Friday, June 17, 2011

Kiwi Ingenuity - Getting There from Here...


Problem:

1. If your home stadium is off-limits for the whole season because of earthquakes so you have to play all your home games somewhere else; and,

2. A cloud of Chilean volcanic dust crosses the Pacific and closes air space to jet travel in your country,

How the heck do you get to your next away game as the competition heads to the finals? Throw in the towel, start a riot like those Canuck fans???

Answer:

Pull an airworthy DC 3 prop aircraft out of the air museum and load the team aboard. Takes a bit longer, a bit noisier but... link

Now, that is Kiwi ingenuity...

Go Crusaders!

Sunday, April 24, 2011

ANZAC Day, 2011


ANZAC - Australia New Zealand Army Corps, formed World War I. 

ANZAC Day - In remembrance of all those who fell and all those who served...

 click on image for larger view
By the late 19th century, pakeha New Zealanders saw themselves as establishing a "Better Britain" in the South Pacific, people of British stock who saw themselves as building something better than back "Home" but who were but a generation or two at most away from "Home". It's no surprise then that in the patriotic war imagery above the English Bulldog, the symbol of the Britain, has become the War Dog of New Zealand standing astride the New Zealand ensign overlapping the Union Jack of Britain. Maori taonga have been appropriated in the form of the full face moko, tiki, and huia feathers of the Maori chief.
 

To my grandfather and his brothers who served in the "war to end all wars" - or so they were told, and to their sons and son-in-laws - to my father and uncles, who served in the next one: we have not forgotten. May we never have to send our sons and daughters to another one.