Oh happy Friday

Off to Whakatane for the weekend!

Have had a very busy week, working mostly, but have managed to have some fun.

Highlights included:

Book buying (well when I say buying I mean voucher spending)

A Julius Shulman book of course!

And the latest book by Alain de Botton

Film Society Screening of Agnès Varda short films.

The Rita Angus exhibition at the City Art Gallery

A delicious curry dinner last night, a tax return and the first 3 pods on the broad beans (not much luck there so far due to the lack of bees, but things may be improving)

Have a good weekend everyone, till next week...

Photo day no. 2

Here are some more photos:

A strawberry in my garden.

The furiness of the leaves is something I hadn't noticed before.

Nana's amazing orchids 1 (first use of the tripod) and 2

I know this photo is a bit out of focus but I like the graininess of it and all the empty space.

As you can see I am still learning about photography and since I only have a run of the mill digital camera there are limitations. This week I am experimenting with the tripod and programming my own settings.

P.S. Told you my Nana's orchids were amazing. She says the secret is neglect, they don't like attention - who would have thought!

Build mode

I just read that James May from UK's Top Gear is building a LEGO house.

Insight on National Radio yesterday looked at waterfront development in Auckland and Wellington. And they interviewed one of my Planning colleagues from the university.

In NY state they are planning to build a Woodstock Museum. The design competition winner has proposed a building made from sustainable materials including hemp, and with a pattern on the side of the building that will spell out 'peace'. - I kid you not.

I have just started listening to Smart City Radio, it's pretty good.

Hurricane Katrina wiped out New Orleans four years ago (on the 29/8/2005). After watching the Spike Lee doco I was wondering: what has happened since then? Apparently not a lot, if this 4th anniversary round up is anything to go by.

The city has regained only 75% of its pre-storm population, approximately 36% of the houses are empty and the feral chicken population is out of control.

Makes you think about the permanence of our cities. Maybe LEGO houses are the answer...

Source: ArchDaily

Site I like

I was trying to find the site for Build Your Own New York when I stumbled into Coolthings.com.

So many goodies (too many actually) My two favourite items were:

The Frames Wallpaper

and

The Dunk Mug