Wow, the end of August is here, and well, I’ve not been!  Left for NZ at the end of July for fathers 70th birthday, then in Hong Kong, and now just back from Thailand.  3 countries in one month, not bad.

I’ll try and post as I can.  I never quite got the email blog stuff working so couldn’t send updates on the road.  Pics are processing now and will be up soon.

Today has been all about the 70th birthday for Dad.  This time no
surprise party as the last one we pulled for him, he ended up out on in
the boat catching crayfish and snapper (like the snapper were jumping
into the boat – I know I was there trying to convice him along with my
brother that perhaps he should go home!).

It was great to be back home for it and I’m so glad that I had the time available to do it.  However

I
didn’t quite realise that my invitation was based on something else
other than being um family.  I guess over the years my mum learnt a few
tricks from my dad and I ended up helping her do the catering! By the
way, my mother is amazing a cooking for 2 to 30 people without
thinking!  But this time for 100 I suspect she pulled in some extra
help.

I only figured this out when trying to turn a huge pot of
potatoes into smashed warm potatoe salid and wondering where everyone
was when I needed help draining those puppies and trying to turn 8kilos
of potatoes into a salid!

I got in trouble with the Chicken
Salad thou.  Not totally my fault I asked people to help me schred 10
chickens into something.  Apparently however my dressing didn’t quite
cut it with mum.  Others seemed to think it was amazing.  It was so
simple.

Lemon Juice, Mint and plum sauce.  I was going for a
whole middle eastern feel to it.  Taste wish it was fantastic and there
was very little left, but I will concede visually that given the way
the chicken was it did look alittle odd. 

They tried very hard to keep it secret, but things happen and he
found out.  It would have helped if Dad wasn’t quite so determined to
be where he wants to be, rather than were we ask him to be.  Kerry and
Andrew tried really had to have him attend the Northen Region Coast
Guard meeting, but well Dad is Dad and wanted to be somewhere else.

So
then they tried to keep it quiet, but that didn’t work either.  He was
supposed to be at that meeting for the presentation of an award.  But
you know what in many ways, it was better that he did now (after
reading the minutes of the meeting) that he was officially presented
with the award at his birthday.

Many members of Coast Guard past
and present were there and his 70th birthday and as mentioned that was
best as the ones who where there are the ones he respects and they were
there as friends along with the family.  So what was it all about. 
Well the award is given very rarely and only to the most deserving of
members.

My father was given Life Time Membership to coastguard
for services rendered.  It might now sound very much, but as mentioned
this is not an award the dish out at the end of each year.  The last
one was given many years ago. 

Both my mother and father have
served in coast guard for 20 years + and have been recognised for
such.  What is now recognised is the work they and the community who
help them on the boat, have done to save lives on the eastern side of
the Hauraki Gulf. 

I have served with them as part of my life
and are so pleased to know that now all that time and effort Dad has
done is recognised.  Not that he would want it to be.  But then, thats
just him.  And I never want him to change.

Oh my speech for that occasion after all the excellant ones.  "Dessert is served".

David

Its now been about a month or more since I got my worm farm, and they are doing amazingly well and just so easy to look after.  I’m not entirely sure how they are doing with the heat at the moment, but they do live in the shade and while the mold seems to be growing like crazy the worms still seem to be keeping on top of everything.  The only biological stuff I put into the Waste system is onion skins and chillie bits.  I am fairly sure that if I froze them to break down the cell stucture and then added them it would be fine.

Actually from observation when the worms first arrived I had alot of food scraps so froze them so as not overload the little guys.  When I did add the frozen stuff it went within a week. I guess the freezing and breaking of the cell structure made it easy for them to consume.

I totally love that all my kitchen waste is now not going into the system, and the wormery is so discreet and easy to use.  It really looks good as well, so why aren’t more people using it! 

If just a third of the people who lived in cities used a worm farm to digest there kitchen waste the savings would be amazing!.  Local councils could encourage this by giving discounts to those who do have wormeries!  Then again, now do you check that.  I can see worm farm investigators on the horizon!

go figure our crazy world now.

My worm from is from Can-o-worms, or can of worms and was purchased here in Tokyo.

Today I meet with another finacial planner who wanted my business!  I’ve had a lot of them over the last couple of years here in Japan.  They manage to find the westerners and hone in like a cruise missle!

I told them aready that I had things sorted, but out of interest I met and went over the usual spiel

Had a wonderful comment on my previous entry from the people at

http://www.elephantstay.com/

Which got me to thinking that my blog may have been lumping all the people who work with elephants into a similar bucket.  I would like to be clear that there are many organisations that truely care for the welfare of the animals they have, and I certainly did not mean to disbarage them.

Lesson here:  When you are going to do elephant rides etc (which a truely an amazing experience) check who you are going with and choose responsibily.  The money you spend will be used to provide a good home and environment!

For someone who works in IT you never really seen any of your projects turn into something that anyone can look at and go ‘wow thats great!’.  All I generally do is take other people huge piles of crap and make sense of it all.  I guess thats why they keep me.  Not always polictically correct, but results well, well like them!

For me the last year has been really amazing as instead of building software solutions I got to actually be a part of building a house.  That was really different and pulled in all my native skills into something that can be seen.  Managing the building a full kitchen in a different langauge has really made me think about what I learnt at home.

I really did take a blank room and build an IKEA kitchen from it, with all the work done by the wonderful bulders the project had.  I even learnt how to install a Japanese dishwasher with Japanese instructions.  It was so different and so much hard work. 

If you are linking to the building blog you will know I’m just a little part of this building.  But for me seeing that Kitchen become an empty space into one of the most wonderful Kitchens I have cooked in you will maybe understand my passion for this project.

Now however its really time for me to say goodbye to it.  I helped build it and love being there and using it, and oh the bathroom is amazing.  They wondered why we so insisted on certain things and now it so works.

When I was young I found a book on our bookshelf called ‘Jet’ by Sir Frank ThomasWhittle.  I’ve just looked and its well out of print now.  Ironically I never read it.  When I return home I’ll look at the downstairs bookshelf to see if we still have it

So why am I pondering on this subject.  Well a really simple reason, my surname is Whittle, and despite efforts from my family to find where it goes back to we run into a block as 100 years ago being illigimate or a barstard was a huge same, and there seems to have been some creative book work at the time to resolve the matter.  I know the name Thomas is an important name in our family, but why?

We may never now, but to this day I don’t just take a seat on an airplance and wait for the peanuts.  No, I wait for those huge jet engines to wind themselves up to full speed.  If you ever listen you can sit on a plane that is rolling forward on to the strip, positions itself and then they just open the throttle all the way open and let those engines do what they can!

I’m wathing now a documentary about elephants in Thailand and its really making me think.  In 1999 I did was on a tour that included and elephant ride.  Now I look back was I doing a good thing or a bad thing.  My trip was way up in the coutry side where they live next the a river and can bath in the water daily and from what I saw they were looked after well.  But now, I’m really upset.  Did i support and industry that just useses these wondeful animals, or did I help.  After 10 years I don’t know. it seemed like a great thing to do and from what I saw it was not bad for them.  But now after seeing this, I think I just contributed to the explotation of animals.

david

I’ve now had my can of worms for about a month now, and its just totally amazing.  They are sorta just keeping up with my food scraps and it helps I’m not always here.  This week I pulled out a bag of scraps I had frozen for them and oddly freezing it seems to help.  I guess it breaks down the cell walls so makes it easier to digest. 

Last week a put the left overs from a juice session and thats completely gone.  What really is cool is that in the first week I put in the cob from some corn, and it basically all gone!  The only food scraps that now go into the waste cycle are garlic, chille and onion bits.  I think if i put them into the freezer they could probably go into the unit as well.

The level is also dropping so I they are eating away at the bedding they had as well, in a few weeks I suspect it will be feed them as much as possible. I’m also working on getting rid of all the gluten products stored up and what a great way to do it.  Turn what I can’t eat into soil and worm water to feed my other food plants.  This is so cool!