adam’s [insert adjective(s) here] blog

went into school for Team X today, after practicing for about an hour, ‘cos i wasn’t there yesterday to run through my drama with Monique…

played four-square with some kids at morning tea…learnt a whole bunch of random rules. i’m sure we never had that many variations when i was 12…oh well, it was cool :o)

went into our 1st class, and that was cool. me and Monique did the ‘what would’ve happened room’ drama, but with a gnarly surfie theme, dude. the kids loved it :o)

ate lunch, then played a version of padda-tennis with some kids. the game didn’t seem to have any rules, and there were no markings on the court, so i had no idea where the lines were. managed to stay in a fair bit though…had our 2nd class after lunch. it was cool too…

finished off some minor office work, then came home. didn’t have a hugely productive evening. watched some TV, ate some food, had a shower, and chatted to May on MSN.

it’s been a while, so here’s the lowdown of what happened over the weekend:

---

Friday

after work, i got a lift to Wgtn station. caught the train to Palmie, where i was met by Alisha and Dan from the Palmie Team X crew. we went and hung out at Dan’s flat and waited for Andy and Jono. once they’d arrived and Jono finished packing, we left Palmie at about 11:00pm

Saturday

after driving through fog for about 2hrs, we got to Rotorua at about 3:00am, and went to TA’s house and crashed there for the night. left the next morning at 9:30, joined by TA. it rained the whole time we were driving. got to Papakura at 12:15, then after going into town for lunch, we came back to The Gate church and sat down and started sorting out details for this year’s Team X Tour Team for about 4hrs. Mell joined us at some stage. we ran through a couple of dramas later in the afternoon. May Lee came around for a visit :oD but ‘cos she had lots of work to do, and i was (meant to be) practicing the dramas, our meeting was a brief one…but at least i got to see her :oD

Mike joined us eventually, and after running through the details with him, he shouted us dinner…at a Turkish restaurant. meh…i’ve had better steak. dropped TA off at Mell’s, then us boys (me, Mike, Laz, Andy, Jono) went to one of Mike’s friends places to watch the Super 12 final. it was pretty cool.

afterwards, me, Andy and Jono went to the place we were staying. we crashed in Bruce’s caravan :oP it had 3 beds, albeit small and narrow ones, but that’s cool.

Sunday

went to church in the morning, then round to Mike’s parents place for lunch. John Cooney (Mike’s dad) is the editor of a magazine called Grapevine. you may or may not have heard of it…after that, we cruised back to Mell’s and sorted out the last details of this stage of Tour Team. went to Laz’s church later on - the Samoan AOG. the worship was primo, and the service was in Samoan…so us white folk didn’t have a clue what was going on. the only thing i managed to understand was that at one stage, the pastor counted to 3.

went back to Mell’s and played games all night. May Lee would’ve come along, but she still had a load of work to do…but i get to hang out with her all next weekend :oD

Monday

we went and said goodbye to the Papakura team, then left Auckland at 9:30am. dropped TA back in Rotovegas at 12:30ish, then me, Andy and Jono drove for the rest of the day down to Otaki. it hailed something cronic somewhere near Mangaweka, and there was some fresh snow on the hills around the Desert Road. we also picked up 2 hitchhikers.

got to Otaki at 5:30ish, where Ken from the Hutt team was waiting for me and he drove me back to the Hutt. isn’t that cool?

spent the night doing not a lot - checking e-mails, watching TV and eating dinner…that’s about it.

---

yup…that was my weekend.

in keeping with the trend of mocking monetary e-mails from Zimbabwe, here and here, i thought it was again time to lay into yet another e-mail i have received entitled “Please,get back to me soonest!”

---

“Please,get back to me soonest!”

– i have to start with the subject line…soonest? is it a competition? if i don’t get back to you soon enough, do i not get my money?

---

“Please do not be embarrassed about my e-mail since we have not met each other in life”

– hey, as long as you’re offering me free millions of dollars, i am by no means embarrased!

---

“I am Annex Olds. I am 25yrs old by age. Am son of the famous farmer in Zimbabwe, the late Mr Martin Olds”

– damn! this guy’s done his homework! there was in fact a famer who got shot called Martin Olds…unfortunately for Annex, Martin’s kids were named Angus (14) and Martina (17). he was shot in 2000, which would make Martina 23 at the oldest, so even Martina was a guy, and her nickname was Annex, she still wouldn’t be 25…

---

“My father was shot dead by scores of armed men”

– those guys have sucky aim if it took all of them to kill Martin!

---

“Our neighbours who witnessed the scene of the incident narrated all the ideals that occurred during this sad day”

– your neighbours supplied a running commentary about all the conceptions of something in its absolute perfection that occurred??? that would make for a pretty sad day…

---

“the Government has put in place secret police men”

– ooh! secret police men? sounds very James Bond-ish. do they have laser watches?

---

“we had no other means of survival than to relocate to a different country with one valuable luggage containing 8.5 Million United States Dollars that was left behind by my late father”

– where the heck do these people get millions of dollars from? and why the heck do they always put it in one valuable luggage??? i guess they’re keeping with the whole secret police men James Bond theme, with a briefcase full of money…i s’pose it would be one valuable luggage with $8.5 million in it.

---

“Dear, considering your position, I humbly with due respect request your fullest assistance”

– hmm…since reading your e-mail, we seem have become romantically involved, dear. xox.

---

“I would like you to be my late father’s partner who is in position to retrieve the luggage/fund from the company because my present predicament here in Germany can not retrieve the luggage/fund because of the laws guiding Germany that with my age and present condition”

– ok, so if you can’t get the million dollar bag from the vault company where it is being held, and you are 25 and living in Germany, what makes you think that me, a 23 year old, living on the other side of the world! will have better luck???

---

“I promise to offer you a reasonable amount base on our agreement for your kind assistance”

– that seems very non-committal…i prefer the other guys who at least offer 15% or 30%

---

at least this guy had done some homework, and all the e-mail addresses throughout the e-mail were consistent.

meh…

worked on more of the 102 panels this morning, then got to do even more exciting stuff! started putting the 102 units together. this involved not only screwing things into place, but soldering as well! i guess it’s the next step up from clicking and screwing things into place…

so yeh. probably shouldn’t have inhaled all that solder smoke. oh well, whaat’s tehh worsts thatnn couplld hapoone? i’;n fellingk absoluitoyl greatty!11

but seriously…tomorrow it’s more of the same, and if more 12 volt transformers arrive, i can assemble more 104 units.

man, it kinda sounds like i actually know what i’m talking about, huh? hahaha…

and tomorrow after work, i am gonna catch a train up to Palmie, then drive up to Auckland with Jono and Andy. i just hope that the train is gonna run on time and not screw me around…i have 2-3 hours from when i’m (meant to be) arriving in Palmie and when we leave for Auckland, so that’s okay i guess…

went to work again today. spent the morning working on those cassette deck things again. i had a goal to finish 45 today, but after lunch, i got given another job, so i only got through 22.

they are (if anyone cares) Melview Series 104 Triple Cassette Decks

after lunch, i was working on the Melview Series 102 Video Interview Control System. both these things apparently get used in interrogation rooms :oP

i had to screw some panels to a face plate thing, and click some things into place. it would’ve been easy, but no. i had to start off by filing one of the panels down for each unit ‘cos it was slightly too long, and the things i had to click into place didn’t click nicely…why would they? so i had to forcibly force them into place with a large screwdriver and almost my entire body weight. it was fun though. mangaged to complete about 17 of them before i left.

Maidstone Intermediate was meant to be having a sports day, but it’s been postponed ’til Thursday, so we could still go into classes today.

we were running the Self Worth 2 programme again today, with the pig tongue and the t-shirts. it’s always fun to scare little kids by waving a tongue around in their class :oP and the t-shirts activity was really cool, going round writing positive comments on paper t-shirts paper-clipped to the kids’ backs.

sorted out my travel to Auckland for this weekend when we got back to the office, and hopefully i’ll be able to catch a train to Palmie on Friday, then catch a lift to Auckland with the guys going up from there. i should know for sure tomorrow what’s happening…

that’s it for now. tomorrow i get to go to work again and earn some more money :o)

apparently, i’m s’posed to be going to Auckland this weekend for a Team X meeting to sort out a team to take touring around the country…but both people who could’ve told me thought the other was going to do so, so i only found out today!

now i need to see if i can organise a bus to get to Palmie on Friday so i can grab a lift with Andy and Jono from the Palmie team who are driving up. hopefully we’ll be able to coordinate something.

if i do get to go up, then hopefully i’ll be able to go out and catch up with May one night :oD that’d be nice!

today at Team X was pretty much just office/admin stuff. my day included printing off some photos and photocopying some certificates…nothing too flash.

meh…

May rang up last night after we’d chatted for a bit on MSN. it was so cool talking to her. we talked ’til about 1:30am. if neither of us had had to get up this morning, we would’ve kept talking long into the morning i think :oD

i’m so excited, ‘cos i get to see her on Friday next week!!!

i was so glad when Saturday came around, ‘cos i finally got to sleep in after a week of being sick and having to get up at 6:00 or 7:00 every day. my body needed the rest to help it recover, so i slept in ’til 10:30. yay!

generally mucked around on Saturday. read a bit. Jon picked me up in the afternoon, and we cruised back to his house. Si and Steve turned up eventually, and we sat round talking for a while, then we played the Sweet Valley High board game :oP a game designed for 12-16 year old girls, and here we are, four 23 year old guys playing it :oD (i won…)

then we cooked up some sausages and chips for dinner. got some DVDs out - The Final Cut and L’il Pimp. The Final Cut wasn’t as sci-fi/thriller as we’d hoped, and L’il Pimp was weird. we didn’t even watch all of it. we ended up watching Eurotrip later. it was good :o)

Jon dropped me home. it was easier then having to drop me out in the Hutt. my sisters were surprised to see me this morning :oP came to church. it was cool. went to McCafé with my family afterwards, then we all came back to my boarders’ and sat around talking for a while.

read a bit more this afternoon, then fell asleep for an hour or so. spent the evening watching TV and chatting to May on MSN :o)

today was a bit more exciting at work. i was doing the first stage of assembly for some Black Diamond cassette decks. still pretty simple stuff: click things into place, cut the end off this, screw that into place, connect these wires to those terminals.

there’s 100 that need to be made up, and i got through 35 today. it took about 10-12 mins to do each one. then all the other components need to be put in place - the tape bits, the circuitry, buttons, etc. i might be working on them again next week when i go back, but who knows…