This afternoon I flew back from Wellington where I had gone for a quick holiday with my mom.

Flight down. NZ is called the land of the long white cloud for a reason. (sorry for the off colour this taken of course from a plane)

Mt Ruapehu peaking out above the clouds. (photo taken at 34,000 feet)

Zoomed in for a closer view.

Passing another plane. I believe this may be a Virgin Blue plane because closely zoomed it appears red.

After landing in Wellington the first thing we did was to rent a car and drive to the top of Mount Victoria. This is the view from the top looking back at the Airport.

Wellington Harbour from Mount Victoria

Central Wellington from Mount Victoria

After leaving Mount Victoria we headed to Parliament for a quick visit before having lunch at the Backbencher Pub. From there we headed up to the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary. At the sanctuary we walked up to a dam and along the way met some interesting creatures.

This is from a lookout above the dam that we climbed to. Lots of fun. The Sanctuary is an awesome thing to have so close to the center of a city.

This is the fence that protects the Sanctuary from the rest of civilization.

After leaving the Sanctuary we went shopping in Lambton Key and Willis Street before checking into our hotel where we had dinner and afterwards went for a night time drive around the capital.

Mom at the top of Mount Victoria

A tired Brad at the end of the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary.

On the Sunday we had a midmorning flight to catch back so we headed to the airport by taking a detour through the city, around Oriental Parade and Miramar. On the flight back we got a really nice view of Mt Taranaki and the surrounding coastline.

However, before this story is compete there is one final twist in it. I the title of this post is the 24 hour Wellington Experience. And you cannot experience Wellington without being in an Earthquake. So at 3am this morning Wellington decided to a little jolt. It was enough to wake both me and mom up, first there was a loud bang and then the walls of the hotel moved twice before something fell over in the bathroom (probably a shampoo bottle) at the time both me and mom thought each other were asleep and both of us just went back to sleep and our suspicions about an earthquake were confirmed in the morning.

Quake Details

Information about this earthquake:

Felt in Wellington and Marlborough.

http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/2923267g.html

I got it!

1 hour 30 minutes before it’s official release date. The new album is up for download off itunes. Currently onto the third song. The opening song is odd kinda like some weird African based tune. Tracks two and three are the new singles.

This is the most anticipated album I have had in a while… Looking forward to the rest of it. Yeah!

What is wrong with the above image and caption?

Full story here:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10509620

I would like to know how the person writing the story managed to make a caption for petrol at $1.93/litre when the pump is reading $2.019.

http://melissa-network-news.blogspot.com/2008/05/healthy-competition.html

I read an interesting blog post today about supposed “healthy competition” between universities (see link above).

Now I want you to ponder this. Should universities be in competition with each other?
What marks the difference between “healthy” and “unhealthy” competition?

This is something that the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) has been focusing on over the past few years and trying to stamp out. Universities and other tertiary providers should not be in competition with one and other but should rather be working together. At the end of the day cooperation benefits everyone far greater then competition.

Think about this. With cooperation in research people can move forward on ideas faster. How many different universities need to invent the wheel? Cooperation in research also allows for more open, honest and transparent findings and less allegations of faking results because rather then being the first to do something, as a team you are the best at doing it and therefore you have the best result. Competition does not drive improvements in research but rather forces researchers to work harder and rush things often making mistakes rather then actually doing something beneficial.

So how does this apply to undergraduate and postgraduate taught classes? Well the reality is this, in New Zealand you are forced to pay for your education. Therefore the education that you receive should be the highest possible quality education and you should get value for money. Money aka your fees should not be wasted on competition between universities such as advertising that trades off one university against another and neither should it be spent on anything other then the provision of your courses. Universities should not set up courses to compete with each other and steal students off one an other but should rather be introducing courses to meet the need of the market - something the TEC is trying to implement through its investment plans.

So is any form of competition healthy? No. Competition should not be permitted between universities. There are only 8 universities in New Zealand we are a small country and the majority of our funding to our universities comes from the government and at the end of the day they are all owned by the crown so in a round-a-bout way you only end up competing with yourself. Cooperation not Competition!

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4509582a10.html

What happened in Whangamata yesterday was terrible but the way the media spins stuff to make it political just angers me.

“Until they raise the driving and drinking age this is going to continue on in New Zealand,”

The reality is this. The driver of the vehicle was 22. Not 15. Not 18. But 22. 8 years older then the minimum driving age. The problem is not a driving age problem. It is not a drinking age problem either. It is a attitude problem.

To solve the problem we should make it very clear. Drink and Drive once loose your car for 6 months. Do it twice and you loose your license for 2 years and your car is sold. Make it tough. Super tough. But don’t go blaming age. This is not an age problem.

Well it appears that Ruapehu is heating up again. The irony of todays press release is only last week they said it was back to normal:

April 23 - GNS scientists have continued to monitor the activity at Ruapehu since the moderate-sized eruption on September 25 2007. No further eruptions have occurred, but an increase in gas output and the internal temperature of the volcano are indications of elevated unrest. It is unclear if this is a sign of further eruptions in the near future. The Alert Level remains at Level 1.

http://www.geonet.org.nz/volcano/alert-bulletins/alert-bulletin-apr-23-2008-10-00-am-ruapehu-volcano.html

April 28 - Volcanic activity at Ruapehu is back to normal after the eruption on 25 September. This means that the risks to people who wish to climb up to Crater Lake are also back to normal.

http://www.doc.govt.nz/templates/news.aspx?id=46339

May 2 - Increased volcanic activity at Mt Ruapehu has prompted a warning to climbers from the Conservation Department - though scientists can’t say whether an eruption is coming.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10507626

In a period of two weeks there are three different stories coming from the mountain. Who to believe?

Okay I am getting sick of having to explain what happened to just about everyone I see. So now I can just tell them to read my blog.

When I flew to Wellington last Sunday we had an engine failure. Well actually a complete APU failure. Luckly we were on Taxi and not in the air.

This is how it went down:
We were push backed from the terminal like normal. While the engines were being started they were doing the safety demonstrations. It was pretty obvious from the start that something was wrong with the engines because they were not making the normal engine starting noise. Halfway through the safety video all the power died in the aircraft. I mean the video stopped, the air con stopped, all the lights cut out, the engines stopped we came to a complete halt with no power or engines.

We sat for 20 mins parked sideways on the taxi way in front of the domestic terminal before we got pulled back to the terminal. All other aircraft had to detour around us by using the B runway. Thank god for that second runway at Auckland! Once we were pulled back they decided to jump start us off a ground power unit that they had to call over from the International Terminal on a truck!

We had no power, lights or anything for more then 40 minutes. Did I say we had no aircon. Also this was an Airbus A320 a medium range aircraft normally used on international routes. It has 170 seats and I can only assume that it was being used as a domestic aircraft because it was a long weekend and school holidays. We had about 40 kids on board which was fine for all of 5 mins and then the crying began! Once started again we made it safely and without incident to Wellington 50 minutes late. Fun!

This is the video of the transcript that I posted a few weeks back