20th, so of course I needed to get this one done. Our lecturer has a great sense of humour which is what makes his lectures so engaging. And this particular assignment he even made the senario quite airtight, creating a senario about a wizardry test involving a spinning chair. I found it amusing that altough it was obvious it was based on Harry Potter, he must've forgotten the name of main character in the made-up senario midway through writing it because three different names were used at different times.

#7 - Take the family out to breakfast
Where does a student on a student allowance take their family out to breakfast on a Easter weekend morning? McDonalds of course! After going around the empty carpark in circles becuase the driver couldn't read the arrows painted on the ground properly, we parked near the drive through the drive-through entrance and in a stroke of genius, got the 7 of us to figure out what they wanted using the drive-through menu outside. Luckily there weren't any cars coming through. Then it was just a simple matter of going inside and rattling off the list I'd written up ("Here's something I prepared earlier!"). In fact, that's a tip for any family - the worst part of eating out as a family is taking up too much space as you're ordering; so figure out what you're gonna get before you get inside! It makes things much more smoothly. And make the decision final! The cashier (and I speak from experience from KFC over summer) is probably not going to enjoy modifying an order because someone changed their mind at the last possible second.

#13 - Find a geocache
It took around 2 years, but I finally convinced my family to go geocaching while in Stratford! And as a bonus, they enjoyed it, as opposed to other things I enjoy doing but the rest of the family don't. I'll shove a few pics in the next bit...

#23 - New vlog entry
Currently in post-production at time of writing. It'll be shoved at the end when finished. Which shouldn't be too long. And you may also notice that...

#8 - Get a haircut

Ash Ketchum pulls off wearing
a cap much better than me.

...I have a new haircut. The usual. Umm... yeah. I'll admit I do like the idea of having a style that's a bit more outgoing, but I think to pull it off I'd need a personality to match.

Okay, I think that brings you up to speed... here's the rest of the usual stuff.

The Last Word
I'm a big fan of procrastination, and I was amazed that I found this - In the times that you need to buy yourself a little extra time, you can corrupt an office file to send off instead while you (secretly) work on the real one for a bit longer! I cannot believe I didn't find this one sooner; just don't try it too much on the same person. Click here.
And it's been a rather quiet week for YoutTube videos, so check out the T-Mobile Wedding Dance while I finishing editing my vlog entry (which is still way below the accepted popular vlog standard, I think I need a better quality camera).

You'd think by 116 posts I'd have a few more followers... *sigh* well if you are new to reading this and would like me to continue trying harder each week add yourself to the followers section and get updates sent directly to your Google Reader feed... or something like that. Or pass this blog on and comment... the more I find out what people want to read the better the blog gets, I guess.

[EDIT 27/04/11]
And here's the finished aforementioned vlog entry!