RIP CHLOE

Mistress of The Lounge, Terroriser of Ginger Ninja's, fresh fish, cheese & bacon afficionado extraordinaire. You were originally intended to be my Mum's cuddly sit on the lap & purr sweetly cat to comfort her in her old age. Instead you turned out to be a perverse old Tart that refused to sit on ANYONE'S lap, but would on occasion curl up beside you, or wait expectantly in front of you for a gentle skritch under the ears.

The last of the great conversationalists, you could always be relied upon to pass the time of day with me when I got up at some ungodly hour to go drive a truck. Your grip of the English language when talking to the Ninja's was legendary. Even I, as a trucky was shocked & dismayed by some of the language that you used.

But, like all of us, old age &, in your case, cancer, finally got the better of you & you ended up suffering more than we could endure so you had the final trip to the vets & was gently put to sleep with the dignity you so richly earned. Goodbye old girl, I'm gonna miss you. Our life has been so much richer for having shared life with you. May the Heavyside treat you kindly with soft warm beds, plenty of fresh fish, a selection of bacon, both raw & cooked, a perpetual cheese board, neverending milk at room temperature & as much love as you had here.

Everyone should

at least once in their life stand naked in the rain somewhere. It 's a remarkably energising experience, especially after a long dry spell. Sorta helps put you right back in touch with nature at its most basic. The main thing to remember is that unless you live a long long way away from other houses, its best to do it at night time though.......

More Justin Timberwank

on the front page of the Herald ?????? Excuse me while I go mug a walrus for a bucket to vomit in........

Today, we raced

Well in theory we didnt . In theory, we had a controlled run up Lake Karapiro & back doing a poker run. But when you get 40 odd boats in a running shotgun start,(literally) then its not surprising that the old testosterone gets flowing & the throttle gets nudged further & further forward & to hell with other lake users.

You see, we participated in Fish City's annual Poker run. The idea of this is that you circumnavigate a course collecting sealed envelopes with playing cards in them. When you return, the scrutineers open them & make the best hand they can, with you having the option of buying up to 4 extra cards. Its an annual event in memory of a young lad that worked for them & died of a melanoma & the monies raised go to cancer research. This year it was leukemia.

Anyway, we had a ball. Top Dog showed a clean pair of heels to a surprising amount of boats, the only low point being a loss of power on the way home & we had to limp in at a mere 35 km/h. Fortunately it was only loose screws holding the cover plate on the fuel pump & is now all fixed. One of the treasured memories of the day is the water skier who panicked when he saw about 10 boats bearing down on him at a rate of knots & arsed off. It was quite beautiful the way we all peeled off round him.

The halfway point was a particularly beautiful little bay where we all lounged around, drank cold drinks,(non alcoholic) & swam. My excuse for wearing a life jacket in the water was that I had never been in the water with one & wanted to see how well they held an old fatso like me up. Nothing whatsoever at all to do with the 50 ft of water under me....

Then it was back to the clubhouse for the awarding of prizes. I won a spot prize of an outboard motor cover, about 3 sizes too big for my motor. Didnt win the main prizes, but thats Ok.. We had a great day out....

Nice one, NZ Herald....

I see the Heralds lead story this morning is a revue of the Justin Timberwank concert... Why ???? The conceited git has only ever put out two albums & neither of them particularly uplifting.. The last three shows that I have been to, Dylan, Steely Dan & War of the Worlds were all reviewed as well, but you had to hunt for them. Wheres your taste in musical appreciation guys ????

Well, this is me

Just SOOOOOO happy to be off to work yet again starting at 6.00 AM yet again on a run that I don't particularly like yet again.... The only consolation that I have is that Dave is back tomorrow from his paternity leave & he can have his run back.. He is definitely in no danger of a takeover bid from me....

I want to ride my bicycle....

Herself is in the process of losing weight & getting fit. I'm rapidly running out of excuses as to why I shouldn't join her, so any help would be appreciated. Her latest thing is that she has decided to ride a push bike round to her friends place that she walks with. I find this very laudable. After all, our carbon foot print is probably quite big enough what with a petrol powered car, a diesel 4WD, a boat with a 2 stroke outboard & God knows how many electrical appliances.. Global Warming ? Burn baby burn, I say.

Anyway, back to the push bike. I dunno why exactly they are called push bikes, because under ordinary circumstances, unless the chain comes off, or you get a flat tyre, or your going up a steep hill, you don't push 'em. You bloody well PEDAL them don't you. Anyway, thanks to the on air garage sale run by our local radio station, we got her a push bike. Just yer basic 10 speed road bike, although the gears won't get used a lot. The only fly in the ointment is that herself hasn't ridden a bike for more years than she is prepared to admit to.

You know the fluttery feeling that you get in the pit of your stomach when your kids, or grandkids first take to the footpath without trainer wheels ? Well, herself wouldn't even let me fit trainer wheels. She was happy with the new pump & the gelpad seat cover, & the little red bell with "I love bikes" on it, & the flash ergodynamically designed hand grips, but trainer wheels ???? Nooooo thank you. Luckily, our drive is quite long & flat so that she can practice. Getting on & off is fraught with hazards, & those initial first few feet untill some momentum is achieved, is definitely a bit wobbly, but she was getting there. Right up until the point that she mucked up getting off the thing & gracefully collapsed into a heap with the bike on top of her.

I'm standing there with visions of trips to hospitals racing through my mind, but she held up both hands & said,"I'm all right." Probably my imitation of putting the boot into her ribs at that point didn't really help a lot, I don't know. Anyway, she is still determined to master the damn thing. I'll probably have to think about getting one for myself soon I suppose. Life can be very cruel sometimes..

We saw dolphins yesterday

Its not like we haven't seen them before. I have been to the dolphin place in Napier & seen them perform, I've seen them on TV as you do, & seen them swimming past the boat while we have been fishing, but this was up close & personal.

You see, Herself & I went fishing yesterday. We usually fish from Te Puru, but when the tide is low there, it can be a little tense getting the boat in & out of the water, so lately, we have been fishing from Waikawau. This ramp offers an easy launch into a river mouth & now that it has been dredged, it offers at least two feet of water under the keel even at the lowest ebb. We are still ,however, finding where the fish are in that particular area. So we went out & ended up catching 4 snapper & deciding to have a look round, as that area offers some very picturesque scenery with bays & little islands & such, so we went all the way up to Deadmans Bay, which is the start of Coromandel Harbour. On the way back, Herself happened to see a big splash in the water , so we investigated.

Imagine our joy when it turned out to be a pod of about 30 dolphins, some up to about 15 ft., in length. They put on a lovely show for us, leaping out of the water in pairs & all sorts of things, all impromptu & all without any human bribing them with dead fish. They were doing it for the sheer joy of being able to, not as part of some routine necessary for food. They even had babies with them. Some of them came that close to the boat you could nearly touch them. God it was fantastic. The only sad bit was that I didn't have any sort of camera with me, so I can't share the experience with you. maybe next time...

Requiem for a friend

RIP WETI

You may have noticed (or not) I know I didn't, a report in the Waikato Times about a trucky who was killed when his truck rolled on State Highway 39 out the back of Hamilton at a place called Whatawhata. I didn't, & my work hours for the last week have been such that I haven't been able to keep up with TV news & I don't usually buy The Waikato Times. It doesn't really matter all that much anyway, because Weti is dead.

He was driving for Five Star Freight, with a full load of timber on his truck & trailer, when he rolled it.

As a trucky , you get to meet all sorts of people, most of whom you wouldn't recognise if you met them in the street. Put them behind the wheel of their rig though, & they are instantly known. "Aaah, there's the guy in the brown Freightliner that does the evening linehaul from Auckland to Hamilton." That was how I first got to know Weti. We used to do an evening linehaul from Auckland to Hamilton & you could usually count on seeing Weti somewhere around Huntly, heading north in one of Road Freight's 6 wheel curtainsiders. Some truckys acknowledge your wave with a casual lift of one finger, others have their own distinctive wave. Weti was one of the latter. I used to fear for his safety at first, because Weti used to launch himself bodily at the passengers side window with a hearty wave & a grin like the front bumper on a '57 Chevy.

Later on, he started doing the Roadfreighters run to our depot in Thames, so I got to meet him in person. Nothing was too much trouble for Weti. he was always happy to do an unofficial delivery for us on the way home if it would help out. Later, when we started doing our own linehaul out of Hamilton & bought our first 8 wheeler & trailer, Weti helped us there too. The boss was doing it for a while & hurt himself badly in a stock car mishap, & Road freighters lent us Weti for the duration. He enjoyed it so much that he eventually came over & worked for us a year or two.

But, Weti being Weti, eventually he decided that a truck full of fruit & veges was a far more attractive proposition to drive, so he left. But we still got to see Weti, because one of his stops on that run was our depot. He left there too, & since then, like the proverbial bad penny, Weti would turn up in the most unlikely places, usually driving something different each time.

Rest well old friend. There probably aren't that many big rigs where you are, but I feel sure that knowing you, you will be able to cut a deal with St. Pete somewhere along the line for something to drive, who knows.

The devil made me do it...

I had occasion to deliver to a bottle shop today. As I was waiting for the signature, I noticed a new item on his shelves... Pina Colada Slushies.. Just add white rum & freeze.. Mundane you say ? So what you say ?? Yes, maybe, until you see the accessory for it. A little container of... Wait for it.... Rimming sugar... For the perfect cocktail.. I kid you not..

Arthur

Tonight, I met Arthur....
Arthur is a large, very genial Maori guy....
Arthur would be about as big as me & herself put together
Arthur drives an eight wheeler & trailor for one of the companies we deal with....
Arthur comes from Wanganui...
Arthur can parallel park his rig into a gap only 10 meters longer than his truck & trailor
I know, cos I measured it.
I think Arthur is pretty cool..
And one helluva good driver...
Better than I could ever hope to be

On the subject of fireworks. Since the banning of bangers & sky rockets, the pyrotechnic capabilities of the light fuse & retire to a safe distance variety of device has gotten louder & more spectacular every year to compensate. When small children are getting severely burnt as a result of this dollar greed, its time to call a halt to public sales. Even experts in the field got hurt this year. This is bad Juju. Anyway, why should we celebrate a failed terrorist from a different country ? In the light of recent Police actions, surely this is a prime example of double standards.. And thats all I've got to say about that..

Shelter From the Storm

One of the down sides to being a recidivistic Loopy is that the most insignificant things can ruin an otherwise great day by grabbing the scruff of your neck & plunging you into a really blue & introspective mood. It happened to me today. You see, the music on Hauraki is getting a touch progressive for my liking, so I listen to the Morning Pirates till 9.00, then switch over to Solid Gold & lose myself in the 60's & 70's. The track that did it for me today was a Simon & Garfunkel one, namely Slip Sliding away. A lovely song, but the lyrics affected me badly.

Another downside, while on the subject, is that I seem to have difficulties starting new projects, especially if they involve something that I'm not really terribly conversant with. For example, I have a bit of concreting to do round the place. I bought a mixer, have bags of premix, know what to do & have the tools to do it with, but.......................... Another example is the spouting on the house. Its not a high house, & I have completely redone at least two houses in the past, but again.............. I don't know what it is. I have spent a lot of time thinking about why it is. The nearest that I can come up with is a cross between lack of motivation & loss of confidence. I don't know. Herself has been very patient with me, but the work still isnt being done. Being a perfectionist Virgo, I like to do it right & things like concrete are very difficult to fix if you happen to fuck it up.

Anyway, back to the blues. I have by trial & error come up with a way to cut my bluesy bits down from 2 or 3 days to 2 or 3 hours. Just put some Bob Dylan on quite loud & listen to it. Dylan to me at those times produces the same sense of security as snuggling down under a favourite eiderdown in the height of a thunderstorm. It doesn't actually provide any physical protection. It just makes you feel warm & secure. Emotional shelter from the storm in both cases.

Eight miles high

About the only good thing about my recent sojourn care of the Health system was that it enabled me to catch up on some serious music listening. You see, I asked Herself to bring in for me my CD Walkman, my wallet of CD's & a generous supply of AA batteries. I listen to music on two separate levels you see. If I am working around home, I play a disc, generally either Blues or Irish music, quite loud & warble away melodiously, much to the probable disgust of the neighbours.

On the other hand, if I really want to LISTEN to music, I will sit down with headphones on & the volume at the appropriate level, (sometimes quiet & some times loud), close my eyes & immerse myself totally in every nuance of tone & melody & lyric, so you can understand that this was a preferable option for me over such stimulating pieces as Overture for Bedpans in A# minor, or similar opuses, or should that be opi, after all, the plural of octopus IS octopi isn't it? I don't know. If you want to know, go Google it. I really don't care.

Anyway, so here I was with earphones on, eyes closed, & the dulcet tones of Dylan warbling through his latest album, Modern Times. At times like this, its very easy for me to get to a special quiet little place in my head that I can otherwise get to by means of meditation. Please remember also that at this point I was high as a kite on morphine. All of a sudden I came to the realisation that not only had I reached my place in the sun I had gone beyond it, & the music had taken on a whole new level of depth & that I was seeing it with enhanced perception. As I lay there absolutely entranced, & really digging all this, there came a hand upon my shoulder & the cheery voice of the orderly, "Come on James, its time for your ultra sound scan. What are you listening to anyway?" Somehow the answer, "The vibrations of the cosmos." seemed somewhat banal, so I just said "Dylan" Turns out he is a big Dylan fan as well, so we had a great old chat all the way down in the lift. Mood gone forever.

Y0u needn't worry , gentle reader, about the possibility of me becoming a dope fiend & wasting away my life on a search for that elusive first high. The trip to that place is not one that I care to make except under extreme duress. Vomiting & unconsciousness has sort of lost its appeal over the last few days. Anyway, it takes too long to get straight again. I still feel decidedly strange....

So it's Labour Day.

I suppose you are expecting me to compose something that waves red flags & blathers on about Brotherhood, Solidarity & Up the Unions. Well, I'm not going to. Do you know why ? A couple of reasons. One is that I have never really been that big on the whole Solidarity/Trade Union/Glasnost thing. Don't get me wrong, I acknowledge & accept the part that unions have played over the years in achieving a safe & reasonable workplace/wage environment. It just seems to me that every time I hear a union official making a point in the media, I hear a Pommy, (English) accent. The inference is that Kiwi's have been around sheep too long & lack the ability to achieve significant results for themselves. Apparently, in the UK, Kiwi's are sought after as workers because of their "can do" attitude. So why do we need Poms to run our unions? Is this one thing we "Can't do ?"

I really would like to have been able to say that we have been fishing all weekend too, but I cant even do that. We have had a traditional Labour weekend weatherwise too. Cold & shitty with lots of wind.

The main reason that I haven't been anywhere, done anything though is that I have been sick. Three days of a bad tummy bug. Real bad. Three days of saline drips & morphine in the hospital. I really cant understand how anyone can get addicted to Morphine. OK there is pain relief. That is wonderful. But for me, its accompanied by vomiting & passing out. Sometimes simultaneously. Once I even managed to vomit through my nose at the same time. Who says men are incapable of multi tasking ? It was just as well that my step daughter had dropped everything & come down to give herself moral support. She had to come collect me from the Hospital, because Herself was home in bed with the same bug. Fortunately Herself's bout of it wasn't severe enough to warrant hospitalisation.

Anyway, we are both muchly improved, though still feeling like hell hit with a brick, so just gonna spend Labour Day quietly at home thinking of excuses why we can't mow lawns & do gardening etc.. Happy what ever & back to work tomorrow.

I've got babies....

I was gonna clean out my fishpond, honest, but it got deferred somewhere along the way in between going fishing & tidying up the courtyard for a visitor that ain't bloody well coming now anyway. But I sorta just had it forced on me a bit. Went out to the courtyard, & here is one of the Ginger Ninja's with one of my prize fish flopping around in the cement dust that I've been sweeping into the cracks. It looked like it was a lost cause, all nicely dredged in cement & ready for the pan, but no, a mouth gaped & a tail weakly flopped, so I picked it up & carefully wiped as much of the cement off it that I could, tried to drop kick the cat, with about as much luck as Daniel Carter, & carefully placed the said fish back into the pond.

To my surprise, it very carefully swam off. A little lop sided at first but it soon came right & off it went. While I was watching I noticed some baby goldfish swimming round. About 6 or so of them. This is very cool for me as I have never in my long history of goldfish keeping actually had any breed before. So I cleaned out all the dead leaves & topped the water up to give them all a fighting chance at getting below periscope depth to avoid the Ninja's, threw a clod of dirt at said Ninja, (Fattums) & sat & wondered at the marvel of creation & procreation for a while. Now I gotta go put the shade sail back up... then, once the cement drys, I gotta move the spa pool to its summer location & fill under that, finish off the back fence, make some mowing strips in the back yard, put up some more trellis, replace the spouting............... Did I mention that I'm on holiday ?

We went fishing yesterday

Wasn't exactly optimum weather for it, but we ended up with our limit of nice fish. Herself ended up feeling a bit blurky. Something which I will admit is MOST unusual for her. To be fair, the boat was sitting about three quarters on to a nice little 1 metre swell, which wasn't exactly comfortable. I will admit to feeling a touch unsettled my self. I was disappointed that she turned down my offer of sardine sandwiches though. You see, I always tie a burley bomb to the bottom of the anchor warp. As a purely academic exercise, I would be interested to learn if a bit of surface burley would have helped as well.

Still everything considered, a day on the water with herself is always enjoyable as it combines the two loves of my life. Its a nice bonus to come home with enough fish for tea & the freezer plus the satisfaction of being able to give some to a few good friends.. We off to see my Mum this afternoon.

Some of me pictures...

CITY AT NIGHT...

This is the view from the balcony of our apartment on the 8th floor of Quest on Eden, where we stayed for the Steely Dan concert. If you look, you can actually see the Vector Stadium sign where the concert was. Thats how close to it we were . I never took my tripod with me so this pic was taken by steadying my elbows on the balcony rail. Don't ask me the exposure time. I just let the camera take care of that....

I have just started two weeks holiday. You would never guess it by the crap weather we are having at the moment. So much for getting some fishing in. Gale warnings with gusts to 100km/h all over the place. Herself & me decided to Tiki Tour on Monday, so we did. Across to Port Waikato, then down through one way metal roads, through Te Akau down as far as the North side of Raglan Harbour, then up through Waingaro, through the old coal mining area, across the Waikato river at Huntly, then up SH1 as far as Te Kauwhata, then through the back way & home. These are one or two pics we took..

At one point, there was a flock of Peacocks on the side of the road. They were pretty shy & took off through the fence & down the paddock fairly quickly & the sound of the camera shutter made them run even faster. I did, however, manage to get at least one reasonable shot of this fellow. Pretty isn't he ? I have only ever seen one white peacock before & that was at the Auckland Zoo & he was nowhere near as magnificent as this fellow.



A little further on, we came upon a brace of Hares taking the sun in the middle of the road. They took one horrified look at Sherman bearing down on them & headed for the boonies. They didn't go very far though, just hopped about 10 or 15 feet up the bank & froze. I pulled up very gently, fired up the camera & carefully holding it in my lap opened the lens to the maximum zoom & took these two shots. I needn't have bothered being quiet or anything, because even extending my arm out the window & shouting "BANG" at them could induce them to move. These two pics were taken at a distance of about 10 ft. The closest I have ever come to one of these magnificent creatures in the wild. We also saw more pheasants than you could shake a stick at & at one time had a Rosella flying along in front of us.
Talk about waiting for God. We saw this old truck in the middle of nowhere. As you can see, its been there just a little while. I would love to know the story behind it. One would assume that the poor old thing had a major haemorrhage in the middle of the paddock & whoever was driving just got out & walked away, not even bothering to close the door.

This is typical of miles & miles & miles of road along the coast. These stunning pancake like limestone formations. In places that are close to the sea, you can actually see where windblown sand has ripped the softer intermediary layers out.

This is the view from the old boat ramp at the end of the road back across the harbour. Pretty isn't it ?


This is Herself posing between two rather striking rock formations. It was blowing half a gale at the time... Aaah the things she does for love. The view is up the harbour towards the ocean. From there , we headed home & the scenery became a lot more mundane. 320 kilometres later, we very happy to get back to the Flatcattery. We have decided that each time I have holidays, we are going to go at least one place that we haven't been before. This holiday it was supposed to be on the water, but the weather put paid to that, so we did this trip instead. We had fun.

Been there, done that...

This is an autographed programme.......

This is a Martian Fighting Machine............







This is one very contented old Cat..

As you may have guessed, I have just gotten home from the New Zealand premier of the stage show of Jeff Waynes War of the Worlds, courtesy of some birthday subterfuge between Herself & Tish. I thought that I would try to put down some impressions while the show was fresh in my mind, but where do you start ? The show was such a visual & audio feast, that one would just about have to see it twice to take in everything. It was utterly monumental. Jeff is like the Energiser Bunny with his conducting. He doesn't stop. Justin Hayward showed us that he still has the testosterone levels needed to sing his part, & Chris Thompson, though his actual involvement was fairly small, still managed to get tears flowing unashamedly down my cheeks with his from the heart rendition of " Thunderchild." I will admit to getting a touch moist round the lachrymals even when I hear it on vinyl, but that was awesome.

The new artists had big boots to fill. I mean the names David Essex, Phil Lynnott & Julie Covington surely are names to fill any up & coming young artists heart with fear, but The three young Australians, Rachel Beck, ( Nathaniel the Persons wife, Beck,) Michael Falzon,( The Artillery Man,) & Shannon Noll, ( Nathaniel) Did so with impressive ease, Giving their roles the power & the passion needed.

A plug for local muso's here now. We talked afterwards to a couple of the orchestra after the show & they are all local artists. They did us proud they did. Very accomplished. Integrated effortlessly & well with the band "Black Smoke" that came out with the show. Speaking of Black Smoke, I have just been reading the bio's on them in the programme. What an impressive lineup. It even includes the original bass player from the album. A who's who on the band would be worthy of a second, & fairly lengthy post on its own, but I won't.

The only slight negative I found was that I thought that Richard Burton's animated head appearing to one side of the stage a little distracting. I gave up looking at in the end because One tends to miss whats happening elsewhere . And there was a lot. Maybe just the voice over with no visuals would have worked better.

The Fighting Machine ? Even though we were close enough to see the ropes & chains that operated it & to hear the winches working, it was still stunning. Full marks to the build team. Oh & a huge plug to the sound & light boys at the back. What an amazing job, & no hiccups in the system at all. Once again, a top show at a top venue...

Now I can genuinely say, " Been there, done that, read the book , seen the movie, got the teeshirt AND the coffee cup to prove it... See?

I've run out of words.....

Yep, the old fellow verbose as he is has actually run out of superlatives to describe the Steely Dan Heavy Rollers Concert he went to last night.... What an awesome show. Right from the warm up act of World Party, whom I must admit I actually hadn't heard of prior to this show. Dunno why , cos they rock. Excellent set by them that finished almost too soon.

That was the entree, then the main course... What a main course. Fagan & Becker served on a bed of beautifully seasoned musicians with a side sauce of two rather delectable little female backup vocalists, who like the rest of the group were very polished at what they did. They sang pretty well too.

Donald Fagan, who looks as though he wouldn't be out of place singing "You've got to pick a pocket or two" in Oliver is an absolutely dynamic personality on stage. Mostly seated behind his keyboards, but occasionally venturing forth with his trusty Melodica, (Remember those ? ) Walter Becker just stood to one side playing some blinding Guitar solo's, content to let his musical partner of some 40 years take the limelight.

Steely Dan have never played in New Zealand before last night, & I think that those performing were determined to give of their best. As was the audience. We responded by singing their songs back at them & bringing the house down with applause. Thats when we weren't up dancing of course. The tekkie's actually brought the house lights up on several occasions so that the boys could see what a damn good time we were all having. If I never go to another concert again, this one would be a good one to go out on.

We actually bought earplugs, as our seats were 5 rows from the front, but they were unneeded. Even with banks of speakers across the front of the stage, the volume level was comfortable. Loud, sure , but comfortable. Effects wise, it was a no frills, Pam's Budget sort of concert. basically just a few banks of coloured lights & the odd bit of smoke, both used to very good effect. We didn't go there for frills anyway. We went to see one of the best show bands in the world. That we got. The only disappointment for me personally was that they didn't play my alltime favourite. Black Jack.. God I love that song. They , however , are probably sick of it.

This by the way, is my eldest grandson, with his gappy teeth. Damn but that boy is growing up. Its absolutely nothing to do with the concert, but I just wanted to show him off...


Ain't he cute ????

A lovely (Sur)prize..

We went down to Te Puru for the AGM & prize giving for the fishing club today. Richard & Hami came as well... You remember Hami, with his 2.8 kg Kahawai that he caught. Here. Well. he was awarded a trophy for it today.. Here he is with it. We had his Dad bring him along to the meeting. Hami had no idea he was going to get it.. We celebrated by going out fishing, it was such a nice day.. Mind you, we did that yesterday as well.. We had a good weekend.