My old man said, "Follow the van, don't dilly dally on the way!" Off went the cart with the home packed in it ....

Moving house ( rather than home)

They say, that moving home (as distinct from moving house) a stressful occupation. It is. But that, dear reader, is exactly what I did last Queen's Birthday long weekend down here in old Nu Zulun.

With the help of some semi-abled old friends the dastardly deed was done.

Bill, Bruce, Murray, Ray and yours truly loaded the van, whilst Mary and Graham did a monumental bang up job cleaning the atrocious mess I left in my wake.

Atrocious mess left behind

It was a shift form a 1960's one-electric-socket-per-room unit to a 2011 eight-electric-sockets per-room unit.

Haven't we come a long way technologically speaking!

Welcome to my world (no... not really)

Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away ...

Well, it is Monday May 23rd and nobody I know has been raptured - Not even the most handsome Harold Camping.

Now this raises folks a few possibilities.

1. Camping was right and that a few true  ... really true .... christians have really been really really raptured!

However,  these are so very few that nobody knows who they are! And also, Harold Camping ain't one of them cos he is still around.

2. Harold may have got his maths wrong about May and the rapture is at another date which Harold may yet calculate. Some believe there are two raptures which require two different mathematical models.

Now let me see:  1 Corinthians + 2 Corinthians = 3 Corinthians ... (no that's not right uuum)


3. There is no way of calculating when the rapture may be cos Jesus said no one would know the time .... this bit is in Mark's gospel (13:32) and Matthew (24:26).

4. That there is no such thing as a rapture in the New Testament. Many Christians believe this and say the those who are rapturistic in their thinking have misinterpreted the Bible. Some go so far as to say that the rapture is a lie of the devil.

 Just like chocolate being bad for you is a filthy lie of the devil!

5. The rapture is mentioned in the inspired Bible, but it is meant to be taken figuratively.

5. ( 6 is a bad number - so we can't use it) There is no such thing as a rapture cos the Bible is just another book of religious ideas. It is not, they say to be taken literally.

7. The word rapture is in fact in code. It is decoded to an anagram ... eruptar. Harold camping is in fact going to erupt.

Of course interpreting the Bible in terms of so-called END TIME EVENTS has been the life-time hobby of many amateur theologians.

No wonder many outside the church look bemused as "Christians" prattle on about the combinations and permutations and indeed confabulations of last day rapturistic possibilities.

Time we got back to more basic theological questions like:
1. Which way is up?
2. Could heaven be down if you live in New Zealand?
3. and ....Why are two men standing on the roof opposite me? Haven't they heard the rapture is off this week?

The way you wear your hat, the way you sip your tea ...

Popped into a church the other Sunday - one of the happy-clappy sorts.  Came the time in the service when we had to meet and greet one another.

Friendly handshakes   ... St Paul's injunction to greet one another with a holy kiss is no longer in fashion.

Fella with a big warm-type motor cycle jacket came over   ... shook me hand  .... chatted and then said "now you know if you wear that hat you can't pray or prophesy  ... cos you'll dishonor God.

I, of course, was wearing my black trilby  ... as you do ... on Sunday mornings.

Now...  I am not entirely unfamiliar with the New Testament and St Paul's writings. The fella in the jacket was referring to 1 Corinthians 11:2-16.


I told the guy, that this church was then in serious trouble.

The same passage which says men should not have their heads covered also says that the women should have their heads covered.

I pointed out there was not a women in the church who was obeying that injunction of our dear St Paul.

He agreed and limped away.

The fella didn't know me from ADAM.

I spoke with the Korean pastor afterwards. His opening words were "I like your hat".  I told him of the incident. He laughed and said no such rules applied in that church.

Legalism is a reality that not only still haunts the corridors of Christianity, but also the realities of modern life. Some folks are just sticklers for the rules.

Others want to look beyond the rules to the deeper meaning   .... to the spirit of the law.

The great sufi mystic Rumi said:

"Beyond what is called good and what is called evil there is a field  .... I will meet you there."

On the ball, on the ball, on the ball ...

It has emerged that the Rugby World Cup being held in Nu Zulun this year is not the most important thing on the planet.

Intensive research points to natural calamities being higher on the agenda.


In spite of these findings, unnamed sources suggest that the Nu Zulun media is utterly obsessed with the Rugby World Cup.

One unnamed anonymous source that cannot be named for legal reasons has intimated that most Kiwis are more concerned with the Christchurch victims of the recent earthquake.

The unspecified source said “The media bombard us with World Cup trivia, when people are still suffering horribly in both Christchurch and Japan”.

The undisclosed source went on to suggest that “if Rugby is indeed a religion in Nu Zulun, the media are the high priests”.

Sally Arbuckle, researcher at the Academy For All Sports Other Than Rugby (ASOTR) said “the evidence suggests that far more youngsters play football than rugby”.

She went on the say that a recent survey showed that most people prefer a round ball that bounces reliably.

It has also been revealed that black arm bans are being manufactured in the eventuality that Nu Zulun (the All Blacks) does not win the World Cup.

An important source said that both psychologists and psychiatrists are being specially trained to counsel distressed fans.

It's only words and words are all I have to take your heart away.

What follows are my views and not those of the Institution I work for.

Eduspeak (I coin the phrase) is ruining education in Nu Zulun

I got the latest Newsletter from Ako Aotearoa in my little pigeon hole dis morning.

Shortly it is going to be filed as they say. But before it is, I shall quote firstly Peter Coolbear the Director.


"The move to evaluative quality assurance by self-assessment is potentially one of those critical system changes that will precipitate a step change in the the quality and effectiveness of tertiary provision"

aaah I said .... yes indeed ... I said ... of course ... I said ... I should  have seen it before ... I said   .... but what on earth does that mean I said?

I'm a great fan of Winnie the Pooh ... and I am very sure Poohbear would have read it and said ...... huh? ... and then said .... just so ... and then ......  "after all I am a bear of very little brain"  .... and then he might say

Pass the honey someone!


Weasel words  Check this website out sometime

The falling leaves drift by the window The autumn leaves of red and gold...

Autumn Leaves

The last two morning in Auckland town have had a distinctly autumnal feel to them. Morning grow darker and colder and nights draw in.
I don't want to be the bearer of sad news but the winter of our discontent draws near.

Nat King Cole, among many others, sang the song above. He also sang "bring back those crazy hazy lazy days of summer"

The Autumn exquinox falls on the 20th of March this year.

Those with SAD (seasonal affective disorder) will be planning their trips to warmer climes as the cold, harsh, severe realities of winter begin to bite.

I must say that in mid winter I wish global warming would get a move on!. 

For the Calliope Club, it will mean the shift track running to cross country.  I have never been a fan of cross country, but I know fellow club members who simply adore thrashing about it the mud.

I just end up getting my running shoes sucked off. Most of the time I can get very little serious forward motion
in a cross country race.

Anyhoo here's to muddy winters days.

Ya need a lot of assiduity to get through winter.


'''Title:''' Autumn leaves '''Taken on:''' 2004-10-31 11:36:33 '''Original source:''' [http://www.flick)

You're the top, you're the Mona Lisa, you're the top, you're the Tower of "Pizza"

The Halberg awards are for the top Nu Zulun sports men and women. Again this year I was not nominated.

Even though I am a semi-extinguished athlete! I was devastated, I can tell you. After all, I was winner of the Bill Taylor Trophy at Calliope last year and third this year! What more do they want?

The All Whites won some stuff including the Pizza supreme award.

Now I love football ... don't get me wrong. Indeed, I much prefer it to the other code.

But the Halbergs have trodden into dangerous territory and controversy.

I cannot, for the life of me remember an occasion when the award did not go to an individual or a team who ranked pretty well best in the world.


Sadly, no matter, how much you love them, they are no where near the best in the world.

Now, I know the arguments.

Fantastic achievement in the hardest and greatest competitive code in the world after all, a gazillion countries play football and only a handful play that other code.

Relatively speaking it is the same as being .... and all that Jazz.

I remain unimpressed.

They need an award like .... now what would you name it? The relatively supreme award.

Turn your magical eyes. Round and around, Looking at all we found.

No wonder how kids are bamboozled with maths.

I have been out on the web today and countless times I am told that a ratio is the same as a fraction and means the same as division.

Now folks this is pure unadulterated poppycock.

A ratio bears some relation to a set of fractions and division can be used to sort out ratio problems. However ratios, fractions and division are all conceptually different.

Any decent cook will tell us that or bookie or mechanic.


Take the simplest of problems. To mix some yucky orange cordially you mix 2 parts of concentrate to 8 parts water.

 How much concentrate should be used to get 20 litres of cordial?

Ratio 2:8
Total parts 10
Associated fractions: 2/10 and 8/10.

Answer 2/10 times 20. Which is 0.2 x 20 or 4 Litres of concentrate.

Or what ever way you want to calculate it 2/10 x 4 = 40/10 = 4L

Or 2:8 = 4:16 which will yield 20L of cordial

fighting vainly the old ennui and i suddenly turn and see ... your fabulous face

I woke in the night and thought of the phrase "facebook fatigue". Later I googled "facebook fatigue" and sure enough there it was.

Some basic facts folks
Average FB user has 120 friends, most of which  whom they have never met.
I have 51, all of whom which I have met FTF (face to Face).

There are too kinds of FB fatigue (FTF) at least.
Type A FBF people whi are phyically exhausted by untold hours on FB

Type B FBF people who find some material posted as trivial beyond degree and wonder ...


Anywho, to check out the signs of FBF check out this site

The cure to FBF?

Firstly FTF (face to face) interaction.

Which reminds me, I am meeting a friend for lunch. He's not on FB, but we have hung out since high school days.

I can however boast that some of my FB friends have over 700 FB friends. So you see some of my friends are very friendly, gregarious, outgoing types.

Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet ....

Folks the answer is lemons - more and more lemons as this graph clearly illustrates.
R² = 0.97 means that 97% of the variation in the Road Toll is accounted for by the variation in amount of fresh lemons being imported into the USA.

It is, of course, and inverse relationship. Thus the more lemons imported, the fewer road fatalities. 

Now this is no joke - it is a true relationship.

It is a good example that correlation does not mean causation. There is an important moderating variable (not shown). What might that be.

So sad to say importing a lots more lemons is not going to reduce our road toll.

There is another important issue here that brings forth such a large R² .

The variances for the two variables are vastly difference. And that is a big no-no when examining correlations.